39 Wine

Finally, having the time to make food, Wang Ming couldn't help but feel excited. This was what he loved to do ever since he was young. This was the only thing Wang Ming was thankful that his father had taught him. Since young, his father had used a lot of money to teach Wang Ming on how to become a great chef.

Thinking about this, Wang Ming couldn't help but sigh. He had to pay his father back for that favor, if his restaurant did well. Wang Ming couldn't see how his restaurant would not do well. He had learned a lot about food and being a chef, since he was young.

Looking at the meat he couldn't help but get excited. This was where Wang Ming would create a masterpiece he just felt it. He had some recipes all ready in his head he wanted to try out, but also realized that some of them would take up to a day or two. Since they had to absorb the marinade.

Wang Ming went with the trial-and-error method and grind out every recipe he knew. Starting with the classic Braised Pork, which had a good sweet and savory taste from the soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice wine. The texture of the pork though was a lot more chewy ten he desired. Since pork belly has a layer of fat on top and tough meat underneath, cooking it this way wouldn't give Wang Ming the texture he desired, which was soft and tender.

Since most of the recipes out there didn't put too much emphasis on changing how the texture on the pork is. And put most of their time in letting the pork absorb the flavor, Wang Ming thought that it could be a great stand out point for his dish to be tender as tender as even wagyu beef. It would also give his dish an image of being a higher quality also, since tender meat tend to be more expensive though depending on what meat and cut it is.

He could beat the meat to make it more tender, but he didn't want the meat to be flat, but in a square shape like how braised pork usually look. He would also destroy and tear the fat if he flattened the meat. Wang Ming felt that the taste of the pork was satisfactory, but the texture was not.

Now fixated on making the meat tender, he kept trying different methods to make the meat tender but couldn't succeed. He tried using different acidic condiments like vinegar and lime juice. The acid breaks up the proteins in the meat, which makes it tender, though he had to find a good balance. Since if you use too much of it, the effect will be reversed and make it toughen up.

Feeling frustrated, Wang Ming couldn't help but slam his hand on the kitchen counter and shouted in frustration.

"Please, someone help me."

As soon as he said those words, he felt a hand touching his shoulder. Jolting in shock he looked behind him. And saw that it was Louzheng that had come back with all of his things. Looking at all the things that Louzheng brought it shocked him to see that the book was in there, the book that changed his life. He still remembered it disappeared after last time. Why was it back now?

Taking it in his hands, he looked questioningly at Louzheng and asked.

"Where did you find the book?"

Having a puzzled look at his face, Louzheng answered.

"This is the first time I've seen the book. I went through all of your things and didn't see this book before. Are you sure it's not from the restaurant?"

Seeing that Louzheng didn't know, Wang Ming stopped asking. The book was magical and would leave like it had its own consciousness. Seeing that it was back, then it probably had a purpose.

Telling Louzheng to place all of his things in the locker room, he sent him away. Since Wang Ming were only experimenting the next days, he didn't need Louzheng here distracting him.

"Thanks for doing this for me Louzheng, but you can go now. Come back in three days and be ready to fight! No worries I will give you the three-day payment right now."

Handing him the payment Wang Ming opened the book to read it.

Louzheng didn't want to take the money, since he did nothing to earn it. But seeing Wang Ming so absorbed in the book, he left and decided to give it back another day.

Opening the book Wang Ming felt shocked to see that there were almost no content in the book. All the pages were empty except from one page, which said.

Wine

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Reading the word, Wang Ming felt that there were a lot of secrets behind the word. But couldn't understand what it was. Going into his own world, Wang Ming kept staring at the word for 4 hours. Ignoring everything even his body's needs, his mind were 100% focused on the word.

Looking at the word it could mean so many things. Brewing Wine? Drinking Wine? Fermenting Wine? Cooking with Wine?

It had to be cooking with wine, but Wang Ming didn't understand what the book wanted with it. There were a lot of different ways to cook with wine, like how he used rice wine to braise the pork belly.

Wang Ming was sure that it was cooking with wine, and that's what he used the next two days on experimenting with, cooking the pork with wine.

When Wang Ming came out of the restaurant and went to a wine shop to buy a lot of wine liquors. When the owner saw what Wang Ming was doing, he couldn't help but look at him with sympathy. The owner of the shop thought that Wang Ming was drinking away his sorrows since he was in a wheelchair. Though Wang Ming didn't bother to explain since his mind was still on wine.

Since Wang Ming had a tight budget, he couldn't buy expensive wines. But bought the ones between 20 to 50 yuan. So he got roughly 30 bottles total for 1000 yuan. Leaving his budget at a grand total of 5500 yuan, since he had to pay roughly a 1000 yuan for the meat and 500 to Louzheng.

After paying for it, Wang Ming went back to the restaurant as fast as he could, though it wasn't fast since he had 30 bottles of wine at his sides.

Finally, back in the kitchen, Wang Ming tried out different ways to cook with wine. He had bought a lot of different wines from grape, white, red, white, sweet, sparkling and even marsala wine. Many of the wines were not suitable in a food recipe, especially meat. But since this was a new territory for Wang Ming, he didn't have a choice but buy many types then experiment with them.

Wang Ming thought that coming up with his own killer recipe would be easy. But he found out that he still had a long way to go. He was cocky and too confident in his cooking skills. He had been trying for two days now and nothing seemed to work. At the start he thought that he could just cook the meat with wine making it tender then braise it, but realized that this altered the taste of the dish. So he needed to find the right spices to make it taste like a Chinese dish.

