P.s: all the food here will be spotlighted (at some level) in the following chapters, so I won’t go into detail about them~
Also, I’ve never personally eaten any of them, so if you found any mistakes, please correct me!
The envelopes drawn by the contestants were opened one by one, and the host introduced the stories or historical origins behind each snack they got.
“Ah, ah, Fu Fengxing, you got Lamp Shadow Beef.” The host started, “The main difficulty of this dish lies in the knife skills. The beef should be sliced very thin, fried with special spicy oil, until it looks bright red, as if you see through a lantern paper. In fact, if you shine a light through, you can see the shadow of the lantern, hence the name “Lamp Shadow Beef1灯影牛肉 
’.”
“As for the Eight Treasure Cake2八宝酥
that Zhuang Zhouyang got…”
After the host’s brief introduction, the contestants were asked to split up with the staff, and went to the six kiosks selected by the program group in order to learn how to make them from the owner itself. After being taught briefly, they had to cook them.
“Braised Pork Pot Helmet with Pickled Vegetables?3“梅菜扣肉锅盔” yes, it’s also equally as mouthful in Chinese lol. The later passages also referred it by its shortened form “锅盔” aka Pot Helmet.
” Yu Antong was at a loss as he read the words written on his card.
In the past, after the host finished talking about the rules of the game, he could quickly come up with many food plans in his mind and make them in an orderly manner. But this time, he had no clue at all.
He can cook braised pork with pickled vegetables by itself. However, he has only heard of pot knuckle but never eaten it, and it could be even said he has never seen it.
Before he transmigrated here, his heart condition wasn’t very good. His adopted father – Yu Lao – raised him carefully, and taking his health into consideration, he had never eaten snacks from street vendors like here.
And after his transmigration, he married Xing Lixuan on the same day. The Xing family was wealthy, so there was no chance for him to come into contact with these things.
Near his university, there was a close street filled with street vendors selling various snacks. He has been there a few times, but unfortunately there is no Pot Helmet there.
In the card, there’s a short introduction of the snack. And to Yu Antong, the food looked like a thin pie, or a thick savory pancake.
Yu Antong followed the staff with a frown. He turned to his assistants, asking, “Yuxiu, Haoning, have you cooked this before?”
Jiang Yuxiu and Lin Haoning shook their heads together.
Lin Haoning added, “I have eaten it, but I have never cooked it. To make this, you need a special crock oven.”
Except for those who specialize in this kind of snack business, most people do not have that special traditional kitchen utensils at home.
Their group came to the kiosk quickly. The place was very small, Yu Antong reckoned it was only three meters wide.
There were three rows of tables and chairs on the left and right sides of the kiosk, allowing customers to eat inside. The passageway wasn’t wide, and it had only enough space for two people to walk side-by-side.
In order not to affect the normal business of the kiosk as much as possible, the program team specially selected the time period with the smallest passenger flow.
It is now 9 o’clock, the peak period of breakfast customers has just passed, and the noon peak period has not yet arrived. Only a few customers in the store were eating.
Seeing a group of people coming with a full-blown cameraman, the customers poked their heads curiously.
“Are you Yu Antong?” Someone recognized Yu Antong, his eyes were full of excitement and surprise, “You are the film crew of ‘God of Chefs!’, right?!”
Yu Antong bowed to them, “Hello, we are indeed filming the latest episode of ‘God of Chefs!’. Sorry to interrupt your meal.”
“No bother, no bother!”
Facing the camera, the customers bowed their heads in excitement or embarrassment, and waved their hands to express that it was okay.
“My God, I didn’t expect you to come here for filming! I actually came across the scene! Yu Antong, I’m your fan, so happy to see you!” An extroverted girl stood up excitedly, incoherently excited.
She twittered for a long time, then asked belatedly, “Will our appearance here will affect the shooting? Should we leave?”
“No, no, no.” Yu Antong hurriedly said, “Just eat here, you don’t need to leave. Thank you for liking our show, please continue to support it.”
It’s nice that they don’t have to leave, they can watch the show recording up close!
The customers were secretly happy. Yu Antong himself looked more handsome than on TV, but they didn’t know if his cooking skills were really that good. Today they were finally able to witness the truth with their own eyes.
The cameraman naturally showed the camera to the talking fan, but the companion sitting opposite the girl quickly grabbed the bag to cover her face!
“Is it inconvenient to shoot?” the cameraman asked, if passersby don’t want to appear on camera, they will try their best to avoid it.
“No! I don’t have makeup on, I don’t want to be on camera.” The girl hid behind her handbag, her face was bitter, then she lamented to herself, “I spent two hours putting on makeup before I went out, and I couldn’t even meet a ghost. Today I came out of the community unkempt. I bought a Pot Helmet here and met my male god! My life is a joke!”
At this time, the owner of the store came out from behind the small door covered by the curtain, and the camera shifted to the owner.
The owner is a middle-aged man of medium stature, with a neat short-shaven head, an honest face with a simple expression, a clean white apron tied in front of his body, and a pot of freshly proofed dough in his hand.
He saw the crew and immediately showed a welcome smile: “You are here! I was cooking in the back just now, when I heard movement outside. Welcome!”
The proprietress also came out. She is a very shy woman, nodding and smiling at everyone.
“Boss, one serving of Pot Helmet with pickled veggies and another one with shallots…” A regular customer shouted as soon as he entered the store, and halfway through the shout he realized that today’s store was different from the usual.
The boss asked, “Takeaway or dine-in?”
The regular customer was stunned for a second before replied “…Ah, takeaway please. Boss, are you going to shoot an advertisement?”
“It’s for a gourmet variety show.” The boss said a few words to the customer with a smile, and started to make Pot Helmets.
