The girl clasped her hands in front of her chest, her eyes filled with little hearts.

Her boyfriend, instead of being jealous, started to ponder whether he should also hone his cooking skills.

People are clearly about the same age as him, yet they are so impressive in the kitchen!

Lin Chen glanced at the workbench, quickly organizing the current situation in his mind.

The lamb chops need another four minutes, the side dishes are prepared, the butter garlic shrimp is nearly ready, just waiting for the roasted garlic to finish.

Indu butter chicken is marinating, needing at least another ten minutes, and ideally a bit longer if possible.

What to do during this gap?

Korean cuisine? Japanese cuisine? Thai cuisine? Or maybe some Old Mo tacos?

After considering, tacos seemed to better match the requirements for a beautiful meal; Japanese and Korean cuisine are abundant domestically, so whether to make them or not doesn’t matter much.

Take three Roma tomatoes, cut them in half, remove the stem part, then scoop out the middle core, and chop the remaining tomato meat into soybean-sized dices.

Next, take a yellow onion, using only half the amount as the tomatoes, similarly dice it to mix in, then finely cut a handful of parsley and mix it evenly with lemon juice, sea salt, and crushed black pepper to form the simplest tomato salsa.

This alone isn’t enough; the avocado sauce is the soul.

The avocado must be ripe, feeling obviously soft when squeezed, indicating perfect texture.

Cut off the slender fruit stem part, use the knife tip to slice horizontally from the middle, following the direction of the avocado until the blade touches the pit.

Turn the avocado with the left hand while holding the knife steady with the right; moving the knife too much risks cutting your hand.

The ripe avocado easily rotates half a circle on the blade, then the blade is removed, and both halves are held and twisted to obtain complete avocado halves.

There’s a trick to removing the avocado pit because it is hard and smooth, so a spoon or similar won’t work if maintaining the avocado’s shape.

Although making avocado mash doesn’t require maintaining the avocado meat shape, he’s accustomed to the fast pit removal method: simply chop with the kitchen knife, creating a crack in the pit with ease.

With a gentle twist of the knife blade, the pit is easily removed.

Then grab any metal spoon and scoop out the avocado meat from the skin seam.

Similarly, add a bit of lemon juice, sea salt, and crushed black pepper for flavor, using a specialized tool to mash the avocado into a paste, making the basic avocado sauce.

On this basis, you can add different seasonings or side dishes based on your taste to create varied avocado pastes for pairing with different flavored foods.

In tacos, it doesn’t need to be too complex because tacos themselves combine many ingredients, inherently having composite flavors; the basic version suffices.

However, the proportion of lemon juice in the avocado sauce is crucial.

Avocado itself has a soft and smooth texture with unique fruit aroma, and the lemon juice serves to prevent oxidation and blackening while neutralizing the avocado’s own richness.

If too little is added, the antioxidant effect is weak, causing blackening in minutes which affects appearance.

If too much is added, it overwhelms the avocado’s aroma, leaving only lemon sourness when eaten, losing its value.

Cooking Western cuisine is similar to cooking Chinese: a restaurant capable of preparing basic dishes well won’t make complex ones taste bad.

If a small diner can’t even fry rice properly, you can’t expect much from their other dishes.

The same is true for Western cuisine; preparing basic sauces and side dishes is key.

Once both sauces are ready, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate to rest, allowing the lemon juice and ingredients to undergo subtle chemical reactions.

During the waiting time, you need to prepare meat suitable for taco filling.

Old Mo’s taste is mainly grilled meat, with heavy smoked flavor followed by various spices.

Typically, taco meat is either stir-fried mince or stewed pulled meat; definitely not hard, dry meat—it must be juicy.

Remaining on hand are some trim scrap meats from the lamb rib and still plenty of beef filet.

Lin Chen thought, to create visually striking tacos, stir-fried beef cubes should be a great choice.

But using beef filet, the tenderest part, for stir-fried beef cubes requires slightly more complex cooking techniques. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Filet is the most tender cut of beef, with almost no fat, all lean meat, hence most Western restaurants advise against cooking it well-done as it hardens the texture and dries out, affecting taste.

If you want to make fried beef cubes, you can’t start by cutting the filet mignon into small pieces, as that size will cook through instantly when placed in the pan, leaving no room for manipulation.

The best approach is to first cut a section of filet mignon, pan-frying the whole piece until all six sides are golden brown, then dice it into several large chunks to continue frying, and repeat the above steps until finally cutting into the required size.

