Unparalleled Duo
Chapter 51 - 51 34 Knockoff Cuisine_2

51: Chapter 34: Knockoff Cuisine_2 51: Chapter 34: Knockoff Cuisine_2 As for the assistant You Jing, he had always been associated with the Bogui Building and was not deeply acquainted with the duo until a few years ago when Yuan Fangzhi and Zhang Ergui arrived, and only then did they meet.

Sometimes, the Wisdom Immortal Pavilion wouldn’t have a single customer all night.

In such cases, the second-floor kitchen would only need to take care of the meals for the landlord living on the third floor, which were delivered by You Jing every day.

Without a doubt, the dishes prepared by this trio could rival the imperial cuisine, and they were indeed in no way inferior.

However, today, Sun Yixie, who mixed in the fish market, was actually going to “teach Yuan Fangzhi how to cook.” Wasn’t that an extraordinary story?

Then, Sun Yixie led the crowd and swaggered into the back kitchen of the Wisdom Immortal Pavilion.

Zhang Ergui and You Jing, who were waiting inside, were stunned when they saw them enter, completely unclear about the purpose of this spectacle.

While they were hesitating, Sun Yixie had already scanned the kitchen and walked towards the sink area…

Meanwhile, Yuan Fangzhi approached his two colleagues, quietly told them about what had just happened outside, their expressions changed several times, and they kept casting doubtful glances at Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai.

On the other hand, it took Sun Yixie a moment to gather the ingredients, and then he started cooking.

Sun Yixie’s cooking skills were…

passable, roughly able to produce fairly decent home-cooked dishes.

Of course, in the Great Ming, aside from professional chefs, most men did not cook, and among amateurs, not many could match his skills.

However, to Yuan Fangzhi, his abilities seemed child’s play…

“Mr.

Sun…” After watching for a while, Yuan Fangzhi couldn’t help himself and interjected, “The way you’re chopping the onions…

that’s not right.”

“Don’t worry about it, I have my own methods.” Sun Yixie responded without even lifting his head, sounding irritated.

Yuan Fangzhi thought to himself, “I was just kindly pointing it out, but it turned out to be a request for insult.

Fine then…

you didn’t meddle in my cooking, so I’ll just keep quiet.”

Just like that, he silently watched Sun Yixie fussing about.

He didn’t see anything noteworthy in the “fire skills” section, as the use of fire varied with different dishes, and he was unfamiliar with the dishes Sun Yixie was preparing.

But he did notice something in his “knife skills”—the young man’s knife skills were rather poor.

With such basic skills, he still thought he could prepare a better silver fish dish than Yuan?

Where did his confidence come from?

A short while passed quickly.

Sun Yixie was quite adept with his movements.

In less than half an hour, he presented a plate of brightly colored, fragrant silver fish dish.

The perimeter of the plate was red, made up of chopped tomatoes, red onions, capers, and pickles.

The ingredients were…

quite messily cut, all haphazard; in the middle piled up like a small hill of white, was the silver fish, which…

actually looked quite appealing.

Above this “mountain of fish,” a dollop of light yellow sauce was adorned, and just before serving, Sun Yixie sprinkled some chopped herbs over the dish.

From top to bottom, inside and out, green, yellow, white, red—the colors were distinct, and the rich aromatic scent enveloped the subtle fragrance of the fish meat…

Merely from the appearance and smell, this dish seemed genuinely quite good.

So, what was this dish exactly?

In fact, it was a French dish—French pickled beef.

However, Sun Yixie replaced the beef with fish, vegetable oil with olive oil, and created his own variant of Dijon mustard sauce using chili, onions, garlic, honey, dry mustard powder, and the like.

In short, this was a “knockoff culinary creation,” featuring several genuine ingredients substituted with replicas.

Even so…

it wasn’t easy at all; only in a place like Wisdom Immortal Pavilion that had everything could this be possible.

If you switched to another kitchen elsewhere, you wouldn’t even think about it; items like pepper, yellow mustard, honey, thyme, onions…

were not available elsewhere and were rare items in the Ming Dynasty, some even more valuable than silver.

Nevertheless, he managed to prepare the dish.

