[Genshin Impact]: I can become stronger by cooking.

Chao Ke understood his older sister's thoughts and explained, "Don't worry, sis. I'm just increasing our bargaining chips, not breaking with the Ice Queen."

"As you said, we neither have the ability nor the need."

After hearing Chao Ke's reply, Arecino breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good. Since everything's alright, go and get some rest."

"Ah."

Chao Ke agreed and was about to walk towards the room when he subconsciously glanced at the report his older sister was reading as he passed by her.

"Investigation Report on the Brother and Sister Magicians, Linnie and Lynette, Adopted by the Noble Family XXX..."

Chapter 22 [The Great Golden Finger-Sucking Kun (Chicken)]

Lying in bed, Chao Ke didn't choose to rest, but instead planned to take advantage of the night to learn the recipes he had already unlocked.

After all, the next stage of advancement for the Demon God level requires cooking ten different dishes to their ultimate level.

Currently, although Chao Ke has unlocked a total of thirteen recipes, the only dish he has ever made to the highest level is the Crispy Pork Leg Burger.

Therefore, learning other recipes has become a high priority.

Tonight, Chao Ke plans to practice his skills with the "Giant Golden Finger-Licking Chicken".

Mastering this dish will not only allow you to complete advanced tasks, but also add a powerful new product to your delicious menu.

[Recipe: Giant Golden Finger-Licking Chicken]

[Description: Seasoned and deep-fried poultry. The seasonings are mixed into a batter, coated with the poultry, and then deep-fried at high temperature. Just the aroma alone is enough to imagine the crispy skin and tender meat; one bite and the juices burst forth—few can resist its allure.]

Now that the recipe has been obtained, you can enter the God of Cookery Trial Grounds to practice this dish.

[Shall we begin practicing?]

【whether】

"Yes!"

A familiar feeling washed over him, and when he opened his eyes again after everything went black, he found himself on the stage of the God of Cookery Trial Arena.

Next to the kitchen sink, the familiar little cart reappeared, laden with ingredients and seasonings needed to make the Giant Golden Finger-Licking Chicken.

The inspiration for the "Golden Finger-Licking Chicken" is probably familiar to everyone: the original flavor of KFC's Finger-Licking Original Chicken.

However, the original versions of the Golden Chicken and Kaifeng cuisine are somewhat different.

The biggest difference is the shape. Kaifeng Cuisine's Original Recipe Chicken comes in five shapes: chicken leg, chicken wing, triangle, chicken breast, and rib. The Golden Recipe Chicken, on the other hand, uses only the triangle cut, which is Chao Ke's favorite.

The reason is simple: the triangle shape is often the largest and meatiest of the five shapes of Original Recipe Chicken.

And it's not just Chao Ke who likes it; in Kaifeng cuisine's official market research, the triangle shape is also the most popular.

In his past life, when Chao Ke ordered takeout, he always made a special note asking for extra triangles of Original Recipe Chicken.

Besides the uniform appearance, the chicken provided by the system is also quite different from the original. Kaifeng Cuisine mainly uses fast-growing white-feathered chickens, which only take 40 days to reach market weight, while the chicken provided by the system is similar to yellow-feathered chickens, which take up to 230 days to reach market weight.

Looking at the tempting yellow fat in the chicken nuggets, Chao Ke said that the system was completely superior in terms of ingredients.

As for the difference between pickling and seasoning, it's hard to tell.

After all, Kaifeng cuisine in his previous life never disclosed its ingredients, so Chao Ke couldn't make a comparison.

Following the instructions of the system's recipe, Chao Ke first cleaned the yellow-feathered chicken pieces, then prepared salt and garlic water, put the chicken pieces in and refrigerated them to marinate, which helped to remove the fishy smell and enhance the aroma.

Unlike marinated chicken thighs, yellow-feathered chicken nuggets need to be refrigerated for a full twelve hours.

Fortunately, the system must have taken this into account. The freezer in this Chef God Trial is specially made and has a clock on it.

That's right, this thing is similar to Paimon's time acceleration interface, which can speed up the flow of time inside the freezer.

After setting the acceleration time, Chao Ke began making the base for coating the powder.

Following the instructions in the system's recipe, Chao Ke took all-purpose flour, butter, eggs, skim milk powder, protein powder, and cornstarch in sequence, and mixed them in different proportions to make a coating base.

The next step is to add the pre-made spices provided by the system directly to the coating base.

The system actually provided specific proportions of spices, mainly pepper powder and some locally sourced Teyvat spices, but since there were ready-made products available, Chao Ke was too lazy to prepare them himself.

After all, the dense list of spices is enough to give anyone a headache just by looking at it.

After mixing the spices and coating ingredients evenly, Chao Ke took out the marinated chicken pieces from the refrigerator.

Rinse the chicken with a basin of clean water to remove excess salt, and shake it several times to remove excess water.

After preparing the chicken pieces, Chao Ke smelled them. The soaking in salt and garlic water not only removed the fishy smell of the chicken, but also gave it a garlicky base flavor.

