The second day of the team battle had just started. With the Red Team leading the score, the Green and Blue Team had to work hard to lessen the distance between their teams. The Red Team’s Hainanese Chicken Rice was critically acclaimed by the app users who were able to buy it.
One of the app users had been voted as the most recommended review of the dish. When Lu Xinyi read it, she couldn’t help but laugh.
[thedemonsa.s.sisstant: Never been a fan of takeouts but have eaten occasionally because I have no other choice but this dish is something else! As expected the chicken was poached. It sounds like a bland technique on easily bland meat. But I’m telling you, this one had the most succulent chicken I’ve ever tasted, and it elevates the humble chicken into show-stopping meat that you will surely ask for more!
Think of the desiccated pieces of chicken you’ve had on lifeless salads. The stringy and tough meat in your chicken noodle soup. That unsatisfying texture is a result of aggressive cooking—too high of a temperature that turns chicken fibrous. You will see nothing of these on this Chicken Rice.
Forget about your greasy and crunchy fried chicken. If you haven’t tasted this dish, then pal, you are missing something good in your life!]
Who would have known that Qiao He could be this talkative? Since she had known him, they have only talked a few times and without so many words. She was also impressed by how Shen Yi was able to guess which one was their dish.
With such great feedback and tips they received from the app users, the Red Team got the perfect one hundred points for the first day of the team battle.
For their next dish, the theme was pork but with a twist. All three teams should make their own version of the Sweet and Sour Pork. These meant that they also have to take the traditional approach. Again, this should be easy for the three teams but would be extremely time-consuming to prepare.
Lu Xinyi’s team decided to pick the popular Crispy Sweet And Sour Pork hailed from the northern provinces of the country. The color of this variation was lighter compared to the style that most people were familiar with.
Tang Liang’s teams decided to use pork ribs this time while Yan Chen’s team decided to remaster the popular version of the dish.
This time, Shen Xue decided to wait and placed his order as soon as the deal was up. d.a.m.n, why were these dishes quite more expensive than his usual takeout orders?
“Don’t forget to buy one for Grammie today. She was upset that no one bothered to save a meal yesterday for her.” Shen Yi reminded him as he dropped another stock of papers that his brother needed to check.
“That’s not my fault. It as you and Dad who didn’t save a meal for her. I will not lose to anyone this time!” Shen Xue squatted on his office chair while biting his nails as he waited for the countdown to finish. “What’s the theme for today?”
“Sweet and Sour Pork. Good luck on trying to figure out which one is Xinxin’s,” Shen Yi replied before leaving his brother’s office.
“Hey! Wait! At least give me a hint which one was hers!” Shen Xue called out, but his older brother ignored him.
Taking his attention back on his phone, the frown on his face deepened. How the heck should he know which one belonged to his Big Sis’ team?
—
Yu Lijie was impressed by how Lu Xinyi and Meng Jiao run and manage their team. Yesterday’s dish was such an unexpected turn of events from the disastrous cla.s.s taking their team battles. It seemed that this time, her students realized how important teamwork was to achieve their common goals.
That Chicken Rice had unanimously won the first round. All packed lunch boxes were sold out, but the rating of each dish and the tips received were far from each other. Because of that, those who’d failed to place an order will surely try their best to get one of the dishes offered by Silver Leaf’s special cla.s.s.
Her eyes watched as Lu Xinyi showed how to properly cut the pork loin to her teammates. She cut it in half and sliced it against the fiber. She cut it evenly at approximately three millimeter thick and set it aside. She pa.s.sed the knife to her cla.s.smate and watched how she cut the meat and nodded her approval.
Again, Lu Xinyi and Meng Jiao re-group into three small ones. One was a.s.signed with the cutting the meat and the aromatics, the second group was to marinate and coat each thin slices with batter, while the last group was a.s.signed to deep-fry and a.s.semble the dish as one.
At the other kitchen counter, Meng Jiao helped marinate the sliced meat. She seasoned it with salt and white pepper then add some baking soda to help tenderize the meat and—last but not the least—some cooking wine.
Next, she ma.s.saged the meat to evenly coat the marinade to each slice and let it sit for ten minutes before starting all over again with a new batch of sliced meats. Once the marinated meat was ready, it was coated with a thin layer of cornstarch, tapped off the excess, and set aside.
