There is enough food for the banquet, including a large carp, a large steamed bun, a small bowl of beef, two fried eggs, and a large bowl of meatball soup. There are at least twenty meatballs in one bowl. If you put this pile of things together,

There is no one who is not full. With Guan Yu's appetite, Guan Yu is full.

When the banquet was coming to an end, Liu Bei saw that everyone was generally full, so he dropped Kuaizi at the right time and asked everyone with a smile, "Everyone, is the food enough? Is it delicious?"

A scholar came back and said, "Thank you Mr. Xuande for your hospitality. I'm full. I'm afraid I won't be able to eat the next few meals!"

This person is funny and knows how to make jokes, and everyone laughs when he hears his words.

Another fat scholar picked his teeth with a long fish bone and praised from the bottom of his heart, "I have traveled a lot and am used to eating well. But in terms of the beauty of fish and meat, nothing can compare to it today."

Feast of fish.”

Speaking of this, the fat scholar who loved good food asked curiously, "Xuan De Gong, what is the name of this fish?"

Liu Bei turned his head, looked at Li Mengxi beside him with a smile, and said, "Come, Xi'er, tell everyone about it. There are many novelties in the banquets today, and I am also very curious."

Li Mengxi thought for a while, organized his thoughts, then knelt straight, glanced down, looked around, and then spoke softly.

"Let's start with the first dish, [Sweet and Sour Fish].

To make this fish, you need to know the essence.

One of them is cooking utensils. Ordinary kitchen utensils, such as pottery urns and pots, are made of clay that is difficult to heat with fire, so it is difficult for oil to boil.

Therefore, without gold and iron utensils, cooking and frying are inconvenient. This is one of them."

After speaking, everyone in the audience, from Jian Yong to the Zhuozhou scholars, from the Zhuozhou scholars to Liu Bei, were all listening attentively. Li Mengxi continued,

“After the utensils of gold and iron, the second step is cooking methods.

The ordinary cooking method of the Han Dynasty was mostly boiling and stewing, which was thin in taste and bland in color, and could not bring out the full flavor of the ingredients.

A certain craftsman made an iron pot, heated oil in the iron pot, and then deep-fried the fish for a long time. This deep-frying method could cook the fish without losing the meaty flavor, but instead give the fish a mellow and mellow flavor like butter.

The second is the method of cooking and frying."

Speaking of this, Li Mengxi almost wanted to laugh. Damn it, just like a fish, Li Mengxi had to sit upright in the hall and talk seriously about a lot of things. It was so funny.

Especially, when Li Mengxi saw the fat scholar who asked about the fish and said it was delicious, he was holding a roll of bamboo slips and a brush he took out from nowhere, and he was writing quickly, whistling.

It didn't stop, Li Mengxi was almost happy.

"Ahem..." He coughed slightly, suppressed his displeasure, and regained his concentration. Li Mengxi continued, "In addition to the tools of gold and iron and the method of deep-frying, the other three are fish and juice.

For the face.

As for fish, carp is the best for sweet and sour fish. As for which carp is the best, I don’t know..."

"Choose carp when choosing fish. Fresh and tender carp are better."

“The essence of sweet and sour fish lies in the sauce. Sweet and sour fish, as the name suggests, is a fish that has both sweet and sour flavors.

Sugar means sugar syrup; vinegar means old vinegar.

Combine the two ingredients, stir-fry them in a hot pan until they become thick."

Below, the delicious scholar stopped writing, raised his head, and asked seriously, "Dare I ask the young general, is it just sweet and sour?"

Li Mengxi heard the sound and looked down. Li Mengxi saw that the scholar was holding a scroll and a pen, with a serious look on his face.

Li Mengxi immediately laughed when his trivial technique, which was of little use to Mr. Li, was taken seriously.

(With sincerity, gold and stone will open.

Since you like sweet and sour fish so much, then I will leave all the art of essence to you. Those who trust me in art are not entrusted to others.)

So Li Mengxi looked at the man with a faint smile and said, "If you only use sweet and sour ingredients, it will be impossible to make sweet and sour fish."

The scholar hurriedly asked, "Why?"

"Because, the ratio is the key. If there is more sugar and less vinegar, it will be too sweet; if there is too little sugar and too much vinegar, it will be too sour. Getting the sweetness and sourness right is the most difficult thing."

"The fish for this banquet is made with sugar and vinegar, thirty-five to ten, thirty-five spoons of sugar and ten spoons of vinegar, and seasoned to achieve the taste you want."

When the scholar heard this, he quickly took a pen and wrote down the essential points.

When Li Mengxi saw this, he laughed again and said, "I'm afraid it will be useless if you write it down."

The scholar was stunned, "...Why?"

"Because, jealousy won't work."

The scholar frowned and looked at Li Mengxi with confusion, "Are you jealous?"

"Yes, it's vinegar." Li Mengxi answered the question, "It's just sugar. Sugar comes from malt and is similar in consistency. But vinegar is the same thing. I have tasted dozens of jars of vinegar. However, it is sour, astringent, and watery.

