Gourmet Food Supplier - Chapter 25

Chapter 25: The very definition of fraud

【Random award】: Soup filled Dumplings (Retrievable)

The system: “Fixed price for every basket, 66 RMB.”

“This is possibly the cheapest thing in the shop, I’m going to eat a few tomorrow.”

Looking at that price, Yuan Zhou couldn’t help but whisper.

Yuan Zhou didn’t even consider before tapping on “Retrieve” this time, probably since that was his first time retrieving a pastry related reward. This time, the soup filled dumplings again materialized into a book form, turned into a clump of light and enveloped his brain. Rushing forth into his depths, it disappeared.

These soup-filled dumplings were also in line with the system’s pretentious style. Although there was no introduction of the ingredients, there were strict techniques and fixed times even in the modulation of the kneading of the dough, and the filling and soup were just as equally complex.

When he opened his eyes, Yuan Zhou felt like he was a master who’d made soup-filled dumplings for decades. Using first-rate ingredients to produce first-class cuisine was indeed a kind of joy.

“I can also conquer the world with soup-filled dumplings!”

At this moment, Yuan Zhou felt as though he was hungry again, but he saw it was already close to midnight. He still needed to open shop tomorrow, so he could only endure his excitement and try to fall asleep.

It was only when he lay in bed that he remembered the title, and opened the mission information screen to examine it.

Objective: The Culinary God System will help you learn Chinese and Western cooking to become the world’s number one culinary god.

Host: Yuan Zhou (Ordinary Human Being of the Han race)

Sex: Male

Age: 24

Physical Strength: C (Reaction speed, power, coordination, sensitivity, etc – total grade)

Culinary Talent: Unknown

Skills: Divine Class Egg Fried Rice

Items: None

Five Factors of Culinary Skills: Newbie Recruit
(A newcomer that has recently learned how to cook egg fried rice.)

Rank: 1

Title: Pastry Master

(As a pastry master, how can you be stuck in the kitchen all day? You need to have your own time to complete the raising of your culinary skills. Your daily business hours cannot exceed six hours.)

【Mission three】: Taking into consideration that the host has acquired a bit of reputation in the vicinity, please obtain over a thousand reputation points in the internet within twenty days time.

(Mission note: You’re not allowed to publicize nor pay for advertising. As a future culinary god, how could one publicize themselves? They must come willingly from people’s word-of-mouth.)

【Mission reward】: Clear Soup Noodles.

The six hours caught his eye.

“System, can I not accept this title?”

Yuan Zhou only realized the system’s intentions now. How could he still make money without exceeding six hours? His income would plummet by a large fraction; this was simply a fraud.

System: “Title is automatically equipped. Cannot be removed, can be upgraded.”

“Haha”

Mother fucker! These two words clearly captured Yuan Zhou’s feelings. Could this be a prize-winner’s momentary rapture that becomes a rupture when making money?
(Kookie: I hate chinese idioms, they so confusing >w< but puns :D)

At present, these delicious soup-filled dumplings also couldn’t make up for the pain of money flying past him.

The only thing that could neutralize this heartrending pain was being able to earn even more money.

“So when can I negate this time restriction?” Yuan Zhou asked with a faint hope.

System: “The host can determine his business hours freely when he reaches rank 5.”

Actually, Yuan Zhou also knew that the system was doing this for his own good. Having long business hours every day did not help his little shop at all, even though he could earn a great amount of money in the short term.

However, this was detrimental to a little shop that had the ostentatious culinary god. Restaurants constantly needed to stay original because people could easily tire of the taste. He currently had no one to help him, and he was also exhausted from working long hours every day.

Even if he consoled himself like this, Yuan Zhou could not accept the fact that the money that was originally flowing into his pockets would disappear like this, but who could he blame for his low rank?

Under this continuous self-consoling cycle, Yuan Zhou steadily slipped into a doze. Although he had the system, the frying of rice was all done by him. Doing so for twelve hours a day was still very tiring.

*Ring ring ring*

This time, Yuan Zhou’s alarm clock rang unusually early. It was only six o’clock, and the sun outside the window had just risen

*Thump*

Yuan Zhou, who had not woken up this early in a long time, felt a little muddle-headed. As he got out of bed, he knocked over the laptop that had accompanied him for many years. Even if Yuan Zhou had not sobered up by then, so it was only once he finished washing himself up that he managed to see the miserable state of his computer.

