Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Chapter 494 - 406: Indirect Probing, Pineapple and Durian Joining the Fray

"Although we don’t recommend queuing early, based on recent trends, people will start queuing at ten o’clock to buy Chef Lin’s lunch."

Ten o’clock?

Right now it’s almost nine, just an hour away, not that long.

If I watch a few more food videos, time will fly by.

"Could you please just give me the lunch serial number then? Am I supposed to wait here?"

"No need for that. Please register your name and phone number here, and we will call you when it’s your turn. Also, we need you to show your accommodation proof."

"I heard there’s a benefit for relatives of employees?"

"Yes, may I ask whose relative you are?"

"Su, she works at Chef Lin’s? I’m not sure, she didn’t tell me."

"That’s right, sir. May I have your name?"

"Sergy, um, could you not tell her yet? I want to surprise her."

Helena paused for a moment, looking a bit troubled.

If she didn’t confirm with Su, there was no way to verify his identity. What if he was just pretending to get a free meal?

But then she quickly thought of a compromise and nodded.

"That’s doable. You go ahead and register, and I’ll see if I can verify your identity in another way, trying not to alert Su of your arrival."

"Thank you, I appreciate it."

He wasn’t sure how she would manage, but there were no other options, so he had to leave it to fate.

After waiting for a few more minutes, Helena informed the rest of the queued customers and then went inside the restaurant with the registry book.

"Everyone, the guests at the back have all been informed. We’ve given out lunch numbers to twelve people. Looks like it’s going to be a busy lunch."

"Thanks, Helena. How’s it over there?"

Lin Chen had already sliced all the toast and was helping with the preparations.

While squeezing sauce onto the toast, she nodded at Helena.

"I just saw a few couples sitting on the lawn outside eating sandwiches, with the morning sun on their faces. Felt like seeing my younger self when I was in love, haha."

Helena glanced at the buffet area where there weren’t many diners, and stayed near Lin Chen instead.

Relationship topics often resonate quickly among women, especially with Dais, who is already married.

They chatted warmly for a few moments, then Helena suddenly changed the topic.

"Speaking of which, Elsa, do you have a boyfriend?"

"Huh? Me?"

Elsa paused, smiled a bit shyly: "Hehe, not yet. I want to focus on work first."

"You’re at the age where it’s perfect to date. As long as it doesn’t interfere with work, why not date in your free time? What’s the harm?"

Elsa just smiled and said nothing more.

Helena blinked and suddenly realized: "Oh yes, work is important, work is important."

"What about Su? Do you have a boyfriend?"

She naturally knew Lin Chen worked all seven days, but acted as if she only just remembered.

And since everyone knew Nicole was interested in Chef Lin, it wasn’t suitable to ask in front of customers, leaving just one target.

"Me? Yes, I’ve been dating for two or three years now."

Su was packing sandwiches into bags when she suddenly heard the topic directed at her, instinctively responding.

"What?? Su, you actually have a boyfriend?"

"What’s his name? Is he local? No wonder you don’t worry about accommodation after work, you’re living together, right?"

"Have we met him? Why not invite him to the restaurant to eat?"

No need to wait for Helena to speak; Elsa, Nicole, and Dais all had their eyes shining, staring at Su.

Su smiled and shook her head, feeling a bit helpless: "He’s been absorbed in playing single-player games lately, saying he’s not working this year, just playing to his heart’s content, from waking up to falling asleep, eating pizza and other takeout every day."

"I haven’t told him I’m working, just seeing how long it’ll take for him to notice."

"You’ve probably never seen him. His name is Sergy, his beard hasn’t been shaved for days, you’d recognize him instantly. He probably hasn’t even gotten up?"

Is it really that guy outside?

Helena quickly connected her words with the image of the bearded man outside, quietly retreated a few steps, disappearing into the greenery aisle.

When she returned to the entrance, most of the diners had left.

After lining up for so long without getting food, who would want to keep waiting for over an hour?

Since their phone numbers were registered, they could relax and wait for notification.

Sergy was the only one still standing alone at the entrance.

Seeing Helena reappear, I hurriedly stepped forward.

Before I could speak, Helena nodded first: "Don’t worry, sir, your identity hasn’t been exposed. I’ll call you later. You can stroll on the beach now or find a place nearby to rest. An hour’s time isn’t short."

"Alright, see you at noon!"

...

Ten o’clock.

The kitchen.

Zhao Shun, Old Chen, and Lin Chen were busy handling the dough, sweating profusely, their uniforms tightly hugging their bodies.

If it weren’t for the air conditioning here, they probably would have been soaked.