Dredging each slic would take time, and her teammates would have given up if Lu Xinyi hadn’t told them that good food takes effort. Thankfully, she allowed a rotational so other groups can switch to the other tasks and wouldn’t be stuck doing the same thing during the activity.
This was what Lu Xinyi and Meng Jiao decided to pacify and avoid the conflict and jealousy rooting from the issue of not getting enough spotlight or not experiencing the same task of the others.
“Sister Lu, do you think there would be enough left for us to eat?” A girl from her team asked.
“Don’t worry, Sister. Sister Meng made sure there would be enough for everyone so we can eat some later.”
“Ah! I can’t wait! I can’t wait! The chicken rice yesterday was so tasty, I almost forget my name when I ate it!”
“That dish deserved a five star! I will really slap someone who says it isn’t delicious. Let’s work hard to get another perfect score today!”
“Yes! Yes but first check out what you are frying first! Don’t let it burn!”
The coated meat slices were then dredged with the wet coating, consisting of cornstarch and water before deep frying it using soybean oil at 380 Fahrenheit.
“Sister Lu! How do we know if it reached the right temperature without using a thermometer?”
Lu Xinyi then left her knife and went to the other group who was a.s.signed to fry the meat slices. She took one piece and dropped it into the hot oil. At first, it sunk at the bottom then seconds later it had risen at the top.
“Did you see that? The meat will submerged at the bottom first. When the oil was hot enough to cook it, the meat would automatically be pushed to the top. Make sure you don’t crowd while frying. These meat slices tend to stick together. You have to avoid that. You only need to fry them in less than two minutes before taking them out. Frying all of these will take some time; let me know if you are tired so we can rotate the tasks on hand.”
Her teammates nodded, pleased with her explanation. At least with Lu Xinyi around, they had better chances to get a higher score compared to the other teams. Their opinion about her slowly started to s.h.i.+ft with admiration as they worked together and watched how she diligently made sure everything was working well, reminding them to be careful with sharp knives and oil splatter.
With the limited time they had, there was no place for any mistakes, or else they had to start back at one again. Meng Jiao checked the remaining time and reminded their team to finish the first frying on time and proceed to do the second frying.
Yu Lijie watched as the Red Team double-fried their pork slices. So this was what they came up to make sure the pork will retain its crunchiness longer. This cooking technique would also yield to a perfect crust.
If one wanted to achieve the perfect crust for any fried foods such as fried chicken, a double frying method would ensure that the food would stay crunchy longer than being fried once. As soon as any food drops into oil, there was that sizzle and burst of bubbles cradling one’s food.
Frying was first and foremost a dehydration process. This means that the drier one’s food was when you start frying, the better one’s crust would be.
However, there was a problem with that. The water just below the crust of the food couldn’t escape easily. As it vaporized and expanded, it would create a kind of bubble trapped under the oil. Aside from helping to puff up certain batters, this would stop the crust from becoming very thick. One could keep it in the oil longer, but that ran the risk of overcooking.
The secret to solving this problem was to fry the food twice. The moisture in the center of the food would migrate to the surface after the food cools, and the surface would get soggy again. Then one should boil off that moisture again in the second fry.
There were a couple of possible reasons why this worked. One was because there’s already less water in the food after the first fry.
The second reason was that the first fry changes the structure of the food. During frying, oil pushed into the food through air pockets that were, in the beginning, warped and twisted channels. On that second fry, these straightened, simple pathways made it easier for water to escape, giving the fried food a drier, crisper fry.
After Lu Xinyi’s team did the second frying, they made sure to pat the excess oil using some kitchen towels. Once the food started to cool, some bubbles of vaporized water inside the food would pop and turn back into water. These created a suction force that would pull any surface oil deep into the food, making it greasier.
The group done with the chopping started making the sweet and sour sauce. Once it was ready, they tossed in the cooked pork slices and chopped vegetables, giving it a toss making sure to evenly coat each slice with the sauce before transferring it to the special lunch boxes that academy provided earlier.
“This looks so perfect, but we still need to cook two more batches.”
“That’s alright! As long as we can eat and pa.s.s this round, I wouldn’t mind waiting!”
“Ah! But for how long the crispiness stays?”
“It should stay crispy for 12 hours even if you left it sitting there,” Lu Xinyi replied.
“Really? I’m going to try to cook this some other time!”
Looking at the dish they just cooked together, the Red team was confident that they wouldn’t fail this round.