A Bite of Douluo Continent

There seem to be a lot of solo chapters lately, and some readers have already complained…

To explain, I've been quite busy lately, so updates have been irregular. Those separate chapters posted due to temporary changes in update times are mainly to let everyone know the update schedule so you don't waste time waiting. I'll delete these separate chapters after updating the new chapter, so it won't affect your reading experience.

If you see a single chapter like this, please skip to the previous chapter and don't let your reading history remain on that chapter. Otherwise, if you delete the chapter and then come back, you'll encounter a redirect error and be returned to the first chapter, which is quite troublesome...

Alright, now that the chapters are open, let me tell you a little story.

This book is divided into four groups (don't ask me why I have so many groups, it's a long story).

These four groups are the Book Lovers Group (currently over 800 members), the Qidian VIP Group (currently over 200 members), the Full Subscription Group (the VIP Group and the Full Subscription Group are not the same), and the Leader Group. The Leader Group is the only one where you don't need to unlock the extra chapters, as the extra chapters will be uploaded to the group. Leaders can also join the Full Subscription Group without approval. In other cases, Full Subscription requires approval, and the group number is not publicly disclosed.

Okay, that's not the point.

The key point is that starting in March, there will be a lottery every month in the full subscription group and the leader group. All group members can participate and win one 100 yuan cash prize and five 10 yuan cash prizes. So readers who have subscribed to all chapters but have not yet been approved and leaders with a fan value of 1 but have not yet joined the group should hurry up and join the group.

Sending love to everyone.

Chapter 518 Descending Star?

Twenty minutes isn't actually that long.

But if you multiply it by 240, that's a different story.

Converted to the flow of time within the training space, it becomes three days and three nights.

For three days and three nights, in the dead of night, the dancing never stops... Oh no, wrong channel.

Qi Han, a time management master who could stretch one minute into two hundred and forty minutes, used those twenty minutes to accomplish something significant in the training space.

His first attempt was to downgrade a three-star recipe.

In layman's terms, it means turning a three-star dish into a dish without any special phenomena or effects, but whose taste is not much different from the original and is even more delicious than a regular two-star dish.

It's basically a lower-spec version of a three-star dish.

This was a solution that Qi Han suddenly came up with in a flash of inspiration.

Descending a star sounds simple: just deliberately make a mistake during the cooking process to make the dish imperfect, and naturally there will be no strange phenomena or special effects.

It's hard to do things right, but it's far too easy to deliberately do things wrong.

However, this method is actually not feasible, because if the steps are wrong, it will not only affect the phenomena and special effects, but also greatly reduce the taste of the dish. This is not a low-end version, but a defective product.

Therefore, the only way to remove anomalies and special effects while keeping the taste almost unaffected is to reduce the age of the ingredients as a whole, downgrading all ingredients that are thousands of years old to hundreds of years old.

This step is not simple. For example, if a dish uses a rare two-thousand-year-old ingredient and a fourteen-hundred-year-old spirit beast, reducing the age of both ingredients while ensuring that the taste does not change is not as simple as dividing them into two hundred and one hundred and forty years.

The accumulation of nutritional value between the age of ingredients and their nutritional value is not directly proportional. For example, the same ingredients, such as rare and precious herbs, may be reduced to a level of two hundred years, while soul beasts may need a level of four hundred years to ensure that the nutritional and flavor ratios of the ingredients remain the same.

Therefore, the types of ingredients can remain the same, but the selection of new ingredients for a given year requires multiple attempts.

Qi Han chose Wensi Tofu as the dish for this star-descending occasion.

The reason for choosing this dish is simple: its ingredients are the least complex among the three three-Michelin-starred vegetarian dishes.

Whether it's "boiled water" made from a variety of ingredients through multiple processes, or Dinghu vegetarian cuisine that blends various natural treasures, reducing the age of ingredients involves a very complex chain reaction that requires a lot of time to experiment with.

Since this is your first time trying to lower your star rating, there's no need to choose a hellish start.

His basic skills have now reached perfection, and he has cooked Wensi Tofu countless times, knowing all the cooking steps by heart. Under these circumstances, he can easily reduce his star level.

Qi Han completed this step in just three days; he even prepared the tofu for cooking in advance.

After all, the entire process of making tofu takes several hours, which is simply not enough time for a food competition.

Is making tofu in advance considered cheating?

Of course not, since tofu is an ingredient.

At Qi Han's request, Ruyi quickly prepared all the ingredients for the Wensi Tofu, which had already been descended to the next star.

He knew this dish by heart. Although the ingredients had changed over the years, the types were still the same, so there were not many differences in the cooking steps.

The only time-consuming part was the stewing of the chicken broth. Previously, simmering over low heat would take about three hours, but the food competition couldn't wait that long. So this time, Qi Han used a pressure cooker. Under high steam pressure, the water temperature can reach over 100 degrees Celsius, thus shortening the stewing time to less than an hour, without affecting the taste of the soup.

Soon, Qi Han was busy in the kitchen.

...

"call…"

On the other side, in the kitchen of Ming Ting Que, Chef Jin stared intently at the various vegetable leaves submerged in water in the pot.

