pjbooks Chapter 486 - 398: Ultimate Softness, Thousand-Layer Cloud Toast
Chapter 486 - 398: Ultimate Softness, Thousand-Layer Cloud Toast
"Pork floss??"
The sight of this being put into a sandwich clearly surprised the three Head Chefs.
But that wasn’t all.
Lin Chen then laid cucumber slices, shredded carrots, and sweet corn kernels over the pork floss, and topped it with a sizzling Orléans fried chicken filet before closing it with the final piece of toast.
The one beside it was made in the same manner.
"Ladies, please come over here."
He waved to Dais and the others, causing all four ladies to gather around, with Helena and Lucinda joining out of curiosity.
"What is it? Mommy, I want to see too!"
Lisa was anxious, standing on tiptoe at the edge of the table, and only when the others made room for her could she see the full picture.
"You all need to handle the packaging step, which isn’t hard, but it does take a bit of time and could affect our serving speed."
As he explained, the Head Chefs didn’t rush to crowd around, knowing the packaging step would be repeated many times, so they could watch later.
Sandwiches sold in regular restaurants generally don’t include this packaging step; they’re usually just placed in a paper box or wrapped in wax paper like in a Subway.
The sandwiches Lin Chen made were clearly different and worth learning.
In front of everyone, Lin Chen held his hand palm down and gently pressed the entire sandwich downward.
"Be mindful when pressing it down, because all the ingredients are piled in the middle; pressing too hard could shift or damage them, especially the egg yolk, which would affect the appearance."
"Slightly arch your palm, apply pressure with your fingers, and feel the toast wrapping tightly around the ingredients."
Pressing down with his left hand, he grabbed the oil paper beneath with his right hand and folded it up, just enough to be held by his left hand.
He did the same with the other side.
"If the two edges aren’t close enough after folding, it means you haven’t pressed tightly enough, and it will affect the appearance when you cut it later, possibly causing the sandwich to fall apart."
"The two edges must align, so it looks nice, and also the four sides of the toast must fit snugly."
Fold downward and secure with transparent tape, then begin folding the remaining section on both sides.
He didn’t do anything too complicated, just folding left, then right, creating an upside-down triangle shape, folding it upward, then again, and securing it with tape, producing a neat and tidy sandwich before the crowd.
They blinked, slightly baffled.
It didn’t look difficult, but when they tried to recall the steps, they could only remember the folding step, which seemed so peculiar!
"I’ll demonstrate again; if you’re worried about forgetting, just record a video."
"Oh right, we can record a video."
"Quick, record it, so we don’t forget later."
Under the careful observation of everyone, Lin Chen slowed his pace considerably, giving a comprehensive demonstration once more.
During the demonstration, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
To be honest, he hadn’t really tried many sandwich flavors at home, much less the packaging step.
He had just learned it online last night before bed. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard, and he remembered it after seeing it once.
Given the intelligence of these ladies, two demonstrations should be enough; they’ll remember it as soon as they try it once.
After finishing the packaging, use a bread knife to cut it in half, revealing an incredibly beautiful cross-section of the sandwich.
"When cutting, pay attention that the sides face left and right, because the placement of the ingredients is fixed; cutting in the wrong direction would make the cross-section look messy."
This is a crucial point, but fortunately, the shape of the sandwich’s packaging paper on both sides is quite distinctive, so it’s hard to mix them up.
"Here you go, Lisa, have a taste while it’s hot. There are more flavors coming up later, so don’t fill up on just one."
After cutting the sandwich, the colorful cross-section dazzled not only little Lisa but also the eyes of the beautiful waitresses, shining like stars.
They even felt like they had never eaten such an exquisite and beautiful sandwich in their lives, as if it was made especially for photographing.
"Thank you, chef!"
Lisa sweetly expressed her thanks, eagerly cradling the sandwich in her hands. "Mommy, hurry and take a picture of it! I want to show my friends later!"
Helena smiled and nodded, swiping right on her phone screen to switch back to photo mode, snapping several shots in rapid succession.
Lisa seemed confident in her mother’s photo-taking skills, not even checking them, and opened her mouth to take a bite.
But soon, she realized a problem.
The sandwich was made to fit an adult’s mouth, so she couldn’t take a complete bite.
Or even taking half of it was hard.
But if she couldn’t take a full bite, she wouldn’t be able to savor its most perfect taste.
In the moment of her daze, Lin Chen obviously realized the issue too and extended his hand.
"Give it to me. Since the photo is taken, I’ll help you cut it into bite-sized pieces."
By bite-sized pieces, it actually means cutting from the middle where the filling is thickest and then dividing it into small squares.
As long as it’s all stuffed into the mouth, there’s no rule saying you must stack it to eat.
