"My whole life has been like treading on thin ice."
Zhang Li returned to her workstation, rubbing her empty stomach as she posted on her feed. Her crestfallen expression was like that of a child who had just lost a beloved toy.
Damn it!
Just why is this happening!
In the office, Su Chen waited quietly. He wasn’t sure if Brother Fang Chang had eaten or not, but when his phone chimed with a notification for an 88-yuan payment, Su Chen’s attention immediately shifted to the system panel.
[Congratulations!]
’It really works!’
’If that’s the case, does this mean I can abuse glitches from now on?’
Su Chen didn’t dwell on the thought for long. He decided it wasn’t very realistic. After all, it was basically forcing a sale. Doing it occasionally might be fine, but doing it every day was out of the question.
[Congratulations! You have completed the main quest ’Every Little Detail’ and obtained the Active Skill reward: White Jade Hand.]
Badges were passive; they only had an effect when equipped. You couldn’t know how amazing a buff like that was until you’d actually experienced it.
The kind of power that would let you sweep the floor with carnival games like ring toss and darts!
Once you felt it, you knew: the most powerful rewards from the system had to be these types of Skills and effects. They were things that completely transcended reality—totally bug-level items!
Su Chen’s eyes burned with excitement as he read the description that appeared on the system panel.
[White Jade Hand: Your hands become like white jade, resistant to high and low temperatures and impervious to blades. Activating the Skill increases your hands’ sensory perception.]
[Skill Duration: 1 hour. Cooldown: Resets daily at midnight. Uses: 1 per day.]
He understood everything else. ’In other words, my hands are now safe from burns, frostbite, and cuts!’
You can’t work with knives and fire every day without eventually getting cut or burned. This Skill was an extra layer of insurance.
But as for that "sensory perception"... he didn’t quite understand what that meant. Plus, he could only use it once a day, and for only an hour each time.
’That’s a little disappointing...’
If all the ingredients were prepped beforehand, he could cook a lot of dishes in an hour. But if prep time was included, he wouldn’t be able to make more than a few.
Still, it was better than nothing.
After getting the Skill, Su Chen put aside the idea of inputting keywords to start a new main quest. Instead, he calmed his mind and decisively entered the Gourmet Practice Room.
With a flick of his will, he set a timer in the air above his head.
Sixteen hours. Each practice session could last for a maximum of sixteen hours!
’First, I’ll practice making Guo You Rou. The highest grade for this dish is A. It’s nearly impossible to improve it beyond that...’
The dish’s name, you could say, is a perfect description of the process. The key lies in the word "pass-through"!
"Passing through oil" isn’t deep-frying, and it isn’t boiling in oil. Instead, it’s about maintaining the oil at a very delicate temperature, allowing the heat to penetrate and cook the meat from the inside out.
If the oil is too hot, the meat will become crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, much like the Northeast dish, *liū ròu duàn*.
If the oil is too cool, the starch coating will slide off, and the pork slices will lose their shape.
Most restaurants rarely pay attention to these details. That’s why many people find that the Guo You Rou from the same restaurant, made by the same chef, tastes different every time they order it. That’s a problem with the chef—they can’t properly control the heat.
First was the preparation of the pork tenderloin.
’Good Guo You Rou should be extremely easy to chew—silky and tender. That means all the fascia and fat have to be removed from the meat.’
Su Chen’s knife skills still weren’t quite up to par, so his movements were a little slow during this step.
After all, it was a skill that took a long time to master. As long as he could see progress, that was all that mattered!
He cut the trimmed tenderloin into rectangular slices, then added egg, salt, cooking wine, and egg white. After coating it with a pinch of cornstarch and a little oil, he mixed it all evenly, covered it with plastic wrap, and set it in the refrigerator to marinate.
This step not only removed any unpleasant smell from the meat but also made it more tender.
The wood ear mushrooms were for adding texture and color, so they had to be destemmed, cut into small pieces, washed, and thoroughly drained.
The ginger needed to be minced as fine as grains of rice, and the scallions chopped to the size of soybeans. Some restaurants like to cut the scallions into long sections, which makes the result taste a bit like *cōng bào ròu* and completely ruins the original flavor of this dish.
Once the meat was done marinating, Su Chen saved the state of all the ingredients.
’Let’s use two woks at the same time,’ he thought.
At this point, Su Chen had a question. Based on his culinary understanding, when cooking a dish with pure lean meat, it was better to use animal fat. Lean meat already lacked the fragrant flavor of fat; if he also used vegetable oil, the dish would have no meaty aroma whatsoever.
But in the real world, most restaurants used vegetable oil, and some even went so far as to substitute chicken breast for pork tenderloin.
He added lard to one wok and vegetable oil to the other. When the oil temperature rose to around one hundred and sixty degrees, Su Chen slid the pork slices into each of the two woks.
Once the pieces firmed up slightly, he quickly separated them with his chopsticks.
The thin slices of pork didn’t need long; after just ten seconds or so, they could be removed and drained of excess oil.
It was obvious that the slices cooked in lard were glossier and gave off a much richer, meatier aroma.
’There’s nothing much to say about the rest... It’s such a simple and purely Delicious dish.’ A smile unconsciously touched Su Chen’s lips.
He prepared the thickening slurry for the sauce, mixing chicken stock, yellow wine, MSG, soy sauce, and wet starch.
He left a base of oil in each wok—lard in one and vegetable oil in the other.
His Max Level [Stir-fry] Skill made this final step effortless. Su Chen even tried working both woks at the same time, one with each hand, and felt almost no pressure at all.
After flash-frying the scallions, ginger, and garlic until fragrant, he quickly returned the pork slices and wood ear mushrooms to the wok. This time, he cranked the heat to high and began to stir-fry furiously!