Chapter 220: Chapter 25: Renz’s VIP Private Dishes! Erina’s Small Menu.
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The clock on the wall was swinging its hour hand.
"Time to get to work," Akira Hayama rose, already dressed in his crisp white chef’s uniform, full of vigor. In the back kitchen, the basic division of labor was settled.
Hisako Arato was responsible for placing the food from the back kitchen onto the tables, while Alice handled the final plating. It wasn’t that Hisako and Alice lacked culinary skill; they were quite capable chefs among their peers, but they seemed less impressive compared to Renz and Erina.
If their dishes were mixed with Renz’s and Erina’s and displayed on the exhibition tables, they could easily be overshadowed by the latter’s flavors, indirectly affecting customer experience. Furthermore, the dishes they specialized in were not mainstream, so it would be a difficult problem to solve whether they could appeal to these vacationing tourists.
The simplest way to solve this difficult problem was to exclude them from the cooking process, allowing them to assist the team in a supporting role. It might sound cruel, but that was the reality.
Even Akira Hayama’s cooking tasks in the back kitchen were limited. His biggest role was to alleviate the pressure of spices for Renz and Erina. He could also leverage his excellent knife skills to speed up the preparation of some difficult dishes. In the back kitchen, the crisp sound of chopping filled the air. Erina and Renz officially entered their cooking rhythm.
In an hour, vacationing tourists from other parts of the
Totsuki Resort, tired from their activities, would arrive at the Gourmet Street for dinner. It was a correct approach to prepare some ready-to-eat dishes in advance and display them. Moreover, some dishes naturally took a long time to prepare, so it would be a shame not to use the ample time available.
"Erina, your knife isn’t as fast as mine," Renz glanced at Erina’s movements at the adjacent counter, "interfering" from the side. Cooking alone was boring; cooking with two people wasn’t. It was like playing a game with friends; playing alone was the least fun. A verbal sparring match was inevitable. Renz found an opportunity and began interacting with Erina.
In reality, only Chinese and Japanese cuisine emphasize knife skills. Most chefs in these two countries possess fluid, aesthetically pleasing knife skills, because in their cuisines, some dishes cannot achieve their ultimate effect without excellent knife skills. As for Western cuisine’s knife skills?
From Alice, one could probably discern the trend of Western cuisine. Western chefs have various auxiliary cooking tools, so they don’t have the opportunity for ten years of continuous knife skill refinement like apprentices, and thus, fewer practice opportunities.
Moreover, radish shreds can be cut very thinly and
evenly with a slicer, making the barrier to entry very low. This means that Western cuisine, in its preparation, does not heavily rely on knife skills.
Even if Erina possessed excellent knife skills, it would be difficult for her to showcase her extraordinary knife skills in Western cuisine. In short, Renz’s comment was simply to provoke Erina.
Erina rolled her eyes and said, "Alright, alright, I get it.
You’re the best." She had no desire to humor Renz. Her focus remained on the dishes on the counter. First, she used her chef’s knife to cut some ingredients that needed pre-preparation, then cracked two eggs, whisking the yolks with fine sugar. No bubbles, just stirring in circles with the whisk held vertically. For immediate consumption in the hall, desserts were perfect. The first dish Erina was making was French Creme brulee.
With a serious expression, Erina was fully concentrated while cooking. She found that for several dishes, her proficiency was surprisingly high. And Renz also noticed this. Whether it was Western or Eastern cuisine, the dishes that Renz and Erina had high proficiency in were those they regularly ate at home.
"You’re making creme brulee?" Renz glanced at her movements and immediately understood what Erina was making. Isn’t this the youngest child’s favorite dessert?
"If it’s for immediate dining, creme brulee is indeed very effective," Akira Hayama commented from the side. "I once had the good fortune to taste a master chef’s creme brulee. Its texture was as soft as jelly, and that spring-like sweetness in the mouth was irresistible."
French Creme brulee is somewhat similar to an egg tart but not entirely. If one had to describe it, French Creme brulee is somewhat like a liquefied egg tart, without the crispy crust, only the sweet custard center. It’s worth noting that there are many differences between egg tarts, such as Portuguese egg tarts and Hong Kong-style egg tarts. Portuguese egg tarts have a pastry crust made like Western puff pastry, with clear, distinct layers. The custard is made from eggs, milk, sugar, cream, etc., and because caramel is added, it bakes with a mottled dark surface.
