Huang Tao smiled as he took the down jacket and helped Xuanxuan put it on: "Co on, let Dad put this on you first. I’ll take you to the audience seats, then we’ll go."
"Mm-hmm~"
Xuanxuan nodded like a little chick pecking at grain, obediently putting on the jacket.
Then she held her dad’s big hand, stood in line with the other kids, and followed the two teachers to loop around to the right side passage, arriving at the audience seats.
The performance on the stage was still ongoing, but Xuanxuan had no interest in watching.
She looked up, her eyes curved into crescents, and said to her dad, "Dad, I’m here, you go ahead and get busy..."
"Mm, okay!"
Huang Tao reached out and ruffled her hair, gently reminding her, "Now you sit here nicely with the other kids and watch the performance. When it’s over, I’ll probably be done too, and you can co over to eat."
"Xuanxuan’s daddy, Xuanxuan’s daddy..."
As soon as he finished speaking and before Xuanxuan could respond, all the kids around started shouting in unison, "We want to eat too, we want to eat too!"
Just hearing about food made them drool!
"Okay, got it!"
Huang Tao nodded with a smile, "After you finish watching the show, co on over together."
The kids nodded vigorously: "Mm-hmm, thanks, Xuanxuan’s daddy~"
"You’re welco!"
After saying a few words to Xuanxuan, Huang Tao left with Ye Wen and a few other mothers, under the eager gazes of the children.
Returning to the food area of class (4).
The parents of other classes had already started getting busy.
There were also a few food stalls from so classes with no one in front of them, probably because their children were currently performing.
They’re off to watch the show!
Huang Tao, too, washed his hands and got ready to start making wontons and soup dumplings.
Making soup dumplings, huh!
It’s actually quite similar to making pan-fried buns, and pork jelly is indispensable.
Of course.
You can also skip the pork jelly and directly add water to the stuffing, for example, the pepper water needed for the at filling is the best choice for beating the at filling.
The at filling made this way not only tastes delicious but also has a tender texture, offering an excellent mouthfeel.
But...
This technique has a high technical requirent and a high level of difficulty.
For Huang Tao, the level of difficulty is just too high.
That’s right!
He doesn’t possess the skill to completely wrap thin at filling inside a bun.
Don’t ask why.
The answer is, possessing the skill for making soup dumplings that way requires very expensive redemption points.
He can’t afford it!
So he has to honestly choose the thod of adding pork jelly!
And making pork jelly is the most ti-consuming part of preparing soup dumplings.
Therefore, when he was preparing the pork jelly for the pan-fried buns yesterday, he made a bit extra and stored it in the fridge.
He brought it with him when he ca to the kindergarten this morning and asked Ye to help put it in the kitchen fridge!
He lifted the wet cloth covering the dough and took a look...
The dough for the wontons had just about finished resting, but the dough for the soup dumplings needed to rest once more.
After all, the dough for soup dumplings requires three rounds of kneading and resting!
The concept of three rounds of kneading and resting is quite straightforward!
It refers to the process of kneading, slapping, and resting.
Specifically, the dough should be kneaded three tis, slapped three tis, and rested three tis.
Through this process, the dough becos stretchy and smooth, preventing the soup from leaking out and the casing from falling off.
This is the secret of the soup dumpling!
In short, without a good dough, no matter how great the filling is, you can’t make delicious dumplings.
He kneaded the soup dumpling dough again, covered it with a damp cloth, and let it rest once more. Then it would be ready for rolling into the dumpling skins.
In the anti, he decided to work on the wonton skins and filling.
This "wonton" dish is popular all over the country, but it has different nas in different regions.
In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, it’s called wonton; in Sichuan, it’s called chaoshou; in the Hubei area, it’s called dumplings or buns; in Fujian, it’s called "bianrou" or "rouyan"; in the southern Anhui region, especially in Anhui, it’s mostly referred to as "bofu."
