AGN -Chapter 126 Sorry, Ancestors

Minced meat mixed with carrot paste, along with diced bamboo shoots and diced shiitake mushrooms, was stir-fried in the wok. Oil was rendered out and coated the bamboo shoots and mushrooms; from a distance, the glossy sheen made them look very appealing.

No seasonings were added, yet the aroma was rich and full. The most primal scent of meat filled the air, with a faint hint of the carrot’s natural sweetness.

As time passed, the filling in the wok was stir-fried to its optimal state—perfect color, perfect aroma, perfect heat. Neither too oily nor too dry, it was so flawless it could almost be photographed on the spot and printed in a textbook.

All of the above was Qin Huai’s imagination of the teaching process, something he had dreamed about the previous night.

The actual teaching process, however, was—

Qin Huai swung the spatula and felt that the moment his hand gripped it, he might have been afflicted with a debuff.

His hand was not very cooperative.

The filling in the wok was even less cooperative.

The oil that was rendered out wasn’t very cooperative either.

Minced meat, carrot paste, diced bamboo shoots, and diced shiitake mushrooms—what was wrong with you all? Why did you all have minds of your own? Why wouldn’t you follow the spatula’s instructions and stir properly?

And especially you, carrot paste—why are you leaving the group for no reason? Stick with the minced meat!

Judging from the result, the filling was cooked.

But that wasn’t what Qin Huai wanted.

He wanted the kind of filling from his dream—the kind that glowed with a golden light like the legendary golden fried rice from Cooking Master Boy.

Unfortunately, a mid-level mastery of heat control was not enough to produce golden fried rice.

Nor could it produce the perfect filling.

Chen An and An Youyou both widened their eyes, unable to see the essence or mastery behind Qin Huai’s stir-frying.

Wasn’t this just… putting dumpling filling into a wok and frying it?

The two exchanged glances and felt that perhaps their talent was insufficient.

Zheng Siyuan silently turned his head away from the wok. Although he knew Qin Huai’s level of heat control, he also knew this was Qin Huai’s normal performance.

After all, on a scale of 1 to 10, making broth requires a heat control level of 5 to 6, while stir-frying requires 8 to 9, even 10.

Stir-frying is the simplest, most comprehensive, and least concealable demonstration of heat control ability. Qin Huai’s display here was indeed very thorough.

A plain and ordinary dumpling filling had been stir-fried.

Qin Huai looked at Zheng Siyuan for help.

Zheng Siyuan: Can’t help.

Qin Huai: Help a bit—there are people watching.

Zheng Siyuan: …

Qin Huai: 99999

Zheng Siyuan finally spoke: “Did you twist your hand this morning while kneading dough?”

Qin Huai: “…I think a little.”

“If your hand is injured, it’s not suitable for using a spatula. For now, you should focus on kneading dough and practicing finger control. As for this filling… we’ll save it for making buns later. I’ve understood the general approach and method of stir-frying; I’ll demonstrate it again.”

Zheng Siyuan took the spatula.

An Youyou and Chen An exchanged another glance, their confusion deepening.

An Youyou: When did Little Qin get injured?

Chen An: Why is it not suitable to use a spatula if the hand is injured, but kneading dough is fine? Isn’t kneading even more strenuous?

Neither of them understood, but both wisely chose not to ask and continued watching.

There were still plenty of prepared ingredients. Zheng Siyuan took a portion of the mixture and poured it into the wok.

On high heat, he stir-fried quickly, tossing the wok with a smooth motion.

A beautiful toss.

Qin Huai was startled. Wow, Zheng Siyuan can toss a wok?

As expected of formally trained chefs—they know everything. Aren’t you a pastry chef?

“Filling for the Five-Diced Bun doesn’t actually need to be stir-fried. You just need to choose suitable meat with the right balance of fat and lean,” Zheng Siyuan explained.

“Proper stir-frying won’t harm the flavor; it can enhance it. But if the heat control isn’t good enough, like the filling Little Qin made earlier due to his injured hand, it can actually be counterproductive. In that case, it’s better to simmer it instead.”

“The purpose of stir-frying the filling is mainly to control oil. Since the dough shell needs to be shaped, it is firmer. If the filling contains too much oil, it can seep out during steaming and ruin the shape of the pastry. Also, steaming takes a long time, and over-steaming the dough will damage its texture.”

“My guess is that this recipe stir-fries the filling first and then cooks it to control oil, enhance aroma, and reduce steaming time.”

“But precise oil control requires a very high level of heat mastery. Generally, only professional and excellent hot-food chefs can achieve this level; pastry chefs usually find it difficult to reach such heights.”

“This creative method… whoever created it must have had great confidence in their heat control,” Zheng Siyuan added, glancing at Qin Huai.

Qin Huai: …

An Youyou and Chen An nodded somewhat understandingly, realizing that pastry work truly is profound and complex.

During Zheng Siyuan’s explanation, the filling in the wok had already begun to emit fragrance.

