Who gave this heretical practitioner permission to cook?

Chapter 246 Konjac Snow Skin Shumai, the "Hospitality Competition" about to begin in the Chef's Hall? (Second Update)

[Well-burning: 5 points]

Yang Hongjie: 11 points

Chen Xiaodong: 34 points

Yang Yanbin: 21 points

Luo Hui: 45 points

[Hu Xing: 40 points]

【.】

As one contestant after another presented their dishes, netizens finally realized the seriousness of the problem.

Many of the dishes prepared by the contestants looked very tempting, but they still struggled to get points from the judges.

The judges then realized that they might be experiencing a stomach problem.

Interestingly, contrary to his usual practice, Yin Shengjiang did not stop the competition or let the other judges rest; instead, he continued to judge.

The other judges present also had no objections.

For a moment, the contestants below were caught in an extremely difficult situation, torn between the "judges," "time," and their own "shumai." They didn't know how to get a high score to pass the assessment.

But opportunity always favors the prepared. Kang Xincheng, Zheng Zeqian, and Bai Heng all discovered the pattern in the judges' scoring.

The vegetarian the shumai and the more vegetables it contains, the higher the score it will receive.

Xia Ming agreed with this point.

"Actually, the judges had already realized it when they tasted the well fuel."

"But their deliberate silence means that the difficulty of the test question was temporarily increased."

Xia Ming tripped up all the contestants earlier, and now the judges are joining in the fun.

"The judges clearly revealed their current state of exhaustion through their scores."

"The purpose of doing this is to meet chefs who are not so conventional, especially those who modify the dish halfway through preparation."

Well, from a fair point of view, setting up roadblocks like this is a bit excessive.

But this is the best course of action the judges can take under the current circumstances.

"The competition lasts for one hour, but my control over the judges' stomachs goes on for much longer than that."

"If we really think about it, the judges will probably need to rest for more than 6 hours to digest the food in their stomachs and return to their normal state."

"You have to understand that this is a live broadcast. How can you give the judges a 6-hour break when the competition is only 1 hour long?"

Xia Ming raised an eyebrow, looked at the countdown which showed only 12 minutes remaining, and sighed slightly.

"Actually, at this point, there's nothing left to hide."

The so-called "Hua 5 Level" final selection round, the second round, a competition of 64 to 48, is essentially a "trap" set up by the organizers for the contestants.

"The competition organizers use their unique competition system to test a chef's all-round abilities."

Xia Ming remembered that Qiao Ruoning had once browsed Sui Wubai's short video account, in which he expressed a viewpoint.

A chef needs to learn a lot to go far in their career.

Techniques and recipes are both essential courses.

But once you've mastered all of this, does that make you a top chef? Of course not.

Recipes are the crystallization of wisdom left by our predecessors, and techniques are the accumulation and summary of years of experience.

They are good, but they cannot always perfectly solve the practical cooking problems encountered in life.

Ultimately, cuisine serves diners; the key difference between top chefs lies in meeting the immediate needs of their customers.

This idea was well applied to this match.

"Why did the competition organizers allow the judges to continue judging even though they knew the judges were not in good condition, after they had only rested for less than two hours?"

"It's obvious that the plan was to take advantage of the judges' gradual decline in performance from the beginning and then create corresponding time-segmented test questions."

"I simply streamlined the process in one go—from that perspective, they should thank me!"

After all, presenting dishes according to their time and state involves an element of luck.

After Xia Ming blocked most of the contestants' paths, he did indeed achieve an "alternative" simplification of the questions.

"The previous exam questions, when broken down, were essentially..."

"Taking into account the judges' condition and determining their level of physical and taste fatigue, we present corresponding shumai dishes."

"After I forcibly revised it, the topic became, 'How to help the judges cut through the greasiness when they already have a physiological aversion to oily food?'"

Among all the competitors in the competition, Luo Hui is undoubtedly the best at reacting on the spot.

He made "Golden Ratio Shumai" and used "vegetable leaves" as the shumai wrappers.

Aside from requiring some origami skills, it's definitely a simple and efficient solution.
He originally replicated the filling one-to-one with the recipe from the anime "MasterChef," but when he realized something was wrong, he immediately redid it.

We abandoned the version with meat filling and switched to a version with vegetables and fruits filling.

Although it looked very much like a "fruit and vegetable platter" when it was finally served, the taste was perfectly balanced between salty and sweet, and exceptionally refreshing.

The judges, who had been tormented by the oil all day, finally felt a sense of relief, which led to his high score. Hu Xing felt the same way; after sensing something was wrong, she made temporary changes to her dish.

A piece of the shumai filling that was originally placed in the hollow winter bamboo shoot was taken out with a spoon, and then the clear chicken broth used to make the filling was mixed with vinegar and then flash-frozen.