In Guangzhou, wonton is called yuntun, a na derived from the English "wonton."
Moreover, the types of wontons vary greatly.
Common ones include fresh at wontons, the grander upgraded shrimp wontons, shrimp and at wontons, three-flavor wontons, as well as light vegetable and at wontons, appetizing red oil wontons, and fried wontons.
In short, the variety and preparation of wontons...
It’s simply astonishing!
The wontons Huang Tao was going to make today were the luxurious and upgraded three-flavored wontons.
For this purpose!
He even specially asked Ye and the others to prepare shrimp for the dish.
Next, he began preparing the minced at needed for both the wontons and the soup dumplings.
He placed the cleaned at prepared by Ye and a few other parents on the chopping board.
First, he sliced the at, then cut it into strips, and finally diced it.
"Chop chop chop~"
He held a cleaver in each hand, rhythmically chopping the at into fine pieces.
Not far away opposite him, Lin Weiliang watched Huang Tao’s chopping technique, and his expression changed slightly.
It seed like he really had so skills!
The technique was indeed impressive, like soone who had trained for a few years.
Even though it was the first ti seeing Huang Tao’s at chopping skills.
With just one look.
As an insider, he could tell that Huang Tao’s skills were higher than he had initially imagined!
This made him have to take it seriously!
Focused on chopping the at, Huang Tao didn’t notice Lin Weiliang openly observing him.
He continued chopping the at into a minced consistency, stopping just before it turned to paste.
Otherwise, the unique tender texture of the at filling would be lost.
He transferred the minced at into two large bowls.
For the at filling used in the wontons, Huang Tao added a bit of cooking wine, poured so oyster sauce, and sprinkled a spoonful of salt and so pepper.
He started mixing!
While stirring, he added the pre-cooled pepper water into the at filling.
Once the at filling was thoroughly mixed, he proceeded to the next step.
He separated a portion of the at filling, placing it into another dish.
Then he chopped the cleaned shrimp into pieces.
He also chopped so scallions and ginger.
All set.
He began mixing the wonton filling.
He cracked a few eggs into one bowl of at filling, mixed them, then added the chopped shrimp, scallions, and ginger, mixing in the seasoning again.
Started flavoring!
Once the flavoring was done, he covered the bowls with plastic wrap and asked Ye Wen to quickly take them to the back kitchen’s refrigerator for a bit of chilling.
This is to let the at filling marinate and absorb flavors more thoroughly.
The texture will be much better as well when eaten!
Additionally, once the filling has a base flavor, it will be much easier to mix later.
Next, it’s ti to roll out the wonton wrappers...
He took out the rested dough and kneaded them into smooth balls.
He pressed the dough into round discs and then used a rolling pin to roll them into large circles.
The more he rolled, the thinner they beca.
When it was about three milliters thick...
He stopped.
He evenly rolled the large disc around the rolling pin, then used a kitchen knife to cut through the rolled dough.
"Cut through"!
In fact, it’s more like slicing!
Following the length of the rolling pin, he sliced the dough from one end to the other, instantly turning the large rolled disc into evenly sized long strips.
He sorted these strips neatly.
Huang Tao, holding a kitchen knife, cut them into square wrappers according to the required width for wonton skins.
Then he picked out all the irregular pieces, leaving the ones needed for wrapping wontons.
Repeat this process!
In no ti, all the wonton skins were ready!
Next, it’s ti to wrap the wonton wrappers.
Under Huang Tao’s instructions, Ye Wen tirelessly ran to the kitchen again, retrieving the chilled at filling and aspic.
Start wrapping wontons!
Huang Tao took a piece of wonton skin, laid it in his hand, placed so at filling in the center of the wrapper, and then used the thod of folding it into an ingot, pinching the middle of the wrapper tightly, and then pinching the two lower corners together.
A perfect ingot wonton was crafted under his skillful hands.
The speed was so fast that Teacher Ye and a group of parents had beco accustod to it as a matter of course!
