There are masters who can carve, there are masters who can meet plastics, and there are masters who can cook hot dishes, but a chef who knows both cold dishes, hot dishes, carving, face sculpture, platters, butter carving, chocolate carving, and is proficient, and can win awards in the world, cooking artist Qu Hao deserves to be the first person; even if there is a chef who is proficient in many cooking skills like him, but has a three-inch tongue, easy to deal with, quick thinking, doing well in TV programs, well-cultivated, thinking about cooking, founding a cooking school, Tens of thousands of students, as many as 300 disciples, can be hired as the referee of the Sixth International Competition of Oriental Cuisine Culinary Artists, then it is really only Qu Hao...
Chinese culinary artist and founder of Qu Hao Cooking School - Qu Hao
01 Abandoned 400,000 annual salary to start a school
In 2002, at that time, the annual salary of 400,000 yuan was a very high salary for a chef, but Mr. Qu gave up lenovo's 400,000 high salary and opened a school in the eyes of many people.
Teacher Qu said: "Only the school can make itself more focused on doing things. In the past, when we were studying art, it was too difficult to learn something. Now although everyone is not as conservative as in the past and can enter the kitchen of other people's homes, most of them are also sloppy, and it is difficult to study deeply. I won eight international gold medals, became proficient, and felt responsible for passing on these skills one by one. ”
When asked why the school was built in an office building with little money. Teacher Qu explained that when he was a tutor at the Singapore Guild Training Center, he saw that many schools in Singapore were open in office buildings, and the traffic and environment were very good. "After returning to China in 2002, I visited many cooking schools in Beijing, and in order to save rent, most of them were opened in the suburbs, and the environment was also average. I decided I wanted to open a different school. ”
Teacher Qu teaches the students to cook by hand
In 2005, Mr. Qu spent more than 4 million yuan to buy an apartment in the Jiaye Building in the South Third Ring Road and transformed it into a school. "In this way, the transportation for students to come to class is convenient, the environment is good, and the most important thing is to let the people who come to learn cooking have a sense of respect and pride."
"The body is a fist distance away from the cutting board, the feet are naturally separated, the feet are the same width as the shoulders, the edge of the cutting board is aligned with the table, the right hand is at a 60-degree angle to the cutting board, the left hand holds down the raw material, puts the raw material in the middle and bottom of the cutting board, in a comfortable place, when cutting the wrist, the body is vertical, do not lean forward, this is the rule of cutting vegetables..." Teacher Qu will tirelessly repeat these words every day when teaching students, which is what everyone often calls "teaching"!
Hot duck hearts
02 Break the traditional teaching model
"There are also a lot of cooking schools in China, but a lot of teachers teach things that are out of touch with the actual operation of hotels. After a few years of studying in school, I went into the kitchen or started from scratch. I want to break this teaching model and combine theory with practice.
Our school specially employs famous culinary masters, as well as godfather-level figures with rich teaching experience and leading the international catering industry, and sets up various courses such as carving, sugar art, cold dishes, hot dishes and so on. In terms of teaching mode, we have broken the traditional teaching mode of 'big pull', and created a small class VIP teaching, so that every chef can get the guidance of professional lecturers.
The school has also maintained friendly relations with major catering enterprises, changed the traditional closed and conservative teaching mode, and adjusted the teaching program in a timely manner to broaden the students' horizons and thinking, so that after graduation, the students can better adapt to the development needs of the market. So far, Mr. Qu's school has trained tens of thousands of students.
"Horses do not eat night grass and do not fat", today's success comes from the early hard work. The picture shows teacher Qu carving scenes at home in the summer when he was young and learning art.
03 Foodies must understand the dish
During the interview, Mr. Qu not only talked about his life story, from learning to cook to visiting teachers, to working abroad, and later to starting a school. He also talked about some of his views on Lu cuisine:
"Lu cuisine why cattle, it is not like Sichuan cuisine cannabis spicy, there is no special seasoning, basically salt, monosodium glutamate, soy sauce, vinegar, sweet noodle sauce, unlike Cantonese cuisine, there are all kinds of sauces." However, in the absence of many spices hundreds of years ago, Lu cuisine can achieve one dish and one taste, which fully shows its connotation, and only true gourmets can eat the mystery. The person who makes it must also understand what I want to achieve with this dish, and what feeling to achieve when it comes out of the pot, so that I can produce a good dish. ”
Fried chicken in sauce
04 Teacher Qu gossip small file
As a "die-hard fan" of Teacher Qu, it is not easy to meet the idol, and I can't help but "gossip" about Teacher Qu. Next, I'm going to break the news for you! Q&A begins, hurry up and follow me...
Q1.Would you please reveal your age, height, weight, blood type, and horoscope to everyone?