As the meat chunks become smaller, the frying time should be shortened accordingly; the later stages test the chef’s ability to control the heat and the doneness of the steak.

This method is commonly seen in teppanyaki, as it conveniently controls the size and doneness; each time you cut is akin to checking the steak’s doneness.

While frying the beef, Lin Chen took two corn tortillas, directly placing them on the griddle to absorb the butter’s meaty aroma.

The tortillas don’t need to be pan-fried for long; once the surface shows slight spots of browning, they can be removed from the pan and tucked into taco-specific molds, creating a semi-folded shape.

The corn tortillas used for tacos have a special texture - they’re hard when cold but soften once heated, so they must first be fried to be shaped in the mold.

Once the tortilla cools down, it solidifies in a semi-folded state, and won’t deform even when taken out.

"Ding——"

The oven chimed again.

Lin Chen hurriedly removed the baking tray and garlic, then transferred the beef chunks from the griddle to the side.

The freshly baked herb lamb chops still retained their tender green color, exuding an aromatic fragrance.

The Western-style knife rubbed against the honing rod a few quick times, emitting a ’sszzz’ sound.

With swift precision, he sliced down between the two ribs to separate the lamb chops.

To ensure an elegant presentation, the ends of the lamb chops are to be trimmed off, retaining only the middle section.

Though it seems simple, slicing lamb chops is a technical job; even experienced chefs can occasionally err, resulting in pieces too large or too small, which can’t plate well.

The small lamb chops shrink after baking, leaving little meat; the blade must be sharp enough to slice off a thin layer in one go, avoiding multiple cuts.

The sliced meat shouldn’t be too thick or too thin.

Too thick will make the remaining lamb chops uneven, affecting aesthetics and serving.

If too thin, the cross-section color won’t be vibrant enough, diminishing visual appeal, requiring further cutting.

The contrast between a cross-section cut with two slices versus one is noticeable; one can see the knife marks.

To the pair of young novices, it may seem like Lin Chen merely sliced off two pieces of meat, but to an insider like Jonathan, Lin Chen’s culinary skills are unmistakable.

Though capable himself, Jonathan can’t guarantee a 100% success rate, allowing for a couple of mistakes in ten attempts, which is considered normal.

But Lin Chen, showing no hesitation before cutting, confidently slices and presents an impeccable cross-section, revealing his absolute confidence in his knife skills and judgment.

Such precision can be deemed equivalent to a human cutting machine.

Jonathan didn’t know, but Western and Chinese cuisines have significant barriers in the perception of knife skills.

What is basic in Chinese cooking might be considered exceptional in Western cuisine, and many cutting techniques do not exist in Western cooking.

Though Lin Chen hasn’t undergone systematic training in Chinese cooking, he has spent five years tinkering with homemade Chinese dishes whenever he has time, mastering various cutting techniques.

With improved physical condition during the time spent at the food stall, he can accurately control every detail, significantly enhancing his cutting precision.

Cutting a few lamb chops? He truly doesn’t take it to heart.

Chinese cuisine demands such knife skills as slicing potatoes thin enough to thread a needle, and dicing tofu so finely it blooms; what’s cutting a lamb chop? It’s nothing but a spontaneous act.

The previously seared crispy potatoes were placed aside on the plate, three small lamb chops stacked at an angle, then he swiftly sliced some thin tomato slices into a floral pattern, adorned with some greenery.

With Dais assisting in serving the dishes, Lin Chen immediately began assembling the tacos.

A thin layer of shredded lettuce was first laid in the corn tortilla, then chilled avocado paste and tomato salsa, followed by crushed corn chips.

The filet mignon cubes were reheated with a quick stir-fry over high heat and spread over the corn chip debris, drizzled with sweet vinegar sauce, yogurt, and yellow mustard, topped finally with a sprinkle of red onion shreds.

A genuine street taco appears messy and disorganized; the more careless the presentation, the more stunning the flavor.

The beef tenderloin taco he prepared seen no plating—simply multis layers of ingredients stacked, creating visual tension wrapped in the yellow corn tortilla, displaying clearly defined layers.

After finishing the taco, there was no rest time; a large chunk of butter was thrown into the pot for heating and melting, while the garlic wrapped in foil was retrieved, and the softened cloves were gently squeezed with the knife’s flat side, akin to squeezing toothpaste, releasing a rich garlic aroma.