The Game of Life-Chapter 712 - 711 Taishi Snake Soup

Chapter 712 -711 Taishi Snake Soup

The tasting was scheduled for ten o’clock, and not many people arrived; the kitchen wouldn’t be able to accommodate everyone if it were crowded. In the hall, only Fan Mei arrived; apart from the two seniors, only Jiang Feng, Zhang Guanghang, Wu Minqi, and Master Wang were present. The rest stayed home enjoying the rare holiday.

Sun Maochai, Sun Jikai, and Qiu Fu were all authentic Cantonese chefs. Cantonese cuisine requires a wide range of ingredients, with a variety of types including creatures from the sky, land, and water — as long as it could be served on a table, it could be added to the menu. To allow Sun Maochai to perform at his best, the Jiang Family had specially contacted suppliers in advance to deliver goods early this morning, the wider the variety, the better.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the current Taifeng Building’s kitchen had become a comprehensive exhibition and sale of agricultural and aquacultural products, even including live snakes, contained within snake cages.

As Jiang Feng watched the snakes in the cage from a distance, pondering whether they were venomous or not, Sun Maochai went straight to the snake cages, took both of them, and with one knife per snake, swiftly and cleanly decapitated them — it was clear he was a skilled hand.

Jiang Feng couldn’t help but salivate a little.

He had eaten snake meat before, but only as a child. Back then, Sir’s village still had professional snake catchers who dared to catch any kind of snake, and occasionally, Mrs. Jiang would buy one or two non-venomous grass snakes for Sir to make into snake soup. Later, as the snake catchers gradually disappeared and Mrs. Jiang became less inclined to seek out other places to buy snakes, Jiang Feng never had snake meat again.

In Beiping, there were restaurants that sold snake meat dishes, but not many, and hardly any that did it well. Eight-treasure House sold snake soup, which was expensive and tasted mediocre, similar to any generic meat soup yet costing many times more, failing to convey the true delicacy or even taste of snake meat. A bowl of snake soup came with just a few visible strands of snake meat, a dish one would certainly not want to try a second time, truly a ‘stupid tax’.

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“Zhang, can you tell what dish Master Sun is trying to make?” Jiang Feng asked.

“Taishi Snake Soup,” Zhang Guanghang replied.

“I’m familiar with that dish. Didn’t Master Sun win a gold medal with it at a culinary exchange a few years back? I’ve read related reports,” Wu Minqi said.

Since it was a gold medal-winning dish, it naturally had the prestige of one. Watching from a distance, Jiang Feng saw Sun Maochai working swiftly, without any hesitation. After slaughtering the snakes, he didn’t proceed with cleaning them; instead, he directly threw them into a pot of boiling water to cook for a while, then deboned and sliced them into thin stripes, separating the snake meat into plates.

As Sun Maochai worked, Zhang Guanghang explained to Jiang Feng.

“Although Taishi Snake Soup has won an award, due to its complex process, Master Sun rarely makes it, and it doesn’t have much fame. This dish requires five kinds of snakes: Golden Ring Snake, Silver Ring Snake, Cobra, Water Rhythm Snake, and Brocade Snake. Cobras have a large range of motion; their meat is firm and sweet, suitable for soup. The meat of Water Rhythm Snakes is similar to that of cobras but with less freshness and sweetness, more suitable for stewing than soup making. I’m not quite sure about the specific preparation of Taishi Snake Soup, but I know it involves simmering the meats of snakes other than the Water Rhythm Snake with broth and various ingredients, and then at the end, thickening the soup with Water Rhythm Snake fillet and garnishing with chrysanthemum and lemon leaf strips.”

Jiang Feng could only silently admire that this was what true snake soup was like, not the fake one from Eight-treasure House which merely added a few strands of snake meat to a common meat soup.

Sun Maochai’s method of making snake soup was as Zhang described. Since Jiang Feng was at a distance and couldn’t see the detailed steps clearly, he could only watch as Sun Maochai kept processing various ingredients. There were abalones, fish maws, black fungus, Shiitake mushrooms, winter bamboo shoots, ginger, and more, each treated differently. Even the cuts for abalone and fish maw were not the same. The broth was ready-made; Jiang Feng merely saw Sun Maochai continuously adding ingredients to the pot for stewing, then removing them after a while, only to stew them again, even frying the crispy garnishes fresh — it was quite complicated, no wonder Sun Maochai was reluctant to make it.

This single dish took Sun Maochai nearly five hours to complete.

