Food: Random stalls, customers chase me all over the country

Chapter 417 - World Sweet and Sour Pork Competition (1)

"Wow!"

The next morning, Wang Fan, Zhuo Qianqian, and his second uncle arrived at the competition venue. Zhuo Qianqian looked at the huge venue and couldn't help but exclaimed, "Isn't this too big?"

The venue is indeed very large, with rows of red low walls dividing it into many stoves about 2 meters in size. Some chefs who arrived early have already adapted themselves by their own stoves.

There is a one-meter-wide path between the two rows of stoves. There is a volunteer next to each stove. They will supervise the chef to ensure that he completes each step by himself. Points will be deducted if the kitchen utensils are not cleaned up properly.

The judges are composed of two parts. One part is well-known chefs from home and abroad and managers of well-known restaurants in Northeast China. These people are the professional group judges. The other part is diners recruited from the society. After the chefs are ready, volunteers will bring the sweet and sour pork to the tasting area, and the social judges will vote. Finally, the top 100 will be decided and re-made, and the professional group judges will comment and score.

The prizes for first place in the competition include a solid gold medal, a COFCO Jiajiankang flaxseed pig, a Harbin travel gift package, and the World Sweet and Sour Pork Cooking Master Trophy. All participants will also receive a commemorative medal of the World Sweet and Sour Pork Competition.

This competition will not be held just once. It will be held every year at this time in the future. This time it will be held in Harbin, the next time it will be held in Shenyang, and the next time it will be held in Jilin, and so on.

"The heavy use of oil, sugar, vinegar, and starch is the killer weapon of sweet and sour pork to attack the taste buds. I wonder what the judges' tolerance for sugar and oil is..."

There are at least 200 stoves in this venue. Wang Fan doubts whether any good person can eat more than 200 servings of sweet and sour pork in a row. Even if he only eats one bite of each plate, that is more than 1 slices. He doesn't know if the judges can handle it.

"The most important thing about the competition is participation. Winning a prize or not doesn't matter. What matters is consistent performance."

The second uncle patted Wang Fan on the shoulder and said, "Don't feel pressured."

Wang Fan smiled slightly: "If I don't want to participate, then I won't participate. Since I'm participating, I'll aim for first place."

Second Uncle slapped him on the back and said excitedly, "Good boy, you are worthy of being a descendant of our Wang family. You should have this kind of momentum!"

At 10 o'clock, all the chefs had entered. On both sides of Wang Fan were two master chefs in their forties. They were both eager to get started. Seeing the young Wang Fan, they couldn't help but look at him a few more times. After all, among this group of chefs in their thirties and forties, a man in his twenties was really too young.

Although Wang Fan participated in this competition temporarily, the three provinces had been preparing for a long time. The awning outside the venue was already crowded with tourists from all over the country watching the fun. They could also enjoy preferential conditions at some scenic spots with their air and train ticket stubs or ticket purchase records.

There was no nonsense in the competition. The competition officially began after a few minutes of speaking.

Wang Fan didn't rush to take action, but looked around curiously.

The reason for this is that his nose told him that today's sweet and sour pork competition was not easy at all.

The sweet and sour pork he learned to make was the old-fashioned sweet and sour pork, thickened with a mixture of sweet and sour sauce, but the information conveyed by his nose included but was not limited to ketchup, zheergen, curry, hot sauce, sour bamboo shoots, lemon, orange, durian...

"It's so scary..."

Wang Fan couldn't help but marvel at the imagination of these chefs, and he finally understood why this competition was called a world competition even though most of the contestants were local chefs from Northeast China.

This material is truly natural!

He hadn't started yet, but the two people next to him were already busy.

The steps of preparing batter, cutting meat slices, coating with batter and frying in pan are basically the same.

But after the frying, the scene became strange. Wang Fan looked at the name tag of the chef on the left. His name was Chen Mo, from Shenyang. At this time, tomato sauce was already in his pot. It was obvious that this was a contestant who used tomato sauce for seasoning.

The guy on the right is called Li Dong, from Jilin. In addition to the sweet and sour sauce, his pot also creatively adds walnut kernels, almond kernels, peanut kernels, melon seed kernels, sesame kernels...

Wang Fan was not opposed to innovation. He studied the two people's methods with great interest and mentally simulated the difference in taste after doing so.

He was not in a hurry, but the volunteer lady in charge of his place was. Seeing that other people's food was about to be served, but Boss Wang hadn't even started yet, how could he not be anxious?

Wang Ting is 20 years old and a student at Harbin Institute of Technology. She came to be a volunteer because she had nothing to do during the summer vacation. She was very excited to be assigned to Wang Fan's group, after all, he was her idol.

"Boss Wang, hurry up and do it!"

Wang Ting couldn't help but remind Wang Fan in a low voice, fearing that there might not be enough time.

Wang Fan came to his senses, nodded to thank her for her kindness, and finally moved.

Seeing Wang Fan move, Wang Ting finally breathed a sigh of relief, and then watched Wang Fan's operation curiously.

As a native of Harbin, she has been eating sweet and sour pork since she was a child. In her eyes, what the two chefs cooked was heresy, and she really didn't want to see her idol make heretical dishes.

At the same time, she hopes her idol can do well and win first place, but many of them are masters who have been making this dish for decades, so it would be difficult to do it without some innovation...

I want my idol to win, but I don’t want him to do anything unconventional. It’s really a dilemma!
Wang Fan didn’t think too much about it. Cooking was a pleasure for him every time.

After he started, his mind was completely immersed in making delicious food, and everything around him became irrelevant to him.

After making the silky paste, cut the pork tenderloin into slices of almost uniform thickness, prepare the sweet and sour sauce, and cut the side dishes into thin strips.

The meat slices are coated with batter and put into the oil pan. Under the action of high temperature, the batter on the meat slices expands rapidly, wrapping the meat slices completely. At the same time, they quickly float up from the bottom of the pan and soon form a layer on the oil.

A pair of long chopsticks picked out the shaped meat slices one by one steadily and accurately.

Wang Fan’s batter is thicker, so the fried sweet and sour pork is relatively thick, and each one is white and plump and looks substantial.

The second low-temperature frying shrinks the meat slices, and the third frying brings out the crispiness and perfect golden color mixed with the dark gold color after the Maillard reaction.

Put the garlic slices and ginger shreds into the pot, sauté them until fragrant, then pour in the sweet and sour sauce. Wang Fan then starts stirring the pot quickly with his iron spoon.

The sweet and sour sauce in the pot soon began to bubble. He had already poured the previously chopped carrots, green onions, and coriander stems onto the fried sweet and sour pork, and now poured them all into the pot.

Wang Ting watched Wang Fan's operation carefully, feeling relieved and a little worried. She was relieved because Wang Fan was doing it in a traditional way, but she was worried because it might be difficult to get a ranking.

After all, this plate of meat only looks a little thick, and there's really nothing special about it.

(End of this chapter)