Chapter 97: These Ingredients Happen to Be Along the Way; I’ll Just Grab Them All at Once
The Chinese Restaurant.
The beef brisket, having been boiled in a pot with scallion sections, ginger slices, and cooking wine, was rinsed clean and set aside.
Rock sugar was added to hot oil and stir-fried until it caramelized into a rich syrup.
The brisket was tossed into the wok to coat it in the caramelized color, followed by scallions and onions. After a quick stir-fry, diced tomatoes were added.
Once the tomatoes cooked down into a rich, fragrant juice, light soy sauce, cooking wine, dark soy sauce, and oyster sauce were quickly stirred in while the wok was piping hot, finished off with a pinch of salt.
After tossing everything evenly, Ling Jing transferred the tomatoes and meat into a freshly prepped clay pot.
She placed it on the four-burner stove and turned on the heat.
Adding boiling water, she let it simmer until the brisket turned tender, then added potato and carrot chunks to stew for another half hour.
While that dish stewed, Ling Jing fired up the iron wok on the two-burner stove.
Once the oil was hot, she tossed in the bullfrog that had been marinating for ten minutes.
She stir-fried it until the meat changed color, then scooped it out and set it aside.
Leaving the base oil in the wok with the heat still going, she tossed in shredded ginger, minced garlic, chopped bird’s eye chilies, and broad bean paste with a loud sizzle.
As the wok hissed and spat out a fragrant red chili oil, she dumped the cooked bullfrog back in.
Salt, light soy sauce, and dark soy sauce went in next, followed by a pinch of white sugar to elevate the umami.
Stir-frying evenly over high heat, Ling Jing poured in boiling water and covered the wok.
This dish didn’t need to braise for long. A few minutes later, once the water had reduced and the bullfrog was cooked all the way through, she lifted the lid.
She scattered minced green peppers and perilla leaves over the top, tossing everything vigorously over a roaring flame amidst the billowing, spicy white steam.
A plate of spicy bullfrog was ready to be served.
Ling Jing plated the dish and tasted a piece.
Mhm, not bad. The bullfrog meat was springy, tender, and deeply flavorful.
The addition of perilla and green pepper gave it a unique profile that balanced out the heat, melding perfectly with the rich aroma of the broad bean paste.
It would go exceptionally well with rice.
In the time it took her to taste the bullfrog, Caicai had proactively scrubbed the wok clean and set it back on the stove.
Ling Jing nodded and immediately started on the next dish.
Like a ruthless cooking machine.
The whitebait was stir-fried in the wok until crispy and golden-brown, then plated.
She simmered a pre-mixed sauce in the wok, dumped the whitebait back in to coat it, and sprinkled it with sesame seeds—a simple crispy fried whitebait was done.
Just as the whitebait was plated, the dish in the clay pot finished stewing.
Lifting the lid, she garnished it with chopped scallions.
The brisket was meltingly tender, and the tomatoes had completely melted into the rich broth.
Tomato and beef brisket stew, ready!
“Did you get all that?”
Having whipped up three new dishes in a single breath, Ling Jing looked at Fufu, who was currently recording.
“I have learned it, Boss.”
It wasn’t just these three. Before starting on the new recipes, Ling Jing had remade the three stir-fries already on the menu, plus the one-pot stew.
She had essentially demonstrated seven dishes to Fufu in total.
The braised master-stock platters didn’t need to be redone since the braising liquid was already prepared.
Ling Jing had moved the large braising vat off the four-burner stove and placed it on the newly purchased dual-access prep counter in the middle of the kitchen.
All that was needed was to boil the freshly cut ingredients and soak them in the master stock.
“Come here, let me check.”
Ling Jing pulled up Fufu’s backend interface to review its logs.
The fully automated chef robot was quite intelligent; it had generated detailed notes alongside the video recordings.
During the cooking process, she had juggled several dishes simultaneously. Fufu was smart enough to identify these overlapping actions and categorize them correctly under each respective dish.
It was incredibly thorough.
So thorough, in fact, that it recorded her other actions: [After plating the dish, pick up a piece with chopsticks and place it into the mouth.]
Uh, no, you don’t need to learn that part.
A robot couldn’t even digest food if it tried, right?
Ling Jing went through the backend and deleted all notes related to her taste-testing, correcting the recipe procedures.
OK, that should fix it, right?
She closed Fufu’s backend panel and ordered it to test-cook a plate of garlic broccoli.
“Right away, Boss.”
Fufu began its demonstration.
It perfectly replicated every single movement Ling Jing had made during the recording.
The amount of broccoli tossed into the wok was identical to the video log.
