The reason French cuisine is the most expensive in the world is inseparable from its sauces.
Of course, many people might criticize Jiang Hai for being unpatriotic upon seeing this statement; if we were talking about expensive cuisines, Chinese food should rightfully be the most prominent, but in this world, everything must be judged by an average.
Chinese food indeed has many expensive ways to eat, but what common people encounter is actually very cheap.
Like roadside restaurants and the like, one can only say that the price range of Chinese food is extremely wide, while for French food, basically any French restaurant—even if you just go in for a plate of fried rice—will be several times, or even dozens or hundreds of times more expensive than Chinese fried rice.
The upper limits might each have their merits, but for the lower limit, French food is clearly not meant for ordinary people.
Sauce is the essence of French cuisine; almost every great chef has their own secret recipe sauce, all with different tastes.
But basically speaking, they all evolve from six types of French sauces.
These six sauces are also known as the six mother sauces. One of the most famous, which friends who often eat steak will surely know, is Black Pepper Sauce, but those who truly know the trade know that Black Pepper Sauce is diluted from Beef Bone Jus.
Beef Bone Jus is the basic of the six basic sauces. This sauce is made by simmering beef bones and took its form in the late 19th century, around the 1800s. To make this sauce well, the beef bones need to be flipped every twenty minutes in an oven for a total of five consecutive hours of roasting, then put into a pot to simmer for three days, 72 hours. During these three days, the fire cannot stop and the water naturally cannot dry up. The purpose is to fully release the aroma deep within the marrow and melt the collagen from the beef bones into the soup. Only Beef Bone Jus made this way is the most authentic.
However, currently over ninety percent of the Black Pepper Sauce in the world is filled with store-bought sauce, and those sold sauces are made by mixing jus powder with water. To a layman, the taste is similar, but to an expert, there is a world of difference.
Besides these two sauces, there is also Mushroom Sauce, which is a large family using cream as a base and producing different flavors by adding different mushrooms. In this family, the most luxurious is naturally the Black Truffle Sauce simmered from French black truffles. Jiang Hai also has truffles here, so Qi Ya has made this kind of sauce for Jiang Hai before.
In addition, there is Béarnaise Sauce, which has been recorded in French recipes since 1836.
It is a derivative of French Hollandaise Sauce. The name of the sauce was created to commemorate Henry IV, the creator of the Bourbon Dynasty, so it was named after his birthplace, Béarn.
There is also Blue Cheese Sauce, which is a jus made from cheese. It has a rich milky aroma and a very thick texture, but unfortunately, Jiang Hai does not produce cheese here, so no one in his manor knows how to make it; he has only eaten it outside.
The last to be introduced is Bordelaise Sauce, also known as Red Wine Sauce. This sauce is quite particular; if you want to make it well, you must use Red Wine Sauce from Bordeaux. Dry reds, white wines, and the like won't work, and the origin is strictly required—only red wine for jus produced in the Bordeaux region can be used to make Red Wine Sauce.
Similarly using Beef Bone Jus as a base, red wine and spices are added for simmering, and finally, beef bone marrow is added to enhance the texture.
The best pairing is Bazas beef, native to Bordeaux, but Jiang Hai's Angus Cattle are no worse than these beef cattle.
Of course, this sauce must never be paired with beef that is too fatty; for instance, Japan's most famous wagyu is something that clashes with this sauce. This isn't targeting anyone, it's just how things are.
Jiang Hai's Red Wine Sauce naturally couldn't be imported from Bordeaux. Dulles Gerard also knows the manufacturing method for this kind of cooking red wine, so when brewing wine, he specifically brewed some wines intended for cooking.
For example, red wine for stewing beef, or red wine for making this kind of red wine jus—various kinds, too many to list.
Of course, every kind of red wine is different, but in Jiang Hai's home, the only one who can handle them clearly is Qi Ya.
Initially, after catching the Lampreys, Jiang Hai refused to eat them no matter what because they were too ugly. But when Qi Ya followed a recipe to make the Lamprey with Bordelaise Sauce that the European royalty used to love most, Jiang Hai fell in love with this delicacy.
No one is born disliking a certain food; you only dislike it because you haven't eaten it prepared well.
Just like people in Ice City, almost no one likes eating rabbit because that stuff is too unpalatable, especially the famous smoked rabbit in Ice City. Even Jiang Hai, a local, absolutely dislikes eating it—it's fishy, tasteless, and the meat is tough.
But once people from there go to the land of Sichuan, the rabbit recipes there will leave people from Ice City dumbfounded.
Bahang Rabbit and Dry Pot Rabbit—these cooking methods and the use of flavors are things absolutely non-existent in Ice City.