The segmented sandwich is only about the size of two fingers, looking all meat and vegetables at a glance, with hardly any bread content, just three thin layers on top, middle, and bottom.
Lisa sweetly thanked him, took the plate, grabbed the sandwich, and stuffed it into her mouth.
First stuffing half of it, folding the rest inside when it couldn’t fit, until her small mouth was puffy like a hamster eating, she finally got the entire sandwich stuffed in.
Biting into all the food in the sandwich at once is a sign of respect for the sandwich and a Western obsession.
While adjusting its position, Lisa was already tasting the bread, her big eyes sparkled, curving into a crescent moon shape.
The taste of the bread was even better than she imagined, not even chewed much, just held in the mouth, and she could feel the rich milky taste.
Its texture was incomparably soft, so soft like marshmallows, seemingly ready to melt at any moment.
With the chewing, the iceberg lettuce made a crisp ’crunch crunch’ sound, and the sweet fresh juice was squeezed out.
The next second, she bit into a fleshy sausage.
This sausage tasted unlike any she had had in her life, lacking that smoky taste, rather it had a bit of the texture of square ham, each bite felt like devouring a hunk of meat.
The sausage skin was slightly elastic and crispy, a texture naturally formed from frying, capable of firmly locking the inner meat juices.
In chewing, the salty, umami, and slightly sweet sausage meat is in providing solid texture continuously bursting with juice, the aroma of meat wafted around, most notably it wasn’t greasy, mostly lean meat.
The only slight greasiness was dispersed by the hefty lettuce below.
Chewing a few more times, the yolk of the soft-boiled egg transformed into a thick sauce coating the various ingredients, allowing one to appreciate the yolk’s unique smoothness.
Besides the yolk, there seemed to be some very subtle, salty, sweet, moist, and soft thing, indistinguishable momentarily which ingredients they were.
But no worry, next, she bit into the thickest piece of chicken thigh meat.
"Pshoo"
Sweet and savory juices squirting in response to the teeth’s pressure, the distinct aroma of the unique marinade emerged, a flavor she had never tasted before.
Though unfamiliar, it was inexplicably delicious.
The chicken thigh meat was mainly sweet and salty, mixed with barely discernible spiciness, along with a prominent complex spice aroma, yet all unable to mask the marinade’s unique sweet and salty taste.
As if it was the chicken’s natural flavor, fully soaked into every fiber of the chicken, exploding with juice with each bite.
Finally managing to chew all the sandwich’s ingredients, mixing them together, the juicy and crisp texture of various vegetables mingled with the meat and the bread’s softness, every bite was an ultimate delight for the tastebuds.
She only realized she was already wearing a full smile on her face without knowing when, and even the surrounding pretty sisters looked at her with visible amused smiles in their eyes.
"Seems this sandwich tastes really great, even Lisa likes it so much, it must suit Westerners’ palate perfectly."
Helena nodded in satisfaction, casually picking up another half of the cut sandwich to hand to her husband.
"You’ll need to drive later on, eat first; being full will keep you from feeling carsick, thank you, my love."
The man took it without hesitation, tore open the wrapper on the surface, and eagerly took a big bite.
"?!"
His mouth was larger, not needing as long as Lisa to savor all the flavors.
At the bite, the warm Orléans chicken cutlet and sausage burst with juice simultaneously, with iceberg lettuce, tomato, cucumber slices, and carrot shreds each holding their sweet and crisp taste without affecting each other. All the ingredients’ flavors were distinct yet perfectly harmonious.
Although adding three kinds of sauces, it didn’t really affect the taste in the mouth, at most, the cucumber mustard had a slightly noticeable presence, but mustard was the sauce flavor they were most familiar with, in turn making the sandwich flavor overall more aligned with his taste.
The most important part, he never had bread this soft before!
"Delicious, incredibly delicious!"
"Oh my gosh, why is the bread so soft?"
Out of curiosity, he reached out to tear the bread slice directly, wanting to try tasting it alone.
This tear instantly astonished everyone.
With his action, the bread didn’t tear off in a chunk as expected but rather came away in thin layers like tearing cotton candy, where clear layer upon layer was visible inside.
"This is?!"
Initially oblivious to the making process, assuming it was ordinary bread, yet upon seeing the cross-section after tearing, the three head chefs’ eyes widened instantly, hurriedly grabbing a whole loaf from the side, using a bread knife to swiftly slice it apart.
Each holding a piece of bread, gently tore it open, and then into their mouths to savor its marvel.
"Oh, I see, integrating the bread-making craft into the loaf, to create cloud-like soft mille-feuille bread, this way providing an ultimate soft texture while avoiding the dryness that loaves inherently encountered."