"Boss, do you want me to look after the restaurant in the morning?" Su Ruoyan had already known that her boss was busy today, so she quickly cleaned up and asked.
"No need to look after the restaurant." Yuan Zhou shook his head. It was very safe in The Kitchen God at Taoxi Road.
Yuan Zhou let Su Ruoyan leave. Yuan Zhou would not let the staff stay when there was nothing to do in the restaurant. As long as the work was done, why would he care about the time?
He went upstairs to take a shower and returned to the kitchen to have a look. He had just made a dozen kinds of Singapore sauces. He was thinking if he should bring some over. This time, he planned to make Malaysian Cuisine. After all, the national treasure chef, Pedro, was best at Malaysian Cuisine. This was the best way to communicate.
Malaysian Cuisine was a combination of Chinese and Malay cuisine. It was Malacca cuisine, an authentic Singaporean cuisine. The perfect combination of traditional Chinese cuisine and Malay spices blended sweet, sour, spicy, slightly spicy, and many other flavors. It had a strong taste, and the sauces used were blended with at least ten spices.
Therefore, many Malaysian dishes required a lot of sauces. When Yuan Zhou was learning Singaporean cuisine, he made a lot of sauces as a backup.
His appetite had been raised by the more than two thousand kinds of sauces calculated by the system. As for the Malaysian dishes that had more than ten kinds of sauces, Yuan Zhou felt that it was a small matter. In fact, to be precise, Malaysian Cuisine was the most authentic in Penang. This was similar to the concept of Malaysian culture in the world.
This was the reason why Pedro wanted to improve Malaysian Cuisine and turn it into a Singaporean cuisine.
About 600 years ago, Zheng He of the Ming Dynasty went to the West and brought Chinese immigrants and customs to Malaysia. This led to the fusion of Chinese culture and Malay culture at that time, forming a new culture. This was the so-called Batang Malaysian culture.
Children born from intermarriage between Chinese and Malays were called "Batang" for boys and "Malaysian" for girls. Not only did they adapt to the changes in their living conditions, but they also changed their eating habits. The Nu Ja Cuisine was the first generation of 'fusion' dishes created by them by combining traditional Chinese food and cooking methods with common Malay spices. It formed its own unique taste, which was characterized by its strong taste, sour, sweet, spicy, and stimulating taste, full of tropical flavor.
In order to be able to cook food that was suitable for the taste of the family, the kitchen of a Japanese family would usually be prepared with all kinds of spices, such as: shallot, garlic, ginger, galangal, wild ginger, lemongrass, fragrant cauliflower (ginger flower), chili, mint leaves, Asian ginseng paste, bala pan, cinnamon, orchid, sour orange, banlan leaves … and so on.
Even an ordinary family would need to prepare so many Nanyang spices, so one could imagine the amount of sauce needed to cook an authentic Nanyang dish.
Of course, Yuan Zhou also knew a very interesting phenomenon, which was that the Nu Ja Cuisine was an absolute matriarchal system at the beginning, which meant that it was passed down to women and not men. Every family would only pass down their unique recipes, methods, and secret recipes to their wives and daughters through word of mouth from generation to generation. Therefore, it was normal that the best chef in Malaysia was Huang Aishan, and she was a woman.
Huang Aishan was one of the directors of the Asian Chefs Alliance. The reason why Chu Xiao did not invite her was that Huang Aishan and Opello were not on good terms.
"Forget it, I'd better not bring it." Yuan Zhou felt that if he brought the sauce made with the best spices and ingredients in the restaurant, he would be suspected of cheating. To put it bluntly, it would be a bit of a bully.
Moreover, Yuan Zhou noticed that Opello, who was best at Nu Ja Cuisine, came empty-handed and did not bring the authentic sauce from Singapore.
Since he had made up his mind, Yuan Zhou did not delay any longer. He walked out of the restaurant and saw Chu Xiao and the others.
"This is Head Chef Yuan, the No.1 Famous Chef in Asia. And these are all the great chefs participating in the Yuan Chu Round-Table Conference." Chu Xiao was really daring. He introduced all the guests one by one.
"Chefs, welcome from afar."
Although Chu Xiao's introduction was out of Yuan Zhou's expectation, Yuan Zhou was still able to hold himself back. Straightening his back, Yuan Zhou greeted the group of chefs politely. His etiquette was impeccable, fully displaying the demeanor of a master.
