Chapter 247: Starting To Serve Meals
After thirty minutes, the Class 8 members in the kitchen finally stopped their assembly line work one after another. Some whose legs and feet were quite tired directly took out a floating platform the size of a tablet, plopped down on it, and began leisurely doing the next step of work.
For the staple food part, besides raw noodles which are suitable for cooking and eating fresh, both dumplings and pancakes require preparing the filling in advance. The vegetables group and meat group poured the chopped meat filling and green vegetables into the same basin, used the kitchen AI mechanical arm’s mixing function to stir evenly, while Xiang Chuan added seasoning bit by bit on the side. Soon, standard beef dumpling filling was prepared. For the pancake filling, Xiang Chuan arranged to use eggs and chives stir-fried in chicken fat, scooped a large spoonful into the dough for the pancake wrappers, wrapped it tight, rolled it into a sphere, then gently pressed it, making simple chive boxes.
However, because the staple food group’s members had uneven skill levels, one could often see some ancient-style shaped dumplings or cases where the pancake wrappers were pressed through, so Xiang Chuan had to frequently help out on this side to fix things.
The meat group, vegetables group, and dessert group were respectively assigned to Ouyang Yating, Ainuo, and Liang Gong. Ouyang Yating and Ainuo divided the ingredients that needed to be stir-fried together into groups, then according to the schedule from Xiang Chuan, led the two groups each taking half, and began heating the wok, lighting the fire, and stir-frying.
Last month after returning from the production escort ship, the A Bite of China Club small restaurant would occasionally have students wanting to eat stir-fried dishes. At first it was Xiang Chuan personally cooking, but later when more people ordered, Xiang Chuan simply assigned the three A Bite of China Club members homework to practice stir-frying, then served the experimental products to the guests, of course, dishes that had passed Xiang Chuan’s tongue inspection. If the three stir-fried out some unidentified items, Xiang Chuan would never let them serve them to the guests to taste, after all, she was still counting on this small restaurant to earn her more pocket money over the next three years.
After half a month of training, although the three hadn’t reached mastery level, they at least gained recognition from the Class 8 gluttons, so this time with Master Ouyang and Master Ainuo as stir-frying instructors for the two groups, the Class 8 crowd had no objections.
The dessert group was led by Liang Gong, who had always performed excellently in dessert making. Ever since Xiang Chuan showed him some maltose sugar paintings before, Liang Gong was like possessed, practicing every afternoon with a pot of boiled syrup. Unfortunately, there was no maltose in the modern era, so no matter how well Liang Gong practiced, he couldn’t find a chance for actual operation. Seeing him pitiful, Xiang Chuan simply bought a bunch of wheat seeds with her own money, planning to sprout some wheat buds after this visit ended and try making maltose.
Xiang Chuan even planned that if sprouting failed, she’d donate those wheat sprouts to the nature reserve’s feline animals, to let them taste fresh cat grass.
——
As the hot stir-fried dishes and desserts kept coming out of the kitchen, the enticing aroma gradually wafted through the canteen, attracting the soldiers and employees in the canteen over.
Upon asking, they learned it was the rumored ancient gourmet food research club from the Agricultural University Affiliated High School doing the cooking, and specifically supplying their own school’s students, which made everyone drool.
Ancient gourmet food! That was rare food that could only be eaten at Yue Xiang Restaurant on the main ship during monthly vacations!
Some employees even said they wanted to pay money to buy the food made by the students, but were rejected by the homeroom teachers standing at the back of the line. Mainly because students from other classes were also benefiting from Class 8’s good fortune. If not for the homeroom teachers unanimously agreeing in the staff group that morning to pay these two days’ meal expenses to Class 8 as compensation, and giving Class 8 a month’s canteen consumption discount for students, Class 8 homeroom teacher Zhu Bingwen and class president Lu Daiqing would have been quite resistant to taking this job.
Why bother having students cook when there’s kitchen AI? Huh? The person in charge disagrees?
Hearing this, the cadre employees and squad leaders in the canteen all opened their personal terminal’s light screen to complain to the canteen person in charge.
