Who gave this heretical practitioner permission to cook?

In Chapter 15, to make sure the judges realized they were eating balut (fertilized duck egg), I kept a little bit of the essential parts!
At this moment, the viewers in the live broadcast room were also stunned.

The image shown on camera was of a "tiger-skin egg," but unlike ordinary tiger-skin eggs, it was covered with a thin layer of golden threads.

Judging from the texture, it looks very much like top-quality pork floss, but the color is more like egg yolk yellow than the orange-yellow of pork floss.

Just now, these very filaments shimmered with golden light under the incandescent bulb.

[What was that? It actually flashed for a second!]

I don't know, it tastes like salted egg yolk and pork floss!

Wait a minute, do the show's rules allow the use of pre-made meat floss? According to the previous theory that crayfish can't be used with hot pot broth, shouldn't they be stir-fried fresh?

[Stir-fry my foot! You just spout off whatever you want. Do you know how much effort it takes to stir-fry a whole pot of pork floss by hand? And it's all freshly stir-fried.]

Wait a minute, everyone, don't forget, this is a balut!

There's no reason to eat the balut (fertilized duck egg) separately, even though it doesn't taste like feathers; it's more like tea buds.

The guy upstairs has certainly lived a sophisticated life, being able to eat both feathers and tea buds at the same time.

Inside the lounge, Xia Ming looked at the comments on the screen and laughed.

The guy who had tried the tea fritters was clearly a connoisseur of balut, as he described the texture of the tiny hairs inside the balut very well.

That's right, the golden shimmer on the eggs is neither meat floss nor fluorescent agent. It's actually the down feathers cleaned off the chickens that were about to be formed in the first batch!

Xia Ming washed it, soaked it in soy milk, and then quickly air-dried it. The shaped part retained the fine texture of chicken down without carrying too much of the soy milk flavor.

Looking at the three astonished judges on the screen, Xia Ming slightly curled the corners of his mouth.

"To make sure you realize you're eating balut (fertilized duck egg), I've kept a tiny bit of the best part!"

"Of course, this is just the beginning~"

Inside the blind tasting room, three judges stared at the egg in front of them for a long time, but still couldn't determine what the top part was.
No wonder, the viewers in the live stream had a god's-eye view and noticed from the beginning that Xia Ming was holding a balut (a type of fertilized egg), but the judges were completely unaware and couldn't guess what was on it, so it's not surprising.

Zhang Yong held the fine golden velvet on it and savored it for a long time.

"You can smell a hint of the fermented sourness of soy milk, but it doesn't smell like that. It's interesting. Did the person who made this dish specifically research Tingfeng's preferences?"

Nicholas Tse smelled it for a while and then nodded.

"There really isn't any strange smell, so I think it's much more tolerable now."

On the other side, Zheng Yongqi shook his head.

"It's hard to say. While this harmonizes the atmosphere, it also lacks a bit of a theme. I have reservations."

The three judges—one curious, one delighted, and one skeptical—perfectly illustrated the stability of a triangle.

Now that we've smelled the aroma, the next step is naturally to start tasting it.

The three judges took out gloves, put them on, and looked at the three dishes in front of them.

Hot, warm, cold – it’s obvious that the order of eating should be: first, eat the tiger-skin egg; then drink the soup; and finally, eat the cold dessert.

Nicholas Tse picked up the egg, looked at the even and beautiful tiger stripes on top and under the "meat floss," and nodded.

"They were fried beautifully; the temperature control was perfect."

Zhang Yong, who was standing to the side, nodded in agreement. It was clear that this chef was very knowledgeable about oil.

"But just like Yongqi said, the theme of this dish is still douzhi (fermented mung bean juice). No matter how beautifully the eggs are fried, they are not the main character. But so far, I have not felt the fusion of the main dish and douzhi."

"Of course, if you insist on saying that the coating on the egg has the taste of soy milk, then I can only say that the creativity is still a bit lacking."

After saying that, he took the egg, gently put it in his mouth, and then bit down on the pointed end.

The initial taste is a hint of fermented bean juice from the outer layer, followed by a layer of texture from the typical tiger skin pattern. Biting further in, you get the egg white part inside.
!!!

