Upon seeing Song Dahai, Dai Jianli imdiately changed his tune. "Oh, I was just saying this morning how the magpies were chirping up a storm in the tree by the door! Turns out it was because my Brother Song was coming! Little Brother Lin, you might not know this, but my Brother Song here, in a past life, he was Song Jiang of Liang Mountain—a man of imnse righteousness, who would readily lay down his life for his friends..."
Annoyed, Song Dahai kicked him. "Oh, cut it out! Showing off your Chicken Cake again, are we? When are you going to compete with on Fish Cake, huh?"
Dai Jianli laughed. "? Compete with you on that? Wouldn’t that be like an old man tired of living eating arsenic? I’m not *that* eager to die! Co on, Brother Song, try this Soft Burned Chicken Cake. See if it’s as good as Soft-baked Tofu."
Having said that, he glanced towards the kitchen door.
Why isn’t Old Xie here yet? he wondered. Without one of our own around, there’s no calming down Old Song, that powder keg.
Song Dahai didn’t stand on ceremony. Holding the plate in one hand and chopsticks in the other, he carefully picked up a piece of Chicken Cake and tasted it. "It really is good," he declared. "Both the taste and appearance are top-notch. You son of a gun, you really have a knack for making this kind of dish."
After speaking, he looked at Lin Xu and said, "Master Lin, whenever you feel like eating Fish Cake, just tell Zhu Yong to make it. But if you want to learn how, you’d better co find in building 15. Zhu Yong’s skills aren’t quite there yet; he can’t teach you."
When Zhu Yong first went to Lin Ji, Song Dahai hadn’t quite understood. He’d always felt that the nephew he had painstakingly trained had been lured away.
Later, after careful consideration, he realized that going to Lin Ji allowed Zhu Yong to encounter more complex dishes and et a wider range of people. For a chef, this was actually a good thing.
Only by struggling and gaining real-world experience for a few years could one truly develop a profound understanding of cooking.
In contrast, staying cooped up at the Fishing Platform, while the work was stable and not overly tiring—almost like a vacation when there were no foreign assignnts—ant sothing else.
Learning only a handful of dishes and knowing just a few people over an entire lifeti made for a rather limited existence.
It was better to break out, to see a broader world. Only that way could one truly do justice to oneself.
After tasting the delicious Soft Burned Chicken Cake, Dai Jianli said, "Since Brother Lin is here, let’s start making the dry dipping sauce. Old Song, you can join in too, and we can exchange so insights on our understanding of dry dipping sauces."
Song Dahai smiled and said, "Then you son of a gun better not accuse of stealing your techniques later."
"How could I? Am I that kind of person?" Dai Jianli retorted.
The exchange made Lin Xu chuckle inwardly. He wondered if the atmosphere would remain so harmonious if Chef Song knew Chef Dai was eyeing the vegetables in his yard.
He recalled that his Senior Brother also seed to have his sights set on the young greens in the yard of building 15.
It felt like Chef Song’s gardening efforts were dood to be in vain once more.
His Senior Brother and Chef Dai were like a pair of villains at the Fishing Platform. Soone else’s painstakingly grown sugarcane had been plucked clean by them in less than two hours.
The sugarcane field had been replanted as a vegetable garden, and before the vegetables were even ripe, the nefarious villains were already targeting it again...
If this were so Western blockbuster, he mused, the next scene would probably involve Chef Song, pushed beyond his limits, awakening superpowers and transforming into ’Gardening Guardian’ to thrash the villains, right?
They arrived at a workroom next to the warehouse. Inside stood a comrcial stir-frying machine and a comrcial grinder. Beside them was an oversized workbench laden with all sorts of ingredients needed for making the dry dipping sauce.
Lin Xu glanced around and noted there were four or five types of dried chili alone.
As for spices, there were too many to count—even more varieties than their shop used for making braised goods. He even spotted Luo Han Guo, or monk fruit, commonly found in Cantonese tea houses, on the workbench.
Is this also an ingredient for the dry dipping sauce? he wondered.
Song Dahai examined the ingredients intently, muttering, "You son of a gun. Every ti I ask you how many ingredients go into your dry dipping sauce, you always say five or six, maybe seven or eight. I never imagined it’d be thirty or forty different things! How is anyone supposed to replicate that?"
He rembered the last ti they had a barbecue at ho. Guo Xinghai and Wei Qian, with nothing better to do, had tried to guess the ingredients in the dry dipping sauce.
Chatting and tasting, they had managed to na nearly thirty ingredients.
At the ti, they thought they had listed too many, but it turned out they hadn’t even gotten all of them.
Too bad I hadn’t acquired the Eye of Discrimination back then, he thought. Otherwise, I could have figured out all the ingredients right on the spot.
"Old Dai, are you really not afraid I’ll secretly copy this?" Song Dahai asked after looking through all the ingredients. He glanced at Dai Jianli, sowhat surprised. This guy is being a little too generous today, he thought.
Dai Jianli smiled and said, "If you could learn it just by seeing these ingredients, then Director Liao of the Dining Departnt might as well hand his position over to you, Director Song."
Only after Dai Jianli said this did Lin Xu understand.
Simply knowing the ingredients wasn’t enough. You also needed to know the specific production techniques, processes, and preparation thods. Most importantly, you had to know the precise proportions of the various seasonings.
All these factors combined were necessary to replicate this delicious dipping sauce.
Without the correct ratios, who knew what kind of culinary disaster one might create.
After all, spices in Chinese cooking had to be used in strict proportions. Take Cloves, for instance; even one too many or one too few could make a world of difference in the final result.
Other spices, while perhaps not as overpowering as Cloves, also couldn’t be used indiscriminately. Many of them, after all, also served as traditional Chinese dicines.
"So that’s why you’re being so generous, you son of a gun!" Song Dahai exclaid. "You held back on the proportions! Next ti I want so, I’ll just co get it from you. Saves a lot of trouble."
As an executive chef, Song Dahai was perfectly capable of making a dry dipping sauce himself.
It was just that Old Dai’s version was exceptionally good. Plus, since the guy was always "borrowing" this or "nicking" that, everyone else felt justified in occasionally "raiding" him in turn—a practical way of reminding Old Dai that what goes around cos around.
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