After a good night's sleep, Xue Xi yawned, washed up, rolled up her sleeves, and headed to the kitchen as usual to practice her basic skills. Her small body packed enormous strength. She tossed the ladle and flipped the wok, stir-frying vegetables and cooking meat, her movements growing ever more practiced. She was beginning to look like a master chef.
As she simmered the toppings for Cat Ear Noodles, Xue Xi decided to test the power of Myriad Manifestation Water. She touched the space between her eyebrows with her left hand, and a three-dimensional map of Earth's waterways appeared in her mind. She selected a spot on the Yellow River in Jin Northwest, then brushed her right hand over the faucet. A faint gray film appeared over the outlet.
When she turned on the faucet, the water changed from the gentle, soft water of Jiangnan Base City to water imbued with the bold spirit of the northwest. They said that the land shaped its people, and Myriad Manifestation Water was truly powerful.
Afterward, Xue Xi used that water to knead the dough and cook the noodles. Sure enough, the Cat Ear Noodles had risen a tier on the evaluation page. Their Hong Rank modified effect gave a tenfold boost to comprehension of movement techniques. Learning about it made her feel that 100,000 yuan was nowhere near enough for food of this level.
Thinking about how she would have more and more dishes in the future, Xue Xi decided to list clear prices for food of different tiers on the menu. If she wanted to improve the food's grade, she would need high-quality Monster ingredients, and those cost real money. She hadn't earned much yet; how could she afford to take a loss?
As the saying went, the wool came from the sheep. She wasn't running a charity, after all. And compared to the benefits brought by the food's modified effects, this amount of money was an absolute bargain.
She took the simple menu off the wall and wiped away the old writing. After taking out a marker and thinking it over, she carefully began to write.
[Cat Ear Noodles]: Accelerates the cultivation and comprehension of movement techniques. 1x price: 100,000; 10x price: 1,000,000. (One bowl lasts one month.)
[Crab Roe Soup Dumpling]: Increases the speed of Origin Force cultivation. 10x: 1,000,000; 100x: Not yet available—stay tuned! (One dumpling lasts one week.)
Note: Our shop promises delicious food, outstanding effects, and fair prices. Please enjoy your meal with confidence!
She clapped her hands, hung the new menu on the conspicuous wall behind the cash register, and admired her handiwork with satisfaction. Then she turned back to the kitchen and began preparing Crab Roe Soup Dumplings with the few ingredients she had left.
The filling for the dumplings consisted of crab roe, crab meat, minced pork skin aspic, and other ingredients. The soup was plain chicken broth, and the wrappers were made from high-gluten flour. For now, she could prepare the pork aspic and the dough, getting two things done at once.
Making Crab Roe Soup Dumplings involved three steps in all: first, slowly rendering crab oil; second, making pork skin aspic with chicken broth; and third, shaping the high-gluten dough. After that, they could go into the steamer.
Since she didn't have the ingredients for the first step, Xue Xi set it aside and went straight to the second.
She took the pork out of the fridge and made a horizontal cut, separating the skin from the meat. Then she boiled the skin for a few minutes. Once it had softened, she scraped off the fat and cut the skin into strips.
She put the strips into a pot, covered them with water, and brought it to a boil. She repeated the blanching process three times to remove as much fat as possible. That way, the pork skin aspic wouldn't taste greasy.
She added hot water to a pot, put in the pork skin and a hen, then added scallions, ginger, seasonings, cooking wine, soy sauce, and salt. She brought it to a boil over high heat, then covered it and simmered it over low heat for two hours. After taking it out, she minced the pork skin in a meat grinder to make pork skin paste.
For the final step, she strained the chicken broth and poured it into a pot, then added the pork skin paste. She brought it to a boil over high heat, then simmered it over low heat for fifty minutes, skimming off the foam. After another fifteen minutes of simmering, Xue Xi added shrimp roe, soy sauce, salt, sugar, and Shaoxing wine in turn. Once the broth had thickened, she added chicken bouillon and white pepper, then sprinkled in chopped scallions. Two minutes later, she took the pot off the heat, strained the broth while it was still hot, and poured it onto a plate, stirring constantly. Once the broth had cooled and set, she broke it into pieces to make the aspic filling.
Next, she made the dough. She added salt to a bowl of water and stirred it to make a saltwater mixture. She placed the high-gluten flour on the work surface, gradually poured in the mixture, and kneaded it into a dough. She rolled it into a thick rope, covered it with a damp towel, and let it rest for twenty minutes.
She rolled the rested dough rope thinner, divided it into portions of about 25 grams each, and rolled each portion into a round wrapper about 16 centimeters across, slightly thicker in the middle and thinner around the edges. Once the crab arrived and she mixed the filling, they would be ready to wrap.
By the time she finished, it was a little after eight. Xue Xi opened the door, and the morning sunlight spilled into the restaurant, stretching the shadows of the tables and chairs at an angle.
She took a deep breath of fresh air. In the distance, a small team with bulging backpacks approached the restaurant, chatting and laughing. Xue Xi raised a hand and called out, "Hey, Li Guangming! Your team looks like you had a pretty good haul. Congratulations! Why not come in for a hot bowl of Cat Ear Noodles to warm your stomachs?"
Li Guangming's team was an elite War General squad from the Thunder Martial Arts Hall. He himself had been a High-Level War General for years and was only one step away from breaking through to War God. His strength was terrifying.
But ever since he had come here once, the restaurant...
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