“Once the aroma is released, switch from high heat to low heat—you were a bit slow earlier,” Zheng Siyuan said.

Soon, a batch of filling, inferior to Jiang Weiming’s but far superior to Qin Huai’s earlier attempt, was completed.

“Mr. Zheng, is this what properly controlled oil looks like?” An Youyou asked curiously.

Zheng Siyuan shook his head honestly: “I’m not sure. I haven’t used this filling for pastries before.”

“A bit dry,” Qin Huai commented objectively. “The optimal state should look more moist, with oil on the surface that looks greasy but is actually just right.”

“You’ve seen it?” Zheng Siyuan asked.

Such an absurd pastry—you not only have the recipe, you’ve even seen the filling?

“I dreamed about it last night,” Qin Huai said sincerely. “A very vivid dream, like I had seen it in a previous life.”

Zheng Siyuan: ?

Zheng Siyuan handled the stir-frying portion. Qin Huai felt the simmering portion could still be handled by himself.

Simmering fillings was less prone to mistakes.

He did it every morning and had experience.

Not to mention he had simmered it all night in his dream.

Simmering was a rather uneventful process. It didn’t require fancy techniques or dramatic wok-tossing. It only required controlling heat, stirring occasionally, and monitoring the state of the mixture.

How well it turned out depended entirely on the chef’s mastery of heat control.

An Youyou and Chen An watched attentively, while Qin Huai felt like chatting idly.

“Siyuan, how did you learn to toss a wok?” Qin Huai asked.

“I practiced it since I was young,” Zheng Siyuan replied.

“Wow.” Qin Huai expressed admiration for the professionalism of formally trained chefs.

Honestly, he hadn’t even known what wok-tossing was before high school. Their family cooking didn’t involve such advanced techniques. The owner of a nearby 10-yuan stir-fry shop could toss a wok, but that was more for speed, and the food often ended up undercooked.

He only learned about wok-tossing later from novels, which described it in great detail—big tosses, small tosses, aerial tosses, shaking the pan, spinning the pan, even requiring childhood training like martial arts. Watching tutorials, Qin Huai felt that Jiang Weiming had likely used a toss earlier, though he lacked the expertise to identify which type.

“Did your father make you practice this as a child?”

“No, it was Uncle Huang who taught me,” Zheng Siyuan said, looking at the filling in the wok. “I trained in basic skills at Uncle Huang’s restaurant when I was young—knife skills, heat control, kneading dough, everything.”

“My father and Uncle Huang both believed that even if I focused on pastry, I shouldn’t neglect the fundamentals of hot cooking. Building a solid foundation is never wrong. We trained in traditional ways, starting with things like lifting sandbags to build strength.”

An Youyou took out her phone and started searching how much sandbags cost.

“I think you’re quite amazing,” Zheng Siyuan said, looking at Qin Huai. “Even without formal training, you still have the fundamentals you need.”

Qin Huai thought for a moment. “Maybe because when I was young, I had better ways to build strength than lifting sandbags.”

“When I was a child, there was a large vegetable field behind the orphanage. Director Qin and two other caretakers couldn’t manage it alone, so any child in the orphanage who was mentally normal and physically able had to help farm.”

“After all, we relied on that field for vegetables. Any surplus could be sold to improve our meals and buy snacks.”

“Unfortunately, there weren’t many children who were both mentally normal and physically able. By the time I was adopted, there were only two boys who fit the criteria and hadn’t been adopted—one of them was two years old and had just arrived a month earlier.”

“Truth be told, I’m not particularly skilled in drawing or music, but I’m actually pretty good at farming.”

“Especially leafy vegetables—I’ve been growing them since I was a kid!”

“My grandmother even said I was well-suited for farming. My family still has over ten acres of land in the countryside. If things don’t work out in the city someday, I can always go back and farm.”

An Youyou began to regret not growing up in a town where she could have had the chance to farm.

Chen An: …

For some reason, he felt this newly transferred colleague was thinking about some rather strange things.

The filling in the wok had begun to gently simmer. Qin Huai continued stirring without turning off the heat.

“Is it about done?” Zheng Siyuan reminded him.

“Not yet—wait another half minute until the bubbles become dense enough,” Qin Huai said.

Half a minute later, he turned off the heat.

The dough had already been proofed, ready to be shaped by Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan into small balls and formed into apple shapes.

Thus, the teaching session ended, and the next step—the advanced pastry-making process—began.

Chen An quietly stepped away, no longer watching. Even though it wasn’t time to clock out, he had already finished his tasks early. With no work left, he decided to create work for himself and went to help the hot-food section cut vegetables.

The assistant chefs: ?

They had always heard that the breakfast crew was intense, but now that breakfast had finished flexing, they were coming over to compete with the hot-food section?

An Youyou, curious, followed to help cut vegetables as well.

Meanwhile, Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan began shaping the dough balls.

Soon, apple-shaped filled dough pieces appeared on the board.