57 years old, 172 cm, 70 kg, O-type, Scorpio.
Q2.What are your main tasks?
I have a cooking school, most of the time in school cooking education, I also opened a food management company, managed more than a dozen hotels, a recipe advertising company, food distribution trading company. In addition, television programs are often recorded throughout the country, mainly in the central 1 program.
Q3.Do you have any hobbies?
I love to travel, and I usually have flowers and walk my dog at home.
Q4.What is your most proud private dish?
One dish I often cook at home is stone pot sea cucumber.
Q5.Do you usually have a sharp mouth? What's your favorite dish?
I am both a Sichuanese and a Shandong native, because my parents are From Sichuan and were raised by Shandong people three months after birth. But my favorite food is the back pot meat. If I am a judge in a cooking competition, I am more demanding on the dishes, and what shortcomings the dishes have are often to the point. But in life I'm not so picky about food, and I can eat it even in the countryside. But there are two kinds of food that I don't like to eat, one is wild game; the other is pure farmhouse cuisine, because some pure farmhouse dishes generally do not handle the ingredients very well, such as chicken feathers are not pulled clean, and the meat is cooked before it is bloody. I'm not mouthy, I'm just being particular about eating.
Q6.Do you usually cook your own meals at home?
Usually, I am busy at work and have few opportunities to cook, but as long as I am at home, I try to cook as much as possible.
Q7.What type of restaurant do you like to eat out?
This should be decided according to the crowd, fifty or sixty old people, eat authentic flavor, young people will go to fashion, buddy will eat good taste, affordable. I also often invite people to dinner in the school office, and many top masters have eaten here, haha.
Q8.I heard that your daughter went to study abroad, why not let her inherit your mantle?
In fact, I want her to do this line of work, so that I can help her, as long as it is a diet-related industry, it is very good. But she didn't like it, and I had to respect her wishes, and it would be nice to be able to do what I liked for the rest of my life.
Q9.Is there any difference between chefs in the past and what is now?
There are a lot of differences. For a small example, in the past, teacher Fu had the habit of "leaving a spoon handle" (leaving a bite for each dish) after cooking, which was to have a deeper understanding of the heat and texture. At that time, there was a word called "picking the curtain", the private rooms were hung with a curtain, the chef fried the dish, outside the curtain to see how the guests ate, and then asked the waiter how the dish was. In the past, most of the waiters were men, more powerful than the chef, and he knew which master cooked what the taste was. The leftover dishes of the guests, he carefully separated the dishes, tasted one by one after work, the time was long, today's sea cucumbers did not enter the taste, the soup was hung well, the waiters understood. So in the past, waiters had a guiding effect on chefs.
Q10.Do you have any personal habits in cooking?
No. In the past, the master of learning art was very strict, paying attention to the right hand, and must be responsible for the dishes when cooking, and did not dare or have special habits.
Q11.What advice do you have for people who want to learn how to cook?
Want to learn cooking, to be able to bear hardships, the chef is a diligent, and "art" side of the work, have to work hard, no stealing, no shortcuts; want to succeed, to be able to be a person, because the chef has been dealing with people, unlike other industries, dealing with machines. The kitchen is a team that communicates with the boss, subordinates, purchasing, service manager, sales manager, etc. every day. Many chefs think that it is enough to have a craft, but in fact, if the dish is done well, you can become a master, and if you want to become a master, you must learn to be a person.
Q12.Many of your students or apprentices are already successful chefs or even restaurant owners, and their cooking skills are already very good, what do you teach as a teacher?
Yes, many of my apprentices are big bosses, and after I accept apprentices, I will often give them lectures, in addition to skills, but also to talk about being a person, the three elements of being a chef: proficient in cooking, good at talking, and well-cultivated. For example, I can tell them the word "willing" for several days, so that they can learn the consciousness that a catering person should have.
Q13.What is your favorite sentence?
This sentence is the motto of our school, and it is also the family motto of our family: respect for the superior, love for the lower, good neighborliness, self-denial.
Fried lamb with shallots
05 Technique sharing of explosive dishes
The technique of "bursting" is easy to say, but many chefs can't make a good taste after practicing pop dishes for a lifetime. In the past, many teachers went from being in their teens to their sixties and seventies, and after doing it for forty or fifty years, they still couldn't find the feeling. If the big customer orders the oil burst dish, the head of the hall (equivalent to the current catering manager) will go to the master who is good at making the pop dish and say: Master, you are hard, make a fried dish.
As a chef, many people cannot reach this realm, which is called enlightenment and understanding. In the past, when masters cooked, even if you watched from the sidelines, you couldn't learn. The subtlety of the explosion is that the moment you feel the action of turning the spoon under the pot, to turn it over a few times, the adjustment of the combination is not appropriate, and when the temperature is down, you need to realize it in your heart. There used to be no thermometer, but I knew in my heart how many degrees. Shandong masters did not have strict measurement standards in the past, they were all a little, appropriate, appropriate, and how much to think about, pay attention to the palatable treasure. Now Shandong masters also pay attention to standardization.
