Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle-Chapter 4 Procurement

This chapt𝒆r is updated by frёewebηovel.cѳm.

After lunch, Chen Huihong took Chen Huixi home to rest. Zhao Rong felt that the house wasn't cleaned properly and guests would come over in the evening, so she dragged Qin Congwen back for a second round of cleaning. Qin Huai and Qin Luo went to the supermarket on the basement floor of the mall to buy ingredients, and Ouyang, who still had over an hour before work, went along to buy groceries too.

The supermarket on the basement floor was an immense hypermarket. The fresh produce section was as bountiful as a farmers' market. Of course, the prices were equally bountiful, directly confusing Qin Luo, who typically didn't shop for groceries and was unaware of market prices.

"Lychees... 128 per box? There's... 1, 2, 3... 9 pieces in a box. Brother, this supermarket is selling lychees at 14 yuan each!" Qin Luo was shocked.

Qin Huai didn't buy lychees and he didn't look at them, choosing spinach in the vegetable section not far away. To be honest, though the supermarket was expensive, their quality control was good. Even at noon, you could pick out fresh, plump spinach, much better than the assortment of overnight rotten vegetables the vendors would randomly hand you after 8 a.m. at the market behind their neighborhood.

But the market vegetables are cheap and you can bargain, so each has its pros and cons.

"Brother, a 14 yuan lychee—what kind of taste must that be!" Qin Luo was still staring at the lychees.

"You don't get it. These are the same type of lychees that Yang Guifei ate back then; of course, they're expensive! With celebrity endorsement, they taste just like the 8 yuan per kilo lychees at home," said Qin Huai.

Qin Luo suddenly understood and continued to stare at the lychees.

Standing between Qin Huai and Qin Luo, Ouyang, who didn't know how to choose vegetables but liked to join the fun, was speechless: ...

Seriously, Luoluo trusted her brother so much? The lychee's type was clearly Hang Lv, and the label clearly stated it was 128 a box on special offer, and she couldn't see those big 'promotion' words?

Of course, Ouyang chose not to say anything, because after all, he still wanted to eat Crab Shell Cake in the future.

He just searched online a moment ago. Crab Shell Cake comes with savory fillings like scallion oil, fresh meat, crab roe, and shrimp, and sweet ones like sugar, rose, red bean paste, and jujube paste. It's a baked flaky pastry.

The pictures showed them golden and crispy, sprinkled with white sesame seeds.

If freshly baked and taken a bite while still warm...

Slurp!

The taste, it's unimaginable!

Ouyang clutched the live shrimp he had just selected tightly.

All these shrimp were individually selected by him, large and lively, clearly fresh, and most importantly, they were the most expensive among the four or five types of shrimp at the seafood section, ensuring the Crab Shell Cake made from them would surely be delicious!

Qin Huai, being so smart, would surely understand his hint!

"Qin Huai, Luoluo really listens to you, she believes anything you say," Ouyang could only walk to Qin Huai's side and silently lament.

Hearing this, Qin Huai stuffed the selected spinach into a bag and nodded in agreement, "That's right."

With so many adults brainwashing Qin Luo at home over the years, it's impossible for nothing to come of it.

Speaking of brainwashing, even Qin Huai himself sometimes found it ridiculous.

Not only did Qin Congwen have no children for many years, but his sister Qin Xiuli also struggled to have kids after being married for years. With both siblings encountering this situation, outsiders inevitably speculated if they carried some illness. Even Granny Qin herself suspected that perhaps she had harmed her body by working too hard when she was young, causing her children's poor health and inadvertently harming them, resulting in years of inner struggle and guilt.

She couldn't lift her head outside.

Then, less than half a year after Qin Congwen adopted Qin Huai, Zhao Rong got pregnant.

Before Qin Luo was born, Qin Xiuli also got pregnant.

That year, Old Mrs. Qin wished she could use a loudspeaker to shout from one end of the village to the other every morning, venting the grievances she'd suffered for over a decade.

According to the Qin Family's hometown saying, when a childless couple adopts a child and then suddenly conceives, it means the adopted child brought about the siblings, and the child is a blessing from the adopted child. Mr. Qin firmly believed this, and even spent a considerable sum of 5 yuan to hire a fortune teller to predict.

In exchange for 5 yuan and a meal, the fortune teller predicted Qin Huai would have a sister and a brother in his fate.

Two months later, Qin Luo was born.

A few months later, Qin Huai and Qin Luo's cousin He Cheng was born.

Since then, Qin Huai made a name for himself, becoming known locally as the miracle worker for infertility treatment.

Later, when Qin Xiuli wanted another daughter, she tried to find that fortune teller from back then to see if Qin Huai had a cousin in his fate. Without success, she could only look at her unfortunate son, who had failed math since childhood, and sigh.

