Boiled cabbage is also called boiled cabbage. This dish sounds very simple and bland, and it is difficult for people to feel that it is delicious. Even if this dish is made using the most authentic method, from the outside, it is just a simple combination of water and cabbage heart, and it really does not look like a delicious dish.
But in fact, there is a lot of secrets behind this dish. The water used to cook the cabbage is not simple at all. The essence of the whole dish is integrated into that simple bowl of water. This bowl of water must be crystal clear to better reflect the purity and beauty of this dish.
It is also worth mentioning that after the boiled cabbage is cooked, there are only a few cabbage hearts floating in the clear water, but in fact, this dish is a meat dish according to the most authentic method, because the clear soup used for boiled cabbage must be boiled with chicken, duck and other meat ingredients before it can be served. It is also for this reason that this dish has disappeared after the vegetarian movement. However, Ye Chu has a deep research on food and has long been able to "variant" various recipes. After his research, this boiled cabbage can already become a completely vegetarian dish.
Using mainly vegetarian ingredients, the delicious taste of this wonderful dish can also be fully presented.
At this time, when they heard Ye Chu mention boiled cabbage, everyone in the Lin family villa showed strange expressions. Boiled cabbage, this name and the Luohan vegetable menu that Sun Li was going to make were very different from each other. The name of Luohan vegetable was full of extraordinary momentum, but boiled cabbage... When hearing the name of this dish for the first time, I am afraid no one would think that it would be a delicacy.
The Lin family's old Buddha showed a slightly disappointed expression on his face: "What kind of dish is this boiled cabbage you are talking about? I have never heard of this dish. Is it delicious?"
"To put it simply, it is just boiling cabbage in boiling water. The method is not difficult. As for whether it tastes good or not, it depends on how you judge it later, grandma." Ye Chui said with a smile. The beauty of boiled cabbage cannot be described in words. In addition to its mellow taste, the most important thing about this dish is the wonderful contrast between its simple appearance and complex taste, which makes people unable to stop.
"Chinese cabbage has a history of more than 5,000 years in China. Eating cabbage is also a tradition of the Chinese people, but we cannot deny that the taste of this ingredient is not particularly outstanding." Sun Li only heard the name of Ye Chui's dish and immediately showed a look of contempt. The surprise that came from hearing Ye Chui's knowledge of Luohancai had completely disappeared. "I wonder what kind of delicious food you can make with this boiled cabbage, Master Ye?"
"You will know soon." Ye Chui said with a calm smile.
After hearing the name of Ye Chui's dish, Zhang Ying subconsciously felt a sense of contempt. She smiled and said, "I am also looking forward to Master Ye's boiled cabbage, but can we start the competition first?"
Wu Haimei led Ye Chui and Sun Li's three chefs into the kitchen: "The kitchen is very large. And there are two stoves, you can cook in the kitchen at the same time."
After saying this, she even winked at Ye Chui, which was considered as encouragement to Ye Chui. Naturally, she stood beside Ye Chui and hoped that Ye Chui could win. Lin Wei even ran directly to Ye Chui and asked him in a low voice: "Ye Chui, can I help you?"
"Okay." It was rare that Lin Wei was so kind. Ye Chui took out the three cabbages from the bag and handed them to Lin Wei. "Please help me peel off the cabbage leaves layer by layer, leaving only the cabbage heart. I don't need the rest."
"Peel the cabbage?" Lin Wei was stunned. Although she seldom cooks, she knows from eating a lot that cabbage doesn't need to be peeled layer by layer. It can be directly cut into strips. She didn't understand and said, "Ye Chui, why do we have to peel the cabbage? Can't we just cut it directly?"
"I asked you to peel it because I need the heart of the cabbage." Ye Chui explained with a smile, "The cabbage in boiled cabbage does not refer to the whole cabbage. It refers to the heart of the cabbage. This part is the tenderest and freshest part of the whole cabbage, and it can easily absorb the delicious soup. It is the essence of the whole dish."
"Oh. So that's how it is." Lin Wei didn't know if she understood or not. After hearing what Ye Chui said, she began to carefully peel off the outer leaves of the cabbage layer by layer and discarded the peeled leaves.
Ye Chui started to prepare various seasonings, including onions, ginger, garlic, peas, fungus, mushrooms, etc. This method of mixing was developed by Ye Chui himself, and the recipe was naturally a secret recipe. So he was very careful when mixing the ingredients to avoid being seen by others.
