Huayu Chef

097 Eat Fish

"There are many branches of ramen in our country, such as Lanzhou ramen, Shanxi ramen, Shandong ramen, Central Plains ramen, and so on."

"Lanzhou ramen is quite famous and can be considered one of the three major food chain brands in my country."

Dilraba asked curiously, "Brother Xuan, what are the other two?"

"Shaxian snacks and Longjiang braised pork trotters rice."

"Shaxian snacks are really everywhere."

"Does Baboon like to eat ramen?"

Dilraba smiled and nodded: "I love it so much. During the filming period, I often dragged Li Xirui out to eat ramen."

"oh."

Reba pouted and said, "Brother Xuan, you've already made ramen, aren't you going to cook a bowl for each of us?"

"I only know how to make Lanzhou ramen. This requires beef broth, but I don't have time to make the broth right now. After making the broth, I have to clean it up, which is quite troublesome. I'll make it for you next time if I have the chance."

Will Brother Xuan go to Lanzhou to film "Wild Kitchen"?

"As long as there are viewers, people from all over the country will go, including your hometown in Western Xinjiang. Speaking of Lanzhou noodles, does Ba Huwei know the differences in how Lanzhou noodles and Central Plains noodles are made?"

Reba shook her head and said, "I don't know."

"Lanzhou ramen uses lye water to knead the dough, while in Shandong and other parts of Central China, alkaline flour is generally used."

While speaking, Zhang Jinxuan's hands were not idle. He put some high-gluten flour into the basin, then added some salt and alkali, and added water in several batches to knead the dough into a slightly soft dough.

Zhuangzhuang used the camera to take a close-up shot of the dough and Zhang Jinxuan's hands. The dough was smooth, the bowl was clean, and there was not a trace of flour on Zhang Jinxuan's hands.

"So clean," Reba praised.

"A clean surface, a clean bowl, clean hands—these are the three essentials of white-pasting dishes. Don't be sluggish with basic skills." Zhang Jinxuan honestly said, "Actually, I'm not good at white-pasting dishes; I only know a little bit."

Upon hearing this, Dilraba started to joke around, imitating Zhang Jinxuan's meme by gesturing with her thumb and forefinger, "Is it separated by a tiny bit of a microcosm?"

Zhang Jinxuan was both amused and speechless: "Netizens these days are too amazing. They've ruined my pictures. When I said 'just a little bit,' I really meant just a little bit. It's not as bad as you guys think."

"Sir, I'll believe whatever you say."

Zhang Jinxuan: "..."

"Hey, why did you leave? Are you angry?"

"After the dough had been proofing for half an hour, I went out to say goodbye to the Yellow River carp. I couldn't bear to cook it."

Half an hour later, the six-pound Yellow River carp went from live to dead. Zhang Jinxuan cleaned its body very thoroughly and made incisions all over its body.

The fish's heart is not cut, because its internal organs have already been removed.

The offal wasn't wasted either; Liu Yushan's wife used it to make boiled fish offal.

In his previous life, Zhang Jinxuan had seen some people kill carp by making a cut under the gills and removing the so-called "fishy line," which would make the fish tasteless.

Zhang Jinxuan has specifically studied what the lateral line is. The scientific explanation is that it is a sensory organ of fish that senses the flow of water, also called the "lateral line". Zhang Jinxuan doesn't understand whether this thing has anything to do with the fishy smell.

He has cooked with fish that have had their lateral lines removed and fish that haven't removed their lateral lines, using the same processing method, and the resulting fish seemed to be almost identical.

Whether fish is fishy or not depends on the quality of the fish, the processing method, and the marinating process. If all three aspects are met, the fish will not have a strong fishy smell.

The fishy smell mainly comes from the internal organs, blood, black membrane inside the abdomen, gills, and teeth. The fishy smell from the lateral line is not actually that significant, and not every type of fish needs to have its lateral line removed.

The Yellow River carp caught today was huge, weighing over six pounds. It looked like a wild Yellow River carp, but Zhang Jinxuan had doubts about whether it actually was.

Around the turn of the millennium, the catch of Yellow River carp plummeted, prompting relevant departments to release some German mirror carp fry into the Yellow River. These carp adapted to the Yellow River waters and interbred with Yellow River carp, so the "newborn carp" cannot be considered a purebred wild Yellow River carp native to the area.

Some are artificially farmed and released. To be on the safe side, Zhang Jinxuan handles them more meticulously, first removing the lateral line, and then marinating them for more than ten minutes to thoroughly marinate the fish.

After marinating the carp, Zhang Jinxuan carefully washed his hands and began to demonstrate his true ramen-making skills—slipping the noodles.

"Liu mian" refers to smoothing the dough to improve its elasticity, making it easier to stretch into "dragon whisker" noodles. It is said that some master pastry chefs can stretch "dragon whisker" noodles to more than twenty turns.

What does 20 deductions mean?

Thirteen knots are about the thickness of a hair, fourteen knots are thin enough to thread a needle, and so on, with twenty knots being as fine as a spider's hair.

Zhang Jinxuan rolled the dough into a long strip, held both ends of the strip with both hands, and shook and tossed it to twist the strip into a braided shape.

Then, holding both ends, stretch it out, shake it, and wrap it around.

Repeatedly.

Dilraba watched with great interest, and asked softly, "Brother Xuan, how long are you going to walk like this?"

"Don't knead the dough for too long, or it will lose its elasticity. Knead until it's cooked through."

"What does '出条' mean?"

"It means that the dough turns into long strips of uniform thickness and elasticity, which don't stick to your hands even without adding dry flour, and are very soft."

Zhang Jinxuan handed the noodles he had just made to Dilraba and gestured for Zhuangzhuang to take a close-up shot so that the audience could see them clearly.

