Sea cucumbers have been a valuable seafood since ancient times.

When Lin Xu looked through the "Imperial Food Record" last night, he saw several ways of making sea cucumbers, but they were basically no different from today's sea cucumbers.

Dried sea cucumbers are dried, cleaned, and then cooked by burning, steaming, braising, simmering, stewing, grilling, etc.

Sea cucumbers are rich in colloids and have a first-class taste, but at the same time they are tasteless, so there are endless possibilities for cooking sea cucumbers.

When Lin Xu started to clean up, Guo Xinghai had just finished his work.

He took one look at these sea cucumbers and said concisely:

"It's too much."

Wei Gan asked curiously:

"Xinghai, what is the best size for this thing?"

Guo Xinghai came over and weighed the sea cucumber:

"Under normal circumstances, it is best to weigh one pound of dried ginseng at five or six pounds, but this dried ginseng weighs at least ten pounds. It looks quite big, but it will shrink when cooked."

The potion can make sea cucumbers expand infinitely, making them look big and plump.

But when you blanch it in the pot, the excess water will be boiled out, and the sea cucumber will return to its normal size.

This is also the reason why some low-quality sea cucumbers will shrink in size after being prepared, but this kind of sea cucumbers that have no peculiar smell are just not that high-grade and are not considered inferior sea cucumbers.

Real low-quality sea cucumbers smell like medicine when you open the package.

Lin Xu held the sea cucumber in his hand and used a pointed knife to cut the sea cucumber from head to tail.

Sea cucumbers are dried alive, and the internal organs and mouth are still there. These must be completely cleaned out, otherwise the texture and taste will be affected.

Poke open the sea cucumber one by one, and you can see the white intestine inside. Tear it off carefully without breaking it, otherwise the sand in the intestine will contaminate the inner wall of the sea cucumber and affect the taste.

The intestines, mouth, and even the excretory opening are all removed, leaving only the spindle-shaped body of the sea cucumber.

This is also the edible part of sea cucumber.

Wei Qian whispered while helping to clean up:

"It is said that sea cucumber is a gas station for men and a beauty salon for women. Is this thing really effective?"

Lin Xu glanced at him:

"Do you have any friends who need this again?"

"No, no, no, I'm just asking casually. If it really has a beauty effect, I'll make some for Tiantian to try tomorrow. We can't afford sea cucumbers, but small sea cucumbers are still fine."

Sea cucumbers are like abalone, the bigger they are, the higher the price.

However, ordinary families do not need to pursue big ones. As long as ordinary-sized sea cucumbers are packed and cooked, the taste is no worse than those of larger sizes.

Guo Xinghai put the sea cucumbers collected by the two people into the basin to wash:

"There must be some effect, but if you just want to use it for beauty, forget it. If Sister Feng eats sea cucumbers, she won't be like Liu Yifei."

Lin Xu smiled:

"Can't you give this example? This is not a beauty treatment. This is plastic surgery, or a very difficult one..."

The beauty effect of eating ingredients such as sea cucumber and bird's nest does not lie in the food, but in the social class.

People who can eat this kind of food regularly don’t have to worry about making a living.

Go to bed early and get up early every day, eat clean and regularly, go to the beauty salon for spa treatments whenever possible, and take care of your whole body whenever possible.

In such a living condition, even if you don't eat sea cucumbers, bird's nests and shark's fins, your skin will not be any different.

On the contrary, you have to stay up late and work overtime at three in the morning, get up and squeeze into the subway at seven in the morning, and have three irregular meals, all of which are takeaways that are high in oil and salt.

In this case, not to mention eating sea cucumbers, even taking a bath with sea cucumbers is useless.

After all the sea cucumbers are packed and cleaned, add water to the pot and blanch the sea cucumbers. Blanching can not only clean the sand in the sea cucumbers, but also remove the odor in the sea cucumbers.

In addition, after blanching, the sea cucumbers can also shrink and shape.

The more swollen the sea cucumber is, the more severe the shrinkage will be.

Guo Xinghai asked:

"Are these sea cucumbers made with abalone juice? Do you want to make some sea cucumbers roasted with green onions?"

Lin Xu shook his head:

"Forget it, it's a lot in this small pot, but if you share it, one person can only eat one or two sticks. There is no need to make two more dishes. Let's get some dried sea cucumbers and make them ourselves later.

Let’s do it later.”

Sea cucumbers roasted with green onions is a specialty of Shandong cuisine. This dish not only has high requirements for sea cucumbers, but also has strict requirements on the use of green onions. For example, Shandong green onions must be used, and only the white part of green onions can be used, and green onions must be used three times.

Only in this way can the aroma of green onion be completely immersed in the sea cucumber.

