The story begins in Food Wars, when Alice took him home.

Chapter 249 Special Training! Special Training!!

"It sounds difficult at first, but after thinking about it for a bit, it seems quite simple?"

After thinking for a moment, Alice Nakiri pinched her chin and winked at Bai Yuan, as if to say that the special training was too easy.

"After all, it's only at the beginner level right now. It takes time to go from easy to hard. You can't just give it a high difficulty level on the first day."

Bai Yuan flicked Alice Nakiri's head with his finger, his voice tinged with helplessness. How could he not know that this was simple? This didn't require any transition.

"That's true, let's begin!"

Alice Nakiri nodded and quickly selected the ingredients in front of her, soon finding what she needed.

"The sour taste gives people a refreshing and stimulating feeling, which can enhance their appetite."

For people with poor appetite, a little sourness can stimulate their appetite, turning one bowl of rice into two bowls, and two bowls into three bowls.

In nature, the thought of sourness immediately brings to mind plums, hence the saying "to quench thirst by looking at plums." Besides plums, there are also highly acidic foods like hawthorn and lemons.

As she spoke, she gathered plums, hawthorns, lemons, and other ingredients into her bag. Clearly, she intended to start with this for her first sour sauce.

"Plums, hawthorns, and lemons are all very acidic ingredients, which is fine for making sour sauces, but if you want to make them delicious..."

"Almost forgot about this."

As she spoke, Alice Nakiri turned around, reached out and took the honey from the counter, then smiled at Bai Yuan and began her creation.

The first step is to cut the plums, hawthorns, and lemons into chunks and put them into a pot.

Next, add an appropriate amount of water to the pot, turn on low heat, and simmer slowly until the plums and hawthorns soften and release their sour taste and aroma.

"That's about it, now it's time for filtering..."

Savoring the flavor in front of her, Alice Nakiri found a piece of gauze, simply filtered out the fruit pulp, and then used a high-mesh sieve to filter out the remaining juice, obtaining a pure and clear sour juice.

Pour the sour juice into a pot, add an appropriate amount of honey, then turn on low heat and stir quickly until the honey is completely dissolved and the flavors of both are blended.

"Next comes emulsification."

Smelling the aroma of the sauce in front of her, Alice Nakiri nodded in satisfaction. She then stood aside and waited for the sauce to cool naturally. Next, she added one gram of soy lecithin, poured it into a molecular mixer, and blended it at high speed to create an incredibly light emulsified sauce.

This step makes the sauce smoother, adds airiness, and enhances the flavor.

"Done! This sauce is perfect for grilled meat, salads, and desserts. Which one would you like to try, Brother Baiyuan?"

She placed the prepared sauce in a bowl, then turned to look at Bai Yuan. Alice Nakiri's voice was teasing as she spoke as she walked up to him.

"You can eat it directly."

Sniffing, savoring the rich sour taste, Bai Yuan reached out and dipped his finger in it, then put it in his mouth.

"Plums and hawthorns provide the sauce with a deep sourness and fruitiness, lemon adds a refreshing sourness and aroma, and honey balances the sourness, bringing a natural sweetness and a smooth texture."

Observing the effects of the various ingredients in the sauce, Bai Yuan gave a fair assessment.

This is a fairly standard sauce, but because it has been blended at high speed using a molecular mixer, it has an exceptionally light texture and is very easy to eat.

"Let's focus on barbecue next, and we'll use the sauces we make later on for barbecue."

After a moment's hesitation, Bai Yuan made a new request.

Tasting the sauce alone is not enough to judge how well it complements the dish. Although one can roughly imagine the flavor, it is ultimately not as good as actually tasting it.

"Okay, I see."

Alice Nakiri nodded after hearing this, and then began to prepare the sweet sauce.

This time, she chose fruit as the main ingredient: mango and passion fruit.

Mango provides the base of sweetness, while passion fruit adds a touch of tartness to enhance the sauce's flavor profile.

The remaining steps are similar to the previous ones; simply repeat the same steps to produce a sauce of the same quality.

Mix the mango and passion fruit pulp together and blend into a puree. Then, add a small amount of water to dilute it, filter out the pulp, and you will get a smooth juice.

Let the juice stand, add soy lecithin, and blend at high speed with a blender to form a light foam.

Gently scoop out the foam and place it on a plate; this creates a sweet sauce with the dual flavors of mango and passion fruit.

"Let's try a different approach with the next sauce."

Feeling that her sauces were too repetitive and lacked variety, Alice Nakiri immediately picked up the bitter melon and sleeves from the counter.

Because bitter melon is very bitter, it needs to be sliced ​​and soaked in cold water before cooking to remove some of the bitterness.

After soaking, put the bitter melon and grapefruit pulp into the molecular cold extraction machine next to it to extract the juice at low temperature.

"Some more agar..."

Looking at the cold-extracted juice in front of her, Alice Nakiri had this idea in mind. She then added agar, placed hot water at the bottom, and stirred it at high speed with a spoon to dissolve and cool it.

Place the cooled agar in a bowl and crush it with a spoon.

"Speaking of which, I can understand sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, and salty. They are the flavors we eat most often. But what's with the bitter one...?"

Does adding bitterness to a dish make it taste better? I feel like it would ruin the whole dish…

After making the bitter sauce, Alice Nakiri asked her own question: can bitter sauce really enhance the flavor of a dish?

"Bitterness, as one of the five most widely known tastes, is rarely seen in everyday life and is usually only found in high-end cuisine."

Bai Yuan's voice rang out, briefly explaining the situation to Nakiri Alice.