He placed the wrapped wontons on a folding table covered with cling film.
Once the table was full, he instructed Teacher Ye to cover the top with another layer of cling film to prevent the wrappers from drying out.
He brought out another bowl of at filling and used chopsticks to loosen it up.
The next step was seasoning.
A soup dumpling is all about the complentary texture and flavor to achieve perfection.
Texture can be achieved by mincing the filling finely.
But the flavor depends entirely on the recipe.
The system-redeed recipe naturally had perfect and precise seasoning proportions.
Huang Tao, following the system’s experience, began to season the filling with precision, neither too much nor too little.
Scallion-ginger water, white sugar...
Every ingredient not only needed to be in the correct proportion but also had to be added in a specific order.
If the order was wrong!
The resulting stead texture would have subtle differences, and the layers would beco chaotic.
Of course.
For Huang Tao, this was not a problem!
After all, for the perfectionist Huang Tao, such a basic mistake was intolerable.
Furthermore, typical soup dumpling shops would add so seafood soy sauce and white pepper.
Seafood soy sauce is used to enhance umami.
White pepper is used to mask the aty odor.
Huang Tao did not add these two ingredients.
Because they simply weren’t necessary.
To et the standard for the filling, the inherent umami was already sufficient.
Adding more would be superfluous.
Moreover, a suitable amount of scallion-ginger water was enough to eliminate any odor, while adding white pepper would beco too much!
He turned over the container with the white pig skin aspic, with the lively aspic bouncing a few tis before landing on the cutting board.
"Swish!"
He took up a knife and started chopping.
The complete blocks of pig skin aspic were quickly chopped under the rhythm of two knives.
Then, the chopped aspic was mixed evenly into the at filling.
Set it aside.
Begin rolling the wrappers for the soup dumplings.
He took a piece of dough, kneaded it into a long shape, and then pinched off appropriately sized pieces.
If soone used a scale to asure these pieces, they would be amazed to find that the size and weight of the pieces Huang Tao pinched off varied by no more than two grams.
Huang Tao picked up a rolling pin and began rolling these pieces into pastry skins.
Rolling soup dumpling skins is quite intricate.
Because when stead, the aspic in the dumplings lts into soup.
If the skin is too thick, it heats unevenly inside and out, affecting the texture greatly.
If the skin is too thin, it will break easily when picked up with chopsticks, failing to lock in the aroma.
So the dough needs strength and a certain elasticity.
This, for Huang Tao, was also no challenge.
With one hand rolling and the other turning the dough piece...
The dough piece imdiately transford into a clear, translucent round.
After rolling, he tossed it casually, stacking each piece of skin neatly one on top of the other.
Neatly arranged, perfectly aligned, as if ticulously arranged, seamlessly.
Moreover, each skin was almost the sa size, indistinguishable to the naked eye.
It’s practically astonishing!
All the parents and teachers present watched as the skins continually flew from Huang Tao’s hands, swirling gently in the air...
And they landed steadily on the skins in front.
Neatly stacking up one layer.
If they didn’t know Huang Tao was a chef, they might have thought he was performing a stunt...
Teacher Ye and several parents could no longer contain themselves.
One by one, they expressed their admiration:
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, this rolling technique is impressive! Look closely; each skin is the sa size, stacked without any inconsistency! If I hadn’t watched Boss Huang roll them, I’d think they were cut by a machine!"
"This craftsmanship, if placed among pastry chefs, must be top-tier!"
Although Lin Weiliang, across from him, didn’t want to admit it, he silently acknowledged it...
The Que Clan indeed!
This pastry skill is strong; at least there’s seven to eight years of foundation, and it’s inherently talented.
After all, for the average person to reach this level, it would take twenty or thirty years, and still might be uncertain!
Moreover, with such foundational skills, the culinary skills certainly won’t be lacking!
At this mont...
An idea popped into his mind.
But he thought it needed more observation.
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