——Even if it’s only two days of enjoyment, so what! This is a precious chance to eat ancient gourmet food on the military escort ship! Why not approve that little girl’s recipe temporary authorization!
——The dishes in the kitchen look so delicious! Person in charge, can you bear to let us gnaw on solid food while watching the students eat hot dishes!
——Person in charge, I want to eat!
……
The canteen person in charge far away in the second canteen looked at the constantly flashing new message prompts on the personal terminal light screen, showing a bitter smile on their face.
You think I don’t want to approve that little girl’s temporary authorization application? I even want to talk to her about temporary authorization for the entire military district’s canteens!
But the problem is, Captain Huaken won’t allow it!
The canteen person in charge silently shed tears in their heart while gnawing on solid food that had no taste anymore to their spoiled tongue.
——Woo woo, I also want to eat dumplings and noodles, I heard from colleagues on the fourth production escort ship that those kids’ cooking is so delicious, woo woo.
——
The extreme indignation of the third military escort ship members outside the field had nothing to do with the Class 8 members about to finish their work; they put the stir-fried dishes into containers, portioned the pancakes and steamed dumplings into each meal box, and loaded the raw noodles into the control panel next to the boiling water.
“Ainuo, ready?” Xiang Chuan went over to Ainuo’s side.
Ainuo was now manually inputting operation commands for the kitchen AI. Because there was no recipe data from Xiang Chuan’s side, steps like boiling noodles and scooping dishes needed manual input, but fortunately the commands weren’t complex. When the dessert group finished plating the cucumber salad into cups, Ainuo also shut down the light screen.
“Done, all finished, let’s hurry to eat, I’m exhausted.”
Ainuo let out a long breath, grabbed Liang Gong and Xiang Chuan nearby, and headed straight to the locker room. Ouyang Yating standing to the side was stunned, then rushed over and pulled Xiang Chuan back.
“Are you confused from being busy? The boys’ and girls’ locker rooms are separate.”
With that, Ouyang Yating pushed Xiang Chuan toward the girls’ group direction. Everyone laughed and pushed and pulled the still-dazed Xiang Chuan into the locker room.
Outside the boys’ locker room, Ainuo scratched his head. Alright, he hadn’t handled this properly.
——
While Class Eight Grade One was busy sterilizing and changing in the locker room, the serving window in the canteen was extremely lively.
Just as students from each class expected, half of the beef offal and chicken innards were rightfully “pocketed” by Class 8, and the remaining half would probably only feed twenty or thirty people, so at this moment an underground transaction was openly taking place——
“Classmate, how about letting me order first this time? I’ll handle your Chinese homework next week, deal?”
“Classmate, I want to try the chicken liver this time, save it for me, how about it? I have a membership to Xiang Xue live stream room, I’ll lend it to you for half a month.”
“Classmate, let me have this spot, for the summer vacation outdoor study, I’ll be your assistant.”
……
The transaction contents of the students in front were getting more outrageous, and the homeroom teachers who had been ignored for a long time in the back fell silent for a while before letting out a cold laugh: Hey, little ones, got you by your little tails now!
Several students intending to use homework and club activities as transaction chips were dragged out by their homeroom teachers, taken to the end of the line, made to line up again while enjoying the homeroom teachers’ “caring guidance” on the way.
Meanwhile, the class presidents from each class snapped out of their tempted state and began maintaining order in the line.
During this time, Kenny and Li Wei squeezed at the front of the line were also politely asked by the students to step outside the line.
After all, this was dishes Class 8 specially prepared for their own school’s students, others couldn’t touch them, not even the respected exploration force soldiers!
After a lot of fussing, when Class 8 students started coming out changed and lining up, the other classes finally got their meals one after another and went to the student-only seating area.
Kenny and Li Wei stood at the end of the line, dumbfoundedly watching the colorful and aromatic dishes on the serving plates the students were holding, feeling like a new world had opened up to them.
The fresh aroma of the soup and the fragrance of the stir-fried dishes wafted into their noses, making Kenny and Li Wei’s stomachs growl uncontrollably even though they had just finished lunch.
Mainly because these things really smelled amazing! Kenny’s originally not-so-firm stance wavered even more now.
