The Cheat Emperor of the Culinary World-Chapter 49 - 48: Emergency Timed Mission
Gu Yunwu is the person in charge of the kitchen duty tonight.
After receiving the delivery order, he hurriedly contacted head chef Yao Shi and chef Zhao Meng immediately to explain the details of the delivery order carefully.
The customer is a live streaming celebrity.
She is currently recording a live streaming event with the theme of spreading warmth.
The customer requested a customized order of 80 seafood porridge sets.
In addition, she requested each seafood porridge set to include an extra fresh cream cupcake, with her online name: Nai Xiang Ke Ke, clearly written on the cake.
The delivery time is set for 10:30 PM, and the location is the central square where she is currently streaming.
Being the head chef, Yao Shi usually doesn’t need to work overtime.
He clocks in on time every day, takes a stroll through the kitchen.
Unless a customer specifically requests a dish prepared by him, he generally stays at his cooking station to develop new dishes or handle various work affairs.
As Fu Yu followed Zhao Meng and just arrived at the kitchen, he received a call from Yao Shi.
Yao Shi was dining out with friends and couldn’t leave for a while, leaving the delivery matter entirely to Zhao Meng and Gu Yunwu.
Gu Yunwu, already on the night shift, was too busy to make the delivery seafood porridge set.
So the task fell onto Zhao Meng’s shoulders.
Upon hearing the news, Zhao Meng muttered bitterly to himself, 80 seafood porridge sets!
Each seafood porridge is served with three side dishes.
Apart from the pickled ones, the side dishes in the restaurant are made fresh daily.
To ensure the taste, even the pickled side dishes are only stocked enough for the day’s selling, never stored.
seafood porridges!
freshly made side dishes! Three of each!!!
Zhao Meng quickly decided on the side dish recipes, and his mind buzzed!
It was the peak dining time with the most orders, Gu Yunwu was busy tossing the wok, and he only had time to remind, "Don’t forget to call Boss Pang for the cake order!"
Zhao Meng called the dessert shop owner they collaborated with and carefully explained the customer’s request.
Boss Pang was anxious upon hearing it: "80! I can’t make that many!"
Zhao Meng was also worried, "Find a way yourself, I’m in the same boat. The customer wants it delivered to the central square by 10:30 PM. You better bring the cakes there directly and assemble on-site, or there won’t be enough time."
For a while, the kitchen was in chaos.
Zhao Meng made a call to bring all the day-shift workers back to help in the kitchen.
Gu Yunwu was busy handling the restaurant’s orders and couldn’t worry about the delivery matter.
Zhao Meng could only lead his team to quickly prepare the dishes.
Inventory counts were done, and they contacted the procurement staff immediately to replenish any missing ingredients!
Organizing and packing dining ware!
Everyone was engrossed in the urgent cooking tasks.
The kitchen helpers were busy soaking sea cucumbers, cleaning live shrimps, squid, green fish, and crabs.
Zhao Meng seized the time to customize the accompanying side dishes.
In a regular seafood porridge set, the side dishes were lemon chicken feet, spicy pickled radish, and specially mixed beancurd strips.
Now, the lemon chicken feet and spicy pickled radish were insufficient, while the beancurd strips could be made fresh but had limited stock.
Zhao Meng quickly made a decision, "Pack the existing side dishes directly, and make other side dishes to supplement what’s lacking. Tentatively, we’ll make specially mixed enoki mushrooms, garlic seaweed strips, pickled vegetable stir-fried shredded pork, spicy shredded potatoes, and cucumber side dish."
"Sun Qingning, you guys handle the ingredients."
"Fu Yu, make the porridge, I’ll do the mixed side dishes."
No one objected to the division of labor,
Ever since Yao Shi put the official appointment matters on the agenda, as for the candidate list on Gu Yunwu’s side, no one knew the situation, but it was clear on Zhao Meng’s side it would definitely be Fu Yu.
After all, only Fu Yu usually had the privilege to handle the cooking, and Zhao Meng never hid his appreciation and nurturing of Fu Yu.
If other kitchen helpers initially had some competitive mindset, seeing the most competitive Sun Qingning obviously giving up, they suddenly lost any motivation.
After all, securing a permanent position looks at talent, interpersonal skills, and capability.
For those like them without the three, they could only endure for seniority.
