The beginning is only when you become a chef

Chapter 103: The Girls' Progress (Two Chapters in One)

The rich almond flavor explodes in your mouth, but it's not just the aroma of nuts, it also has the crispness and freshness of fresh vegetables.

After finishing a spoonful, Xia An said with a tut-tut sound:

“Is this ‘almond cabbage’?”

Being watched by Xia An with a look full of approval and affirmation, Alice smiled and wrung her hands and said:
"How is it, Master? How much have I utilized this bronze-level fantasy food?"

Xia An didn't say how much it was, but pointed at the plate and said:
"You blended the almond cabbage into vegetable juice, filtered it, added edible seaweed gel, and then used an instrument to press it into these fine caviar particles?"

Alice nodded repeatedly:
"That's right, the methods of molecular cuisine are nothing more than foaming, slow cooking, hot and cold jelly, liquid nitrogen technology and spherification technology."

"For example, the specific method of making my fantasy vegetable caviar belongs to the spherification technique!"

talking.

The girl found a clean syringe from the kitchen.

In front of Xia An, Alice was very energetic. She took the remaining half pot of emerald green vegetable juice, sucked it into a tube with a syringe, and then squeezed it drop by drop, slowly pouring it into the mixing basin filled with clean water.

Thus, drops of vegetable juice turned into a pile of evenly distributed emerald green caviar particles at the bottom of the basin.

"Wow~" Xiaoxi clapped her hands vigorously and made a soft sound, "I want to learn from Sister Alice!"

"From now on, I can eat different flavors of caviar every day!"

When Alice heard Xiaoxi's praise, she couldn't pretend anymore and smiled happily:

"Right, hahaha. Molecular cuisine is the future. Xiaoxi, you and I will learn cooking skills. You will have a bright future!"

Seeing his daughter's sparkling eyes, Xia An was convinced that Lan Xiaoxi was indeed very interested in molecular cuisine, but he was not worried at all.

interest is the best teacher.

It is more important than anything else to make Lan Xiaoxi interested in cooking and the ways of being a chef.

"Tsk, Alice, this basin of water is not just plain water, right?"

Even Xia An himself is very interested in molecular cuisine. If such a high-end dish were made to quasi-special standards and served on the big stage of the show, wouldn't it be eye-popping?

Who said he could only restore and reproduce ancient dishes? Xia An would not just copy ancient dishes in a rigid way. To face strong opponents, he would always have to come up with something that was completely his own.

Today, Xia An, who has already developed a hexagonal cooking template, feels that he is qualified and can try his hand at original classics.

"Of course it's not plain water, I added calcium to it."

Alice showed a large jar of food ingredients written entirely in English: "That's what's in there."

She removed the lid and scooped up some fine white particles.

Then, in front of several people, the white-haired, red-eyed girl excitedly dissolved the calcium in clean water and stirred it evenly with a spoon.

"Master, smell it."

Alice scooped up some water and handed it to Xia An.

"Eh, it tastes a bit bitter?" Xia An's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Correct!"

Alice said: "When calcium dissolves in water, it makes the water bitter, so -"

She continued to show.

Use the syringe to continue sucking the vegetable juice of "Almond Cabbage", drop by drop, into this bowl of calcium water:

"In my experience, the spherical vegetable caviar can be fished out in about a minute, otherwise it will have a strong bitter calcium taste!"

“And you need to put another bowl of real clean water in it to soak the caviar. Otherwise, there’s no way to get rid of the bitterness.”

Later, Alice had a chemistry class.

Molecular gastronomy is closely related to the principles of chemistry.

for example.

Crush the vegetable juice and make caviar.

This is equivalent to reconstructing the molecular structure.

She added seaweed gel when blending the vegetables in a food processor.

Alginate contains sodium alginate, which reacts chemically with calcium ions in calcium water.

As a result, the alginate polymer chains are tightly linked together into a stable molecular structure due to the bonding effect of calcium ions.

When applied to food, this is the principle of molecular cuisine's "spherification technology."

This is also the underlying principle behind Alice’s dish “Cabbage with Almonds and Caviar”.

"It seems that seaweed and silica are the 'magic materials' that transform vegetable juice into caviar particles."

Xia An said he learned it.

"Master, you haven't told me what my utilization rate is!" Alice put her hands on her hips, pouted, and sounded dissatisfied and a little coquettish.

Xia An smiled and said, "To be precise, your so-called molecular cuisine is a re-combination of the molecular structure of bronze-level fantasy ingredients such as almond cabbage."

"To put it simply, it changes its original shape into another unique shape."

"But Alice, don't you find that caviar alone is too monotonous to be a dish?"

Alice's face froze.

It seemed that this was the truth that was exposed by Xia An.

From vegetable juice to caviar.

It simply deceives the diners' vision with the appearance, and creates a surprise of reversal and gap after they eat it.

But relying solely on the means of "reversal and gap" will not be considered elegant.

Facing a strong opponent would seem a bit like a publicity stunt.

Xia An didn't want his female disciple to go further down this evil path, so he gently taught her:

"A single flower does not make spring, but a hundred flowers in full bloom make the garden full of spring."