"But what is the Yuan Chu Round-Table Conference?" Yuan Zhou wondered inwardly.
"I have long wanted to have an exchange with Head Chef Yuan. This is a rare opportunity." The chefs led by Opello were all very appreciative of Yuan Zhou's performance. As for Chu Xiao's introduction, they probably did not hear it clearly.
"Everyone, please follow me." After receiving Chu Xiao's signal, Zhang Le knew that his job had come. He immediately stood up and asked everyone to follow him.
The Huanting Building was really close. It only took them a few minutes to reach the entrance of the venue. At this time, Engineer Cheng was already waiting at the entrance.
"Master, you are here." The moment Master Cheng saw the group of people, he immediately stepped forward and stood in front of Yuan Zhou to greet him in a well-behaved manner. His attitude as a disciple was quite proper.
"Zhao Mei, you are here. Thank you for your hard work." Obviously, Yuan Zhou knew that Engineer Cheng was responsible for the preparation of the ingredients.
But now that Engineer Cheng had been promoted, he should be called Chairman Cheng. Of course, in front of Yuan Zhou, Chairman Cheng was just a little disciple. There was no difference from before. He treated Yuan Zhou with the same respect as before.
"No, master. This is what I should do," said Chairman Cheng.
Yuan Zhou nodded and did not say anything. Instead, he turned his head and introduced Chairman Cheng to the chefs, "This is my disciple, Chairman Cheng of Sichuan Cuisine Association."
Even his disciple could be the chairman. Opello and the other chefs had witnessed the prestige of Yuan Zhou. Of course, they did not think it was a problem for Yuan Zhou to accept such a senior disciple at such a young age. In the cooking circle, whoever had the best culinary skills would be the teacher.
It took them a few minutes to exchange greetings. But soon, they arrived at the venue.
The venue was actually very simple. In fact, there were only ten temporary cooking stoves, and then the ingredients were stored. As expected of the engineering team that boasted that they had accepted several cookery exchanges, they did a pretty good job.
There were ten cooking stoves on one side. The Qingqing style was very clean and comfortable. As the venue was large enough, each cooking stove had a lot of space reserved. On the other side, there were rows of shelves and glass tanks. In the middle, there was a very conspicuous big table.
Of course, they did not get close to the table. Therefore, they did not see the specially carved characters.
All kinds of fresh vegetables, spices, and meats were stacked on the shelves neatly and looked very fresh. The glass tanks should contain all kinds of seafood. After all, all kinds of seafood were used in both Singaporean and Western cuisines.
Now, not only was Yuan Zhou satisfied, the other chefs were also visibly happy.
"Zhao Mei, the ingredients are nice." Yuan Zhou complimented.
"As long as you are satisfied, master." President Cheng's cold and aloof image crumbled in an instant. He laughed like a fatty who weighed more than 140 kilograms.
"Then let's get started. Each of us will cook a dish and have an exchange." As the initiator, Chu Xiao said first.
"Okay. Let's get started." Yuan Zhou nodded his head and agreed.
Having witnessed Yuan Zhou's culinary skills, the other chefs couldn't wait to show their own. Therefore, they all prepared to get started.
Each of the chefs went to the side of the ingredients and started to carefully select the ingredients they needed. After taking a look at Yuan Zhou, Chu Xiao also went to select the ingredients with great fighting spirit. Yuan Zhou had already thought about which dish he would cook. Therefore, he went straight to the position of each glass tank and looked for the ingredients he needed.
Similar to Yuan Zhou, Opello also had the same reaction. When he tasted the Braised Noodles cooked by Yuan Zhou, he had already made up his mind to cook the Chili Crab that he was best at today. He also went straight to the glass tank at the very beginning. Very soon, he chose a particularly hot Sri Lankan Big Crab. The quality was very good and it was also the most suitable variety to cook the Chili Crab.
On the other side, Yuan Zhou also came to the tank for raising crabs. Different from Opello, however, he chose an ordinary Portunus trituberculatus. Although it looked full of vigor and vitality, it was obviously a little inferior to the Sri Lankan Big Crab.
"Is he going to cook the Sweet and Spicy Crab?" Seeing Yuan Zhou grab a crab with great precision and then leave, Opello was a little puzzled.
That crab struggled fiercely. However, in Yuan Zhou's hand, it was like Sun Wukong in the hands of Buddha. No matter how hard it struggled, it couldn't break free and was easily carried by Yuan Zhou with only one hand.
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