Chapter 6: Yam Cake, Fried Banana, And Fried Potato Shred Pancake
After demonstrating the methods for sweet egg pancake and savory egg pancake to the kitchen AI, Xiang Chuan looked at the parents and guests who had suddenly appeared and fell into contemplation.
Since guests had come, the meal matching couldn’t be sloppy.
“Kitchen AI, what fruits are in the warehouse?”
[Beep—Abundant stock: apple, orange, banana, pear; Low stock: grapes]
“There’s quite a lot. Get me apples, oranges, bananas. From the ingredient warehouse, get me some potatoes, milk, and eggs. Seasonings: salt, sugar, pepper. Is there yam… no, brother!”
Xiang Chuan abruptly turned her head to look at Xiang Qi.
“Yam, right?” Having the precedent of pepper, Xiang Qi naturally understood her meaning and immediately used the terminal to ask the servant about the yam reserves in the medicinal materials storage.
After receiving confirmation of sufficient stock, Xiang Chuan immediately requested a large handful.
With yam, how could she worry about not being able to make something?
Xiang Chuan had the kitchen AI peel and shred the apples and potatoes, peel and chunk the oranges for later use, slice the bananas, and beat the eggs loose. After getting the yam, Xiang Chuan poured boiling water over the skin, then used the kitchen knife to demonstrate the peeling force to the kitchen AI before decisively handing it all over to the AI for processing. Joking aside, if she had to peel all that yam herself, her arms would itch to death.
After arranging the peeled yam neatly on a plate and setting up a small iron rack, she finally put it in the pot, added clean water, covered with the pot lid, and started boiling. This operation left everyone stunned; it seemed steaming dishes had also been lost. Xiang Chuan thought helplessly.
While the yam was steaming, now to prepare the fried items first.
Xiang Chuan placed a pot about as tall as a frying pan on the heating plate, then poured in a full pot of cooking oil, startling everyone. Xiang Weiguo almost couldn’t hold back and jumped up to stop her wasteful behavior, but he was ultimately stopped by the male youth beside him. Xiang Chuan secretly watched the situation there and slightly relaxed.
Without a thermometer, she could only use the old method—holding her hand above the oil and confirming the oil temperature by feel. At this point, she could only pray that this era’s cooking oil had similar heat capacity to the 21st century.
The first banana chunk was coated in egg mixture and put into the pot, fished out after one minute. The crispy outer skin made people’s mouths water, and Xiang Xue even couldn’t resist wanting to pounce forward for a taste, but she was firmly held in place by Xiang Qi. Then the second chunk, the third… after frying a whole banana, Xiang Chuan handed the remaining bananas to the kitchen AI and began processing another fried item.
She picked up a potato and was about to cut when she recalled the scene that morning when the kitchen AI mercilessly complained about her knife skills while processing tomatoes. Learning from the mistake, Xiang Chuan decided to avoid the possibility of embarrassing herself in front of guests: “Kitchen AI, can you shred the potatoes?”
[Beep—”Shred” interpreted as cutting into thin long strips. Please specify the required width for this dish.]
“Uh… 0.2 to 0.5 centimeters… I guess?” Xiang Chuan gestured with her fingers, said uncertainly, then thought better of it: “Cut me samples of 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 cm widths respectively. Oh, five strips of each.”
[Beep—Understood.]
Moments later, a robotic arm extended from the ceiling, holding a plate neatly arranged with four widths of potato shreds. Xiang Chuan examined them carefully; the 0.2 cm and 0.3 cm ones were perfect for what she was about to make, while the 0.4 cm and 0.5 cm seemed great for stir-fried potato shreds later?
“Use the 0.2 cm and 0.3 cm widths. If the edge parts are too thin, don’t discard them; give them to me too.”
[Beep—Understood. Reminder: Yam in pot has reached soft standard.]
“That fast?!”
Xiang Chuan jumped up directly, quickly opened the pot lid and had the kitchen AI take out a full plate of yam. Since yam was usually treated as medicinal materials and even processed with skin when needed for medicine, seeing the plate stacked with layers of white yam left Xiang Weiguo couple and the youth somewhat incredulous.
As usual, Xiang Chuan first demonstrated to the kitchen AI. Without a masher, she made do with a ladle. She took a piece of yam, pressed and crushed it bit by bit with the ladle into a sticky mush spread on the board. Xiang Chuan used the iron plate to scoop up the yam mash, endured the heat with her hand to shape it, gradually rolling it into a slightly pitted small sphere.
“Crush those yam mashes like I did, but don’t crush them into liquid form. That might still be edible, but it can’t be used right now.”
[Beep—Yams’ plant fiber damage is uneven. May I use the median value?]
“Mm… Try making one using the median value standard? When mashing, don’t forget to evenly sprinkle in milk and sugar. The proportion of milk and sugar to yam mash: 10g sugar and 100ml milk per 500g.”
