After checking the knives, Zhang Wentao misunderstood Xu Hongdou's refusal. He took out the vegetables he needed from the refrigerator and said to Xu Hongdou:
"Don't worry, I have no intention of pursuing you. It's just that you help me clean up. I don't want to owe you any favors. Plus, the food I make will indeed be more, and two people will not be able to finish it."
Seeing Zhang Wentao being so upright, Xu Hongdou shook his head helplessly and had a new judgment about Zhang Wentao who was about to prepare food.
Narcissistic and low emotional intelligence...
No wonder Nana complained yesterday that she was just cooking a meal, and it was also involved in pursuing or not pursuing herself. It was really funny.
You said you're afraid of waste, so I'll call Damai and Nana.
Let three light bulbs illuminate you together!
"Do you need me to help you?" Xu Hongdou raised her chin and asked Zhang Wentao who walked into the kitchen.
"No need." Zhang Wentao said calmly with a pretentious face.
"..." Xu Hongdou rolled his eyes at the other person's back, okay, I have nothing to do to make myself angry.
I took the garbage from the restaurant to the place where the garbage is stored in the courtyard. Aunt Agui had specifically warned me before that the garbage should be kept hygienic and the garbage should be placed in the designated storage area.
When she came back, Zhang Wentao had already washed and dried all the vegetables quickly and set them aside.
He is going to make 4 dishes today, Caesar salad, onion soup, Provence vegetable chowder, and a red wine braised chicken.
The staple food is still prepared to be replaced by rice. Baking bread is something that no Western chef would be too lazy to do without the help of a machine specially used to stir flour.
The cutting area in the kitchen is relatively small. For convenience, Zhang Wentao took a chopping board, a knife, and everything needed to make Caesar salad dressing to the long table in the restaurant.
Two eggs were also boiled in the pot.
His hand speed was very fast, and the knife had just been sharpened. Under Xu Hongdou's watchful eyes, in just two minutes, he cut a purple onion in half, tore off the unwanted skin on the outside, and cut it into pieces with superb knife skills.
Chop a whole onion into fine pieces and put it on a small plate and set aside.
Then add anchovies, cut watermelon and pomegranate into fine pieces, peel appropriate amount of garlic cloves and cut into minced garlic.
After finishing this work, the eggs happened to be cooked in boiling water until they were fully cooked.
"What are you doing?"
After hearing the question, Zhang Wentao, who was about to wash the onion mince to remove the flavor and chill the eggs, said without stopping, "Make Caesar salad dressing."
"Salad dressing is sold in supermarkets, so why would you make it yourself?"
"..."
Okay, Zhang Wentao also rolled his eyes at this. How can a Michelin chef not make his own sauce for salads, but use industrial products like those in supermarkets?
It's just that he was carrying Xu Hongdou on his back and the other party didn't see it.
"If you really want to help, why don't you help me peel the garlic?" After adjusting his mentality, Zhang Wentao regained the expression on his face, responded, turned around and returned to the dining table with eggs and drained onions.
In fact, it is not troublesome to make various sauces that accompany Western food.
The Caesar salad dressing he is making now is nothing more than adding some other ingredients to the mayonnaise according to the recipe to enrich the taste.
Making mayonnaise is also very simple.
Just take out the yolks of the raw eggs and put them in a basin, add lemon juice, white vinegar, salt, mustard, then mix in the oil and keep stirring until you have the desired consistency.
It's just that it seems strange to people who are not familiar with the principle of making mayonnaise and can't understand how liquid turns into solid.
To put it bluntly, it is oil in water.
Soon, after making the mayonnaise, add the other ingredients prepared before, then chop the hard-boiled eggs into pieces, add a little black pepper according to personal habits, stir evenly, and you have the best Caesar salad.
The indispensable Caesar salad dressing (it feels like bullshit, haha).
Make the salad dressing and put it in the refrigerator.
Zhang Wentao tidied up the tabletop, chopping board, and knives, preparing to prepare two more time-consuming dishes.
"I've peeled the garlic you asked for. Can you see if it's enough?" Xu Hongdou saw Zhang Wentao return to the kitchen. He was a little embarrassed and wanted to help him, but he didn't know where to start.
But stay in the kitchen and just stand there in a daze after peeling the garlic.
It wasn't that she was lazy, or that her cooking skills were so poor that she couldn't even chop vegetables, but that she had no idea what Zhang Wentao was going to do next from start to finish.
Zhang Wentao also did not communicate.
"Well. You can go and do your work. I'll be here by myself."
The joy of making delicious food lies in being fully committed and allocating the time to process each ingredient according to a certain order. It is like a well-planned trip, which makes the cook happy.
Zhang Wentao also felt uncomfortable having such a helpless person next to him who was taking up space.
"Okay, I won't cause any trouble for you." Xu Hongdou said as he rinsed the smell of garlic on his hands in the sink, shook it off and put it under his nose to ask.
The slightly wrinkled nose showed that the cold water had not washed away the pungent smell of garlic.
This detail was caught by Zhang Wentao. He picked up a used half lemon, handed it to Xu Hongdou and said:
"Here, just squeeze the lemon with your hands and rinse it again."
"Ah, no need...well, thank you."
Xu Hongdou was about to refuse, but the scene in front of her made her unable to help but take over. After washing her hands with lemon and smelling them again, it turned out that the lingering smell of garlic was no longer on her hands.
It was true to listen to the chef.
"Thank you, I'll go and get busy first. By the way, what time do you have an appointment here?" Xu Hongdou smiled and said hello to Zhang Wentao, preparing to leave the kitchen.
"About 9 o'clock. It's more troublesome to cook. If you're really hungry, you can go eat something first."
"Okay, then come on."
After finishing his words, Xu Hongdou, who walked out of the restaurant, stretched himself under the half-setting sun and walked out of the small courtyard.
She was going to go find Nana and buy some drinks for the evening.
…
Under the setting sun, the paths leading to green rice fields were filled with returning villagers. Some were migrant workers who had finished their day's work, and some were parents leading their children who had just returned from school.
Xu Hongdou took small steps and happily shuttled among the returning people. Listening to the laughter in his ears, he recalled the scene in the kitchen just now.
It seems, in my impression, a long time ago.
In BJ, when I was in the hospital, someone once handed me half a pack of tissues. The two people's faces, contours and bodies were very similar.
The picture that came to mind made Xu Hongdou stunned for a moment.
More than ten minutes ago, Zhang Wentao's figure in the kitchen slowly overlapped with the figure that appeared in his mind... It turned out that it was him! It turned out that I had really seen him! No wonder he would talk about it for a long time when he saw her for the first time.
not see.
But why does he appear here?!
Unexpectedly, he turned out to be a chef. What a coincidence. The change was quite big.
So is he unemployed? Or resigned? Or did he come here just to fall in love?
Xu Hongdou, who remembered who Zhang Wentao was, walked to the Youfeng Restaurant where Nana worked with a question mark on her forehead.