Sun Yixie tasted it himself and found it quite satisfactory.

Of course, the reason it achieved such a level of completion was that this was not his first time making this dish.

In the original universe, he was someone who loved gourmet food greatly, but after coming here, while he could still enjoy plenty of Chinese cuisine, Western and Japanese cuisines were absolutely inaccessible.

For problems that money couldn’t solve, he had to resort to doing things himself.

Thus, relying on some basic knowledge of foreign cuisines, his memories of tasting these dishes before, and…

plenty of spare time and money, he successfully recreated several “dark cuisines.”

The dish before him was one of his proudest creations.

If you were to say how delicious such a preparation could truly be…

it wasn’t necessarily so, but to make Yuan Fangzhi find it delicious was enough.

Because “novelty” could greatly enhance the taste.

If you let someone who had never tried curry and was unaware of its price taste a curry that, to a regular curry eater, was only “moderately tasty,” they would find it absolutely divine.

But if you let someone who frequently ate steak try a “moderately tasty” steak, their reaction would be lukewarm at best.

The instant noodles that were all the rage in the 1990s are a similar case—things that were considered delicacies in childhood, you might not want to eat now.

The taste hasn’t changed, in fact, it might even be better, but…

you have changed.

Yuan Fangzhi was like a child who had never tried instant noodles before; this “French caned silver fish” completely delighted him.

The old man had lived his entire life without anyone teaching him what Dijon mustard sauce was, nor had he ever seen the method of stewing “Western Regions spices” together with vegetables and seafood; and this kind of deliciousness made through exotic seasoning was also his first encounter.

After eating, he was convinced.

“Good!

Very good!” Yuan Fangzhi had not even put down his chopsticks and already exclaimed four times, “Indeed, a young hero emerges.

Yuan is thoroughly impressed.”

A master possesses the demeanor of a master; Sun Yixie’s earlier blatant claims were not believed by Yuan Fangzhi, but now that he had indeed presented a dish Yuan had never tried and couldn’t make, Yuan Fangzhi acknowledged it willingly.

It is said to be eager to learn and to recognize no limit to one’s skills.

A truly talented and knowledgeable person does not fear admitting someone is better in certain respects, as that is quite normal; only impostors hold pretensions more dearly than truths, often sealing themselves off, their skills halting there.

“Heh…

well said, well said.

It seems I was merely showing off simple skills in front of a master, a bit embarrassing.” Although Sun Yixie entered the kitchen with 80% confidence, the remaining uncertainty was inevitable.

Seeing that he had impressed his audience, he finally let out a breath of relief and politely exchanged pleasantries.

This is what emotional intelligence is; without such tolerance and the ability to win hearts, how could one possibly become the “big brother” of the fish market?

“Well…

it’s quite good,” responded Huang Donglai, who also came over to taste Sun Yixie’s cooking.

His reaction was rather lukewarm as this wasn’t a flavor that was entirely unknown to him; he had guessed the taste from the ingredients while watching Sun Yixie prepare the dish.

Afterward, everyone tasted the dish, and before Sun Yixie and Huang had eaten a few bites, it was finished.

Yuan Fangzhi found everything about the dish excellent, even coming up with the reasoning in his mind that “perhaps Mr.

Sun isn’t poor with the knife, but deliberately cuts this way because the silver fish come in varying sizes, and cutting the garnishes similarly brings more layers to the taste,” to explain why he had misjudged earlier.

Regrettably, no matter how much Mr.

Yuan appreciated Sun Yixie, he couldn’t just invite them to dine in a private room yet…

rules were rules, and they still had “two more challenges” to pass.

“Gentlemen,” having tasted Sun Yixie’s dish and seen Yuan Fangzhi’s reaction, Xue Tui’s attitude toward Double Xie became much more respectful, “…truly no ordinary characters.” He paused momentarily, then continued, “Mr.

Sun could easily overcome this ‘First Grade’ barrier and elicited such high praise in cooking from Master Yuan, which is indeed astonishing.” He first complimented them, then turned the conversation.

“So, I assume the second challenge of ‘a glance’ would also be a piece of cake for you both, right?”