After assigning tasks, Zhao Meng turned to remind Fu Yu, "The time is tight, work a bit quicker, do as much as you can. Once I’ve finished the side dishes, we’ll do the rest together."
Side dishes, unlike other dishes, need a marinating process to flavor and must be made in advance, otherwise, the taste would be affected.
Fu Yu was about to speak when a digital notification suddenly sounded in his ear:
[Ding! NPC Zhao Meng has issued an urgent limited-time task: Complete cooking 80 seafood porridges within two hours. Task completion reward: 200 RMB, 3 skill points, 100 task experience.]
[Accept task: Yes or No]
An urgent limited-time task?
What does it mean?
Is there a time limit?
Fu Yu chose to accept.
The next second, a notification sounded immediately in his ear:
[Ding! Urgent limited-time task activated, cook 80 seafood porridge for delivery, current completed count: 0, uncompleted count: 80, countdown 1 hour 59 minutes...]
Fu Yu took a deep breath.
No doubt an urgent task.
As soon as it activated, the timer started.
Fu Yu dared not delay any longer, quickly grabbed a pot, and began methodically cooking seafood porridge.
Four large-caliber clay pots were set up on the stove simultaneously,
The kitchen helpers brought over the cleaned rice, and Fu Yu poured a small amount of oil to mix it well.
A variety of thoroughly cleaned seafood were sent over.
With hand speed and the green line’s assistance, Fu Yu handled the task easily.
He deftly chopped the seafood into small pieces, and after his cuts, all the seafood were of uniform size, as if measured by a ruler.
Porridge cooking is a time-consuming task, once all ingredients are in the pot and start simmering, it takes half an hour to be ready.
And one clay pot can only make four servings of seafood porridge for packaging.
It can only cook 16 servings at a time, relying on four stoves simply won’t cut it.
Zhao Meng was busy making side dishes while constantly urging, the kitchen helpers were running around washing, shredding, each busy with their tasks, and couldn’t attend to others.
Fu Yu focused on his work as well.
However, soon he realized that although he was fast, the efficiency was too low.
At this rate, far from meeting the customer’s specified time, even the urgent task might not be completed.
Fu Yu glanced quickly at Zhao Meng who was busy with side dishes and, while no one noticed, quietly replaced the porridge clay pot with a large pan.
The pan’s capacity was much larger than a clay pot, and one batch of seafood porridge from it was enough for seven or eight packages.
The reason seafood porridge is often made in clay pots is because it conducts heat quickly and dissipates it slowly.
It can evenly and long-lastingly transfer external heat to the internal ingredients.
Such a balanced temperature environment aids in the molecular integration of water and food, maximizing flavor release. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
In short, it ensures even heating and better control over the cooking process.
But now, with the skill of non-sticking from woks, and having acquired advanced heat control skills,
For Fu Yu, there were no concerns about even heating or potential burning during boiling.
So, using a pan to cook porridge was stress-free for him.
Zhao Meng was hastily preparing side dishes, sweating profusely!
Currently, 12 sets of side dishes are packed, still needing to make another 68 sets, which means 68 sets in three different kinds of side dishes.
Making side dishes is skill-demanding, and at most, five sets can be made at a time, any more would make seasoning balance difficult.
"Speed it up, Sun Qingning, call Xu Wei again and urge him to deliver the ingredients sooner!"
Not feasible!
Lack of manpower, simply too busy.
Thinking this, Zhao Meng quickly ran over to Gu Yunwu to request backup.
"Lao Gu, can you spare another stove for me? I’m short over here too."
"I wish you could spare me one. We just got two more table reservations, classmates’ gathering, 16 dishes ordered at one table!" Gu Yunwu was equally helpless.
Zhao Meng, having failed in seeking help, had to go back and continue working.
At this moment, suddenly hearing Fu Yu call out, "Seafood porridge’s ready, pack it!"
Three minutes later, a kitchen helper carried the packed boxes and placed them on the shelf beside, reporting, "16 seafood porridges!"
Zhao Meng repeated in his heart, "Only 16, need to hurry!"
Knowing in his heart that time was definitely not enough, without stoves, even a master chef wouldn’t help.
Half an hour later!
Fu Yu’s voice rang out again, "Seafood porridge’s ready, pack it!!"
Three minutes later!
A kitchen helper reported again, "58 seafood porridges!"
Zhao Meng paused his mixing side dishes, looking over in shock!
This... This must be a wrong count!