Ultimately, it was temporarily changed to a "Nourishing Chicken Soup with Frozen Bamboo Shoots and Shumai".

Although its combination of hot and cold flavors wasn't particularly impressive, the sourness did indeed stimulate the judges, which is why it received 40 points.

As for Chen Xiaodong, he was simply lucky; he happened to make a corn shumai, a Western-style dessert, which is why he got that score.

Yang Yanbin had a really bad experience; the dried bean curd sheets lacked flavor after being soaked, so he used minced meat instead.
The shumai's structure was also sealed too tightly, causing the oil to be trapped inside and unable to drain out, resulting in a very poor final score.

At this moment, Kang Xincheng, Zheng Zeqian, and Bai Heng, having realized what was happening, also took out their countermeasures.

Because Kang Xincheng's shumai was made with scallops, it was difficult to change the main body. However, he had a flash of inspiration and poured lemon-flavored quick-drink sauce into the chilled scallops before placing the shumai inside.

This way, the judges will first taste the lemon flavor, followed by the umami flavor of the scallops, making it much more palatable.

Zheng Zeqian went even further and abandoned the meatball under the "pork liver shumai" in favor of a large piece of pineapple dipped in sugar and with water chestnuts hidden inside.

Although this dish ultimately seems to have nothing to do with shumai anymore, the combination of pineapple and pig lung still gave the judges a novel feeling.

So, in the end, they barely managed to get 30 points.

As for Bai Heng, she is probably the boldest of them all.

After confirming that the judge was having problems, she immediately put the prepared "cold konjac skin shumai" into the freezer to freeze.

What was finally presented was a "Konjac Snow Skin Shumai".

Frozen konjac has a texture similar to frozen jelly, with a distinct "ice flower" feel when you bite into it. Although it is not sweet on its own, the cream spread on top makes up for it.

This cold-served shumai, similar to an ice pop, was one of the most amazing dishes in the entire competition.

Therefore, at the end of the match, Bai Heng finished second with a score of 51 points.

As the final bell rang, the list of 16 eliminated contestants was finalized.

Among them, Jingran ranked second to last with an "excellent" score of 5.

When the match ended, it appeared that he was carried away on a stretcher by the rescue team.

As for Yang Yanbin, he scored 21 points, just barely making it to the next round, barely qualifying for 48th place.

After the competition, the host announced the venue for the next round and the number of players eliminated.

"The next round is the final round of the 'Hua 5 Level' final selection."

"In this round, half of the contestants will be eliminated, and the remaining 24 contestants will successfully advance to 'Hua 5 Level'."

"To this end, we specially opened the local 'Chef's Hall' and invited special judges to conduct the final round of scoring."

Upon hearing that the "Chef's Hall" had been opened, viewers in the live stream started discussing it.

What is a chef's hall? Are there such places on landmark buildings?

【I don't know, I'm not a chef!】

I know this place is the local headquarters of the China Culinary Association. It's a bit like a state banquet hall, but it's only opened for entertaining special local guests. You can think of it as a "mini state banquet."

That's really cool!

[I saw the state banquet venue in Professor Sui Wubai's video last time; it was quite impressive. Although this is a local venue, it shouldn't be bad either!]

【No, you guys don't think "Chef's Hall" is just anywhere, do you? There are only nine of these nationwide, and if it weren't for the fact that it's in the Kyoto area, you might not even have one!】

Half the people have been eliminated! I wonder what kind of dishes will be served in the end!

While netizens were discussing it, Xia Ming had already quickly left the venue and met up with Qiao Ruoning, who was waiting in front of him.

He's actually quite curious about what's going on with Bai Susu.
But just as he met Qiao Ruoning, a beautiful figure chased after him from behind.

"Xia Ming, wait a minute!"

Xia Ming turned around curiously, only to find that Bai Susu had somehow followed him out.

Seeing the anxious look on Bai Susu's face, Xia Ming raised an eyebrow and then slowly spoke.

"Judge Bai, is there something you need me for?"

Are you Xia Yitian's son?

Hearing Bai Susu's extremely direct words, Xia Ming's eyebrows twitched slightly.

"So that's how it is! Bai Susu came here to find that cheap old man!"

"Of course, judging from her anxious appearance, her cheap father probably hasn't come to see her yet, and she probably doesn't know that guy took Wen Zhixia on trips around the world."

After understanding, Xia Ming silently shook his head.

"Xia Yitian? I've heard of him, but I don't know him well!"

Bai Susu frowned instantly when she saw his actions.

"How could you not be familiar with it?! You know the 'unsaturated steaming method,' there's absolutely no way you wouldn't recognize it in a day."

Tell me, where is he?!

(End of this chapter)