In the same kitchen, several chefs from the Health Pavilion were also busy. Sun Li was only the boss, not the cook. He stood on one side as a supervisor, his eyes looking at Ye Chui. Of course, he didn't pay attention to what Ye Chui was doing. His focus was on Lin Wei: "Peeling off the leaves of the cabbage and leaving only the heart? What a waste! Boiled cabbage? I don't have any appetite just by hearing the name. How can it compare to my Luo Han Cai?"
Thinking of this, he stopped paying attention to Ye Chui and focused on supervising his chef.
Lin Wei quickly peeled the hearts of three cabbages and asked Ye Chui, "What are we going to do next?"
"It's very simple." Ye Chui smiled and took out a small box from his pocket. After opening the box, there were several thin needles inside. These were the silver needles for acupuncture that Ye Chui bought from a pharmacy in the morning. Ye Chui took one out of the box and handed it to Lin Wei, "Use this steel needle to carefully pierce the heart of the cabbage."
"Ah, piercing the cabbage heart?" Lin Wei felt even more strange. The process of making this dish was really interesting, but she knew that Ye Chui must have his own reasons, so she took the steel needle without hesitation and began to carefully pierce the cabbage heart, while asking, "Ye Chui, why did you ask me to do this?"
"The purpose of covering the heart of the cabbage with tiny holes is to make the soup more flavorful." Ye Chui explained simply. He had already prepared various ingredients. He set up a pot, poured in a suitable amount of water, and then put the seasonings he had just prepared into the pot one by one. As the water temperature in the pot rose, a rich aroma soon spread out.
This flavor combines the fresh fragrance of mushrooms, the rich aroma of various condiments, and the fresh fragrance of onions and garlic.
Of course, these flavors are somewhat inferior to those made by Sun Li on the other side of the kitchen: the Luohan dish made here in the Health Pavilion is a veritable big dish, which requires the cooperation of at least three chefs to complete.
This dish contains more than a dozen ingredients, and each ingredient must be fried and stir-fried before being put into the pot for stewing. The production process is complicated, and the aroma of fried food is constantly spreading. That smell completely overwhelms the aroma of Ye Chui's dishes.
Of course, the aroma of a dish during the cooking process cannot determine the quality of the finished product. The most important part of a successful dish is the taste. When cooking, you must not only cook out the aroma, but also internalize the aroma into the taste of the food. This is the success.
Lin Wei carefully pierced three cabbage hearts with holes. She wiped the sweat off her face and felt a sense of pride in her heart. She could also help Ye Chui cook, although the method was a bit strange... She sniffed hard, turned her head and looked at the chef on the other side strangely, and said to Ye Chui: "Ye Chui, their dishes are so delicious. How about our boiled cabbage?"
"Their fragrance comes from the variety of ingredients. The essence of gourmet food is to cook a variety of flavors. They have so many ingredients, and each ingredient tastes different after being fried. Is it that easy to blend so many flavors into one pot?"
Ye Chui turned his head to look at Sun Li, and whispered to Lin Wei with a smile: "They are just superficial. In fact, I think they haven't figured out the essence of cooking. The most taboo thing about this kind of hodgepodge dish is the disorder of various aromas. This will only ruin the dish. It smells very tempting, but it doesn't taste great."
"oh."
Lin Wei nodded, not quite understanding, and looked at Ye Chui with sparkling eyes. She liked Ye Chui's confident look and the look that seemed to know everything about cooking the most - that look was extremely attractive to foodies...
The kitchen was busy. In the living room outside, Mr. Lafayette's eyes seemed to be completely attracted to the direction of the kitchen. He sat on the sofa and looked inside from time to time, looking forward to the delicious food.
The health expert Zhang Ying naturally couldn't help but say something good about Sun Li at this time: "Sun Li's Health Pavilion is the best vegetarian restaurant in the whole Xizhou, and even in Yanjing, many people come all the way to Xizhou just to patronize Sun Li's Health Pavilion."
"Really? It's really amazing." Mr. Buddha exclaimed.
Wu Haimei is Ye Chui's staunch ally. After hearing what Zhang Ying said, she immediately sat on the other side of the old Buddha and praised Ye Chui, saying, "Mom, you don't know that Ye Chui's cooking skills are extraordinary. Even Mr. Han praised him very much. He even kept his granddaughter by Ye Chui's side as an apprentice."
