Chapter 993: Chapter 992: The Ceremony (Part 2)

In the camera, Xia Yu is walking through the ingredient library of the ‘White Jade Tower’.

Without any inspiration, Xia Yu simply made a request to the ceremony organizers to move to the ingredient library, and of course, both the staff and the filming team came along.

With the thought that seeing ingredients might spark inspiration, Xia Yu browsed around casually, stopping and walking at times, occasionally pausing in front of ingredient baskets, staring at the ingredients before him, and mentally devising and planning recipes.

He has reasons to be cautious.

The birth of the Dragon-level classic recipe “Meat of the Earth”, although largely credited to his own creative ideas and summarizations of past barbecue experiences, also owes a lot to the help of ‘Juxia Sauce’ and Fantasy Ingredients.

Especially the ‘Juxia Sauce’, once successfully mastered and used, became a crucial lava explosion segment of “Meat of the Earth”.

And now.

The main ingredient is ‘Mountain Carp’, and other ingredients need to be selected from this cold storage, which means that later his Dragon-level recipe will have to delete many enhancement items and retain the most unadorned aspect of the recipe.

What does unadorned mean?

The ingredients are ordinary.

Then, how these ingredients are transformed into the materials for a Dragon-level recipe depends on the chef’s skillful hands.

“Old ghost Zhu Ji is testing Yu’s foundation.”

On the second floor, old man Xia Qing snorted, clearly displeased with Zhu Ji’s arrangement, wondering why it had to be chosen for the naming ceremony of the “Kirin Child”. This is simply making things difficult for young people.

Lan Fengxian noticed Xia Qing’s concern and cheerfully chimed in, “It’s true he’s testing the foundation, but the intention is not malicious. After all, this is the selection of the Crown Prince; I think the Dragon Head is just trying to remove his Food Dominator methods, allowing him to fully display the essence of culinary integrity.”

Li Wannian also nodded, hesitated a bit, and said:

“I think the final carp dish presented by Chef Xia, even if it doesn’t reach Dragon-level heights, the Dragon Head wouldn’t easily cast a ‘deny’ vote on him. This is more a matter of honing and refining.”

At this time, in the broadcast screen, Xia Yu suddenly stops, bends down to pick up a rather heavy pineapple from the ingredient basket and holds it in his hand.

Seeing this, Xia Qing, Lan Fengxian, and Li Wannian all exclaimed.

Pineapple?

This is undoubtedly an ingredient that highlights the ‘sour’ flavor.

Moreover, different from before, this time Xia Yu picks up the pineapple and doesn’t put it down, turning directly to the basket with fresh red tomatoes, carefully selecting ingredients.

“Sweet and sour!”

“Is it sweet and sour carp?”

As Xia Yu’s recipe began to take shape.

In a side hall of the main building.

Including Dragon Head Zhu Ji, five bigwigs have temporarily withdrawn from the hall, Zhu Ji and Yan Qi seem to have something to discuss and have found another private room, leaving Kong Chun, Wei An, and Wu Tong remaining in the side hall.

They either stand or sit, watching the broadcast screen intently.

“It seems he has decided on the recipe.” Wu Tong, standing with his hands behind his back, suddenly smiled.

“So what?”

Wu Tong slowly turned around, looking at the frowning Kong Chun and the coldly staring Wei An, completely unconcerned with their attitudes, smiling insincerely and saying, “Tomatoes, pineapples… very standard sweet and sour fish ingredient preparation, you both can see it, right?”

“I am looking forward to how he’ll use these ordinary ingredients to push the recipe and actual dish to Dragon-level heights.”

The underlying meaning of this sentence clearly carried a doubt about Xia Yu’s culinary integrity skills.

Kong Chun and Wei An ignored him.

Wu Tong’s eyes narrowed slightly, seeing the two remain impervious, did not continue the topic of ‘recipe’, but suddenly shifted his focus and asked: “Since ten years ago, ever since Chen Dingbang passed away, hasn’t the White Jade Tower been nurturing the ‘Crown Prince’?”