The pizza dough doesn’t need to be fermented for long; after all, they’re not making some high-end pizza, just a simple fermentation will do.

To save time, Lin Chen had Zhao Shun and Old Chen start preparing the dough half an hour before breakfast ended.

With the aid of the chef machine, in just half an hour, the fermentation box was already filled again.

They had no time to rest, immediately rushing to prepare the next batch of dough.

This process would keep repeating until lunch began.

Even after the start of lunch service, it would continue for a while to avoid running out of pizza dough.

As for the sale duration, it’s not necessarily limited to within two hours; sales end when all the pizzas are sold.

Exactly how much to prepare also depends on how long the ingredients in the warehouse can support.

To save time, they adopted the water method, which saves a lot of time compared to the normal kneading process. All you need to do is mix all the ingredients together and then let the dough ferment naturally; it doesn’t need to be kneaded until smooth.

Once fermentation is complete, the dough naturally forms a lot of gluten, and the surface will become smooth.

Fermentation doesn’t need to be very long because Western pizzas are generally thin and crispy, unlike Great Xia, where thick crust bread bases are popular, so just a moderate fermentation will do.

Lin Chen’s preparation was to balance the tastes of both, making the crust as thin as possible while maintaining the characteristics of Great Xia pizza, so the baked pizza should taste very good.

While they were preparing the dough, the cutting of various vegetables was done by the beautiful waitresses.

After all, they used multifunctional cutting boards; as long as you pay attention not to cut your hands, there’s hardly any operational difficulty.

Only green peppers and mushrooms, these relatively simple and uniquely shaped vegetables, need to be hand-cut.

Continuously preparing dough for an hour and a half was about to leave them with no place to store it. Seeing the supplies here were ample and the vegetables were almost done, Lin Chen stopped and washed his hands before starting to prepare the sauce.

In Western cuisine, especially in French restaurants, the core of the core is the various sauces, which are key to the deliciousness of the dishes.

Whether soups, main courses, or snacks, they can’t do without the support of stock and sauces.

Lin Chen had already prepared a pot of veal stock and vegetable stock last night, and now he just needed to process them a bit to create finished sauces that could be used.

Today’s preparation didn’t involve many flavors; like sandwiches, just a few simple ones, so guests could get used to them and see the feedback to decide whether to continue this series.

"Boss, we can’t make any more dough for now; there’s no place to put it. Shall I go open the durian?"

"Okay, Old Chen, you go cut the pineapple. Can you do that?"

"Uh..." Chen Dongliang grinned, showing his yellow teeth, "I can, just cutting randomly, it might not match what big restaurants require?"

"Then let me show you once."

Lin Chen casually grabbed a pineapple that was more yellow in color, and with a quick motion, chopped off the top leaves and the base, revealing the golden-yellow pineapple flesh within.

As soon as it was cut open, the rich aroma of pineapple spread forth, making several women sniff repeatedly.

"Ah... wow, the fragrance is amazing!"

"I suddenly realized I haven’t eaten pineapple in a long time. Smelling this aroma, I really want to eat it."

Although everyone had eaten breakfast this morning, they hadn’t had enough, each only having a sandwich to tide them over.

After three hours of busy work, everyone was starving.

If they hadn’t smelled this sweet and sour fruit fragrance, it wouldn’t have been much of a feeling, but now it was like a craving had been awakened, and hunger was unbearable.

Lin Chen worked quickly, slicing off the thick outer skin layer by layer along the pineapple.

He put down the kitchen knife and picked up a uniquely shaped small knife, carefully removing each remaining pore in a spiral fashion from top to bottom on the pineapple’s surface.

This unique pineapple slicing technique left the women in awe. They had never seen a pineapple carved like this.

Didn’t the supermarket sell those cylindrical ones that had already been cut by machines?

Even when manually cut, it was usually processed into blocks on that basic shape, not with such complex procedures as Lin Chen’s.

Until this point, Chen Dongliang hadn’t reacted much, as it was clear he was familiar with the step of removing the pores.

Even if he hadn’t personally done it before, the farmers selling pineapples on Great Xia’s streets did it this way.

After removing all the pores, the pineapple had turned into a piece of golden-yellow fruit with spiral hollow patterns all over.

Lin Chen once again picked up the kitchen knife, not cutting it in half, but instead, he aimed confidently at a point next to the center and sliced down hard.

The tender and juicy pineapple flesh was instantly sliced off, and the sweet juice flowed outward.

Repeating this four times, only a rectangular core was left on the cutting board, looking relatively hard, not as soft and juicy as the flesh.