The laptop,which was mainly black in color, had now become grey. One reason was because of the dust covering it, another was because it was out-dated, but really it was the fact that it was too old why Yuan Zhou had stopped playing with it recently. It could not support any games, and the functionality of the PC card could be compared to an old granny’s speed.

Seeing that it was already 6:20, Yuan Zhou decided that he should try his hand at making the soup-filled steamed dumplings first, and deal with his computer afterwards.

*Bang*

Turning on the kitchen lights, the kitchen became so bright that even the tiniest details were visible.

When Yuan Zhou reached the rice cupboard, the neighbouring cupboard was already marked as with ‘Bread Flour’. Opening it, he was that the inside was filled with pure white flour. The fragrance of wheat assaulted his nose, the faint sweetness of wheat.

Furthermore, there was an additional approximately 50-centimeter-tall white cupboard near the foot of the stairs. When he opened it to take a look, he saw the marbled pork needed for the filling stacked neatly inside. Picking a piece up in passing, he saw that it was the highest class of marbled pork. The fat and lean meat were well-distributed in six even layers, and its skin had already been shaved clean.

It only took a glance to stimulate his appetite.

The condiment box labeled fresh ginger had already been filled. When inhaled, it carried a pungent spicy smell along with a whiff of fragrant sweetness. As for the most important pig skin aspic for the soup, it had already been congealed into jelly and safely stored in the refrigerator.

Additionally, a steamer had been added over by the stove top. The base was a large iron cooking pot/wok which was covered with a bamboo lid on top. The bamboo appeared fresh and alluring, and one could catch the fragrant odor of bamboo if they delicately smell it .

The steamer baskets were customised for steaming dumplings. Each one had a diameter of 10 centimeters, just right for one serving per basket. Furthermore, all of them were made completely from bamboo and they appeared especially verdant in the cold-hued kitchen.

The control panel was located over by the glazed tile counter. Yuan Zhou began to scoop some flour into a large bowl. He first sifted it through once, then added the appropriate amount of the liquid mixture composed of warm water and eggs, kneading slowly.

*Bang*

Kneading dough was menial work. Yuan Zhou’s strength wasn’t bad, and with the skill provided by the system, he soon reached the three masteries stage―mastery in the flour, maneuvering around the pot, and his handicraft. After a short moment of kneading, he covered it with a damp cloth and put it to the side to let the dough rest.

The technique to fine tune the filling ingredients was also firmly imprinted in Yuan Zhou’s mind. He first cut the streaking pork into small cubes before chopping it into pork mince, and crushed a piece of fresh ginger until it was tiny fragments and incorporated it into the minced meat in portions.

The key to this filling was to incorporate all the seasonings into the minced with using only a kitchen knife. This would make it even tastier, not to mention it would make the minced meat tougher and chewier. It would not scatter all over the place once it entered the mouth.

After adding the seasoning into the minced meat in order, Yuan Zhou slightly chopped it for a few minutes, placed the fillings into a huge basin and put it into the freezer for a quick freeze. This was done in order to retain the juice of the meat.

While it was freezing, he also cut up the pork skin aspic in the freezer into small pieces as reserve.

The dough that had rested was rolled into long strips, divided into small dough pieces. They were rolled and irrigated as the skin for the soup dumplings. The skin of soup dumplings, in its most fundamental state, is light, thin, transparent and resilient. However, that point alone would baffle a lot of people.

However, all of these conditions were also not a problem for Yuan Zhou. After rolling one sheet of skin, he would use it to wrap a dumpling. His speed was impressive, but he was still trying to be faster. Yuan Zhou’s target was to be able to roll the dough with one hand while wrapping it with the other, like in “Chūka Ichiban!”.

A soup dumpling was required to have thirty six creases on top. As for the current Yuan Zhou, it was still an impossible matter to use his left hand to accomplish such an elaborate task and could only wrap it using both hands. Even if that’s the case, if those old masters who were immersed in this line of work for tens of years were to see Yuan Zhou’s hand speed and skill, they could only clap their hands and praise him.

Not preparing to do many, Yuan Zhou stopped after filling each of the steamer basket. All of the prepared ingredients were also used up exactly, almost like it had been precisely calculated. There were precisely 100 of them.