Both Sun Jikai and Qiu Fu had finished their taste tests. Sun Jikai’s Wenchang chicken didn’t quite hit the mark, nor was it exceptionally good. In the past six months, he had encountered many troubles that some might not see in a lifetime; except for the few months while Guanyun was still alive, during which Sun Jikai could focus on cooking, he rarely even entered the kitchen. The fact that his culinary skills hadn’t regressed and had even made a negligible amount of progress could already be considered not bad.

Qiu Fu’s three dishes, however, received unanimous praise from everyone. He was Guanyun’s leading disciple, with decent talent, honest effort, and solid basic skills. If he were good at marketing himself and willing to spend more time networking and participating in competitions, he might already be recognized as a master by now.

Qiu Fu’s three dishes were the steamed bass that Jiang Feng had previously eaten at Jubao Building, the lobster with broth which he hadn’t tried, and egg-flower shrimp. The steamed bass was as fresh and distinctive as ever, while the lobster with broth tasted a bit odd because Taifeng’s soup base wasn’t quite suitable for the dish. Qiu Fu mentioned that if the dish were to be added to the menu, he would make time every day specifically to prepare the broth as he used to do back at Jubao Building.

Sun Maochai was still making snake soup, now at the final stages of completion.

After the lengthy simmering, the snake fillets in the pot had integrated with the broth, turning it an appealing orange-yellow. The rest of the ingredients, cut into small pieces, had been stewed to the point where it was hard to tell one from another. The last addition, the distinct threads of Water Rhythm Snake, stood out clearly, like objects in a painting, meticulously outlined by an artist with a fine brush.

It’s about to come out of the pot.

Sun Maochai used the clear soup left over from stewing earlier to lightly thicken the snake soup, adding a sense of heaviness that made it look more like a painting. The soup was ladled into bowls, sprinkled with crispy fried bits just out of the oil, shredded white chrysanthemum petals, and finely sliced lemon leaves. With that, the Taishi Snake Soup was complete.

This wasn’t just food; it was a painting. A monochromatic ink painting, full of artistic conception.

Everyone couldn’t help but gather around.

“Try it while it’s hot,” Sun Maochai stepped back.

Each person took a small bowl and a small spoon, scooping as much as they wanted for themselves. The surface of the Taishi Snake Soup appeared to have only broth and shredded snake meat, but the ingredients were all settled at the bottom—a casual scoop could come up filled with toppings.

Orange peel, sugar cane, shredded chicken that had fallen apart during cooking, finely sliced wood ear mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, and winter bamboo shoots, topped with the freshly added green lemon leaf threads, and of course, the most abundant ingredient was the Water Rhythm Snake Fillet.

A spoonful filled with ingredients, the pieces were still oozing with an orange-yellow sugar coating. Jiang Feng didn’t hesitate and took a mouthful.

Delicious!

The beauty of snake meat lies in its delicacy and tenderness, and this snake soup, infused with the flavor of snake meat even in the broth, was exceptionally delicious. Unlike the exquisite freshness of the chicken tofu soup, the savoriness of this snake meat came primarily from the meat itself, with a small part provided by seafood like abalone. The deliciousness was tinged with a hint of the unique sweetness of snake meat and left a faintly refreshing aftertaste.

It truly lived up to the expectation of a gold-award-winning dish that took five hours to prepare. The taste of the snake soup was worth the time invested.

“A couple of days ago, Jiang told me about the Midsummer Feast, and I was pondering which dish to change. Since the banquet already featured major dishes like Dezhou Braised Chicken and Steamed Green Eel, as well as top-tier clear soup dishes like Chicken Tofu Soup, it would be redundant for me to make something similar. A feast should value quality over quantity, and tasting a little of everything is more memorable than gorging on a lot of food. Given that it’s a Midsummer Feast, what could be better than a bowl of snake soup to cool the body and detoxify?” Sun Maochai explained.

Fan Mei remembered his words, thought for a moment, and said, “In that case, the Midsummer Feast now has five dishes lined up, plus one staple, two vegetarian dishes, and one or two cold dishes should suffice.”

Jiang Weiming nodded, “That should do it, one cold dish is enough, and I’ll take care of that.”

“How about I make Ding Lake Superior Vegetarian dish for the vegetarian option?” Sun Maochai suggested, “I can handle two dishes with no problem.”

“I can take care of the other vegetarian dish,” Qiu Fu spoke up eagerly, feeling he should contribute something.

In the span of a few words, the menu for the Midsummer Feast was taking shape.

“Excuse me, may I trouble everyone a moment longer?” Zhang Guanghang suddenly spoke up, his words exceedingly polite.

All eyes turned towards him.

The kitchen lights illuminated his face, accentuating the bridge of his nose and giving his features an even more three-dimensional appearance, as though he were the leading man making a grand entrance at the end of a play.

“I have a new dish I’d like everyone to help me taste,” he said.

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