Then he needed to find the perfect combination of wines to cook the meat in. Even if he was sent many steps back, he didn't feel discouraged. Since he knew that he was slowly making progress, and if he just got through this, then he would become famous.

Surely there were no restaurants not at least in FengZhong city that made braised pork this way. Cooking with wines, especially western wines, weren't popular in China. So if he could do it and make it taste like authentic Chinese food, he would have a huge edge.

Then working with his last batch of meat he couldn't help but feel nervous. If he didn't succeed now, then he would be screwed. Since yesterday he had ordered another big batch of meat from multiple shops, because of Weng Ping's shop not having enough in store. Leaving his previous 5500 yuan budget to roughly 3000 yuan. 3000 yuan is a lot of money still, but if he wasted more money now. He wouldn't have enough money to order more meat for when the restaurant opened and pay Louzheng's salary.

Today he had worked for 16 hours already, and his body was sweating from his head down. Though he still remembered to be hygienic by washing his hands and face with towels. For the last days he slept 4 hours then woke up and kept working on the recipe. Since many of the recipes he tried out took many hours to finish, he napped a couple of minutes when he had nothing to do. Though they were few because he would always think about what he could do better or new ideas.

For this last time he tried to be extra careful with every ingredient he put in it. He knew that even one gram of salt could destroy the dish.

Starting off he blanched the pork belly, which would remove any blood and impurities from the meat. By cutting some ginger, put it in cold water and then put the pork in the water. Then boiling the water, after bringing it up to a boil, Wang Ming let it simmer just for a bit before taking it out. This would ensure the quality of the pork.

Then cutting the pork belly to equal squared chunks. He put them inside a clay pot, that was big enough to room all the meat, but not too big that it didn't heat equally. After making sure that the meat wouldn't stick to each other and had enough room to cook.

Wang Ming put roughly a half liter of his white wine in, and then also put a third liter of the dry marsala wine. He found out after trying so many times that this was the best combination, since the marsala wine is a heavier type of wine than white wine. It will give the pork and the sauce a rich flavor, while the white wine will work together with the marsala wine. Making the taste better by brightening it. The most important thing also was that these two wines would also tenderise the meat.

After Wang Ming also put in rice wine, soy sauce, dark soy sauce and different type spices like: Cinnamon stick, star anise, bay leaves, dried chili peppers.

Finally, cranking up the heat the waiting game began. Since there weren't anything else, Wang Ming had to do he could only wait. Usually he would revise and work on different recipes, but since he had no more meat, he just had to wait.

Though waiting for him now was like torture. He wanted to know the result as soon as possible, but also knew that it wouldn't do him any good to be hasty. Especially in cooking, everything takes time to ensure the best quality you have to give it the time it needs.

The time slowly passed by, and for every minute that went on Wang Ming's heart beat faster and faster. Finally reaching the one hour mark, it beat even faster. Since it was the time to lower the heat, now was the time that decided how tender the pork really would be.

Usually he would cook the meat now for 4 to 6 more hours. But this time he decided for 8 hours, though the big risk cooking it 8 hours would be that it would become too tender almost like mush and not being able to hold its form. But if everything went perfectly, then he would have the most tender pork belly anybody had ever eaten.

Turning the heat down, Wang Ming wanted to open the lid and look at the pork. But fought against the urge since if he opened the lid, then all of the steam would fly out potentially destroying the dish.

Then patiently waiting the clock once again started ticking. From 10 minutes to 1 hour, 2 hours. For every minute that went on, Wang Ming grew more nervous. Though he knew that he couldn't be in a mind state like this, even if his dish failed, then he could still have more chances. Even if he failed and had to give back the restaurant, his life didn't end there. Trying to regain his confidence, he thought about positive things. About, all the beautiful people he had met after the incident. Peng Tong, Meng Hao, Fu Chunhua, Aunt Fu, Ming Ming, Lang Lin, and even Qiao Meng.

Thinking about all the different interactions he has had with them, he couldn't help but feel sweet, though there also were some bitter memories. But he didn't want to think about that and pull his mood down. Relishing in those good memories, he felt much better and also the time flying.

Already 7 and a half hours had now gone by, leaving only half an hour left. It was now almost 9pm. Only a bit more and he could finally check on the dish. After coming out of his thoughts, he then got a smell from the food. And it smelled amazing, making him hungry. He had eaten nothing since he started on the dish.

Staring at the clay pot, looking at how it was vibrating and steam that slowly seeped out of it, Wang Ming then finally heard the alarm he had set. Hurriedly he opened the lid and put in 40 grams of rock sugar, cranked up the heat and started stirring. This would thicken and cook off any excess sauce and let the pork absorb even more of the sauce. Stirring like his life depended on it though not too strong, since the meat was tender and he was afraid of breaking it.

Finally, the sugar dissolved and most of the sauce had dried up. Though there were enough sauce left to use it as a sauce for the rice. Taking out all the pork he left it in a bowl to let it rest, while having the sauce cook on a very low heat so it didn't dry up.

Waiting another 10 minutes he could finally cut into the meat, taking his knife he slowly moved it over the pork. His arm was trembling at this point, so he took a deep breath to calm himself. But as he would cut the pork, he heard the door of his restaurant slam open and a loud shout which startled him almost making him drop his knife.

"Why didn't you call me!"