Just like that, Gan Lan gained another assistant. This assistant was a Culinary Master, incredibly helpful and remarkably quick on the uptake.
Gan Lan set aside three plates of spicy dry-pot shrimp and stored the rest away. She felt like she was cooking for a massive canteen. Stir-frying that giant pot of shrimp had left her arms aching, but seeing the sheer volume of food put her in a fantastic mood. The rich, spicy aroma filling the air only made her feel even better.
She brought one of the plates out for the teachers to taste. The moment she set it on the table, she was met with their approving gazes. By now, no one cared that Gan Lan’s shrimp had been scavenged. They devoured the dish with great relish, their mouths glistening with oil. One teacher, in particular, picked up a shrimp and popped it into his mouth with a look of absolute resistance. After a quick suck and a chew, he grabbed another—still wearing that exact same expression of extreme reluctance. His hands moved incredibly fast, completely contradicting his disgusted face.
Seeing this made Gan Lan want to laugh. She wondered, "Teacher, how on earth are you maintaining that expression?" However, she kept her mouth shut. With a slight smirk, she turned and headed back to the kitchen. It was time for her to eat her own spicy dry-pot shrimp.
"Gulu, I can’t believe you started eating without me," Gan Lan scoffed. She hurriedly sat down and was about to pick up a shrimp when Yu Guangdu noticed the new assistant.
Gan Lan called out to Rong Liqun, the dark-skinned, bald, middle-aged Culinary Master who had been busy ever since he walked in. "Brother Rong, stop working for a moment and come taste my cooking!"
"N-No need, I’m not hungry right now." Despite his words, Rong Liqun sneakily glanced at the intoxicatingly fragrant shrimp on the table, unable to stop himself from gulping down saliva.
Rejected, Gan Lan glanced at Gulu, whose ferocious and unseemly eating habits were a complete eyesore. She figured Brother Rong might find Gulu’s table manners too repulsive and feared it would ruin his appetite. So, she grabbed a clean bowl, filled it with a few shrimp and some side dishes, and brought it over to him. "Brother Rong, hurry up and give this a try. I’m going back to eat."
Rong Liqun grunted an acknowledgment at Gan Lan’s retreating back. However, he didn’t eat the food. Instead, he carefully and tenderly placed the bowl into his dedicated temperature-controlled box in the kitchen.
When Gan Lan returned, only a few shrimp were left on her plate. Where did her heaping portion go? She narrowed her eyes at Gulu, whose mouth hadn’t stopped moving for a single second.
"Gulu, aren’t you taking this a bit too far?" Abandoning her meal, Gan Lan crossed her arms and stared at him, delivering a soul-piercing interrogation.
But who was Gulu? He was the fearless, unyielding Gulu, afraid of nothing in heaven or on earth.
"Don’t be so stingy. There’s obviously a ton left in the temperature-controlled box! Just take some more out for yourself, and while you’re at it, how about grabbing another portion for me?"
While Gan Lan bickered with Gulu, the viewers in the streaming channel were feasting until their mouths were slick with oil. A barrage of sycophantic comments flooded the screen, praising Gan Lan to the high heavens.
[Captured by Number Nine]: "The taste of this shrimp is simply wonderful! With one bite, the meat soaks up the sauce—it’s both spicy and fragrant. The shrimp itself is springy and tender. I almost swallowed my own tongue! This is the fifth dish, and every single one has been delicious. What will the next one be? How many more are left?"
[Grilled Crab is True Love]: "There really are so many ways to cook shrimp. I remember the streamer previously making grilled shrimp, salt and pepper shrimp, Crystal Shrimp Dumplings, and three-delicacy porridge. Now we have five more shrimp recipes, with who knows how many more to come. I haven’t learned a single thing; I only learned how to drool T^T."
[Handsome Mingyu]: "Junior, please give me your coordinates. I’ll have someone fly a starship over to find you right now. By the time you finish the full shrimp banquet, I’ll be there. I know you definitely won’t refuse me, right~?"
...