Soon, the water in the pot was boiling, and a lot of white foam was boiled out. At the same time, some peculiar smell was also boiled out.

These foams are the excess water that has been boiled out.

The reason why the foam is generated is because the merchants specially add potions to prevent the sea cucumbers from rotting and deteriorating during the swelling process.

These should be skimmed off in time to prevent them from seeping back into the sea cucumber.

The texture of the sea cucumber at this time is relatively hard, so you can cook it for a while to allow the peculiar smell in the sea cucumber to completely evaporate.

After cooking for four or five minutes, the white foam disappears. Use a slotted spoon to take the thinned sea cucumber out of the pot and rinse it with warm water.

Clean the sea cucumber thoroughly.

After washing, use kitchen paper to wipe the water on the surface of the sea cucumber.

Then put a casserole on the stove, pour the sea cucumbers in, add half the casserole of pork bone stock, bring to a boil on the stove and skim off the foam, add a small spoonful of salt and sugar, and continue cooking.

When cooking sea cucumbers, you should follow the principle of "make it come out if it's smelly, and let it go in if it's tasteless".

The cleaning, blanching and other steps just now are all to remove the odor in the sea cucumber. Now that the odor has been removed, it’s time to taste it.

The first step for sea cucumber to taste is the broth.

Stock is an essential role in sea cucumber cooking.

No matter what type of sea cucumber dish you make, you need to use stock to cook the sea cucumber until soft and glutinous.

Only in this way can we proceed to the next step.

The reason why stock is used is that the stock can make the colloid-rich texture of sea cucumbers richer and plumper, while also making the aroma more intense and attractive.

As for the salt, it is to add some base flavor to the sea cucumber, and the sugar is to enhance the freshness.

If you are making sea cucumbers roasted with green onions, you will also need to add fried green onions in this step.

Let the aroma of green onion begin to penetrate into the sea cucumber from the cooking step.

But today’s sea cucumber with abalone sauce contains the colloid of sea cucumber and the fragrance of abalone juice, so green onions cannot be used, not to mention other ingredients such as ginger.

Once put in, the sea cucumber will absorb the flavor like a sponge, and it will be difficult to get other flavors into the sea cucumber.

Boil the broth in the pot for seven or eight minutes, turn off the heat, put the casserole aside, and start soaking.

If you are eating it right away at noon, you can just boil the sea cucumber until soft. But since you are eating it in the afternoon, you can boil it a little and put it aside to soak.

In this way, by the time it is cooked in the afternoon, the sea cucumber will be full of the aroma of the broth and taste more delicious.

However, because it needs to be soaked for a long time, the sea cucumber cannot be cooked for too long. It can be soaked by heating it slightly. Otherwise, the gelatin of the sea cucumber will be cooked out and the texture and taste will be greatly reduced.

At noon, we had steamed noodles made by Ma Zhiqiang.

This is a relatively common pasta in the Central Plains.

Put the noodles into the steamer to steam. At the same time, cut the pork belly into cubes, stir-fry in the pot, add more water, and then add beans, celery, garlic sprouts, soybean sprouts and other vegetables.

By the time the vegetables are cooked, the noodles will be almost steamed through.

First shake the noodles with kuaizi, then mix them into the vegetables, so that the steamed noodles are wrapped in the vegetable soup full of fat.

You can actually eat it directly after mixing it.

But if you want it to be delicious, it’s best to steam it again so that the aroma of the broth can be thoroughly immersed in the noodles, so that the aroma will be stronger and the taste will be better.

Lin Xu filled a large bowl for himself, picked up a handful and put it in his mouth.

The noodles are very fragrant and taste similar to fried noodles, but fried noodles are dry and strong, while steamed noodles are soft and fragrant, so there is a slight difference in texture.

Guo Xinghai said with a smile:

"Master Ma's steamed noodles are really good. Even a southerner like me is used to eating them."

"There's no secret to this. Just be willing to add oil. As long as there's plenty of oil, steamed noodles won't taste bad."

Ma Zhiqiang is good at all kinds of big pot dishes and big pot rice, and the taste he makes is very authentic. The reason is that he uses ingredients very carefully. As long as he is willing to use the ingredients, the dishes will not be unpalatable.

Lin Xu took a few bites and felt like eating steamed noodles at school.

In fact, these noodles are more delicious than those steamed in the school cafeteria. They have more meat, more vegetables, and lard. Not to mention the aroma, even the noodles are hand-rolled by the pastry department where Ji Minghui works.
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This combination, steamed twice, is really fragrant and delicious.

Lin Xu held the bowl, pinched a few peeled and washed garlic cloves from the kitchen, and sat at the window seat with the bowl, eating while making a video call with Baby Shen.

On the other end of the phone, Baby Shen was having lunch in the office of the management center.
To be continued...