Chapter 362 - 152: Cthulhu Soup Dumplings

Chapter 362: Chapter 152: Cthulhu Soup Dumplings

Renovating the hotel on the 32nd floor was going to be a hassle; there were too many moving parts.

"Okay," Ling Shuyu agreed without hesitation.

"Third, for the next few days, don’t worry about what’s happening online, and don’t worry about the food stall either. Just focus on the two things I just mentioned."

After delegating the tasks, Su Chen washed up and changed his clothes.

The real battle was about to begin!

Su Chen had discovered the previous day that if he finished preparing a dish and then handed it over to Zhang Heping to cook and sell, it would still count toward his mission progress.

And now, Delicious was facing a massive amount of traffic.

The street stall business required some long-term planning.

Meiweilai Company’s core business would always be custom-catered delicacies. Continuing to run a street stall amidst all this traffic could give people the wrong impression, which would be detrimental to the company’s growth.

But if he stopped running the stall, Su Chen worried he wouldn’t be able to complete his mission.

He dialed Liu Shengnan’s number, and before Sister Shengnan could even shake off her grogginess, Su Chen had already laid out her tasks.

"We’re moving the stall tonight. It’s best to pick a spot near a residential complex. Go scout a location during the day. Don’t tell anyone about this, not even me! Just tell me where when you’re setting up at four in the afternoon."

Next up was He Shuting.

"You and Zhang Li, focus on the ’small dining table’ project. Don’t take a break for lunch today. I need you two to learn something new."

Then, there was Bai Xiaobo.

"Don’t say it, don’t ask!" Su Chen cut off Bai Xiaobo’s string of "holy shits." "I’ll give you a list of ingredients. Contact those suppliers for a delivery today. I need it here before ten a.m. There’s also some new kitchen equipment to buy. It has to be fast!"

Delicious had grown to a scale where they could now have the vegetable suppliers deliver directly to them.

Finally, there was Zhang Heping.

Su Chen didn’t call him. Instead, he walked up to the second floor, figuring he could use the exercise.

"Have you learned how to make the braised pork belly?"

Zhang Heping nodded, quite pleased with himself. "No problem! I followed the step-by-step list you gave me, and now I don’t even need to look at it anymore."

It was a home-style dish that could be completely standardized.

Dishes with extremely low prices, like scrambled eggs with tomato, had already been kicked off the stall’s menu by Su Chen.

He kept the sweet-style braised pork belly and the Stir-Fried Yellow Beef.

Time-saving and profitable!

As for the Stir-Fried Yellow Beef, Su Chen had no intention of teaching it to Zhang the Second. The dish had too many variables and needed to be adjusted in real-time based on the customer’s preference. It was impossible for him to learn.

So now...

Su Chen looked at Zhang the Second, and with a shift in his consciousness, he found himself in the practice room.

’I urgently need a simple, easy-to-make home-style dish that can justify a higher menu price. The key is that it has to be something I can teach Zhang the Second! When you have a workhorse like this, you’d be a fool not to use him.’

Among the thirty home-style recipes, there was one that overlapped with a dish from the Chinese Cuisine Collection.

If you were to call this dish home-style, well, its preparation was quite complex, so in that sense, it wasn’t really a common household dish.

But if you were to say it wasn’t home-style, in regions rich with aquatic products, this dish couldn’t be more common. As long as someone was willing to make it, bringing this thing to the table would absolutely stun the whole family!

It wasn’t even a dish, really, but more of a dim sum delicacy.

’Jingzhou is in the Northwest, so it has no native aquatic products. Anything related to seafood is ridiculously expensive here.’

’But for the sake of grinding my mission progress...’

Su Chen didn’t look at the mission’s recipe. Instead, he chose to open the Chinese Cuisine Collection (Fragment) — Su Province Edition.

[Crab Roe Soup Dumplings: This recipe comes from a famous chef in Zhenjiang. The resulting soup dumplings have thin skin, abundant soup, a full filling, and a fresh, delicious flavor.]

[When eating, dip in Zhenjiang’s famous vinegar for a unique flavor. Best when made and eaten fresh.]

’The production method in the Chinese Cuisine Collection is a bit too restrained.’

As far as Su Chen knew, Zhenjiang’s crab roe dumplings had already faded from the main stage, or rather, the whole concept had been targeted by capitalists.

He had even tried the nationally famous Yechun Crab Roe Soup Dumplings, and to be honest, they were just so-so.

Crab itself is already incredibly savory. Add in some aspic made from a rich broth, and it’s like I always say—you could wrap shredded chicken in it and it would still be just as delicious!

After various corporate restaurants got involved, the price of a single dumpling shot up from 28 to 128 yuan. The only limit was what customers were willing to pay, not what capitalists were willing to charge.

Whether it was worth the price, or whether it even tasted good, was a matter of opinion.

Su Chen reviewed the preparation method in the recipe. He didn’t rush to start cooking; instead, he first calculated the costs.

Based on the seafood market prices in a place like Jingzhou, a single four-liang hairy crab would cost at least 60 yuan.

This was the main cost. The flour, pork skin aspic, and so on were almost negligible in comparison.

’But... what if I were a little bolder?’

’Traditional crab roe soup dumplings are all about that fresh, delicious flavor. But what if I make them untraditional?’

’What if I combine this dumpling recipe with other culinary styles?’

Su Chen didn’t even bother making a test batch of the dumplings from the Chinese Cuisine Collection.

He directly summoned a host of ingredients.

"A combination of Su Cuisine and Lu Cuisine... hmm, let’s give you a name."

"Cthulhu Soup Dumplings!"