When Zheng Siyuan mixed the beet juice for coloring, his hands were trembling. He muttered inwardly that he had made a decision that was truly disrespectful to his ancestors—more so than ever before.

Not only disrespectful to his ancestors, but also to the pastry itself.

His first apple turned out poorly due to distraction.

He reflected on himself and decided he couldn’t continue like this. Once you start making pastries, you must respect them, respect the recipe, and be brave in trying and innovating—that’s what a good pastry chef should do.

This kind of passive attitude was simply a desecration of pastries.

He steadied himself and focused on coloring.

After some time, a beautiful apple was completed. Satisfied, he looked at it, then glanced at Qin Huai.

“Hiss—”

He inhaled sharply.

What an ugly apple.

That patchy, uneven coloring looked like something a three-year-old child had made. He hadn’t seen anything like it in years.

Had Qin Huai’s skills regressed this much?

No—this wasn’t about skill. Had his aesthetic sense become this bizarre?

Could it be that Qin Huai was influenced by his own first attempt?

Zheng Siyuan glanced at his own first apple again and felt it didn’t deserve such harsh judgment.

Then he craned his neck to look at Qin Huai’s current apple and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, this one was normal.

It seemed Qin Huai had simply been distracted on his first attempt, just like him. Ah, he had set a bad example.

Zheng Siyuan silently vowed to stay focused and give his full effort in the future, never to slack off.

Qin Huai, unaware of Zheng Siyuan’s inner turmoil, would have told him if he knew: you’re overthinking—I was just experimenting with a different coloring style.

Aesthetic in art should be diverse.

At noon, the new apple pastries were steamed in the basket.

Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan did not leave the kitchen. Each took a plate of rice with toppings and sat by the steamer eating while watching closely.

Qin Huai was eager to evaluate the quality of the pastries.

Zheng Siyuan was eager to taste what such an absurd recipe would produce.

Two pastry chefs sat in the kitchen eating, and Chen An and An Youyou followed suit, also eating there.

An Youyou, having woken up early, even felt a bit drowsy while eating, yawning between bites.

Qin Huai ate his tomato and egg rice absentmindedly, his attention fixed entirely on the steamer.

Finally—

[Apple Pastry: C Grade]

C grade.

Given that Qin Huai believed he had made no mistakes on the pastry side and that his dough work should be no worse than Jiang Weiming’s, achieving only C grade meant that Jiang Weiming’s filling had elevated what should have been a C-grade pastry up to B grade.

A specialist who excels in one area is truly terrifying.

Qin Huai set down his plate, put on gloves, and lifted the steamer lid.

Ah, a slight mishap.

During stir-frying, the oil hadn’t been perfectly controlled. Qin Huai felt he had dried it sufficiently, but either it hadn’t been fully dried or the dough and filling didn’t fully match—two of the pastries showed slight oil seepage.

The oil hadn’t actually leaked out, but it affected the surface color. The red apple looked as if it had been worm-eaten, with a small discolored spot.

Using tongs, Qin Huai removed the pastries. Some were C grade, some C- grade, and naturally, Zheng Siyuan’s creations had no visible grade.

Qin Huai felt Zheng Siyuan’s work should be slightly better than his, possibly C+ grade. He selected one without visible flaws but with good appearance and handed it to Zheng Siyuan, keeping a C-grade one for himself.

After letting them cool slightly, both took a bite at the same time, their expressions differing.

Qin Huai already knew the taste would be good—given how picky Luo Jun was, anything bad would have been criticized long ago.

He just hadn’t expected it to be this… delicious.

The pastry’s flavor was subtle in a strange way: you could tell it was good, yet it felt like it should be even better. The filling was truly excellent.

Although similar to the filling of a three-diced bun and seemingly made with the same approach, the carrot paste combined with minced meat, bamboo shoots, and mushrooms created a remarkably harmonious texture.

The sweetness of the carrot blended with the meat, paired with the slightly firm, chewy dough skin—it created a sensation…

Why isn’t this just a bun?

Luo Jun was absolutely right. This filling is meant for buns.

On Zheng Siyuan’s side, his reaction was entirely different.

He first questioned, then was shocked, then appreciated it, then savored it, then fell silent, followed by reflection, and finally a complete restructuring of his worldview.

Just by his expression, one could tell he was engaged in an intense internal struggle while eating.

That struggle could be summarized as: sorry, ancestors.

He knew this was absurd, and that apple pastries should taste like apples, and that this filling clearly belonged in buns, yet somehow had been forced into a pastry.

But it was delicious.

In fact, it felt like it should be even better—his own skill had constrained its potential.

Damn it, how could a meat-filled apple pastry taste this good? It was neither scientific nor reasonable—and even more disrespectful to his ancestors!

“How is it?” Qin Huai asked.

After a long silence, Zheng Siyuan said: “I’ll go back tonight and study how to stir-fry the filling.”

“Tomorrow morning, I’m making buns.”

“I admit it’s delicious.”

“But I still think… this belongs as bun filling.”