Scumbag Chapter 187 The Real Young Master Doesn’t Care For The Crematorium Trope (9)

The university Mingting applied to offered him a full scholarship, waived the tuition and miscellaneous fees, and even provided a part-time job organizing books in the library.

At this time, the Internet was already relatively developed, and news about Mingting spread online. Netizens affectionately dubbed him the ‘Genius Little Bhikkhu’.

Because Guiyi Temple produced a champion in the college entrance examination, many people came here in admiration, and for a time, the temple became unusually lively.

On the contrary, Mingting’s life has not changed much from before.

The older novice monks, who had grown up with him, had all moved on. Some went to university, some to Buddhist colleges, others to vocational schools...

Mingjue’s dream of becoming a sailor never came true. Influenced by Mingting, he fell in love with cooking and enrolled in culinary school.

In short, everyone had found their own path.

Nowadays, orphans were all taken in by welfare institutions, so Mingting was the only young novice left in the temple.

With fewer monks and more worshippers, everyone’s workload increased.

Since Mingting’s vegetarian dishes were so well-loved, the kitchen was now entirely his responsibility.

In the past, he was just a kitchen helper. This time, Mingting finally became the ‘head chef’.

In order to make the vegetarian meals of Guiyi Temple famous, he worked very hard and experimented with new dishes every day.

There are relatively few types of vegetarian meals in Guiyi Temple, and they are generally prepared according to the characteristics of the season.

Every day, there are two vegetarian dishes, a cold dish, a soup, and a staple food.

However, Mingting's cooking is more varied. Sometimes he prepared rice, sometimes mixed-grain rice, and sometimes steamed buns or rolls.

It was summer now, and after the rain, the mountains were full of mushrooms. Mingting took the time to gather them and made a fragrant mushroom soup.

Any extra mushrooms were sliced and dried in the sun, as they could be used later to make delicious dried mushroom dishes.

Today, the cold dish Mingting prepared is a spicy radish salad… white radishes with red skin, crisp and pungent.

After shredding the radishes, Mingting first marinated them in salt to remove the bitterness and draw out excess water.

Then, he added chopped cilantro, a sprinkle of sugar and salt, a drizzle of homemade chili oil, a splash of vinegar, and a handful of crispy fried peanuts.

The two vegetarian dishes were cucumber stir-fried with wood ear mushrooms and tofu with Chinese toon shoots.

The soup was a creamy white mushroom broth.

For today's staple, Mingting made scallion oil noodles.

When Mingting first started learning to cook vegetarian meals, Abbot Hongde had told him that some people preferred sweet flavors, others liked spicy or numbing tastes.

A good cook shouldn’t just cater to their own preferences, and the best flavor was one that suited the majority.

Mingting had always remembered that.

When he carried out the trays of food, many greeted him with smiles.

"Little Bhikkhu Mingting is cooking again today!"

"I love the vegetarian meals made by Little Bhikkhu the most!"

"I've been smelling the aroma for a while now… I've been waiting eagerly!"

Many people came up the mountain out of curiosity about the college examination’s champion, wanting to see what a temple-raised prodigy looked like… and to incidentally taste the vegetarian dishes prepared by him.

But after their first bite, they couldn't stop eating.

The stir-fried cucumber with wood ear mushrooms was a very simple dish, but if the heat wasn’t controlled well, the cucumber could easily overcook, turning soft and yellow, which is neither tasty nor appealing.

But the cucumber in this dish made by Mingting is emerald green, which looks very appetizing. bite revealed crisp slices with no raw taste, showing that it’s cooked to perfection.

The wood ear mushrooms were small, about the size of a thumb, thick and meaty, their curled edges soaked in savory juices. The crunch of the cucumber paired with the slippery mushrooms, bursting with flavor, was utterly delicious.

Then there was the tofu with Chinese toon shoots.

Every spring, when the toon trees on the mountain first sprouted tender shoots, Mingting and his senior brothers would go foraging.

There were many ways to prepare toon shoots, with the simplest being cold-tossed or stir-fried with eggs.

Grandma Xiang even liked making toon shoot omelets.

The toon shoots in this dish were from Mingting’s preserved toon paste. In spring, he would blanch excess shoots, chop them finely, mix them with salt, and soak them in rapeseed oil to make a fragrant paste that could be stored for a long time.

To prepare this dish, he first pan-fried tofu on an iron griddle until both sides were lightly golden with a slight crispness.

Then, he simmered the toon paste with water and a bit of vegetarian oyster sauce into a rich, aromatic broth, lightly thickened it, and drizzled it over the tofu.

Some people disliked the distinct smell of toon shoots, finding it as polarizing as fish mint or cilantro.

But after seeing the dish, they couldn’t resist giving it a try.

As a result, the tofu melted in the mouth, savory and delicious.

The toon shoots, having been soaked in oil for so long, had lost much of their pungency, leaving only a faint woody fragrance.

"How can this be so good? Why is the pan-fried tofu so tender?"

Someone covered their mouth in astonishment.

"Because it’s made with soft tofu!"

Someone who often come to eat vegetarian food immediately started explaining to the others.

"This tofu is made by Little Bhikkhu himself… soaking soybeans, grinding them into milk, and pressing it. It’s slightly firmer than silken tofu but not as dense as firm tofu. And I’ve seen Little Bhikkhu fry it myself… his hands move fast and steady. That’s the secret to frying soft tofu without breaking it. It takes real skill."

"So that’s how it is! Little Bhikkhu may be young, but his vegetarian cooking is truly top-notch!" The middle-aged man who asked the question hurriedly took some photos of the vegetarian meal.

"Wait until you try Little Bhikkhu’s soup… you won’t want to put the bowl down." The Auntie next to him said with a chuckle, "If my home weren’t so far away, I’d come here every day just for the vegetarian meals!"

The middle-aged man has been conquered by the toon shoot tofu, so he doesn't believe that mushroom soup can be so extraordinary.

Mushrooms are delicious in themselves, and anyone could make a decent soup with them.

‘Is there something particularly unique about Guiyi Temple's mushroom soup?’

When he scooped a spoonful of the mushroom soup into his mouth, his eyes immediately widened in surprise.

As a food enthusiast, the middle-aged man had traveled to many places and tasted countless delicacies.

But this mushroom soup was so incredibly fresh that it felt like he could swallow his own tongue. What was even stranger was that, upon careful tasting, he couldn’t detect any additional seasonings in it.

The soup contained three types of mushrooms, all of which are common mushrooms in the forest, along with a few diamond-shaped carrot slices. Apart from that, there is nothing else.

‘Could it be that Little Bhikkhu had added something else to the mushroom soup?’

The middle-aged man was extremely curious.

"These mushrooms need to be roasted first to bring out their juices."

The Auntie explained further, "But what’s odd is that no matter how many times I’ve tried replicating Little Bhikkhu Mingting’s method at home, it never turns out as delicious as it is here."

The Auntie’s theory was that Guiyi Temple had an ancient well with sweet, cool spring water that never ran dry, so the exceptional taste might be due to the water quality.

Additionally, the freshly picked mushrooms from the mountain probably had a better texture than those sold in markets.

Mingting listened with a smile as the auntie gave the middle-aged man this little ‘science lesson’, while he handed a small bowl of scallion oil noodles to Abbot Hongde.

Abbot Hongde is almost 80 years old now. Although he is in good health, he had lost several teeth and couldn’t handle anything too chewy, so Mingting had specially prepared a softer version of the noodles for him.