If there are speckles of black rings on the surface, it’s a Portuguese egg tart. Hong Kong-style egg tarts have a pastry crust made like Chinese shortcrust pastry. They use butter, have a smoother and more complete appearance, and are simpler to make. The custard uses eggs, water, and sugar, and the filling tastes very much like steamed custard in Cantonese desserts.
The latter was an adaptation to cater to the tastes of Chinese people, and the omission of certain ingredients in Hong Kong-style egg tarts also made the cost relatively lower, which was more conducive to commercialization.
Renz and Erina actually didn’t like egg tarts. That’s because Erina could make desserts that tasted even better than egg tarts, and French Creme brulee was one of them. Erina was using an immediate French dessert as her opening act. Renz, on the other hand, was preparing a cold dish: Crystal Sweet and Sour Enoki Mushroom Salad.
In the world of Chinese Cuisine, cold dishes, commonly known as appetizers, are distinctively styled and technically challenging dishes. They are almost always served cold when eaten, hence the name "cold dish."
In China, the opening of a banquet often features two cold dishes, because cold dishes are ready-to-eat and can be consumed immediately without fear of being too hot,
serving to stimulate the appetite and curb initial hunger.
Generally, cold dishes are meticulously selected, with dry, fragrant, crisp, and tender flavors, aiming for a refreshing effect.
Given these functions, cold dishes are usually placed at the very beginning of the serving sequence. However, cold dishes are very much loved by some people, while others are indifferent to them.
Renz and Erina presented their finished dishes almost at the same time. The translucent enoki mushrooms were arranged with cilantro, cucumber slices, and broccoli.
Except for the broccoli placed at the edge of the plate,
everything else was intertwined, seemingly chaotic yet not abrupt. Erina, on the other hand, placed her creme brulee in individual pure white, ceramic-like cups.
Akira Hayama examined the two dishes. Both were exquisite. These couldn’t merely be called dishes; they were works of art. Akira Hayama took a light whiff, and looking at Renz’s cold dish, he felt an irresistible urge to swallow. Renz’s dish, as a cold appetizer, certainly had ingredients designed to stimulate the customer’s appetite. This was the primary purpose of such a dish, and with Renz’s superb culinary techniques, the mere aroma alone had an appetite-inducing effect. Erina’s French Creme brulee also emitted an astonishing egg aroma, and the very scent permeated with a sweet, sugary fragrance.
In terms of color, aroma, and taste. Renz and Erina had completely dominated the "aroma" aspect. In terms of "color," Renz and Erina’s dishes were also excellent, but the two dishes they presented couldn’t be further improved in terms of visual appeal. To improve further would require even greater effort, but as appetizers, it was unnecessary.
If they were to be displayed in a family banquet, Renz might choose to arrange the plating into an artistic "waterfall" shape. But for this type of cold dish, making several, or even dozens, of plates to sell in bulk at the restaurant wouldn’t require such time-consuming and arduous high-difficulty plating.
"Erina, I’m bringing out my twelve VIP signature dishes,"
Renz said, his slender fingers holding the chef’s knife, moving over the ingredients as fluidly as a butterfly flitting through flowers. "Let’s see if my ultimate dishes can claim the top spot on today’s Gourmet Street bestseller list."
"You actually have VIP private recipes?"
"Aren’t you capable of making anything?" Erina retorted, surprised.
"Of course. Some have low proficiency, and some have high proficiency. My VIP recipes are the dishes I’m most proficient at," Renz explained truthfully.
Erina covered her head and said, "Then I probably know what dishes they are."
"Well, it seems your comprehension isn’t too bad after all," Renz said with a smile. His most proficient dishes were all Erina’s favorites. These dishes had been continuously modified and reset in his hands, creating versions most adapted to the God’s Tongue. Renz didn’t explicitly state it this time, and Erina figured it out herself, giving Renz a small sense of relief.
And dishes that even the God’s Tongue would praise?
There was simply no reason to lose here!
Akira Hayama’s hand unconsciously touched his chin.
Although these two were vague and didn’t say much, Akira Hayama felt that they might be showing off their affection? Yet, they didn’t really show much, nor did they say anything direct, but Akira Hayama’s intuition told him that the conversation they just had was definitely not as simple as it seemed on the surface.
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