Who gave this heretical practitioner permission to cook?

Chapter 38: The ingredients of the [Void] team clash – is this a trap to annihilate them?
On the second-floor advancement stage, the graduate students of the banquet quickly reviewed the entire culinary duel.

When the cooking began, Chen Xiaodong and his team chose to use raw food to shorten the preparation time. Xia Ming, who was on the other side, noticed this and ultimately decided on the dishes.

Fried pork cutlet was chosen because it was almost lunchtime, the judges were hungry, and it would be a good way to replenish their energy with high-carb foods.
The reason for choosing the Five-Road Mixed Soup is that you can use the soup oil to target the opponent.

However, both options have a prerequisite: the judges need to eat Xia Ming's group's dishes first in order to achieve the subsequent taste blockade.

So, in the absence of the judges, Xia Ming used a scent bomb to directly ignite the entire filming set, first arousing the judges' curiosity.

The judges, who were hungry, were drawn in by the aroma of the Five-Ingredient Soup and thus shifted their order of tasting the dishes, giving them an early advantage in the game.

To be on the safe side, Xia Ming even had the bald cook make three kinds of sauces.

This satisfies the judges' tastes and also implicitly limits the amount they can consume.

Even if you only take one bite after dipping in the sauce, the judges will still take three bites because of the rules when faced with three different sauces.

The extra-thick pork chop, even if you only take three bites, can make some girls with small appetites feel about 20% full.

Furthermore, since Taiwanese people have been eating mostly cooked food since childhood, they may develop a hidden aversion to eating raw beef after a few bites of fried pork chop, which is not on their usual menu.

It's like Chen Xiaodong's "raw marinated potato tartare beef" was tricked by Xia Ming several times before it even reached the judges' mouths, resulting in a negative impression score.

As the bald cook said, the dish already had a bad impression, and the taste was greasy, so the judges naturally developed a dislike for it.

It's understandable that they ended up with such an absurd score of 91-9.

After reviewing the banquet, the graduate student silently stared at Xia Ming in front of him.

Am I right?

Xia Ming maintained his smile, neither nodding nor shaking his head.

This action was quite intriguing to the graduate student at the banquet. She even had the illusion that Xia Ming in front of her was like a bottomless abyss, and every time she thought she had seen the deepest part, she found that it was still unfathomable below.

"Just who is this 'Magic Chef' guy?"

She's not even sure if her guesses are entirely correct, but judging from the whole set of speculations above, the title "dark horse" is clearly a bit of an exaggeration.

The Sichuan-Chongqing Ice and Fire Chef is the biggest dark horse among all the contestants!

Seeing the hint of apprehension flash in the graduate student's eyes at the banquet, Xia Ming narrowed his eyes slightly.

Her guesses were actually very close to the results. Apart from the application of organ fat in the "Blood Fusion Demon Cultivation Method" and the enhancement of the texture of meat by the "Blood Chaos Cloak," she was basically right.
He didn't actually provoke the chefs at first; he just wanted to play this "guidance game" for the bald cook.

It's simply because the dishes chosen by the other side are more easily targeted by this method, and coincidentally, the bald cook had made this mistake once before, so it was included in the list.

Thinking of this, Xia Ming turned his gaze to the arena.

Winning this team match is equivalent to eliminating four players in one go.

Based on the "sea" and "air" configuration, there are 7 to 8 spots available for advancement, meaning the final number of advancement spots will be either 10 or 11.

This number is clearly unsuitable for grouping contestants unless it's a chaotic competition. In other words, regardless of the number of spots, the production team will most likely have to revive the defeated contestants.

As for the competition format, Xia Ming personally prefers a 1v1 draw or a two-person group battle.

"Regardless of the competition format, if the rules are to be changed in the next round, it will most likely involve mixing chefs and contestants together for the test."

"In that case, we'll have to keep a close eye on the chefs too. I just wonder if they'll show their true skills?"

The viewers in the live stream were still reeling from Xia Ming's victory, and the chat was still filled with questions about the result. The players, however, reacted more quickly; since they were about to go on stage, they were more focused on gathering useful information from Xia Ming's performance.

At this moment, Xiaohua looked thoughtfully at the hundred-person judges' panel that had been taken back in the competition arena.

In her opinion, if fried pork cutlets can win, then perhaps this test focuses more on palatability than creativity.

"Fish is harder to handle than meat. Even with a fish expert on the team, we still can't escape the problem of killing fish."

This is a dish for 100 people. Xiaohua isn't foolish enough to completely absorb Xia Ming's competition methods. After all, she can't really ask the Fish Immortal to kill 100 fish.

It's unlikely that the handsome chef on the other side would ask his teammates to kill 100 fish, so in terms of quantity, the two are actually not that different. So it comes down to the flavor.

Unlike meat, fish doesn't taste the same even with dipping sauce. Xiaohua thinks it's best to use broth to bring out the flavor of the fish.

Similarly, the chef was also considering how to prepare the fish. Shuai Xiaojian's first thought was to make soup, but that was an answer that almost any chef would think of.

He needs some dishes that better reflect cultural refinement and the essence of food.

Even though he had figured out Xia Ming's methods, as a chef, he still had his own principles.

"Even ordinary dishes can shine in the hands of a chef, and the creativity of food and time are not entirely contradictory!"

He narrowed his eyes, a few foods suddenly flashed through his mind, and he smiled as he looked at the fish display case below the stage.

"To eat fish without seeing the fish is the true art."

Just as Team Sea was refining their concept on the second floor, Team Sky's competition had already begun in the arena.

After witnessing Chen Xiaodong's defeat, the Sky Team, led by "Xia Yuxingye", decisively abandoned Yunnan insect cuisine and switched to pigeon instead.

What's interesting is that the Sky Chef Team led by "Zeng Huaijun" also happened to choose pigeon as their main ingredient.

Seeing that both teams had chosen the same ingredients, the viewers in the live stream finally turned their attention back to the main topic.

This is truly a head-to-head competition; when ingredients share similar elements, it basically comes down to culinary skill to determine the winner.

[But I saw that Luo Luo from Summer Night Star Chef's side was still humming and hawing as she took a bunch of cicada nymphs. She's probably going to incorporate them into her cooking!]

Pigeons paired with cicadas? Wait, what kind of gimmick is this? Is it fried pigeon with fried cicadas?

[The pigeons on site were fresh, and there wasn't enough time for pre-processing. They'll probably get overcooked if fried. Besides, killing pigeons isn't easy, and the chef team only has three people, dealing with such a delicate ingredient as pigeons. Won't they run out of time?]

[The Sichuan-Chongqing Ice and Fire Chef team only had three people, so they should have enough time!]

[Upstairs, putting aside the fact that the Sichuan-Chongqing Ice and Fire Chef restaurant chose land-based meat, which is easier to handle, the average age of the chefs is over 50. Are you trying to abuse the elderly?]

The messages posted in the live chat were still not visible on-site, but Xia Ming was well aware that the chef team was at a disadvantage in terms of both physical strength and manpower.

Looking at Li Zhian, who was surrounded by a bunch of live pigeons in the arena, with a slightly red nose and a slightly dazed look, Xia Ming raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Pigeons are not like pork; if you don't handle them properly, they can easily become fishy. Is he the only one here who's so confident in his abilities?"

Just as he was observing, he saw Li Zhian take out an extra-large bucket, fill it with more than half water, then pat the head of a pigeon next to him and throw it into the bucket.

On the second floor, Xia Ming's eyes twitched slightly as he witnessed this scene.

"This is... a silent kill?"

(End of this chapter)