After putting the dough back into the bowl, Zhang Jinxuan sprinkled a layer of dry flour on the long cutting board, picked up a lump of dough, stretched it out, and placed it on the dry flour. Then he sprinkled more dry flour to prevent it from sticking.

Stretching noodles is a skill.

Zhang Jinxuan secretly adjusted his breathing, stretched and shook the long noodle until it was about a meter long, then folded it back with his right hand and placed the dough in his left hand.

This is one knot, two noodles.

Repeat the previous action: stretch, fold back, and double-twist the four sides.

Three buckles and eight strands of noodles.

Four-fold...

Dilraba's mouth was slightly open as she watched in astonishment as Zhang Jinxuan transformed a lump of dough into increasingly thin noodles.

She couldn't make such fine noodles even by rubbing them with her hands.

Yao Yao, Jing Jing, Zhuang Zhuang, the second senior brother, the senior brother from the directing department, and others were all shocked.

"That's amazing."

"Chef, let's be friends."

"You only know a little bit about white-cut dishes? Is this Jinxuan's true capability?"

"6."

"Which deduction have you made?"

"Eighth hit."

"Can you still poop?"

"Where is the limit...?"

Zhang Jinxuan felt a bit strained. In his previous life, his best performance was twelve slams, but he hadn't practiced much in this life and was rusty. He probably couldn't even manage ten slams.

Sure enough, I felt a stiffness when I pulled up to the ninth cleavage.

You could try for the tenth dunk, but it seems unnecessary. Trying to show off will only backfire and make you a laughingstock.

That's it.

Nine-count noodles are considered the default grade for Lanzhou ramen, only one level below the ten-count thin noodles, which is enough to open a Lanzhou ramen restaurant.

But it's still far from being a true dragon whisker noodle. Generally, only ramen with fourteen or more broths can be called dragon whisker noodles.

"Xiao Zhuang, come over here quickly for a close-up shot, I need to put it down."

"What are you putting down? Keep pulling!"

"You can do it, Xuan-ge, keep it up!"

"Life goes on, and so does ramen."

"Brother Xuan, bravely challenge your limits, go go go!"

Dilraba also joined in the fun, saying, "Brother Xuan, you're the best! Keep up the good work, keep going, go for it!"

Zhang Jinxuan was too lazy to listen to their babbling. He put down the noodles, cut them into strips about a foot long, poured oil into a wok, and prepared to deep-fry the dragon beard noodles.

Has anyone calculated how many noodles are in nine "kou" (a type of noodle dish)?

Yao Yao held up her phone and said, "2 to the power of 9, that's 512 rods."

"Such a small lump of dough can be stretched into more than 500 noodles, and they're delicious just by blanching them in boiling water."

Zhang Jinxuan turned around and asked, "Don't you think the noodles are a bit too coarse?"

"I don't think so, Brother Xuan, you're too meticulous."

"roll."

Zhang Jinxuan chuckled and scolded, then waited for the oil temperature to rise to about 30-40% before using a cleaver to lift the noodles and fry them. The noodles were too thin, so he had to control the heat and frying time to prevent them from burning.

The fish was quite large, weighing six jin, and many people ate it, so Zhang Jinxuan made the remaining dough into baked noodles.

After draining the oil from the prepared batter on absorbent paper, Zhang Jinxuan then made sweet and sour braised carp. He coated the carp with dry batter and fried it in oil at 50% heat. Since the fish was large, it had to be deep-fried over low heat until the fish was cooked through.

"I saw some comments on Weibo and Youku saying that they successfully made some of the dishes from the first four episodes by following my cooking tips. I'm very pleased that everyone is interested in food and willing to try it. But I don't recommend beginners try this dish today. Deep-fried dishes are inherently dangerous, and I use a generous amount of oil for deep-frying to reduce the risk of oil splattering."

Place the fried carp on a plate.

At this point, there are only two steps left to finish making braised carp with noodles: one is to make the sweet and sour sauce, and the other is to braise the carp until tender.

Whether it's sweet and sour Yellow River carp or braised carp with noodles, the sweet and sour sauce is the soul of the dish. If the sweet and sour sauce is done well, the dish will be fine.

The sweet and sour sauce for the Yellow River carp should be a vibrant red and appealing, while the braised carp should have a luxurious golden color, since it's a royal dish and needs to look beautiful.

The sweet and sour sauce in the pot was bubbling away, and Zhang Jinxuan put the fried carp into the pot to cook until it was soft. This process is called "soft-cooking".

This step is not included in the recipe for sweet and sour Yellow River carp. Instead, it is coated with a batter made entirely of eggs, which is much thicker than the dry batter used for braised carp.

The golden-fried carp soaks in a golden sweet and sour sauce. As time goes by, the carp gradually softens, and the golden color on its surface seems to become even brighter, reflecting off the bubbling fish eyes around it. It's golden and has a dazzling, dreamlike feel.

The rich, sour aroma filled the air, making Reba and Jingjing unable to resist sniffing and swallowing.

"It's so beautiful."

"It feels like a work of art."

Zhang Jinxuan laughed and said, "Only when it tastes good can it be called a work of art; if it doesn't taste good, it's just a pretty face. Let's not wait for Sister-in-law Shan to cook any more dishes. Let's clear the table outside and eat braised carp noodles first."

"Okay."

The group dispersed after a brief chat, but they were the most enthusiastic about eating.

Carefully slide the carp onto the plate. This dish is very visually appealing; if the fish is damaged, the whole thing is ruined.

After plating the carp, pour the remaining sweet and sour sauce from the pot over it, and finally cover it with layers of fried dragon whisker noodles.

The braised carp with noodles is now ready.