According to the plan of the program group, the shop owner should first demonstrate the complete cooking process to the contestants and then provide technical guidance.
Now Yu Antong immediately began to observe and study.
The owner of the shop is an old expert who has been making Pot Helmets for many years. Practice makes perfect, and this piece of dough became “obedient” in his hands.
He first grabbed fist-sized pieces of dough, sprinkle a layer of flour on the chopping board, pressed it a few times with his hands, and flatten it. Then he scooped up a spoonful of dried prunes, vegetable and meat filling respectively, and put it on top of the dough. He wrapped it like a bun at first, closing every corner into a ball, then he shaped it further until it became an elliptical ball.
He pressed it until it’s rather flat, then brushed both its surface with a layer of oil. He then sprinkled a handful of white sesame seeds, and rolled it out with a rolling pin until it was very thin.
The white dough with the filling was already so thin that you can see the darkened pickled vegetable stuffed inside.
At this point the owner dipped his hand in water and brought the helmet-shaped dough to his hand, alternately slapping both hands back and forth to make it thinner.
The owner put his hand into the crock oven where the mold-slash-cooking surface was attached to test the temperature. After making sure that the temperature was right, he put the “pancake” on the back of his hand, put it into the crock oven, and pushed it close to the wall of the crock.
Yu Antong has never seen a special crock oven for making Pot Helmets. It looked like a big vat, and the dough could be tightly attached to the oven wall when it was pasted up. It was amazing.
Yu Antong poked his head to look in, because the Pot Helmet was made very thin, so it was very quick to cook. After a while, he saw its color gradually change from white to light yellow, then poofed up and became golden brown. At the same time, the delicious aroma wafted out from the oven.
The owner of the store saw that it was just about to finish cooking, and used two special tools – a long-handled hook and a long-handled spatula – to pick up the Pot Helmets one by one. After it came out, due to the drop in temperature, the original puffs collapsed and became crunchy and very delicious.
The scorched aroma of the dough and the salty aroma of the minced pickles and meat intertwined into a decadent dance. Yu Antong pursed the corners of his mouth, it was really fragrant, ah, he wanted to eat it.
But he could only watch helplessly as the owner smeared a layer of hot sauce on it according to the customer’s taste, and handed it to the customer in a bag.
When making the second fresh Pot Helmet, the shop owner began to explain the tricks to Yu Antong while making it.
“You can’t put too much filling. Generally, a spoonful of filling is enough for such a big dough, otherwise the filling will be exposed as you flattened it.”
The previous steps were okay, Yu Antong thinks he should have no problems. The most difficult thing for him was this crock oven that he has never seen before. He doesn’t know how to use it at all!
“The temperature of the oven should be well controlled. The fire should not be too hot or too weak. If the temperature is too high, the dough will be burnt. If the temperature is low, the dough will not be able to stick. If they fall to the bottom, they will become charcoal.”
Yu Antong humbly asked for advice. “Then how can you be sure that the temperature is just right?”
The shop owner said, “Try it with your hand. Although it’s very hot, it’s not so hot that you can’t stand it. It should be about this temperature, go feel this. Try it and be careful not to burn yourself.”
Yu Antong stretched out his hand to try it, and his arm suddenly warmed up, as if he had suddenly entered a stove.
No, it’s not “as if”. His hand is really going into the stove.
Yu Antong felt it carefully for two seconds and wrote it down.
The shop owner said while sticking the dough, “You must move quickly when sticking the dough, and press it a few more times…”
Fortunately, the production time of the Pot Helmet is very fast. The owner basically explained the main points clearly, and the ten-minute learning time was just up.
The staff said, “Ten minutes is up, the teaching time is over, and the two-hour production time starts. The contestants must complete at least 20 Pot Helmets within the specified time.”
“Quick, quick!” Yu Antong was very confused this time, and could no longer be as leisurely as in the previous episodes. Hearing the staff calling for the timer to start, he immediately got busy.
The program team only asked the shop owner to provide them with raw materials, and even the dough had to be kneaded by themselves. They got two hours. The time was tight and it had to be allocated reasonably.
“Haoning, please mince the pork. Yuxiu, please wash the dried plums then soak them. After that, go cut some dried shrimps.” Yu Antong ordered them while adding water and flour.
Twenty servings of Pot Helmets require a lot of dough. Plus, there’s always a chance that they failed to cook one and had to scrap them.
Kneading the required dough at one time required too much physical strength, and he didn’t have such strength. Yu Antong plans to separate them, first knead a third of the dough, seal it with plastic wrap for proofing, and then knead the rest to save time.
After Yu Antong made a big pot of dough, Lin Haoning and Jiang Yuxiu just finished the task Yu Antong gave them.
“Each of you knead another pot of dough.” Yu Antong took over the work of the two of them. He first mixed the chopped meat with salt, pepper, sugar, light soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and other seasonings, and then chopped the soaked plum and pickled vegetables. Stir the minced shrimp into the previous mixture, then add some sesame oil to finish.
“I’m exhausted.” Yu Antong rubbed his arms, drank two sips of water, and had a short rest while waiting for the first bowl of dough to finish proofing.
When the dough was fully hydrated, it was time for the real challenge. Yu Antong followed the shopkeeper’s demonstration step by step.
He could do the first few steps easily enough, but when it came to the step of rolling the dough thin, he didn’t control his strength well and broke the dough.
Yu Antong didn’t throw it away or redo it, but used this piece of dough to test the temperature of the oven.
In a few minutes, the dough changed from a failed dough into a mushy bread.
Yu Antong: “…”
Too difficult!
The author has something to say:
Xing-zong: Thinking about how to give warmth to my wife quietly.
Tongtong: It’s already very hot, you go away!