Chao Ke glanced at the system menu; the next step, coating the ingredients in flour, was the most difficult part of this recipe.

There's a lot to know about how to coat chicken nuggets with flour.

Not only should the chicken pieces be thoroughly rolled in the powder, but they should also be pressed with appropriate force to make the powder coat them more firmly.

They even go through detailed procedures like "letting two chicken pieces coated in powder tap each other, then pressing and rotating them to release air" and "applying powder under the skin to lock in the juices."

When he actually started handling it, Chao Ke realized that there was so much to learn about this small piece of fried chicken.

Looking at the chicken pieces coated in flour, Chao Ke breathed a sigh of relief. The remaining steps were relatively simple: just put the chicken pieces into the smart pressure fryer and fry them until cooked.

Many people have tried to recreate the taste of KFC at home in their past lives, but they all felt something was missing. Besides the differences in raw materials and ingredients, a major reason might be the different frying methods.

Whether you fry under high pressure or at normal pressure, it will indeed make a difference in flavor.

The main reason for the difference is that the sealed, high-pressure environment can create a certain degree of vacuum, allowing water vapor to circulate within the pot, thus extracting the umami flavor and tenderizing the meat. It's actually somewhat similar to making chicken soup, except that this fryer contains not only chicken but also eggs and milk. The complex aroma they create is what makes the Original Recipe Chicken so tempting.

(The author would like to issue a special warning: Never use a pressure cooker to deep-fry food at home! It is extremely dangerous! Value your life and do not attempt this!!!)

(The author would like to issue a special warning: Never use a pressure cooker to deep-fry food at home! It is extremely dangerous! Value your life and do not attempt this!!!)

(The author would like to issue a special warning: Never use a pressure cooker to deep-fry food at home! It is extremely dangerous! Value your life and do not attempt this!!!)

Throughout the process, the temperature inside the pressure fryer was controlled. Once the time reached the recipe's specified time, Chao Ke stopped heating and waited for the pressure to stabilize before taking out the chicken pieces. The preparation of the Golden Finger-Licking Chicken was now complete.

Place the fried triangles on a wire rack to drain the oil and cool them down. A few seconds later, the menu information pops up.

【Big Golden Finger-Licking Kun (Chicken)】

[Rating: 69 points]

[Description: The ingredients are mixed into a batter, coated with poultry, and deep-fried at high temperature. Just the aroma alone is enough to imagine the crispy skin and tender meat; one bite and the juices burst forth—few can resist its allure.]

[Evaluation: A passable dish. However, the breading preparation was flawed; the spices and breading were not mixed evenly, resulting in inconsistent flavor. Insufficient breading under the skin also prevented the chicken from fully retaining its juices.]

...

[Delicious Golden Finger-Licking Chicken]

[Rating: 77 points]

[Description: The golden-brown skin locks in the juicy meat, making each bite incredibly satisfying. Even if only the bones remain, the lingering aroma will stay with you forever.]

[Review: A fairly good piece. Although there were some mistakes in the batter preparation, the flaws don't detract from the overall quality. The excellent application of batter under the skin is enough to make one overlook the subtle differences in flavor.]

...

Chapter 23 Mental Breakthrough

Perhaps the kitchen utensils provided by the system were too powerful, especially this intelligent pressure fryer that can precisely control oil temperature and time. It greatly improved the minimum quality of the fried chicken, so much so that none of the fried chickens this time were of the "strange" grade.

Although the "ultimate" grade did not appear, it was the first attempt after all, so some operational shortcomings are understandable. We can make targeted improvements in the future.

So, Chao Ke began trying again and again.

[Delicious Golden Finger-Licking Chicken]

[Rating: 76 points]

...

[Giant Golden Finger-Licking Chicken]

[Rating: 68 points]

...

[Delicious Golden Finger-Licking Chicken]

[Rating: 81 points]

...

With countless attempts, Chao Ke's technique became more and more skillful, and the fried chicken he made became more and more delicious.

But a sense of anxiety rose in Chao Ke's heart.

I've put in a lot of effort, but I'm always just a little short of the "perfect" grade.

With a slight frown, Chao Keqiang suppressed his frustration and continued trying.

[Delicious Golden Finger-Licking Chicken]

[Rating: 85 points]

...

[Delicious Golden Finger-Licking Chicken]

[Rating: 87 points]

...

[Delicious Golden Finger-Licking Chicken]

[Rating: 89 points]

...

After hundreds and thousands of attempts, Chao Ke looked at the freshly fried chicken with disappointment. The score still hadn't broken 90 points, failing to reach the "ultimate" food grade.

"Still just a little short..."

Chao Ke leaned weakly against the wall.

Although the Culinary God Trial Grounds can replenish the mental and physical strength of the test takers, the weariness deep in their souls cannot be eliminated; on the contrary, it continues to accumulate.

The abundance of essence and energy, and the deficiency of spirit and thought, create an extremely strong contrast.