Chapter 103
Chapter 103 part1
The two separated lightning-quick. Looking around, they saw Ruan Yu looking at them with a pair of black eyes, his little face filled with curiosity. He had heard the suspended car arrive, so he had rushed to the window, stood up on tiptoes, and poked his head out to see. As a result, he had seen the two of them embracing each other.
“Nothing. Xiao Yu, are you hungry? How about brother make you some biscuits?” Ruan Tang’s face turned red instantly, glaring at He Yun Chen, he went through the open door and coaxed Ruan Yu to bake some cookies with him.
“Okay, my brother is the best!” In the end, Ruan Yu was just a little child. With the temptation of delicious food, he quickly put what he had seen just now to the back of his mind and he followed after his brother into the kitchen, like a little tail.
He Yun Chen reached out and covered his hot ears. He shook his head helplessly, and followed them in.
“Brother He! Brother He! Let’s fly!” Ruan Yu saw He Yun Chen, and immediately raised his small arms. He’d been thinking a lot about this big brother who would carry him up on his shoulders.
He Yun Chen stepped forward with a smile and carried up the little guy. Ruan Yu immediately struck a pose and began to be “Superman in the Sky”. The silver bell-like laughter filled the room.
Ruan Tang, while processing the ingredients, looked at the big and small figure playing outside. A smile came unbidden to his face.
Days like this, were the best.
********
The time had come for the finals. It could be said that millions of people were looking forward to this. The moment the live broadcast started, the crowds rushed in. The live chat was filled to bursting with comments so that nothing could be seen through them. The live broadcast platform can only open the comment bypass function and increase the shielding setting to alleviate this situation.
Zha Panpan, Cao Jun, Shi Mingxu, Wu Anmin and Chen Yuanwu also came early to the venue. The audience immediately started cheering on the players they supported.
[Kingnight: Oh, it’s started! It’s started! I’m looking forward to the birth of the champion!]
[Forgetting the other river shore: Sister Panpan, refuel! You’re the best!]
[Following you inexplicably: I like Shi Mingxuye better, with good looks and good cooking skills, he’ll definitely make it big like my Tang Tang!]
[Asha: Will Marshal He come here today?]
“Congratulations to everyone. You have stood out from the thousands of your peers to stand here today. I hope you can play to your best level today to wrest the ultimate victory.” President Gu said in a loud and clear voice. “Today’s match will be on meaty vegetarian dishes. In other words, all the ingredients today will be vegetables and you will create dishes that taste like meat.”
[Wei Yu Zhaozhao: Wah, use vegetables to create meaty dishes? how can that be?]
[Mi Luo, Ai Luo, Ai Luo: My God, this is too difficult ...]
[Fat eating meat: It is indeed the finals! The difficulty has never been higher!]
The five players looked at each other in dismay. This theme seemed to be completely outside the realm of possibility. They’ve never really thought about using vegetables to make meat dishes. Vegetable dishes would always have the taste of vigils, most of which had distinct tastes, carrying with it the slight bitterness and sweetness unique to vegetables. It was very different from the richness and fullness of meat. If they were to use vegetables to make meat dishes, not to mention the taste, it would also be very difficult replicate the texture and appearance. They were all very skeptical. Was this really possible?
It seemed that the confusion of the five players was very apparent. After the three judges conferred with each other quietly, Ruan Tang stood up.
“I’ll cook a dish for everyone. This is to give you a hint of what could be done.”
As Ruan Tang said that, he came to the stove and asked the smart robot to bring him two carrots and a potato.
“I’ll use carrots and potatoes to make stir-fried crab meat for everyone.”
[Yanting Meow: Ah? He’ll make crab with carrots and potatoes? Can this really be done?]
[Jin Shou always wants dissatisfaction: Of course it can be done, Tang Tang is the best!]
[Miao Miao loves to eat all the dishes of the anchor: crab meat! I like!]
