The Onion-Cutting Ninja's Secret Crush

26 A Habit Difficult to Shake

While the fight between the people that had been lured over by Misses Youya's and the ninjas of the Si clan continued to be waged in the comment section of the channel of 'Bright Yellow Water', the person whose skills everyone was debating still had no idea what was going on and just continued with the live stream.

He had put the two bowls with the things he had prepared for this dish in front of him and smiled at the camera. "We will begin with the gluttonous rice dumplings. These bowls contain both the filling and the dough so we only need to shape them and then we can start with processing them." Saying so, he took a bit of the dough, placed some of the fillings on top with a teaspoon, and then started to fold it.

"While I'm doing this, let's already talk about the method of processing I want to demonstrate with this dish. You've certainly all had gluttonous rice dumplings before so you will know that they are crisp on the outside. That is something that is typical for fried foods so it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that we'll fry these dumplings afterward. To be more precise, we will be deep-frying them."

He had already shaped the first few dumplings and put them to the side. He didn't pause to explain anything and just focused on his introduction to the technique he wanted to use. "You probably all know that there are different methods of frying food but maybe not everyone knows which techniques there are and how exactly they differ.

"Well, let's get the first question out of the way first: In terms of the most important frying techniques, you should know about stir-frying, pan-frying, sauteing, shallow-frying, and deep-frying. Sometimes, there are different ways of doing one of these techniques. For example, you might have heard that there are a chao and a bao technique for stir-frying.

"These kinds of sub-types will only differ in details while the general methods stay the same. To keep with the example of the stir-frying: When using the chao technique, you will slowly add different types of ingredients after each other, giving them time to develop their own fragrance. On the other hand, when using the bao technique, you will add the ingredients in a more rapid fashion and toss them together. Both techniques are done by using a wok, some cooking oil, and a high temperature though."

He looked up at the camera and then glanced at Qian Huang to gauge how he was doing. He still seemed a little pale even though it wasn't as bad as before. Xiao Ming looked at the dumplings he had already shaped and decided that he needed to speed up more.

Originally, he had planned to do things differently but he wasn't willing to compromise on the health of either of his friends. He knew Qian Huang cared about the success of their channel the most but he was sure that after five years of following their streams, their viewers would understand if they had to cut one stream a little short to make sure Qian Huang could go and rest.

Ah, if he had known about this before, he would have cooked something else. It would have been nice to have something nourishing for him. Well, he could make him something else after the stream was over.

Having settled on that, Xiao Ming returned to focusing on his current task. "Well, with that, I have already mentioned the three things that make the difference between the major techniques: the cooking vessel, the amount of the oil, and the temperature.

"I've already mentioned what you will do for stir-frying so let's talk about the other methods. You might be able to think of some requirements right off the bat. For example, of course, pan-frying will be done in a pan. On the other hand, deep-frying as a name already suggests that there will be a higher vessel and maybe you can even guess that there will be more oil involved compared to the other techniques. But let's look at them one after the other and see how they are similar in some aspects while they differ in others."