Running a Food Stall to Support My Deceptive Omega - Chapter 7

“For me? Thank you.” Mu Jinyu set down the items in her hands, rubbed her palms together several times, and then took the half-sweet potato.

The half-sweet potato had been sitting out for a while and had grown somewhat cold.

Mu Jinyu glanced at Rong Heng again and gave her a smile before holding the sweet potato and beginning to eat.

Mu Jinyu felt quite gratified in her heart. She hadn’t expected Rong Heng to be so kind; even after finding the sweet potato she had roasted, she still thought to leave half for her.

Furthermore, her original plan had been for the two of them to share one sweet potato just to tide them over. After all, she was about to make Knocked Fish Noodles, and if she ate too much now, she wouldn’t be able to eat later.

This coincidence in their thinking caused Mu Jinyu to lower her guard against Rong Heng slightly.

She felt that the other woman wasn’t so difficult to get along with after all; perhaps even after regaining her memory, she wouldn’t do anything to her.

Mu Jinyu thought this as she ate the sweet-tasting potato.

Standing to the side, Rong Heng unconsciously swallowed her saliva as she watched Mu Jinyu eat.

She hadn’t been full to begin with, and it was only through immense willpower that she had managed to save that half-sweet potato. Now, watching the other person eat with such relish, she was truly afraid she might lose control and snatch it back.

She turned her entire body away and clasped her hands together, telling herself that as long as she didn’t look, she wouldn’t want to eat!

Mu Jinyu didn’t notice that Rong Heng was craving it so much she was almost drooling. She finished the sweet potato in a few bites and said to the retreating back, “I’m going to make the Knocked Fish Noodles now; we can eat in a bit.”

She unwrapped the various lotus leaf packages. First, she placed the fish heads and the bony meat into a wooden basin and sprinkled them with a generous amount of salt. Then, she crushed ginger and garlic and added them along with scallions into the basin, using her hands to rub the mixture evenly over every inch of the fish.

This was to remove the fishy odor.

After washing her hands, Mu Jinyu sprinkled sweet potato starch onto the cutting board, placed the fish meat on top, and began to “knock” it with a wooden club.

She only used half of the fish meat because she wanted to try several different methods today and needed to be frugal with her supplies.

Hearing the sound, Rong Heng turned around and watched Mu Jinyu’s movements with curiosity.

With every strike of the wooden club, a dust-like powder rose into the air. The powder fell, settling on the pale white fish meat, and was hammered into the flesh by the club.

This time, Mu Jinyu was much more serious than before, using a consistent force and rhythmic strikes. She also kept rotating the fish sheet with her hands to ensure that every part received even pressure.

There shouldn’t be a repeat of last time, where the fish meat and sweet potato starch weren’t mixed uniformly.

About fifteen minutes passed, and a beautiful, translucent sheet of fish “dough” appeared on the board.

The fish meat had been hammered until it was loose, like a paste, yet because of the presence of the sweet potato starch, it held together firmly without falling apart.

Mu Jinyu heated the wok and let the fish sheet toast inside.

Before long, the first piece of fish sheet for the day was ready.

She wasn’t in a hurry to cut this sheet into noodles and boil them. Instead, she set it aside, planning to finish all the fish sheets first before cooking.

She needed to understand which type of fish made the best noodles, so she had to taste them all at the same time.

To prevent any flavor contamination, after roasting the first sheet, Mu Jinyu wiped down the cutting board, the wooden club, and the wok. Once the residue was removed, she began making the next batch.

For a long while, the courtyard echoed with the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of the hammering.

Much later, Mu Jinyu had finally processed all five types of fish into sheets. She cut half of each sheet, started a fire to boil water, and placed the portions into the clear water to cook.

Once cooked, she fished them out and placed them into five separate bowls.

“Come, come! Let’s taste them together and see which one is the best.” Mu Jinyu pulled out two pairs of chopsticks and handed one to Rong Heng.

She was the first to pick up the noodles from the bowl on the far right and slurped them into her mouth. Upon entry, these noodles made from this specific fish didn’t taste much different from the ones made from crucian carp; they were still somewhat fishy.

To avoid mixing the flavors, she even rinsed her mouth with plain water before continuing to the second bowl.

The fish in the second bowl cost the same as the first—fifteen wen.

The fishy taste was just as heavy. Moreover, the texture of the meat was somewhat dry and stringy, not at all silky like the Knocked Fish Noodles she had eaten in her past life.

