"Now, it’s time for the hot and sour soup. This one has quite a few ingredients, some of which once again need to be cut into the right shape." He picked up the chili and the tofu. "Now, first of all, we need to cut the chilies into rings. For this, pay attention to your hands and make especially sure that you don’t touch the inside. That way, you can make sure that your skin won’t sting. You should also brush the seeds off the cutting board when you’re done." He cut the chilies just as he had said, and Li Shui zoomed in on them, giving the audience a better look.

Xiao Ming then took the two types of tofu and held them in the camera. "Now, we are going to cut the tofu. The white tofu should be diced, while the flavored bean curd should be cut into thin strips.

"For doing this, it is incredibly important that you have a sharp knife. If you have cut tofu before, it could have been that it easily crumbled. This is because your knife wasn’t sharp enough. The same can be said for other ingredients as well: The sharper the knife, the better you’ll be able to cut."

Qian Huang who had been watching the comments piped up at that moment. "There’s a question from our viewer 'Growing Mushrooms'. They are asking what to do if the knife isn’t sharp enough to do it."

"Well, you can always sharpen your knife with a whetstone or knife sharpener. In some cases, even just honing the edge with a honing steel might help. Unfortunately, I can’t demonstrate that in a short amount of time." Xiao Ming looked at the knife in his hand and wondered if he should say more to it. Unfortunately, if he did explain how to do it himself, he wouldn’t be able to do the dishes in time. "For the time being, maybe there’s another knife you could switch to? Maybe we will have time to talk about this later on in more detail. Alternatively, you can always have your knife professionally sharpened if you don’t want to or can’t do it yourself."

Qian Huang nodded and gave him a thumbs up. "I hope that clears the question up."

Back in the chat, Growing Mushrooms thanked them, saying that they would go and get another knife for today’s live stream and then try to have the other one sharpened the next morning.

After Qian Huang conveyed the words, Xiao Ming smiled and then got back to the recipe. "Now, we’ve already talked about cutting the vegetable. With the tofu, it’s very much the same. I guess by now at the very latest, you will have realized that no matter what you do, the basics will always stay the same." He demonstrated how to cut the seasoned and the white tofu and then put down the knife. "Very well, we’ve finished with that as well. Now, I will once again speed up the process for the rest of this recipe. If you have questions at the side, leave a comment so Qian Huang can ask." He lowered his head to continue when the first questions already came in.

"'Too Many Dog Ears' is asking about the basic shapes that you mentioned before. They want to know if there really are only the three."

Xiao Ming lightly shook his head. "No, there are more cuts than that. Although the three are really the ones that are used most of the time. Other than these, there’s a diamond cut for example or the rough cut where you cut the item you’re handling in more or less random ways. There’s also the so-called chiffonade cut that is used for leafy vegetables. For this one, you will roll them up and then cut them which results in a different shape as well."

Qian Huang nodded and then went on to the next comment. "This is a question from 'Bronce Spoon': They want to know how they should decide which cut to use."

This time, Xiao Ming took a moment to consider, wanting to make sure that he didn’t forget anything important. "Well, the answer to this is that it will depend on different factors. For one, it is of course a question of aesthetics. For example, if you are making a delicious dish, you might want to decorate it so that it looks as appetizing as it will taste. For that, it could be that you want to cut fruit into small cubes maybe, or maybe even into varying sizes of cubes. That might make it look more interesting.

"On the other hand, there is, of course, the question of how it will affect the cooking process itself. I already mentioned at the beginning today that having evenly cut dices would ensure that the yam for the first dish is going to be evenly steamed. This is the same for other cuts as well of course. And different cuts will also be better used for different methods of cooking. For example, sticks are perfect for frying, very small dices are the best choice if you want to mix the diced vegetables into meatballs or pastry, and thin slices are perfect for grilling vegetables."

He fell quiet for a moment while continuing to cook the third dish. "I think that other than that, sometimes, it just comes down to preference. You know how among the three of us, we always say that Li Shui would eat anything. On the other hand, our Qian Huang is a bit of a picky eater. If you ask him, then he likes his vegetables to be more finely chopped. Don’t ask me why, I guess he might’ve been just as picky as a child and maybe his parents did it the same way to hide all the healthy ingredients from him. Now, it might just be a nostalgic touch for him."

"Hey!" Qian Huang couldn’t help but be embarrassed, especially when he saw the rows of laughter in the chat, but at least he didn’t have to be in front of the camera so that nobody saw when his face actually got red.

Xiao Ming just chuckled. "What I want to say is: Very often, the recipes will actually tell you how you should cut your ingredients. In these cases, just follow that. But I think that it is alright to have some variation. If you like it a certain way better, just go with it. Cooking and eating should both be fun. So even if it’s maybe not the perfect way to cook something in theory, it might still be the best way to do it in reality because you like it best like this."

Qian Huang calmed down when Xiao Ming pulled things around this way and looked back at the comments. "'Cat Dancing on a Wire' just mentioned that they’ve been trying to imitate what you are doing but the strips don’t look even at all. They want to know what they should do about it. Do you have any tips?"

Xiao Ming looked up from the soup and gave a smile. "Well, now, this is a bit difficult. There isn’t really a shortcut to this. When you just start out trying, this is actually a very usual result. They start to get more even the more you do it. So my only tip — if you want to call it that way — would be to just keep trying. Maybe today or tomorrow, it won’t look good yet, but I’m sure that a week from now, you can already see some progress."

"Take some evidence!" Li Shui couldn’t help but pipe up behind the camera and then pointed at it, trying to give Xiao Ming a hint.

Xiao Ming looked at him in confusion for a moment, making some of the people in the channel squeal in delight. Finally, there was an obvious moment of a lightbulb going off above his head and his usual smile came back. "Ah, I think our dear Li Shui wants to say that you should take a photo or a small video of your progress each day. That way, when you look back, you will really see the difference."

Hearing that, Qian Huang couldn’t help but pipe up as well. "If you do, you can also send us a photo. We always love to see if somebody gives the recipes that we’re doing here a try or practices something that Xiao Ming has talked about."

Xiao Ming nodded as well. "Yes, I would love to see it! Also, if you show me something, then maybe I could give a few more tips specifically tailored to you. Of course, I can only talk about what I see and won’t be able to say anything about the taste or smell so you and your loved ones will have to be the judge of that."