Q What are the characteristics of explosion?
A Burst is a cooking method that is stir-fried in boiling oil or boiling water (soup) to make small raw materials quickly mature into dishes. Its cooking time is short, only about 10 seconds, so the selection of ingredients is mostly tender and boneless and extremely fresh animal raw materials, such as belly, chicken and duck gizzard, cuttlefish, pork loin, liver, shrimp, etc., as well as beef, sheep, chicken, duck, pig lean meat and fish with fascia removed. In order to mature evenly when bursting, the raw materials must be changed to smaller dices, slices or flower knife blocks. Some raw materials can be initially cooked before being exploded. The prepared dishes are very distinctive: the oil is crisp and tender, the marinade is tightly wrapped in raw materials, the soup is crisp and tender, crisp and delicious, and the original taste is outstanding.
Q How many types of explosions are there?
A There are many statements about the classification of explosions, I have also checked a lot of information, after summarizing, I think this statement is still more authoritative. According to the different heat transfer medium, the explosion is divided into two categories: oil explosion and soup explosion.
Oil burst
There are two methods: 1. The main ingredient is not pulped, first rinsed in boiling water, and then fried in 80% to 90% hot oil, and then fried into a dish. Beijing, Shandong, Northeast and other places often use this method, such as oil burst belly kernel, oil burst chicken gizzard, there are also without water and directly after the main material is fried quickly, such as Shandong, Fujian and other places of oil burst conch, Shanghai oil burst raw intestines and so on. 2. A thin layer of pulp on the main ingredient, with 50% to 60% hot oil to slip through and then stir-fry into a dish. Henan, Shaanxi, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian and other places use this method, such as oil burst double crisp, oil burst belly tip and so on. Guangdong calls the above two methods oil bubbles, the former such as oil bubble glomeruli, the latter such as oil bubble shrimp balls.
Raw materials are directly exploded without initial cooking treatment, that is, raw explosion. When the boiling point of the oil temperature, the oil surface burns into a flying fire, it is fried in the flame, called hot, which generally processes the main ingredient into slices or silk, and directly stir-frys after a thin pulp (or sweet noodle sauce), and the amount of oil put into the pot is just used up by the dishes, such as Shandong's hot roasted meat, Sichuan's hot waist flower.
In order to operate quickly, the required seasonings, clear soups and water starch are generally put together to mix the juice, put them into the pot at one time, and quickly turn them over with the main ingredients and ingredients to form a dish. Due to the different seasonings, the oil burst also derives the methods of onion bursting, coriander bursting, sauce bursting, and bad popping.
Soup burst
Similar to the main ingredients, the main ingredients processed into flower knife blocks or large thin slices are quickly blanched in the boiling soup until they are broken into the bowl, and the boiling soup equivalent to twice the volume of the main ingredient is used for seasoning, and the method of putting it into the main ingredient bowl is also served on the table, and the pepper noodles, shallot puree, and coriander are served separately, and the eater chooses the seasonings, such as henan, Shandong, Shaanxi, Yunnan and other places. If the main ingredient is blanched in boiling water and then plated or fished into cold boiling water to quickly cool down, then fished into the plate, and then served at the same time as the ingredients and seasonings, the eater's own juice dipping, called water burst, such as bursting belly.
To sum up, the explosion is divided into oil explosion and soup explosion according to the heat transfer medium, and the most commonly used oil explosion methods are shallot explosion, coriander explosion, sauce explosion, oil explosion, and hot explosion, and the most commonly used soup explosion and water explosion are soup explosion and water explosion.
essential
Process
Step 1
Raw material knife handling
Step 2
Sizing and marinating
Step 3
Grease out
Step 4
Under the main and auxiliary materials
Step 5
To the bowl
Step 6
Stir fry quickly
Step seven
Serve out of the pan
As cooking techniques continue to improve, different bursts have evolved into different processes. Such as soup bursting, the basic process: raw materials - knife treatment - boiling water - pouring soup; such as sauce bursting, after the oil, stir-fry sauce, under the main and auxiliary ingredients stir-fried evenly, and then out of the pot plate; such as green onion bursting, without sliding oil directly fried.
Different from the two-eared cauldron of Cantonese chefs, the single-handled pot made by Lu cuisine master is much more "delicate". This kind of pot is more conducive to the chef's quick stir-frying when making pop-up dishes, and the pot is small and thick, storing more calories, and the dish is more likely to produce aroma.
More Teacher Qu's cooking skills to share
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