"The fantasy ingredient 'almond cabbage' is a delicious food in itself, and can even be eaten raw. But you turned it into caviar, which is not a good use of it."

I saw Alice's face suddenly darken.

When Xia An saw that the big stick had woken her up, he immediately fed her a candy and said:
“You can try a lot of combinations, like caviar on almond slaw with slow-cooked beef, and other molecular foods to make a dish.”

Alice stared at Xia An with her red eyes, and asked subconsciously:

"Then Master, what kind of fantasy meat ingredients do you think can be paired with almond cabbage caviar?"

Unexpectedly, Xia An just thought about it briefly.

Just as Alice reacted in surprise and shock.

In a calm tone, he gave her a standard answer:
“The flavor of almond cabbage is the flavor of almonds, combined with the crispness and freshness of the cabbage.”

"If I were to try a complete molecular cuisine, I would choose to use the "low temperature and slow cooking" method to cook the white hair Cinderella beef and eat it with caviar on almond cabbage."

Eh?
White Cinderella beef?

Isn’t it the fantasy beef ingredient that senior Kojiro Shinomiya used in the meat sauce of the “French Lasagna” dish on his show?
Alice, Erina, and Midori were naturally impressed by the performance of the Totsuki graduates.

Fortunately, the master brought out the glowing fantasy fish noodles, otherwise, it would be hard to say whether we could win against Senior Shinomiya.

Seeing their reactions, Xia An smiled and took this opportunity to give the female disciples a lesson on imaginary ingredients.

This is a subject that is not offered at Totsuki Academy.

This means that only here in Xia An can they learn the rich knowledge in the field of fantasy.

Of course, these three female disciples all come from extraordinary family backgrounds.

Such as Alice.

Using "almond cabbage" to make molecular cuisine directly shows that we also come into contact with fantasy ingredients in our daily lives.

But the wilderness of fantasy is very vast, and the ingredients are bizarre. Learning more about the characteristics of an ingredient and how to cook it means you have accumulated a foundation of culinary skills.

Apart from anything else, he has twice improved the "Flame Soup Dumplings" and "Fantasy Fish Noodles", and has successfully mastered the use of crab pig, red pig, lobster fish, striped salmon and lychee sturgeon.

If you sell online cooking courses about fantasy ingredients on Douyin, you can make a lot of money.

"In my opinion, White Cinderella beef is the strongest meat in the bronze level. Even in the silver and gold levels, there are not many rivals in this area of ​​beef."

Xia Anxian looked serious and emphasized the value of white-haired Cinderella beef.

“Besides, it is not difficult to use and cook.”

This sentence is the key point.

Hear the words.

The eyes of several female disciples suddenly lit up.

"Then Master, with our cooking skills, can we try to cook it?" Alice asked Xia An nervously.

Xia An smiled and gave a positive answer:
"Bronze level, which means cooking skills below nine stars, can be tried to control and use it."

Actually, Bronze level, capture level 1 fantasy ingredients.

If there is a so-called "food world", it must be that world, the most basic, the most popular, the lowest-level ingredients, which constitute the daily food on the tables of the vast majority of people. Therefore, the cooking difficulty is very low.

"Well, let me tell you about the characteristics of white-haired Cinderella beef and the things you should pay attention to when cooking it. Remember them well."

Xia An teaches with a smile.

But in my heart, I silently said to Shinomiya Kojiro, I'm sorry, Shinomiya.

The reason why he was so familiar with this fantasy beef and seemed to know it like the back of his hand was actually because he had eaten Shigong's dishes and gained knowledge from communicating with Shigong on the show two days ago.

But since it was an exchange, Sigong also gained knowledge about striped salmon and lychee sturgeon from him.

"Unlike ordinary beef, the beef from the White-haired Cinderella cattle is almost all marinated."

"You know what marinated meat is, right? It's just like A5 premium wagyu beef. The marinated layer is actually the marbling fat layer. The meat is very tender, but also very greasy."

“Therefore, the first difficulty in cooking is the heat, how to cook the extremely tender beef just right.”

Xia An raised a second finger.

“The second difficulty is dealing with the greasy flavor.”

talking.

He looked at Alice who was still confused:
"Do you have any ideas?"

"what?"

Alice was still trying hard to memorize the cooking knowledge of White Cinderella cattle. When she heard this, she looked like a student who was called on to answer a question in class, with a bitter face.

"Uh uh..."

Nakiri Erina cast a look of disappointment at Alice, and took the opportunity to mock her:

"Didn't Master just comment on this? He told you to use the caviar made with almond cabbage to pair with the beef to neutralize some of the greasy taste and flavor!"

Alice was instantly shocked:
"It seems so? But can the almond cabbage alone completely offset the greasiness of the white-haired Cinderella beef?"

Xia An laughed:

"It's definitely not enough to just rely on almond cabbage. As for what other refreshing ingredients you need to add to offset the greasy taste, it's up to you to try and explore, Alice."

He is a teacher, but not a nanny. If he considers and plans every detail for his disciple, he will raise a giant female baby.

Only Alice can go out into the vast wilderness to find the answers she wants.