When Qin Huai was in high school, he seriously thought about whether his never-activated system was some miracle fertility system, even hesitating over whether to sacrifice his hair and study medicine when applying for college.

In the end, he didn't get in due to insufficient scores.

Thinking of this, Qin Huai felt a little disappointed.

A medical system sounded much more prestigious than a culinary system.

If he abandoned science for medicine and became a legendary figure, it might have been a celebrated story locally after a hundred years.

"Sigh," Qin Huai sighed.

Ouyang grew tense, thinking Qin Huai was sighing while eyeing the shrimp in his hand, and quickly asked, "Did I pick the wrong shrimp?"

"Could it be that this shrimp can only be used for stir-fry, not for pastry fillings? Qin Huai, let me ask you, what shrimp is generally used for fresh shrimp filling in Crab Shell Cake? My mom is planning to learn recently."

Ouyang felt his hint was quite overt.

"Shrimp? Isn't Crab Shell Cake filled with meat? Fresh shrimp... I don't know." Qin Huai looked at the shrimp in Ouyang's hand, "Ouyang, did you buy these shrimp for your mom? They look good. I'll get some in a bit for shrimp wontons tonight."

"Could you hold my spinach for a moment? I'm going to pick some pork now." With that, Qin Huai rushed to the fresh meat section, leaving Ouyang frantically searching on his phone about whether Crab Shell Cake even has fresh shrimp filling.

He had hinted so blatantly, yet Qin Huai hadn't caught on at all!

"Brother Ouyang, my brother doesn't know how to make fresh shrimp filling for Crab Shell Cake." Having finished looking at the lychees and thinking Ouyang's hint skills were so poor that it'd be better not to hint at all, Qin Luo walked over to Ouyang, "If you want to eat, you'll have to tell him directly, and he'll go online to find a recipe to learn."

"Go online for recipes?"

"Yeah." Qin Luo nodded habitually, "That's how it's always been. If I want to eat some snack, I just tell my brother. He either flips through the family recipe book or finds something online, and after practicing for a while, he learns it."

Ouyang was bewildered, "Shouldn't these kinds of things be taught by a master personally?"

"All those are secret recipes, family inheritance, school traditions—novels always write them like that. Are online recipes reliable?"

Qin Luo wasn't sure how to answer, so he could only say, "My brother says...some are reliable, some aren't quite right, but if they're not right, he just tweaks them."

"My dad said the skill of making buns is inherent. He's been selling buns for twenty or thirty years, and they don't taste as good as when my brother helped make them at home in middle school."

"Maybe it's because my brother practiced a lot at the orphanage, laying a solid foundation. My brother says he's been making buns alone since fourth grade."

Ouyang was even more stunned. He always thought Qin Huai had inherited family skills, and their bun shop was a legendary hidden expert sect, thinking Qin Congwen was the 13th generation successor of some bun tradition.

He'd been looking forward to it for a long time, pondering since Qin Congwen arrived how to ask Uncle to show off his skills to everyone.

It turned out Qin Luo was telling him that Qin Huai was completely self-taught.

"When my brother was in high school, his grades were average and only slightly better than mine... just a little bit. At that time, Third Aunt and Big Uncle both advised my parents to send my brother to another place to learn a craft. It seemed there was some residence in Hangzhou where the master accepted apprentices; Big Uncle could pull some strings and get him in. Once he learned and returned, the bun shop could perhaps be turned into a snack shop."

"But in the end, he didn't go."

As they spoke, Qin Huai returned with the meat and shrimp, left hand with pork hocks and live shrimp, right hand with pork belly and triple-layer meat, and a small bag of fat hanging from his pinky.

"Wow, bought so much," Ouyang exclaimed.

"For minced meat," Qin Huai explained, raising his left hand, "The most important thing for Four Happiness Dumplings is minced meat."

Seeing Ouyang seemed not to understand, Qin Huai gave a more detailed explanation: "Generally, dumpling fillings use pork hock, while bun fillings use pork belly. Pork hock is firm and has less tendon, making it taste better."

"But Luoluo has a peculiar taste. This girl likes tender and slightly fatty meat fillings so much that when she bites into them, juice oozes out."

"If it weren't unappetizing, she'd pack bun stuffing into dumplings."

"So today, I'm planning to make two kinds of dumpling fillings: one purely with pork hock, and another with triple-layer and pork belly, with a bit of extra fat. If you can't handle the taste, you can have the first kind, and I'll steam the two separately later."

Ouyang was left dumbfounded.

Though he didn't understand much, it all sounded delicious.

After much thought, Ouyang gritted his teeth, stomped his foot, looked at Qin Huai with a determined face, and said, "Brother!"

"Brother Huai, you're my brother; I want to eat Crab Shell Cake with fresh shrimp filling!"

Qin Huai: ...

"Get lost!"