Chapter 272 Jinhua Wins
Fushanlou also served their dishes. They served two cold dishes together, one was red oil chicken, and the other was garlic pork.
The professional judges and special guests each received one portion, while the audience judges shared a large portion.
There were three plates on the table. The chicken and pork with garlic sauce were barely presented, but the red oil on the white plate looked pretty. The Shanghai smoked fish was carefully designed.
Yue Ning tried the Bang Bang Chicken first. The spicy taste was reduced, which was more suitable for people from areas that do not eat spicy food. But the taste was mediocre and the fragrance was not prominent enough.
She drank a sip of water and tried the pork with mashed garlic again. She found that the meat slices were not cut well and were too thick. She just increased the amount of mashed garlic to make it taste like chicken bang bang.
Chef Zhao was introducing the status of Bang Bang Chicken and Garlic Pork in Sichuan cuisine. He also talked about the characteristics of Sichuan cuisine, which is good at using chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns.
Yue Ning just listened, took a sip of water to clear the taste in her mouth, and then tasted Jinhua's smoked fish. While eating, she listened to the opinions of Mr. Jin, a food critic and writer from Taiwan, on the judges' panel.
This old man lived in Beijing in his early years, then went to Shanghai, went to Chongqing during the Anti-Japanese War, and went to Taiwan in 1949. He published many books on customs and folkways, and also introduced many local delicacies.
He first talked to Yang Yuhe about smoked fish, asking how it was smoked, and then talked about why fried fish later became an allusion to smoked fish. Then, he began to comment: "Shanghai smoked fish usually uses herring pieces. This time, Chef Zhang used pomfret because pomfret has only one main bone, which is more friendly to judges from other regions. After the fish is fried, the fish meat is crispy and can absorb the sauce. This sauce is half salty and half sweet, with a little bit of sourness of plums, and the aroma is very complex. In addition to the mellow aroma of cinnamon and star anise, there is also the sweet fragrance of osmanthus. The fish is not soaked in the sauce for a long time, and it still maintains a crispy taste. It is indeed the work of the top Shanghai chef."
Later, he commented on bang bang chicken and garlic pork, saying: "Sichuan cuisine has three types and 24 flavors: spicy, pungent, salty, fresh, sour and sweet. The spicy type is divided into spicy, red oil, hot and sour, and spicy and sour..."
Mr. Jin talked about the 24 flavors of Sichuan cuisine from beginning to end, and then said: "These two dishes, one is the spicy type of red oil flavor, and the other is the spicy type of garlic flavor, but you made these two dishes similar, so that Sichuan cuisine has become all the same flavor. In fact, Sichuan cuisine is 'cabbage with a hundred flavors', and it is a very inclusive cuisine. You still need to do more research to reflect the true taste of Sichuan cuisine."
One side was praising the other chef, while the other side was criticizing him mercilessly. Chef Zhao's face turned pale and he couldn't help but retort: "You said that Sichuan cuisine should be inclusive. Does tolerance mean replacing Sichuan peppercorns with mountain peppercorns and replacing black bean paste with miso?"
Mr. Jin did not expect that his professional advice would be rejected in this way. He could only say calmly: "Your personality determines that you made the dish you made today."
He turned his head and asked Yang Yuhe: "Mr. Yang, do you have any suggestions?"
Yang Yuhe smiled slightly and changed the subject: "The cold dishes of the Jinhua team have arrived, and they look very special."
The dish was served. On the plate was a mashed potato ball, half a braised abalone, a shrimp tail and a piece of edamame. On the large plate, three kinds of pickled food were neatly arranged.
The audience judges asked, "Why don't we have mashed potatoes?"
"Mashed potatoes are a garnish," Chef Zhang's assistant replied.
"We want that, too."
Chef Zhang took a large plate, put the remaining mashed potatoes into the plate, piled it into a small hill, and asked the staff to give it to the professional audience.
Mr. Jin, who was sitting on the judging panel, picked up half a braised abalone with chopsticks, ate it, and looked at Chef Zhang: "Chef Zhang, how would you rate this dish?"
