Chapter 97 (1/2)

Chapter 97: Phoenix-Tail Prawns and Clear Broth Noodle Soup

“Ke Ke”

A clear and melodious sound

Instantly, the liquid of egg white was scattered evenly on each prawn without any splashing onto the tails. The yolk was nevertheless left pristine in the bowl, intact.

Although astonishing, this skill was still reasonable. After all, they had seen Yuan Zhou knock eggs with one hand for quite some time now. Such skill in tossing the egg white evenly with the strength of his wrist, however, was only just now seen for the very first time.

“Dong Dong”, Yuan Zhou turned around, stepped backward, and then opened the pot filled with sea salt with one hand while scooping up half a spoon with the other and then sprinkling the sea salt evenly on the prawn tails.

It required several minutes to pickle the prawn tails. During this gap, Yuan Zhou began to take out the side dishes for preliminary processing.

The side dish of Phoenix-Tail Prawns was peas, of which the first fresh harvest was used. The instructions: Peel off the peapod and take out the peas carefully without scratching their skin; after the peas are washed and dried, prepare a pot of clear water and pour them into the boiling water; after slight stirring, scoop them up quickly and put into the icy snow lotus-water.

Provided by the system, the snow lotus water was taken from the first snow on the snow lotus. It was completely pure and free from pollution, with a spark of the cold scent of snow lotus. When the snow melted into water and was left there until it was no longer so cold, it couldn’t be any better to soak the peas in.

The several minutes during which the peas were processed were just suitable to pickle the river prawns with.

Yuan Zhou took out a small pan and put it on the stove. When it was heated until it was slight smoking, he immediately poured some fat into the pan.

Upon touching the pan, the fat emitted a delicious fragrance, which smelled unlike the taste of any normal cooking oil. Without any underlying offensive smells, its scent was almost bland.

“Boss Yuan, your range hood is pretty nice. Instead of any greasy flavor, there’s even some rich fragrance.” watching Yuan Zhou heating the edible oil, Wu Zhou heaved a sigh with emotion.

“It’s not the range hood that is good. It’s the cooking oil.” Wu Hai said contemptuously.

“It doesn’t make any difference.” Wu Zhou didn’t believe he was wrong at all. After all, there wasn’t any oily smell. Rather it should be that he had never smelt the scent of oil fumes at this restaurant before.

Having checked that the oil temperature was more or less good, Yuan Zhou picked up a prawn at once and covered the body with a thin layer of white starch. He then began to pour it into the heated oil in the pan.

Every fried prawn was in a half-moon-shape with the tail tilting upward. Placed on the plate like that, they were already partially resembling a phoenix tail. For the used heating oil, Yuan Zhou simply poured it into the rubbish bin after a single fry.

Afterwards, he changed to another wok and poured a little more cooking oil into it, letting it heat up. Then, he continued pouring the washed peas inside and stir-fried them for a little while before pouring another half a bowl of broth, several pieces of rock salt, a little rice wine and some sauces into the wok.

When the broth changed to a milky white color, he immediately tossed the river prawns in the wok to stir-fry.

“Hua Hua”

While stir-frying with one hand, he picked up a small bottle and scattered some clear oil evenly onto the prawns with the other. The time of stir-frying was quite short. Just in a little moment, Yuan Zhou scooped up the prawns into two white plates separately. Naturally, even scooping dishes up required skill.

Yuan Zhou nevertheless did it well. Leaving aside that 8 prawns were evenly on each plate, the prawn tails were placed in a circle neatly with the center left empty. Yuan Zhou took out a length of brown, one-finger-thickness and trunk-looking stuff and put it upright at the center of the plate.

Having picked up a lavender radish, he began to sculpt a flower. With radish chips periodically fluttering into the water sink below, exquisite phoenix tree flowers came into being in Yuan Zhou’s hands.

In a blink of an eye, Yuan Zhou decorated the phoenix tree flowers onto the trunk. Matched with several verdant vegetable leaves, it was like a blossoming phoenix willow tree. Circles of white prawns and red tails were laid out in the plate with a vivid phoenix tree in the center.

With the flames curling up, the dish appeared like a burning flame, as if a phoenix were resting in the phoenix tree and reborn in the fire.

“Phoenix-Tail Prawns, for you two gentlemen.” Yuan Zhou carried the dishes out and handed them to Wu Hai and Zhao Yingjun.