While speaking, Xiang Chuan took the processed potato shreds handed over by the AI. After rinsing the potato shreds with water, she beat in egg whites using the eggshell method of moving it back and forth to separate the yolk and take only the white, leaving the onlookers stunned. After beating six eggs, she stopped, stirred evenly with chopsticks while adding pepper powder and salt. Once well mixed, she started another new pot. She didn’t waste the oil from frying bananas, scooping two ladles over. The egg-mixed potatoes emitted waves of aroma under the oil’s heat. Not just the siblings Xiang Qi and Xiang Xue, even the three adults couldn’t help swallowing saliva.
Xiang Chuan used chopsticks to dig a hollow in the potato center, placed an egg yolk in it, then quickly flipped the potato pancake using the iron plate and chopsticks. To ensure crispiness, Xiang Chuan spread the potato thinly, so it only needed one minute on the other side before coming out of the pot. This time, Xiang Chuan tasted it herself, as she wasn’t very proficient at fried potato shred pancakes.
With a crisp crunch, Xiang Chuan bit down. The potato’s texture became fragrant and crispy after frying, enhanced by salt and pepper seasoning, giving her the illusion of eating a potato cake at McDonald’s. The long-lost fried food whetted her appetite; in three bites, she finished the whole potato shred pancake. After savoring it carefully, she nodded: “Kitchen AI, following my previous steps, make fried potato shred pancakes of the same size and thickness.”
[Beep—Understood.]
With potatoes done, next up was yam. The mashed yam looked like snow-white glutinous rice cakes, sweet and sticky. Xiang Chuan brought over the shredded apples, orange chunks, and remaining bananas. The somewhat cooled yam mash wasn’t too hot to handle; she rolled it into long strips and laid them flat, then took one, patted it flat, stuffed in apple shreds, folded the sides over, rerolled into a cylinder, and placed it on the serving plate. Next came orange filling, banana filling…
Rolling yam dim sum was like playing with playdough, full of attraction for Xiang Xue whose childlike innocence remained. She finally couldn’t hold back and ran into the kitchen to request to help.
“Wash your hands first.”
Xiang Chuan pointed straight at the sink without a word.
“Hey, I just wiped with disinfectant gel.”
Xiang Xue waved her slender fingers in front of her.
Disinfectant gel? That thing full of disinfectant? Xiang Chuan’s face darkened: “To the sink. Wash your hands clean.”
Seeing coquetry fail, Xiang Xue huffed and obediently washed under Xiang Chuan’s supervision, finally getting her wish to start playing… cough, start rolling yam mash.
When the kitchen AI placed the additional three portions of tomato egg dough drops on the dining table, all these things Xiang Chuan had impulsively whipped up were finally complete.
Xiang Chuan, covered in oil stains, temporarily excused herself to go back to her room to change clothes. Xiang Weiguo couple and the male youth guest stared at the dining table, speechless for a long time. The staple was an unseen red-and-yellow soup with floating white sticky granules, its sour-sweet aroma teasing their hunger. Beside each bowl of soup was a plate stacked with four egg pancakes, their egg fragrance assaulting the nose. The freshly made fried bananas and fried potato shred pancakes were portioned by the kitchen AI into small dishes: three banana pieces and two potato shred pancakes per person. The yam cakes made collaboratively by the sisters were piled like a small mountain to the side; as Xiang Chuan said before leaving, these were after-meal digestive desserts, no rush to eat now.
This spread even surpassed last night’s grand feast at the fleet central leader’s gathering?! Xiang Weiguo couple were dumbfounded.
They originally thought their eldest daughter was fooling around and would embarrass them in front of an important guest, but unexpectedly, there was a pleasant surprise?!
Gurgle…
An unknown stomach growled with hunger. The couple lightly coughed to cover the awkwardness, quickly inviting the guest to sit. After the elders sat, the long-waiting Xiang Qi and Xiang Xue finally took their seats, and only then did Xiang Chuan stumble downstairs.
“Who would’ve thought visiting Demeter would let me have the honor of tasting such a luxurious family banquet.”
The youth enthusiastically raised his water cup. Xiang Weiguo couple politely returned the toast, Xiang Qi and Xiang Xue slightly raised theirs in gesture, and Xiang Chuan followed suit by raising her cup.
“So this is ‘tomato egg dough drops’? Hm? What’s this black powder on top…?”
The youth scooped a ladle of dough drops and examined it closely.
“That’s pepper powder, used to balance the rich sour-sweet taste of the tomato soup.”
Xiang Qi answered. This was the conclusion he and Xiang Xue reached after breakfast by studying the kitchen AI’s recreation of the dough drops—the more they researched, the more amazed they were at how ingenious the recipe Xiang Chuan found was.
“Oh? Pepper powder? Can medicinal materials be used in dishes?”
“Yeah, but edible ones. The yam mash my sister and I just made is medicinal material too.”
Xiang Xue said proudly.
“That’s yam cake.” Xiang Chuan quickly corrected: “Pepper powder isn’t eaten directly but used as a seasoning like salt and sugar.”
“Oh?”
Xiang Weiguo perked up at this. The food processing group Yue Xiang he managed was currently hitting an upward bottleneck due to market saturation. If he could discover new seasonings and seize the initiative, making Yue Xiang’s name known beyond the Third Fleet would be just around the corner. As for partners… Xiang Weiguo looked at the youth, who was also looking at him. The two exchanged smiles, everything unspoken.