Chef Zhang smiled and said, "70%, the time is too short. It's best to store pickled vegetables overnight, so the taste is a bit strong and not soft enough. In addition, the inspiration for this dish comes from the summer nights in Shanghai, when every household in the alleys eats dinner, a plate of mashed potato salad with Guangming ice bricks, and a plate of pickled vegetables. I use fresh abalone here, while the Shanghainese family usually uses cheap things like vegetarian chicken and chicken feet."
Mr. Jin laughed out loud: "Chef Zhang, you are too modest. You reminded me of my life in Shanghai. This mashed potato reminds me of the Red House Western Restaurant and the evening in the Shikumen in summer."
"Yes. This mashed potatoes was taught to me by the head chef who was transferred to Jinhua Hotel after the Red House was transformed into the Red Flag Restaurant," said Chef Zhang.
"very nice."
The levels of the two families are not at the same level, and Jinhua scored much higher in the first round.
The hot dish competition began. Chef Zhang and his apprentice slowly prepared chicken, beef and minced pork.
Chef Zhao and his son stood in front of the stove. Zhao Ping'an poured rapeseed oil into the wok, and after the hot oil moistened the bottom of the wok, he hooked a spoon and slid a ball of minced meat into the wok, quickly stir-fried it until it was crispy, then added chili peppers, minced garlic, minced ginger and bean paste, a spoonful of rice wine and a spoonful of hot water into the wok, and the steaming spicy aroma filled the whole place.
Zhao Pingtaro handed the blanched tofu to Zhao Pingan, who put the tofu into the pot, seasoned it, and thickened it in one go. A spicy and fragrant dish that made people drool was served.
At this moment, Chef Zhang opened the lid of his pot of meat stuffed in rice dumplings leaves. The aroma of the meat after the juice was absorbed was so rich that it whetted people's appetite.
On their counter, there was a row of plates filled with small rice balls.
Chef Zhang cut the straw rope to reveal the trembling pork belly. He cut a piece and divided it into three parts, placing the pork belly next to the rice ball, and his apprentice added a piece of green vegetable.
The first hot dishes for both families were served together.
Yue Ning still chose to try Mapo Tofu first. Chef Zhao said that she taught Japanese housewives to make "Mapo Tofu" blindly, but the Mapo Tofu he made was not authentic. Traditional Mapo Tofu uses beef. Of course, Yue Ning never thinks that beef is necessary. When she cooks, she can mix beef and pork at will. Her favorite is half beef and half pork. Unfortunately, Chef Zhao's seasoning is too light. Yue Ning uses peppercorns to boil pepper oil, while Chef Zhao relies on pepper powder sprinkled at the end.
They targeted Yue Ning right from the start. Seeing that Yue Ning had already tasted the Mapo Tofu, the host came over and asked her, "Chef Yue, what do you think of this Mapo Tofu?"
"Mapo tofu is a home-cooked dish, and Chef Zhao also made it taste home-cooked." Yue Ning tried to be as tactful as possible in his comments.
However, Yue Ning's euphemistic comments were nothing but a provocation to Zhao Ping'an, who was already furious. He put down the iron spoon and turned around and said, "Don't just talk. Let me see what is an unstyled 'Mapo Tofu'."
The audience was immediately excited: "Ningning, it's up to you!"
"Ningning, burn one and let him learn some new lessons!"
Yue Ning stood up and said to the audience: "Watch the game first, and then I will cook."
She turned to look at Zhao Ping'an and said, "Chef Zhao, you compete first. We can have a discussion after the competition."
Don't hit a smiling person. Zhao Ping'an took a deep breath and said, "Okay."
Yue Ning turned to Lucas and said, "Eat meat."
Lucas cut off a piece of meat with a spoon. It felt like cutting cream cheese, so soft. He put it in his mouth and immediately felt the unique fragrance of the plant.
"It's delicious." He said to Pierre, "Why didn't I eat such delicious food last time in Beijing?"
"I didn't find the right person, or I didn't find such a good store," Pierre replied.
"But Yue Ning knows where the best chefs are," said Nicholas.
Ishikawa, who was on the jury, said that the whole piece of meat should be eaten with a large bowl of rice, and his words were supported by Miyamoto and Iwanishi. Japanese teriyaki dishes tend to be sweet, and this dish suits their taste very well.