It is also as bland as water. Vinegar, even if it is one man-made vinegar, ten jars of vinegar will be sour and bland.

Therefore, for a certain use of vinegar, it is just right to mix ten to thirty-five with sugar, but if you use it, it will not be the case."

The scholar was astonished when he heard this.

Without waiting for the scholar to come up with any solution, Li Mengxi explained the solution in one go. He said, "There is a method, which is to try the method of vinegar. You can mix hundreds of jars of vinegar into a jar, and then stir it evenly. After that,

Ten pieces of sugar are matched with ten pieces of vinegar, ten pieces of sugar are matched with eleven pieces of vinegar, and so on, even if you add ten pieces of sugar and a hundred pieces of vinegar, it is not complete.

Then, add less vinegar and more sugar, then add ten vinegar and eleven sugars, ten vinegar and twelve sugars, and then go to ten vinegar and one hundred sugars, which is another hundred parts.

After that, there will always be two hundred of them, and you can taste them one by one to find out their unique taste."

When the scholars heard the words, they were enlightened and suddenly understood.

Li Mengxi saw that the interesting scholar started writing furiously again, and Li Mengxi watched with a smile.

When the scholar's writing slowed down, Li Mengxi said again, "At this point, if you try to find out the taste, it still won't work."

The scholar looked over again in confusion.

Li Mengxi reminded seriously, "Sweet and sour is good in a bowl and tastes just right, but when it is stir-fried in a pot, it is hot and the juice is cold. After a little frying, the water vapor rises and is lost.

Therefore, the food that is just right in the bowl may be too sour or too sweet after frying, and has lost its flavor.”

When the scholar heard this, he frowned and began to think deeply.

Li Mengxi continued, "If you want to solve this problem, there are several methods. One is, when the sweet and sour sauce is as thin as a pot, add water. This is the method of adding water; the second one is sweet and sour. There is more water in vinegar and less water in sugar.

, so when frying, the flavor of vinegar is reduced better than that of sugar syrup, so the amount of sugar can be slightly increased.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! If the amount of sugar, thirty-five, and vinegar in the bowl is just right, then you can put thirty-eight sugars, so that when it is stir-fried, it will be just right."

The scholar heard the trick again and quickly memorized it.

After that, Li Mengxi told all the sweet and sour fish essences that he had discovered.

"Even with all the above methods, the fish is still not cooked well? Why, it's the heat.

What is heat?

Huo Hou refers to the strength of the fire, and Hou refers to the length of menstrual heat.

The heat is difficult to control, if it is slightly hotter and longer, the sauce will be thick or burnt, and it will be difficult to taste properly.

As for the method of controlling fire, I think there are several methods, but I have never had the time to try them, so I will tell you now.

The method is to chop the wood into a normal size, place the pot at a normal height, and place it in a windless place, then the firepower can be controlled.

Then, every time you cook, remember the number silently, or fry a hundred, or a hundred or ten, or a hundred and twenty, try tens or hundreds, and then find out the unique flavor and remember it.

Later, every time I cook, I use the same wooden block, the pot is set at the same height, and the cooking time is the same, so I can control the heat."

"Furthermore, the last thing is that in addition to the sweet and sour ingredients, the sweet and sour sauce can be sprinkled with a little salt to highlight the sourness and sweetness.

You can also add other spices."

…

"The best way to make noodles is to keep them from drying out and loosening up. An example I tried was to put ten flat bowls of noodles into half of them, and put half of them into six bowls of water.

Different things, sweet and sour, noodles and water, are the same in the world, so this example can be used."

…

"The whole fish needs to be cut so that the fish meat is also cooked and the sauce is cooked.

As for the width of the knife edge, one experiment found that the edge of the knife is two fingers wide. If it is too dense, the meat will be cooked, and if it is too wide, the meat will be undercooked."

…

"As for frying fish, the key is that if the fish is pressed against the pot, the skin will be burnt black and sticky if it touches the bottom of the pot. Therefore, the fish should be bathed in hot oil without even touching the iron pot.

There are three methods of oil bathing. One is to hang the fish on an iron hook so that the fish is suspended in the oil; the other is to carry it by hand; the third is to use this method, which is to insert a long stick into the fish's mouth to make the fish

stuck in the pot, preventing it from touching the bottom..."

Li Mengxi didn't have any cooking skills, but in order to eat something delicious, he was forced to crack the sweet and sour fish technique from scratch. He wasted so much effort and tested it many times, and now in front of many people,

As a person, he talks about everything in detail, showing how confident and magnanimous he is.

Off the court, Jian Yong listened to Li Mengxi's chatter in astonishment, and Jian Yong was stunned.

Jian Yong has gained experience. He is just a fish, and he can have so many things to pay attention to.

However, the amazing thing is that the technical points are so detailed that everyone in the audience, no matter whether they are interested in sweet and sour fish or not, but after listening to Li Mengxi’s talk, everyone felt the same. Everyone felt that they too
To be continued...