That was her own process and experience.

Of course, if Alice could find a third or fourth ingredient and combine it with almond cabbage and white-haired Cinderella beef, it would form a complete and feasible fantasy recipe.

The cooking skills of this female disciple must have improved by leaps and bounds, and I'm afraid that her hard power is not inferior to the top ten of Totsuki this year.

Next.

Xia An tries Erina Nakiri's "fake" fish-flavored ramen.

While eating, Xia An almost couldn't help laughing out loud.

Compare his "Fantasy Fish Face".

Erina Nakiri's move is like a completely weakened version.

The fish noodles were made with minced salmon.

But I didn’t dare to use lychee and sturgeon to make the soup base, as I thought it might not be manageable.

Also, Erina Nakiri does not have the skill [Ultimate Umami].

A trio of umami flavors.

If we lose a very important link, the remaining two links will become weak.

"what."

Xia An noticed that Erina's seasoning skills on this imitation fish noodle dish were slightly better than when she first arrived.

He couldn't help but look at the golden-haired girl:

"Your seasoning skills have improved a lot?"

There was a hint of joy in Erina's eyes.

It was as if her elders had discovered the results of her study and hard work, and were pointing them out with praise.

At this moment, Erina was so excited, but she still pretended to be calm:

"Well, in the process of imitating your dishes, I naturally made a breakthrough. According to the evaluation system, I should have reached a high level."

A certain basic skill has been mastered.

In addition, Erina Nakiri already has some basic knowledge in Japanese cuisine.

"Tsk, a four-star chef, so fast." Xia An exclaimed.

"Four stars?!"

Alice and Miyoko were both shocked and envious.

With this level of cooking skills, he is very good among the current Totsuki Ten Best Cooks and can already aim for the top five spots!
"Damn it, so, Erina's fake fish noodles is a four-star dish?" Alice's self-confidence was seriously undermined.

In contrast, her molecular cuisine was described by her master as incomplete.

So angry!
"Give up, Alice." Nakiri Erina flicked her golden hair and announced proudly like a peacock, "I am the only one among all the disciples in this sect who can receive the true teachings of the master!"

Alice's lips trembled, but she couldn't refute it.

Her path has always been molecular cuisine. How can she learn the true skills from her master?
Erina is different. Her divine tongue and divine qualifications mean that if she wants, she can explore and develop in all areas of cuisine around the clock.

Lan Xiaoxi looked at Erina, then at Alice.

Suddenly, he said in a soft voice:
"Sister Alice, aren't you also learning from Dad's true teachings?"

Hearing this, everyone was stunned.

Xia An couldn't help but tap the little head of her daughter in her arms:

"Do you know what the true teaching is?"

"Ancient dishes and fantasy dishes, aren't they the most powerful things about dad?" Lan Xiaoxi covered her head and said with a pout in pain, "If Sister Alice can learn dad's fantasy dishes, it will be a powerful secret!"

The little girl may not know the meaning of true teachings at all, but in her opinion, it is something very powerful.

Alice's eyes suddenly lit up:
"Yes, why should I learn all of my master's skills? If I can just learn one of them, wouldn't I be great?"

After Lan Xiaoxi enlightened him, he came to his senses and changed his mind.

Alice took two steps back.

He bowed earnestly to Xia An and said:
"Please, Master. From now on, I will be your disciple in the field of fantasy ingredients and fantasy dishes. Please teach me more culinary knowledge in these areas!"

Xia An didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and could only say "hello" three times in a row.

Seeing this, Erina Nakiri moved her mouth, and judging from her lip shape and lip reading, it seemed that she was saying the classic line "I want it all".

Xia An and the others didn't notice it.

But Lan Xiaoxi noticed it.

With a cunning look in his eyes, he spoke again:

"I want to be like Sister Erina."

"Same what?" Xia An asked in surprise.

"I want them all!" Lan Xiaoxi also made a very graphic fist gesture.

"I want to learn all my father's cooking skills!"

Xia An: ? ?

"You just said I want them all?" His eyes turned to Erina Nakiri who turned around quietly, leaving behind an awkward back.

"I did not say!"

The girl's tone was firm.

"I said it!" Lan Xiaoxi said seriously.

"I didn't say it."

"Sister, you really said..."

Xia An simply put Lan Xiaoxi down and let his daughter and Erina Nakiri continue arguing.

He called Hojo Miyoko into the kitchen.

He asked in a low voice with great interest:

"Miyoko, strictly speaking, you are my eldest disciple."

"You will be going back to Neon to study in a few days. Can you show me what you have learned from my stay?"

　There are fewer updates these two days, only basic 4K
　　I mainly consider the rhythm and plot direction. Those who have read the other book "The God of Cooking" and the previous book "Eternal Food Paradise" should know that this author is a daily idiot and can't write about love or interesting daily life content.
　　However, a balance between tension and relaxation is necessary, so I can only write carefully about the side quests. If I rush into the main quest all at once, the pace will seem too explosive.
　　At last.

　　I will keep a record of any outstanding updates o(╯□╰)o
　　8K updates will be resumed after everything is sorted out!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)