This Jade Dew dish was an idea that came to him long ago. After a long period of work and revisions, it took two years to finally complete the dish, which is also Chef Jin's proudest dish.

He can say without hesitation that this dish is the best dish he could never replicate in his lifetime.

Before entering the kitchen to begin the third round, Chef Song pulled him aside and told him that there was a dish called "Poetry and Etiquette Ginkgo" during the Cold Food Festival. He said that Qi Han might use this dish in the third round and that he should be vigilant and not underestimate his opponent.

He hadn't paid much attention to it until Chef Song told him that Crab-Stuffed Oranges cost forty gold soul coins at Hanshi Festival, while Ginkgo Biloba cost one hundred gold soul coins.

He had also tasted the crab-stuffed orange, and although meat and vegetables cannot be compared, he had to admit that the crab-stuffed orange was comparable to his Jade Dew.

It's hard to imagine that a young person in their twenties could cook such delicious food.

Since the Ginkgo Biloba with Poetry is much more expensive than the Crab Stuffed Orange, it must taste better.

Unexpectedly, the crab-stuffed orange wasn't even the opponent's limit; they had even stronger dishes to offer.

Chef Jin's face showed a rare hint of fighting spirit.

He had to admit that the young man named Qi Han had a higher culinary talent than him, and given more time, Qi Han might be able to surpass him.

But not now!

He will use this jade dew to prove it.

As Chef Jin's thoughts raced, the various colorful vegetable leaves in the pot began to change slowly. As they simmered over low heat, the leaves went from being initially open and crisp to becoming soft and tender, until they almost completely dissolved in the soup.

At this point, the vegetable leaves can be easily crushed with just a gentle touch.

The originally colorless and clear broth in the pot gradually absorbed the essence of various vegetable leaves during this process, turning yellowish-green in color.

Seeing that the cooking time was about right, Chef Jin carefully scooped out the vegetable leaves, leaving only the broth in the pot.

He then evenly sprinkled a layer of starch into the pot, allowing the starch to dissolve completely in the broth.

The yellowish-green broth in the pot gradually condenses and thickens during this process, becoming darker and more translucent, reflecting a lustrous sheen under the light.

If Qi Han were here, he would be surprised to find that Chef Jin's step is extremely similar to thickening sauce, and such a technique has never appeared in Douluo Continent before.

Next, Chef Jin added the washed and processed cabbage leaves to the pot again, letting them soak completely in the thick broth for a few seconds before taking them out and arranging them on a plate to resemble a whole cabbage.

At first glance, it looks like a whole cabbage placed on a plate.

Jade Dew is now complete.

With the essence of hundreds of vegetables fully infused into the soup as the base, fresh cabbage leaves are simply blanched, so that the cabbage itself is tender, crisp and juicy, while the flavors of various vegetables permeate it, making every bite a fusion of countless vegetables.

Each of the vegetables used is a rare and valuable variety, and many are even considered rare and precious natural treasures.

Even the seemingly ordinary cabbage was carefully selected.

Chef Jin's face was full of confidence as he pressed the switch for the door light.

I will definitely win this game!

Chapter 519 A Low-Budget Version of Wensi Tofu? (Bonus Chapter for the New Helmsman of This Book, Dark Night Seeker of Love)

As time passed, Wu Henian's expression became slightly strange.

This time... it seems like both dishes took a long time to prepare.

He is a chef himself and the owner of Tianxingzhai, so he knows very well that under normal circumstances, vegetables do not take that long to cook, because vegetables are easier to cook than meat dishes.

The fact that it takes so long to cook a vegetable dish can only mean one thing: the process for making this dish is far more complicated than one can imagine.

Wu Henian couldn't help but feel a little curious.

The dish served during the Cold Food Festival should be the Ginkgo Biloba with Poetry and Etiquette. So, what dish did Ming Tingque bring out?

He was familiar with all the dishes at Mingtingque, but none of them seemed to meet his requirements.

So, could this be Chef Kim's new dish?

Just as he was lost in thought, the green lights of Mingtingque suddenly turned on.

Wu Henian was startled.

Oh no, Ming Tingque finished first. Does this mean they're going to gain the advantage again?

However, just as this thought crossed his mind, the lights belonging to the Cold Food Festival also lit up on the other side.

The dishes are prepared on both sides simultaneously?

In an environment completely isolated from external interference, neither party could possibly know the other's situation.

So such coincidences have occurred before in previous food competitions, but they are rare.

In theory, in order to ensure fairness, the judges would need to taste both dishes simultaneously. A direct comparison of tastes, without the lingering aftertaste, would make the comparison more authentic and fair.

This comparison provides the clearest results.

I never expected it to end like this.

Wu Henian's face showed more anticipation.

Since that's the case, let me see what that "Poetry and Etiquette Ginkgo" dish is really like... wait, what is that?

His brows furrowed again.

The dishes that the catering association staff brought out from the kitchen of Hanshi were clearly bowls of soup.

He was too far away to see the details clearly yet, but this was not the same as the image of the Ginkgo biloba.

Qi Han didn't use the Ginkgo biloba?

Wu Henian stood there, then let out a long sigh.

This kid underestimated his opponent...

He probably didn't know Chef Kim's identity, so he thought that if he won the second round easily, the third round wouldn't be a problem either.