Unfortunately, Gan Lan didn’t notice Wu Mingyu’s comment. She was too engrossed in sucking the shrimp clean to extricate herself. The broth-soaked meat was just too flavorful and chewy. The more she chewed, the tastier it got, and the more she chewed, the more vigorous she became. It was like cracking sunflower seeds—she simply couldn’t stop.
Gan Lan polished off an entire plate of spicy dry-pot shrimp all by herself, cleaning up even the side dishes. When she finished, she surreptitiously patted her slightly rounded stomach. A sense of happiness and satisfaction welled up within her. Whenever she felt unhappy, eating good food always managed to turn her mood completely around.
After eating her fill, it was time to get back to work. She was only on the fifth dish of the full shrimp banquet; she had to keep going.
She had already decided on the recipe for the sixth dish: scrambled eggs with shrimp. Well, she couldn’t really call them whole shrimp anymore—they had to be called shrimp strips, considering she was using massive, pre-processed cooked prawns.
She placed the shrimp meat, now cut into small strips, into the pan and pan-fried them until both sides were slightly golden. Next, she poured in the well-beaten egg mixture. Once the eggs had slightly set, she stirred them until they were fully cooked. As soon as the eggs and shrimp strips clung tightly to one another, the dish was ready to be plated.
This scrambled eggs with shrimp strips was the simplest dish yet. Now that she had a high-level assistant, her efficiency had skyrocketed.
Gan Lan didn’t stop there. She immediately began working on the seventh and eighth dishes: mashed potato phoenix tail shrimp balls and Golden Phoenix Tail Shrimp. Both would be fried to a golden hue, but their textures and shapes would differ.
Starting with the mashed potato phoenix tail shrimp balls, Gan Lan selected relatively small sashimi-grade shrimp for this batch. The digestive tracts had already been removed when the shrimp were brought in, so she only needed to butterfly them, remove the heads, and leave the tails intact. She then added appropriate amounts of cooking wine, black pepper, salt, and light soy sauce, mixing everything evenly to marinate.
She peeled and sliced washed potatoes, then placed them in a steamer until thoroughly cooked.
Into a bowl went the peeled, decapitated, and butterflied raw shrimp with their tails still on. Next, she poured in a suitable amount of cooking wine, black pepper, and salt, mixing them thoroughly to marinate.
She mashed the steamed potato slices into a paste, adding a pinch of salt and stirring it in evenly. The mashed potatoes were formed into spheres and flattened. A shrimp was placed in the center of each before she rolled them back into balls. She then coated them sequentially in starch, egg wash, and breadcrumbs.
Gan Lan had brought her own breadcrumbs. Although they were already being sold on the market, she felt that her homemade version tasted much better.
She poured oil into the pot and waited until it was about sixty percent hot before dropping in the shrimp balls. Once they turned a golden yellow, she scooped them out to drain the oil. After finishing the first batch, Gan Lan stepped back and let Rong Liqun take over. It was a simple process anyway, and he picked it up immediately after watching and trying his hand at it. Gan Lan had no intention of keeping her recipes a secret; the methods were truly simple and easy to learn.
"You guys can learn this too. It’s really simple. You can fry a bunch of them and eat them as snacks while watching TV series or movies." Gan Lan had almost forgotten she was still streaming. Whenever she focused on something, she tended to neglect everything else.
Next, she started on the Golden Phoenix Tail Shrimp. This dish was quite similar to the mashed potato Golden Shrimp Balls, which was why she decided to make the two dishes back-to-back.
She took the shrimp she had marinated earlier and coated them in a layer of dry starch, egg wash, and breadcrumbs. When applying the final layer of breadcrumbs, she gently pressed down with her hands as she rolled them to ensure the crumbs adhered firmly.
She poured a generous amount of oil into the pan. When the oil was about fifty or sixty percent hot, she dropped the shrimp in, frying them over low heat until the meat was fully cooked. She then scooped them out to drain the oil.
Turning the heat up from low to medium, she fried them a second time. She tossed them back in and scooped them out just a few seconds later. This double-frying step made the outer crust even crispier.
With that, the two golden, radiant dishes—the mashed potato phoenix tail shrimp balls and the Golden Phoenix Tail Shrimp—were complete, exuding the rich, distinct aroma of fried food.