Fushanlou then served another hot dish, braised prawns. The iron plate was still sizzling, with a large plate of prawns with their backs cut and their threads removed neatly stacked, their eggplant-red shells covered in thick sauce, and garnished with scallions and ginger slices.
Yue Ning picked up one with a serving chopstick. The shrimp shell and the shrimp meat were slightly stuck together. The tomato sauce and bean paste together made the bright red color of the dish. The taste was sweet and spicy, and the seasoning was right, but the dry-roasting did not make it taste good, it was just coated with starch sauce.
"This sauce is made directly of starch." Mr. Jin used a spoon to stir the sauce at the bottom of the plate. "Dry-fried food requires 'bright oil and sauce'. The shrimp meat should absorb the complex flavors of the sauce, but the shrimp tasted like it was floating in the sauce."
Chef Zhao could only try his best to control his temper.
At Jinhua, the beggar's chicken was also out of the oven. When the chicken was served, the outer lotus leaf had been roasted to a crisp and cracked state. Chef Zhang put on cotton gloves and hit the mud shell with a mallet. With a "crackling" sound, steam mixed with the aroma of rice wine rose up, and the four layers of lotus leaves under the mud shell unfolded one by one, revealing the shiny and oily chicken body, and the chicken skin showed a caramel-colored luster.
Chef Zhang cut open the chicken belly with a knife. In the steaming hot air, the aroma of wine, lotus leaves and chicken mixed together. The knife and fork cut open the chicken belly, and the buttery chicken fat slowly flowed out, revealing the stuffing inside, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and ham, which tasted another way. Chef Zhang put the stuffing into each plate, cut the chicken into small pieces, and served a spoonful of stuffing with a small piece of chicken to the judges and guests. The rest went to the audience judges.
Mr. Jin enjoyed the beggar's chicken very much: "I haven't been back for decades, but it still tastes the same as I remember."
Zhao Ping'an from Fushanlou looked even uglier after being compared like this. He said, "Sichuan cuisine should be straightforward! You guys who are particular about the level of cuisine are just being mysterious!"
"Straightforward does not mean simple and crude." Mr. Jin said while tasting Jinhua's dishes. He was very satisfied with the dishes here and felt that the trip was worthwhile; but on the other hand, he was troubled by Zhao Ping'an's team. Why was it so confusing?
As a food critic, he was not so good-tempered. He continued, "Just like Mapo Tofu, it's not enough to just pile on chili oil and pepper powder. Dry-fried prawns, how dare you call it fried when they don't even have flavor inside? So far, look at a few dishes yourself, they are all the same color. Do you think Sichuan cuisine only has red oil? Sichuan cuisine also has white flavors, such as smooth meat soup, fried three fresh delicacies, and steamed pork with rice flour. Of course, if you can't even make red oil well, what's the point of talking about white flavors?"
“I’ll make chicken tofu pudding later, and then you’ll know if I can make white flavor.
For a moment, the atmosphere was tense. The host quickly tried to smooth things over and asked Chef Zhao to go back and finish the competition.
In the next soup section, Chef Zhang from Jinhua once again made the French chefs stare in amazement. Chef Zhang made a six-centimeter-diameter circle on the tofu. He cut 99 times with his knife, and 99 times from the side. None of the cuts reached the bottom, and he cut out a tofu ball with more than 9,000 tofu strands connected at the bottom, and kept it in a basin of water.
Chinese cuisine emphasizes "letting flavors come out and letting flavorless ones go in." Tofu is bland, so Chef Chen used the clear soup obtained from clarifying chicken, pork and beef mince to season and make this tofu hydrangea.
This move alone left Nicholas dumbfounded.
On one side is a tofu hydrangea made by a national-level chef, and on the other side is chicken tofu pudding made by Chef Zhao, which is still loose.
Jinhua ended with a thin-skinned and juicy xiaolong steamed bun, while Fushanlou made dandan noodles.
There is a huge gap in strength between the two companies, and the result is predictable.
The game was over, but the people on the field did not leave. They were all waiting for Yue Ning to cook.
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