What Zhang Yong thought was completely different from what he felt between his teeth. He was slightly taken aback. Underneath the tiger skin was not egg white, nor even the taste of eggs. Instead, it had a strong meaty aroma.

His first thought was that this was a "molecular gastronomy" dish disguised as a Chinese dish, but the next second, he felt a slightly sour taste of soy milk burst in his mouth. "Wow, this tiger-skin egg is bursting with juice?"

The thought flashed through his mind, and with the next bite, he tasted a tiny bit of meat fiber.

This feeling left him somewhat bewildered, and even after he bit into a piece of egg, he was still in a state of shock.

He couldn't understand what kind of molecular gastronomy could bring him such a novel experience, but that didn't matter anymore, because at this moment his tongue had been completely ignited by this egg that held some unknown secret.

On the other side, Xie Tingfeng was not in much better condition than Zhang Yong. At this moment, he felt as if there was a sea of ​​douzhi (fermented mung bean juice) in his mind, and a tender chick was slowly rising from the center of the sea.

"It's not an egg, it's a chicken! A chicken like never before, and a way of making douzhi like never before!"

Zheng Yongqi, standing next to him, also looked completely absorbed. Of the three judges, he had spoken the least since the show began filming.

But at this moment, he breathed a sigh of relief and then spoke directly.

"It's as fresh and tender as a young chicken, as smooth as tofu, and it has this perfectly balanced sourness!"

"It tastes like douzhi (fermented mung bean juice). The chicken flavor blends perfectly with the douzhi, without any fishy smell, and the umami flavor doesn't overpower the douzhi flavor."

"Combined with the incredibly tender meat inside the egg and the unique texture of the bits of bean curd residue, beneath the waves of umami, what surged within my surging heart was that one-of-a-kind fermented aroma."

"I feel my body, my whole body has been completely awakened by this egg!"

Hearing Zheng Yongqi's words, Zhang Yong, who was standing next to him, also breathed a sigh of relief.

"My heart is racing, my taste buds are begging me! Unbelievable, unbelievable, this is actually a dish made based on the flavor of fermented mung bean juice!"

The three judges were clearly in high spirits. In front of the camera, they closed their eyes and chewed slowly, as if savoring the most exquisite delicacy in the world, leaving the viewers in the live broadcast room completely bewildered.

[Is this really how you make balut (fertilized duck egg) and soy milk look?]

[This is definitely scripted! There's no way someone would act like they've taken medication after eating a balut (fertilized egg). This is completely illogical!]

[I know! It must have been poisoned! The Sichuan-Chongqing Ice and Fire Chef must have secretly poisoned the judges' dishes, that's why they behaved like that!]

But it looks really delicious! Damn, I never thought I'd be interested in balut!

[I'm in Guangzhou or Shenzhen, can someone in the comments tell me where I can find balut (a type of edible egg)? I really want to try it and see what it tastes like!]

[This is a rip-off! A rip-off! This production team is shameless in their pursuit of fame! They're even praising culinary disasters like this?!]

Just as the comments section was still buzzing with heated debate, the three judges all smiled and then slowly opened their eyes.

"Tingfeng, you should have noticed by now!"

"Hmm, Brother Yong, this is a balut, right?"

"It should be correct."

After confirming with each other, Zhang Yong and Xie Tingfeng both looked at Zheng Yongqi.

Zheng Yongqi was taken aback when he saw the two men's gazes.

Why are you looking at me?

Curiosity rose in Nicholas Tse's eyes.

"Yongqi, aren't you a little sensitive to special ingredients?"

Zheng Yongqi paused after hearing this, and his mustache twitched slightly and irregularly.

"No way, it's just that it's hard for me to overcome, but I'll let the taste speak for itself! At worst, I'll just eat it with my eyes closed!"

Upon hearing Zheng Yongqi's words, the other two smiled slightly, and then Xie Tingfeng turned his gaze back to the soup bowl on the table.

"I'm getting more and more curious about the taste of this soup. Never mind, I'll have a sip first!"

(End of this chapter)