Bitterness doesn't provide the same intense satisfaction as sweetness, nor the richness and fullness of saltiness, nor the appetite-stimulating effect of sourness, and it's not even as good as spiciness.

"However, bitterness can neutralize excessive sweetness, saltiness, and greasiness, making the flavor of the dish more balanced."

Adding bitterness to desserts can enrich their flavor profile, and similarly, adding a bitter sauce to roasted meat can reduce its greasiness.

Bai Yuan continued, "Although there aren't many dishes that use bitterness, that doesn't mean it's a useless flavor. On the contrary, it's very useful."

"So the role of bitterness is to neutralize other overly strong flavors and enhance the layers of taste?"

After listening to Bai Yuan's story, Nakiri Alice concluded that this was the first time she had ever wanted to understand bitterness so much, to understand this taste that everyone disliked.

"That's right, but that's only a small part of its application. In addition, it also has the function of stimulating appetite and creating a unique flavor experience."

Bai Yuan further analyzed that the fact that bitterness could climb all the way to the top five flavors was enough to prove its power, far beyond what ordinary flavors could compete with.

"What's left is spiciness and saltiness..."

"You continue, I'll make the barbecue."

As Bai Yuan spoke, he strode over to the cookware section, selected a frying pan, and then turned to Nakiri Alice and said.

"it is good."

Alice Nakiri nodded, then took out chili peppers and tomatoes from the pile of ingredients, preparing to use them to make a spicy sauce.

As for the savory sauce, she decided to make it using a classic Japanese soup, so she took out kelp and bonito flakes from the pile of ingredients, along with soy sauce, honey, garlic, ginger…

As for Bai Yuan, he opened the refrigerator, took out a few pieces of beef ribeye, and divided them into five equal pieces.

Although it was a steak made to test the sauce, Bai Yuan, adhering to the attitude that once you start, you have to be responsible for it, still carefully selected its side dishes, and called to have them delivered if they were not available.

Since Alice Nakiri hadn't finished the sauce yet and was still busy at the stove, Shirayuki decided to use the extra time to marinate the steak.

It's called marinating, but it's really just sprinkling rose salt and a little black pepper evenly on both sides. The saltiness of the mineral salt is purer, which can further release the rich aroma of the beef itself.

For side dishes, prepare baby potatoes, baby cabbage, baby tomatoes, baby carrots, and shiitake mushrooms.

Cut the small potatoes in half, remove the leaves and roots from the baby carrots, remove the stems from the shiitake mushrooms and score the caps with a cross. Set the rest aside for now.

Since the steak was taken out of the refrigerator not long ago, it will gradually seep out water at room temperature, so you need to wipe it clean with kitchen paper.

The iron skillet is heated until it's scorching hot, so that the steak will more easily form a gelatinized layer when placed in it.

This is also known as the Maillard reaction.

As the beautiful sizzling sound rang out, the steak was put into the pot, releasing an enticing aroma that made Alice Nakiri look completely blissful.

Bai Yuan simply smiled at this, keeping his eyes on the iron pan. He didn't rush to flip the steak, but waited quietly for ten seconds to allow the surface to brown and caramelize.

Fry one side until the other side is browned and browned. For the thicker parts of the steak, fry them upright to ensure the entire outer layer is browned.

Some people judge the doneness of the steak by sight, while others by smell. Generally, Bai Yuan makes steaks that are medium-rare.

"This tastes amazing!"

Sensing the increasingly enticing aroma in the air, Alice Nakiri, who was making the sauce, exclaimed with a look of admiration.

They were both pan-frying steaks, and the steps were exactly the same, so why was Bai Yuan's steak so much more fragrant and delicious than theirs?!

Who can I complain to about this?!

Alice Nakiri thought to herself, and then she saw Bai Yuan set up five flat-bottomed iron pans at the same time, holding only an iron tong in his hand.

"Ten pots without using silver chopsticks?"

Seeing that Bai Yuan hadn't taken out any silver chopsticks, Nakiri Alice tilted her head in confusion.

"Why use silver chopsticks to pan-fry a steak? This is a very repetitive and simple dish, so you can just use your hands."

Bai Yuan muttered a speechless complaint, then stared at the frying pan and started cooking with the heat turned up high.

After the steak is cooked, it becomes a side dish. According to the doneness of the ingredients, they are added to the pan in order and cooked until they are browned. After adding butter, rose salt and black pepper for simple seasoning, they are placed on a foil baking tray and baked at 200 degrees for ten minutes.

"Are the last two sauces almost ready?"

"It'll be done in no time."

Hearing Bai Yuan's words, Nakiri Alice replied without looking up.

Compared to the main dishes, the sauce was much simpler to make, but Alice Nakiri was slow because of the large quantity.

"it is good."

Bai Yuan nodded, then tossed a piece of butter and a sprig of rosemary into the frying pan where he had just fried the vegetables, and simmered them over low heat until fragrant.

Once the aroma begins to fill the air, turn up the heat and add the steak.

This is considered a classic way to cook French steak, and it's relatively simple in French cuisine. After the steak is seared until fragrant, it's removed from the pan and cut into strips on a cutting board.

Amazingly, even after being cooked twice, the steak still retains an incredible tenderness inside, looking incredibly juicy and flavorful. With just a slight squeeze, the juices are released, releasing an irresistible aroma.

"Come on, Alice, it's time for your sauce to make its appearance!"

Before serving the dishes, Bai Yuan specially heated the plates to ensure the best possible taste, a common practice in high-end restaurants.