"Old Han?" Hearing this name, the old Buddha was obviously a little uncomfortable. The old Buddha was over sixty years old, but she was still a child in front of the ninety-seven-year-old old man Han. In addition, the Lin family and the Han family had never been harmonious, so the old Buddha naturally had no good impression of Han. Others would call her the old Buddha when they saw her, but Han liked to call her by her nickname, which often made her feel very angry. At this moment, she couldn't help but snort, "It turns out that Ye Chui has such a close relationship with that old guy!"
Wu Haimei was screaming in her heart, this is not good, isn't it making the old Buddha feel worse about Ye Chui? She was smart at this time, so she quickly added: "The last time Mr. Han came to Xizhou, he ate Ye Chui's food, and it turned out that he was so full because it was so delicious that he had to recuperate in the hospital for more than a month before he recovered."
"What?" It was the first time that Old Buddha heard this. She was stunned for a moment, then couldn't help laughing, "There's also this matter. That old guy actually made a fool of himself like this. It's a pity that I wasn't here at the time. Ye Chui did a very good job on this matter..."
Although the old lady gives people the impression that she is difficult to get along with, in fact, it is very easy to please her as long as you find the right approach.
Lin Zhengdao, who was sitting on the other side of the living room, was obviously not in the mood to participate in this kind of debate. His face was calm, but there was a hidden brilliance in his eyes. No one knew what he was thinking...
In the kitchen.
The soup in Ye Chui's pot has been cooked.
The soup that had just been made was a mixed blue-gray color, which was the effect of various seasonings. Ye Chui poured the soup into a large bowl and scooped out all the seasonings with a colander. At this time, the soup was still turbid. Ye Chui took another large bowl, put a layer of filter paper on the bowl, and used a spoon to carefully pour the soup onto the filter paper one spoonful at a time to continue filtering the fine impurities in the soup. Ye Chui repeated this process three times in total.
At this point, the soup has become very clear - this process is called hanging soup, which is the most important part of this boiled cabbage dish. The clear soup is crystal clear. Then Ye Chui gently put the three cabbage hearts tied by Lin Wei into the clear soup, and slowly pressed the cabbage hearts with chopsticks to allow the clear soup to fully flow into the cabbage hearts.
The cabbage heart is tender and can be eaten raw, and the soup flows into the cabbage through the small holes pierced by Lin Wei, fully infusing the cabbage with flavor. The cabbage heart retains the freshness of the cabbage while also retaining a variety of flavors. At this point, the dish is ready!
Boiled cabbage belongs to Sichuan cuisine, which originated from the imperial kitchen of the Qing Palace. It is ranked as the "Imperial Flavor" level dish in the Manchu-Han Banquet. It is a high-end clear soup dish. Looking at this seemingly simple dish, the soup is mellow and elegant, and the bottom is clear. The cabbage heart is tender green in color and perfect in shape, giving people a fresh and refreshing feeling, with a fragrant and unusually fresh aroma.
Lin Wei no longer had any doubts about this dish. Her little face was filled with amazement and an inexplicable sense of accomplishment. This dish also had her share of credit.
Almost at the same time, the chefs in the health pavilion on the other side of the kitchen also finished the Luohan dish.
Luohancai is a mixed vegetarian dish that combines eighteen kinds of ingredients in one bowl. It is full of visual impact at first glance, forming a sharp contrast with Ye Chui's boiled cabbage. Sun Li glanced at the soup bowl that Lin Wei was holding carefully in her hand, looking at the tender yellow cabbage heart inside, with a slight surprise on his face: "The dish you made is really boiled cabbage?"
"Yes, so the name is boiled cabbage." Ye Chui said with a faint smile.
Sun Li: “…”
In fact, when he heard the name of boiled cabbage, although he didn't think it was delicious, he still wondered if there was another secret in it. After all, Ye Chui also had a very impressive background. But when he really saw the finished product of Ye Chui, he felt that his worry was really unnecessary. What was the secret of this dish? It was clearly cabbage soaked in boiling water. How could such a simple thing be compared with his own mixed cabbage
This is not even on the same level! (~^~)
PS: ps: Actually, boiled cabbage and boiled water cabbage are not the same thing, but boiled water cabbage is more famous, so it is classified as a dish here~~~~~~~~~Okay, I admit that I was too careless when writing the last chapter and wrote boiled cabbage as boiled cabbage, but in that case, let's continue like this. Anyway, boiled cabbage and boiled water cabbage sound pretty good, don't they~~~~~~Please recommend and give me a monthly ticket~~~