Ruan Tang had made crab meat steamed dumplings during one of his previous broadcasts, so everyone knew what crab meat was. Just thinking of that delicious taste made everyone start drooling. They were also very familiar with potatoes and carrots. The taste of potatoes was relatively light, the texture was usually soft. Carrots were crispier, and had a more prominent sweetness. These two ingredients were completely unrelated to crab. They really couldn’t imagine how you could make that dish with just potatoes and carrots.
Ruan Tang picked up the potatoes and carrots, washed them with water, and steamed them in a steamer. In particular, the potatoes needed to be steamed with its skin on. This was so that the steamed potatoes wouldn’t lose its nutrition, and also so that it would turn out tenderer. After being mashed up, it will be closer to the granular texture of crab meat.
He crushed the steamed potatoes and carrots with the back of his knife. He mixed them in a one-to-one ratio, added a little salt, and stirred well.
“The next step is stir-frying. The heat control and seasoning are the keys to making this dish.” Potatoes contained more starch and the carrots contained a certain amount of sugar. After mixing the two, it could very easily stick to the pan, therefore, they had to make sure that the pan wasn’t too hot.
Ruan Tang poured oil into the pan, he then rotated his wrist to spread the oil evenly across the bottom of the pan. This was so that when the potato and carrot paste was put in for sautéing, it wouldn’t stick to the pan.
“If you want it to taste better, you can add a little diced mushrooms and diced winter bamboo shoots when you fry it. This will make the appearance more granular, and it will have an even meatier taste when you eat it, just like real crab meat. ”
To produce the crab taste, in addition to salt and pepper, a bit of vinegar must be added. Note, however, that you have to wait until the potatoes and carrots were fried, before adding the vinegar.
After a while, a plate of sautéed stir-fried crab meat came out of the pan. From far away, you could already smell the fresh and slightly tangy crab meat. The color and appearance was also made to look like the real thing.
“Let’s try it.” Ruan Tang motioned to the five players to come forward to have a taste.
Without waiting for them to come forward, the audience, who could no longer wait, had already tasted it first, and then they all cried out in surprise.
[Can’t stop Hugging Trees: Wow wow wow! !! !! This really is the taste of crab meat and crab roe! If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it was made with potatoes and carrots!]
[Weak hearted fool: God, it’s really delicious! So tasty!]
[Peach peach peach: When I eat water monster crabs, I like the carb roe the most. Unfortunately, there’s only so much crab roe in each one. I never could have imagined I’d be eating a huge plate of it today! And potatoes and carrots are much cheaper than the monster crabs!]
[Rui Rui: To the commenter above, well said! But I think I’ll stick with the monster crabs. After all, just who can make this? [big cry]]
[The world’s favorite A’qiqi: What the above commenter says makes a lot of sense ... [sad]]
After the five players tasted it, they couldn’t help marveling at Ruan Tang’s superb cooking skills. His control of the temperature and the seasonings had attained the highest degree of perfection. At the same time, this also lit up a fire under them. The reason why they participated in this competition was because of their yearning for cooking. They all wanted to seize this opportunity to challenge themselves.
“Now, you have three hours to cook a vegetarian dish.” Ruan Tang continued, “We won’t make it difficult for you either. We have prepared several ingredients for you that we recommend. You can choose to use it or not.”
Ruan Tang not only gave them the recommended ingredients, but also gave them sufficient time to think about and make their dishes. This could be considered as particularly preferential treatment. However, after all, the future world’s food culture was not as prosperous as Ancient Earth’s. It was the first time these contestants have been exposed to the concept of vegetarian cuisine.
The smart robot quickly came in holding a wooden box containing potatoes, carrots, Chinese cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, winter bamboo shoots, and plain gluten.
“Now you may enter the ingredients room and choose your own ingredients,” Ge Lao said to them.
After the five players entered the ingredients room, they stayed for almost thirty minutes before they came out. Each of them took no less than five vegetables, and they began to prepare for cooking while pondering the ingredients.
Shi Mingxu took king oyster mushrooms, green pepper, chili peppers, winter bamboo shoots, and black fungus. He then began to julienne the ingredients. Obviously he already had a general idea of the direction he wanted to take. Ruan Tang could see what he probably wanted to do and couldn’t help but nod in satisfaction.