The same goes for Lampreys. In China, Lampreys are even considered inedible because they are said to be poisonous, but in the United States and Europe, they are a supreme delicacy. To be honest, they taste somewhat like yellow eel, but the meat is much more delicious and fresh than yellow eel.
After Jiang Hai and Filimon lowered the cages, they began fishing first. There was no rush to fire the guns; they could fire a couple of magazines when they left. If they fired now, it would scare all the fish away.
Baiting with the minced beef obtained at the pier, Jiang Hai had one rod, Filimon had one, and Louis Turner and John Turner shared one. They sat in the boat and waited. Sea fish are somewhat like river fish, but also somewhat different. Because the sea does not freeze, sea fish themselves lack neither oxygen nor food. As for river fish, because a layer of ice forms on the river—like the artificial river in Jiang Hais Manor, which has already formed an ice layer nearly half a meter thick.
Because the river surface is frozen, oxygen is somewhat insufficient, and food decreases accordingly. To better adapt to such a life, fish will try to remain still as much as possible, avoiding movement when there is no food.
So fishing in a river in winter is very easy, especially in Winthrop; if you smash a hole in the ice, some fish might even jump out because it's simply too suffocating down there.
But in the sea, because it is also very cold, fish don't like to move and aren't very fond of wasting energy to eat.
Coupled with the fact that they don't lack oxygen, sea fish in winter are much harder to catch than river fish.
But that only applies to ordinary people. Is there any possibility that Jiang Hai's beef wouldn't attract fish?
After being thrown into the sea for about a dozen minutes, Jiang Hai's rod twitched. At this moment, Jiang Hai suppressed his thoughts and quietly waited for the fish to take the bait. As the rod was suddenly pulled with great force, Jiang Hai smiled. He immediately gripped the reel on the rod and forcibly pulled the fish back. This was Jiang Hai's powerful strength; as long as the rod could take it, even if it were a whale, Jiang Hai would have the ability to... er, release it back into the ocean! In my excitement, I've bragged a bit too much; a beluga might be okay, but for an Orca or a blue whale, Jiang Hai would exhaust himself and still not pull it up. After all, he is only at eight times the human physical limit; he shouldn't think about things weighing dozens of tons.
Human physical limits, according to modern Olympic standards for the 105kg+ category, the clean and jerk is about 260 kilograms. In the Marvel Universe, Captain America, who reached the human physical limit, has a strength of about 1000 pounds, less than five hundred kilograms. Jiang Hai's physical quality, being eight times the human limit, means he can lift about 4 tons.
If you give him a small car, relying on his explosive power, he could easily flip it over or even lift it up.
But if you let him handle a whale, haha... an adult Orca weighs nearly ten tons; he might really only be able to withstand a beluga.
But clearly, the fish Jiang Hai hooked was not a whale, and whales aren't fish anyway... As Jiang Hai rapidly turned the reel, before long, a constantly struggling fish appeared before him. With a pull from Jiang Hai, a large fish gleaming with red light was pulled into mid-air and then dropped onto the boat. Seeing this, John Turner and Louis Turner immediately rushed over, took out their phones, and began taking pictures. They had seen this kind of fish before, but this was the first time seeing a live one.
"Wow, it's a Red Snapper. Not bad luck!" Looking at the large fish before him, which was about sixty centimeters long, Jiang Hai also laughed. Then, after the two had finished taking photos, he removed the hook and threw it into the nearby water tank.
"Yeah, it's quite a big fellow. Boss, don't you Chinese people always talk about having a good start?" Hearing Jiang Hai's words, Filimon looked at the fish and couldn't help but smile as he spoke. At this moment, he felt a weight in his own hand; it seemed a school of fish was passing by. He couldn't directly pull the fish up like Jiang Hai, so he was playing the fish, while also telling his two sons to stop looking at that fish—a school was passing now, and it was the perfect time to catch fish.
Perhaps in winter, things like lugworms have a significantly decreased allure for these sea fish, but Jiang Hai's beef is the best bait all year round. The spiritual energy and aura contained within are far beyond what some insects in nature can compare to.
Animals are much more sensitive than humans; they won't let go of this beef that possesses spiritual energy.
Just as John Turner and Louis Turner returned to their rods, their rods were also bitten.
However, compared to their father, they were far behind; they wanted to pull back but couldn't outpull the fish, and they wanted to play it but couldn't manage. Jiang Hai couldn't help but laugh as he watched them, suddenly remembering himself when he first arrived here.
When he went fishing then, he seemed quite silly too, forcibly catching a shark. But it was precisely because he caught that shark that his fishery now has such a guardian! (To be continued.)