The mixed fruit filling made by Tan Wei’an is not bad enough.
If Ouyang is willing to come and taste test, everyone at Zhiwei Restaurant would be overjoyed.
Ouyang’s eyes lit up: "Such good news, you should have told me earlier. I’ll come earlier tomorrow morning!"
Qin Huai ended his pleasant gossip break and returned to the kitchen to check on the progress of the rice cakes.
Guli was stirring the rice cake mixture.
Handmaking rice cakes is ; it requires repeated stirring and steaming. From a technical standpoint, there’s nothing much to it, but it is quite troublesome.
Of course, it’s not entirely without skill; the quality of rice cakes varies by the person making them.
At present, Qin Huai believed that the rice cakes made by Zheng Siyuan were undoubtedly the best. Whether it was sticky rice cakes or lard rice cakes, Zheng Siyuan’s were tastier than his own.
Qin Huai’s skills in making rice cakes were average. Recently, he had made sticky rice cakes more often, so they were slightly better. But after not making them for two months, his skills regressed.
Tan Wei’an’s skills in making rice cakes weren’t actually bad. According to him, he knows how to make rice cakes and even has a few rice cake recipes on hand.
It’s just that, in recent years, Tan Wei’an hadn’t really handmade rice cakes ; he mostly relied on machines.
Qin Huai didn’t see anything wrong with using machines. Technology is advancing, and so are kitchen tools. Making pastry snacks by pure hand requires a lot of manpower and resources, takes less time but is labor-intensive. Chefs don’t have that much energy, so using machines can greatly enhance efficiency.
Pastry snacks require large quantities. If snacks are delicious but can only be made in extremely limited amounts every day, it’s not a good thing either.
Qin Huai made sticky rice cakes without using machines entirely by hand because he discovered that Qu Jing seemed to tell the difference between handmade and machine-made, and Qu Jing preferred the handmade ones.
Even if such rice cakes could have various issues, Qu Jing liked them. Even when they occasionally failed, with improper control of the process, time, and force leading to rice cakes being too soft or too hard, Qu Jing still liked them.
It can only be said that Qu Jing indeed loves rice cakes very much.
Qin Huai looked at the status of the rice cakes and felt like sighing.
In a way, Guli is truly remarkable.
He clearly doesn’t fall short in any attributes, has very solid fundamentals, yet everything he does is slightly worse than others. It seems just because of a small lack of insight, everything he does falls short at every step.
No wonder Guli became well-known in the chef circle as a mediocre talent; such lack of understanding indeed makes him famous easily.
"Master Qin, is there something wrong with my rice cakes?" Guli asked nervously.
He could feel that the rice cakes he was stirring didn’t seem quite right, but he didn’t know precisely why.
"The fire was too strong during steaming," Qin Huai replied. "When steaming rice cakes, if the ingredients are of poor quality and the glutinous rice purity is insufficient, the rice cakes will collapse and lose shape."
"When I explained, I said to use high heat for three to five minutes the first two or three times steaming. Eventually, stir the formed rice cake into a sticky state and steam to shape, cover with a damp cloth, and let it rest for 12 hours."
"The timing and fire control among these depend on the rice cake’s status at the time. You controlled the timing but didn’t control the fire well. So, when stirring now, don’t you find the rice cakes too hard, not sticky enough."
"That’s right; it failed," Qin Huai concluded. "You haven’t made rice cakes often, have you?"
Guli honestly nodded: "Rarely, I assisted my senior brother a few years ago."
That’s understandable. Guli’s lack of insight, coupled with no experience, makes failures quite normal.
"Where is Tan Wei’an?" Qin Huai asked.
If Tan Wei’an had been monitoring, Guli wouldn’t have made such a basic mistake.
"When senior brother went to the warehouse to get the glutinous rice, he ripped his trousers and went back to change."
"There’s still time; I’ll demonstrate making rice cakes for you once. If you have a sample and watch it once, you should understand better. Complete the rice cakes on hand and check the status tomorrow; then you’ll know the difference between the two." Qin Huai said.
Lacking rest time isn’t an issue; Qin Huai is now Master Qin, with many non-technical labor tasks that helpers can handle.
Qin Huai even considered calling Ouyang back. After eating so many snacks, it’s time for him to do some heavy labor to digest them.
Though Ouyang has a unique taste, he indeed has innate talent in certain areas.
Like stirring rice cakes or handcrafting lemon tea, those are Master Qin’s selections.
Everyone who tasted them praised them.