“Haha, that child Ye Feizhou, after extensive selection, was finally decided to be nurtured, for ten years, until now graduating from the Five Talents, his personality and culinary philosophy are basically shaped, that child is excellent in personal qualities and talent, I too greatly admire and approve of this child, who would have thought… alas!”

A very deliberate sighing and display, obvious to all, yet it was like a knife carving the hearts of Kong Chun and Wei An, their faces twitching simultaneously.

Of course one feels most compassion for the apprentices and disciples they’ve nurtured.

More than half a year ago, the senior brother of the White Jade Tower was unanimously recognized as the “Crown Prince” by the Chinese Cuisine World, but another rising star rose too fast and too fierce, until now has become like a blazing sun, shining so brightly that all young people cannot open their eyes.

Wu Tong observed their reactions, covertly smiling inside, there’s potential!

“Actually, the matter is very simple.”

He spoke on, “That child Flying Boat is already a Lin Chef, although there’s a gap compared to Demon King Xia, he can still be considered an extraordinary talent, eligible to be a candidate Qilin.”

“Don’t be intimidated by Demon King Xia’s achievement of defeating Huang He, in my view, Huang He’s defeat was partly due to his own complacency, and partly because Demon King Xia was too clever, attacking where he was unguarded, grasping Huang He’s vulnerabilities. If Huang He had been prepared, he wouldn’t have been so utterly defeated.”

“Moreover…”

With a look of mockery, Wu Tong stretched his tone: “Remove Demon King Xia’s Food Dominator part of culinary arts, what’s left of his culinary integrity is merely a new Dragon Chemist; the culinary integrity isn’t strong enough. The strong influence of his ‘Meat of the Earth’ recipe was largely due to borrowing the light of Shell Fairy’s ‘Juxia Sauce’… hmm, quite an idea, quite a tactic, I figured it out only these days!”

Kong Chun remained expressionless.

Wei An coldly said: “Wu Tong, what exactly are you trying to say?”

“Very simple, I think you should cast two veto votes when ‘appropriate’.”

“Whether it’s appropriate, it’s up to your judgment. I think his dish when presented later won’t hold up, it’s very unlikely to meet the standard of a normal Dragon-level dish, there are plenty of points to attack.”

Having said that, Wu Tong didn’t wait to observe their expressions, with a slight smile at the corner of his lips, he left the side hall with his hands behind his back.

Meanwhile, in the broadcast screen, Xia Yu also returned from the ingredient library to the hall, both step for step with the filming crew showing him located in a long corridor of the White Jade Tower.

Shortly after.

In the makeshift kitchen on the ground floor hall, Xia Yu’s busy silhouette emerges.

Wearing white gloves, preparing fish.

Want to return to “unadorned”, right? Xia Yu simply fulfilled Zhu Ji’s wish, not using the likes of Jade Fragment Knife, Ice Soul Blade, Seven Star Breaking Army Saber, just using the most basic kitchen tools and knife skills to slaughter the live fish.

First, along the carp’s back, cut horizontally on both sides of the dragon spine.

As for the fish body, cut horizontally five to six times, with the depth of the cut about one centimeter, for marinating flavor and presentation, more importantly, during frying, it prevents the fish skin from breaking, keeping the ingredients visually appealing.

“Salt, pepper, minced ginger and scallions…”

“Mixed with white wine.”

Spread the mixture evenly on the fish body, inside the fish belly cavity, Xia Yu claps his hands and locks the whole fish in a small refrigerator, first chilling for about 30 minutes.

Since it’s a very conventional and common ‘sweet and sour fish’, the next step is to use tomatoes and pineapple to make the sauce.

This foundational part is simple for Xia Yu.

In a blink, it’s time for the ‘pan-frying’ phase, Xia Yu carefully wipes off the marinade debris from inside and outside the carp, like minced ginger and scallions, and coats the fish inside and out with dry powder.

“Sizzle sizzle sizzle…”

When the whole carp is submerged in the boiling oil pan, everyone was startled to see Xia Yu holding the carp tail with one hand, almost folding it, lifting the tail towards the head, and this “fish leaping” posture became fixed as the fish was gradually fried crispy and steaming.

Thus, the carp removed from the fridge, after frying, in a matter of minutes, becomes a delicious dish on the plate.