She had clearly hammered the fish meat until it was soft and pulverized; why did it still have this texture?

Mu Jinyu pondered while she continued to the next bowl.

The third and fourth bowls used fish that cost twenty wen.

The texture was slightly better than the fifteen-wen fish, but they still had their respective flaws.

One was too firm, losing the chewiness that should come from the sweet potato starch. The other was too soft; if it weren’t for the starch acting as a binder, it probably would have fallen apart in the pot.

After eating four bowls of noodles, Mu Jinyu still hadn’t found a suitable one.

To be honest, she was quite disappointed.

The cheerful expression on her face faded, replaced by a look of worry in her eyes.

What if she could never find the right fish?

Would she have to settle?

But… wasn’t the point of making food to strive for perfection?

If she produced a mediocre dish, the customers would only “make do” with it, and they could just as easily “make do” by switching to other foods.

There would be no competitive edge…

Mu Jinyu lowered her gaze, picked up her cup to take a sip of water, rinsed her mouth, and proceeded to the fifth bowl.

Beside her, Rong Heng followed her every move, slurping down all the noodles in the bowls right after her. She even mimicked Mu Jinyu by taking a sip of water after every bowl.

Though she didn’t actually know what the point of it was.

For the fifth bowl, Mu Jinyu used her chopsticks to lift a strand of noodle and chewed it in her mouth.

That familiar, resilient, springy bite, along with the silky and dense texture of the fish meat, finally arrived. Mu Jinyu’s eyes finally lit up.

She was genuinely impressed.

Yes, this was the flavor; it was already very close.

Although there was still a faint hint of fishiness hidden in the noodles, it was already very similar to the Knocked Fish Noodles she had eaten in the coastal regions.

As expected, you get what you pay for—this was the fish that cost twenty-five wen per pound!

Using this kind of fish to make noodles… how high would the cost be?

Mu Jinyu felt a sudden pang of “flesh-aching” pain for her wallet, but her eyes were still filled with joy.

She had finally found the right fish!

After rinsing her mouth, Mu Jinyu struck while the iron was hot, intending to proceed with the next round of noodles.

This time, she put the fish heads and bones into the pot, lit a small fire, and began to slowly simmer the fish broth.

While the broth was simmering, which took some time, she took the remaining half of the fish meat and made more noodles.

However, for this half of the fish meat, she sprinkled in Sichuan peppercorn powder and white pepper powder during the process to remove the fishy smell.

Mu Jinyu kept boiling noodles and kept tasting them.

In total, she used four different methods and produced twenty bowls of noodles.

They were: noodles boiled in plain water without peppercorn/pepper, noodles with peppercorn/pepper boiled in plain water, noodles without peppercorn/pepper boiled in fish bone broth, and noodles with peppercorn/pepper boiled in fish bone broth.

The textures and tastes of these twenty bowls were all different.

The noodles with added peppercorn and pepper to remove the fishiness, whether boiled in plain water or fish broth, were tainted with the flavor of the spices.

It wasn’t that they tasted bad, but the intrusion of other flavors caused one to subconsciously overlook the freshness of the noodles; one couldn’t tell the good from the bad, making them no different from ordinary noodles.

The only bowl that Mu Jinyu felt was infinitely close to perfection was the one boiled in fish bone broth.

Because the fish bones had been treated beforehand with scallions, ginger, garlic, and salt to remove the fishy odor, the resulting broth was not fishy at all. Furthermore, because it had been diluted by the water, the taste of the seasonings in the broth was negligible, leaving only the rich, mellow freshness of the fish bones themselves.

Using this broth to boil the noodles not only allowed the broth to carry away the slight fishiness inherent in the noodle strands but also added an extra layer of savory depth and richness.

It was simply a supreme delicacy of the human world!

The rich, milky-white broth in the pot was bubbling away, and the moist, hot steam kept wafting against Mu Jinyu’s face.

She wanted to scoop out a few more strands of the noodles boiled in the fish bone broth to eat, but when she looked down at the bowls—

Twenty empty bowls were lined up neatly in front of her. Even the soup in the bowls had been drunk dry, not a single drop left!

Behind her, Rong Heng was smacking her lips and rubbing her stomach, looking as if she still hadn’t had quite enough.

Mu Jinyu: ?

One must know, she had only eaten a single strand from each bowl!