Chapter 841 - 593: I Just Love How You Can’t Stand Me Yet Can’t Get Rid of Me (Part 3)

Chapter 841: Chapter 593: I Just Love How You Can’t Stand Me Yet Can’t Get Rid of Me (Part 3)

A few minutes later...

Huang Jun picked up several clean stainless steel basins and set them one by one on the spacious workbench.

Then he took the oil pot and evenly brushed a thin layer of cooking oil over the inner wall of each basin.

"Assistant Chef Meng, please come give us a hand. Let’s transfer the glutinous rice from the steamers into these basins together."

As he spoke, Huang Jun neatly lifted the lid off the pot.

A wave of warm, moist steam mixed with the unique fragrance of glutinous rice instantly spread out, making everyone present involuntarily take a deep breath.

"Just the glutinous rice alone already smells great. Once it’s done later, it’ll definitely be even more fragrant."

Standing to the side, Yu Daqing couldn’t help sniffing hard, a look of intoxication appearing on his face.

Huang Jun nodded slightly. "Yeah, this glutinous rice is a top-grade variety we carefully selected from among many types. After a long time steaming, the aroma is rich and the texture incredibly soft and sticky. We’ve got to process it quickly so everyone can taste this rare treat as soon as possible."

As he spoke, he steadily lifted the top steamer basket, walked over to the workbench, and, with practiced ease, inverted the basket over a prepared basin.

Then he gently lifted the steamer basket away and carefully peeled off the silicone liner that was closely adhered to the rice.

At this moment, the basin was filled to the brim with steaming hot, crystal-clear cooked glutinous rice, as enticing as clusters of gleaming pearls.

But extremely sticky!

Meng Hongze and the other assistant chefs were busy as well, following Huang Jun’s demonstration. They lifted the remaining steamer baskets one by one and carefully tipped the glutinous rice into the other basins.

Seeing this.

Huang Jun scooped an appropriate amount of fine white sugar from the nearby sugar jar and lightly sprinkled it into each basin of glutinous rice.

As he sprinkled the sugar, he passed on the secret of making brown sugar rice cakes to Meng Hongze and the others: "Adding fine white sugar gives the rice cakes a gentle sweetness, but don’t add too much, or they’ll taste a bit cloying."

Meng Hongze and the others nodded, silently committing his words to memory.

"Now we’ll work in pairs and, while it’s still hot, stir the glutinous rice in the basins into cohesive rice dough. This not only lets the fine sugar mix evenly with the rice, it also ensures there are no bubbles or gaps inside, so the final texture will be smoother." As he spoke, Huang Jun picked up a relatively thin rolling pin and began stirring in the basin.

This task was indeed quite physically demanding, but fortunately not technically difficult.

On top of that, Qian Guoxiang stood beside him, holding the basin firmly with both hands and taking a lot of the strain off him.

After over ten minutes of steady effort, the glutinous rice in the basin gradually came together into a very sticky dough.

If they continued pounding it with a pestle, this dough could be turned into authentic rice cakes for the New Year.

But today’s goal wasn’t rice cake, so once the dough had formed, Huang Jun stopped at just the right moment.

Meanwhile, Qian Guoxiang evenly brushed a layer of peanut oil over the inner walls of each large container.

Taking advantage of this gap, Huang Jun walked over to check on the progress of Meng Hongze and the others, carefully inspecting how their stirring was coming along.

Whenever he noticed a batch that wasn’t mixed thoroughly, he would step in himself to help until every glutinous rice dough reached the desired level of mixing.

By now, the temperature of the rice had dropped slightly and become even more viscous.

Huang Jun and Qian Guoxiang put on disposable gloves along with the others and began packing the rice dough into the containers.

Since their gloves were also coated with oil, they didn’t need to worry at all about the dough sticking to their hands.

While packing the dough, they kept pressing it down from time to time to squeeze out as much air as possible, ensuring a better texture for the brown sugar rice cakes.

Once everything was packed, Meng Hongze took the containers into the cold storage.

This would speed up the cooling of the rice, and once it was cooled and set, cutting it into strips would be much easier.

Meanwhile, the work in the back kitchen came to a temporary pause. The teachers from each class went back to their own busy routines, heading to the kindergarten gate to welcome their lively, adorable little students.