The minced garlic was identical.
Even the pinch of salt scooped from the jar was meticulously precise.
Ling Jing rested her chin in her hand and watched, finding it a bit magical.
Fufu even replicated her little culinary quirks.
—She liked to give the wok two quick tosses while stir-frying.
Fufu also gave the wok two quick tosses over the high heat.
…
Fufu finished the dish.
It plated the food and presented it to Ling Jing.
“Boss, [Garlic Broccoli] is complete.”
Ling Jing picked up a piece with her chopsticks and took a bite.
…How to put it?
Compared to the garlic broccoli she had demonstrated, the taste wasn’t just close.
It was an exact, flawless carbon copy.
It absolutely met the standard for sale!
Ling Jing praised, “Very well done.”
Fufu: “Thank you, Boss.”
Its two blue eyes blinked rapidly twice.
Caicai, watching the spectacle from the sidelines: “Wow! ?(???????)?”
“How long would it take to make three cauldrons of one-pot stew, five portions of the other six dishes, and two bins of pickled white radish using my marinating method?”
“Right away, Boss. Fufu is calculating. Referencing the Boss’s cooking procedures, the majority of ingredients will be prepped using the automatic vegetable dicer, while a small portion will be hand-cut. The prep work for each dish can be batch-processed. Available equipment includes the two-burner stove with two woks, and the four-burner stove with four clay pots. The tomato and beef brisket stew takes the longest; stir-frying can be done concurrently while the stew simmers…”
Ling Jing listened with great interest as Fufu crunched the numbers.
“…In total, it will require 180 to 200 minutes.”
A little over three hours.
Acceptable.
The robot’s calculations utilized every single second perfectly; it sounded even more efficient than her own cooking.
It was already a bit past eleven. By the time she got back from her hunting trip, the kitchen would be just about done.
She could set the two robots to hibernation, take a shower, and go to bed.
With Fufu around, adding new menu items was completely stress-free.
She even had time to go out foraging.
“Caicai, stay behind and help Fufu with the washing.”
“Understood! (^▽^)”
Fufu noted, “By eliminating the cleaning time when swapping cookware, we can save approximately 20 minutes.”
“Alright, you two get to work. Caicai, box up the one-pot stew just like I do and place it in the front display window. All the other prepped dishes go into this holding cabinet by the door.”
“Got it, Boss! (^▽^)”
“Understood, Boss.”
Before cooking, after upgrading the farm, Ling Jing had added a few new kitchen installations.
She placed a dual-access prep counter in the center of the kitchen, resting the braising vats on top.
The “short edge” of the kitchen near the door used to house the trash bins, which had now been relocated next to the prep counter.
In their original spot stood a new dish holding cabinet—a wide, twelve-tier glass display where each level could hold eight plates.
Assuming the plates weren’t excessively large.
Yesterday, when she prepped meals in advance, there was nowhere to put the finished dishes; the counters and prep stations were completely overrun.
Today, flush with points, Ling Jing had sorted it all out.
On the other side of the service window, next to the iron racks, she had also purchased another sanitizing cabinet.
She stocked up on fifty white porcelain plates, fifty white porcelain bowls, fifty sets of utensils, and fifty soup bowls suitable for the tomato and beef brisket stew.
With tomorrow’s automated Malatang skewer station and the combined efforts of Fufu and Caicai, the operational pressure would be vastly reduced.
Alright.
Ling Jing grabbed the mutant creature dossier Yves had provided.
Time to head out and hunt.
Let’s see what ingredients she needed…
She had far too little perilla in her item storage; the current stock could only cover a dozen plates of spicy bullfrog.
Mutated perilla… Ah, here. A Mutated Pothos-Perilla Chimera, F-rank.
Located 8 kilometers west and 2 kilometers north of the West Wall.
She was also running low on bird’s eye chilies, which were essential for both the pickled radishes and the bullfrog.
Mutated Little Red Pepper Monster, F-rank. Located 8 kilometers outside the North Wall.
Right, the “little red peppers” in this world were the equivalent of bird’s eye chilies.
Then there were broad beans. Ling Jing wanted to ferment a few vats of her own broad bean paste—the stuff sold in the Mall was decent.
But taste was highly subjective, and Ling Jing felt her homemade paste hit the spot best and worked wonders in stir-fries.
Eh? A Mutated Broad Bean and Wheat Chimera! E-rank.
Wasn’t that killing two birds with one stone? Exactly what she needed.
Located 15 kilometers north and 5 kilometers east of the North Wall.
Hmm? These ingredients just happened to be along a single route. She could swing by and grab them all at once.
Let’s roll.
