As soon as the old lady said this, the other nine ordinary people who were tasting the food couldn't help but speak up, "You old lady are simply talking nonsense. The braised pork made by this cook is obviously the most delicious braised pork I have ever eaten in my life. I have never eaten such delicious food in my life. It's just that there is too little. It obviously deserves more points, more than one hundred points, but you say this." The old man said, and couldn't help swallowing his saliva. He still wanted to eat the braised pork cooked by this young lady.

The old lady snorted and laughed, "Everyone has different tastes. You can't force me to give it a 100. If I think it's not delicious, then it's not delicious. I'm happy to give it a 10."

The young woman couldn't help but say, "Old lady, you are resentful of the young cook for not wanting to sell you a piece of brown sugar steamed cake for five cents a few days ago? At that time, the young lady brought brown sugar steamed cake to eat, and your grandson was clamoring to eat it, and asked the young lady to sell you a piece for five cents. The brown sugar steamed cake was a big piece, and it was made with eggs, beef, red dates, and raisins. The young lady said that the cost was high. If you want it, it's twenty cents a piece. You cursed and took your grandson away..."

The people around suddenly realized what was going on. They said that even the judges couldn't help but finish a large piece of braised pork, so why did this old lady insist that it didn't taste good? It turned out that she was holding a grudge.

"No wonder this old lady gave me such a low score. It turns out she wanted to get back at me. She is so mean. Although we didn't get to eat the braised pork, we couldn't resist just smelling it. I hope the judges won't choose this old lady to taste the food in the future. She is not fair."

"What a bullshit you are." The old lady refused to admit it. "How can she sell such expensive brown sugar steamed cakes? Besides, everyone has different tastes. I just think her braised pork is not tasty!"

As the old lady finished speaking, her grandson had already finished the braised pork. He then pulled her clothes and shouted, "Grandma, I want to eat more braised pork. It's so delicious. How can it be so delicious? Grandma, grandma, I want to eat the braised pork. I want to eat the braised pork she made." The little naughty child recognized Xu Qinyu and knew that she was the one who made the braised pork. He pointed at her and pulled the old lady's sleeve, wanting to go over to see if there was any more braised pork in the pot.

In fact, there were still two pieces, and they were prepared two extra pieces in case of any accidents. There were still two pieces left in Xu Qinyu's pot, and they would be left for the guys who helped run around to taste them later.

Now there are only two pieces left, and the old lady is still making a fuss and giving low scores. The old gentlemen who are judging have decided to give the remaining two pieces of braised pork to two more people on the scene, let them taste them, and let them give their scores.

When we ordered two more people to taste the braised pork, they both gave it full marks and said, "No wonder everyone says it's the best meat they've ever eaten in their lives. I think a full mark is only 100. Otherwise, I want to give it a thousand, ten thousand, or anything else, but it can't explain how delicious this braised pork is. Only you can know after you have tasted it."

The crowd watching at the scene couldn't help but laugh out loud.

The old lady was ridiculed by everyone. The grandson saw that the last two pieces of braised pork were given to others and started to cry. The old lady was so embarrassed that she angrily pulled her grandson to leave. However, the grandson had tasted such delicious braised pork and was not willing to leave easily. In the end, he was dragged away by the old lady.

Now, ten ordinary people gave their scores first. The judges had not given their scores yet. After the old lady made such a fuss, all the judges gave their scores. Although the young cook was not very old, the braised pork she made was indeed impeccable. It was also the most delicious braised pork they had ever eaten in their lives. They all gave full marks.

Xu Qinyu was also the first chef to get full marks in the first round. Yang Zhizhi, Xu Yunlan and Lianhua were so happy that they clapped vigorously.

After the competition, Xu Qinyu went downstairs to stay with Lianhua and the others to continue watching the competition. She did not return to Xu's until dusk fell.

Kong Kun from Zuixianlou had also been keeping an eye on Xu Qinyu. Now that he saw that she had received full marks, his face turned gloomy. He knew in his heart that the mid-game and the end game would not be difficult for Xu Qinyu. It was not that this young cook knew many recipes, but that her cooking skills were just great.

He even knew in his heart that when this cooking competition was over, Xu's would become truly famous in the southwest, and by then, Zuixianlou would never be able to catch up with Xu's. But there was nothing he could do about it...

Because of this incident with the old lady, judges have banned old ladies from tasting the contestants’ cooking skills as spectators in the future.

For several days afterwards, the old lady was too embarrassed to bring her grandson to watch the competition again.

Because of Xu Qin Yulu's skill, many chefs have learned from her and tried to use the recipe to make braised pork. Some chefs paid attention to the recipe and the heat, and the taste was very good. Some chefs did not pay attention to the proportion of ingredients and the heat, and the braised pork they made was a bit bitter. They can only try to practice more.

In the next few days, Xu Qinyu did not go to the city to watch the competition every day, because the braised pork she made at the competition attracted many more guests who came to Xu Ji to eat. Some of them were not from Raozhou City, but came from other cities specifically to watch the cooking competition. They all came to Xu Ji to eat and ordered the braised pork, which was made by Xu Qinyu herself. After they tasted the braised pork, they finally understood why they all gave it full marks.

This time, the braised pork that Xu Qinyu stewed was simmered in a clay pot over low heat for a full hour, making it even softer and more glutinous, and it really melts in your mouth, leaving a lingering fragrance on your lips and teeth, and your mouth is filled with the residual meaty aroma.

After they had tried all of Xu Ji's signature dishes, they discovered that not only was the braised pork delicious, but all the other food was tasty too. They were reluctant to leave Xu Ji and some of them didn't even want to watch the competition. They stayed at Xu Ji every day to eat breakfast and dinner, soak in the hot springs, take in the beautiful scenery around, and listen to storytelling. The storytelling at Xu Ji was better than that at other places, with exciting and tortuous stories. Who would be willing to go to watch the competition?

In addition, the number of fish balls, fish heads, and braised fish sold at Xu Ji’s store has increased a lot compared to before, and they are all bought by ordinary people in the city.

Twenty judges in a row learned that Xu Qinyu was the owner and chef of Xu Ji, and they all wanted to come and taste Xu Ji's food. However, they were judges and had to avoid suspicion. Before the end of the competition, they could not go to the restaurant of the chefs who participated in the competition to eat. They all stayed in the same inn, ate the same food, and in order to taste the flavors, they had to eat light meals during these days.

Fortunately, time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, the preliminary competition was over. In the end, only one hundred people passed the initial competition and entered the mid-term competition.

…

The first round of the competition was for braised pork, with the emphasis on the red dish.

Hong’an is a cooking method that uses meat and other side dishes to make various dishes.

The mid-field competition is about plain pastry, which means making pastries. All cakes and pastries are plain pastry, and there is no stir-frying.

The pastry in the middle field is also simple. There are only two interviews, one sweet and one salty. It can be anything as long as it is a pasta pastry. Except for the flour, other requirements can also be made to the judges.

The one hundred chefs drew lots again to decide the order of appearance in the competition.

This time Xu Qinyu drew number eight, which meant it was basically her turn in the first round. She wrote down the ingredients and kitchen utensils she requested, gave them to the judges, and then went back out of the city.

We will take a day off tomorrow. The judges will prepare food and kitchen utensils for everyone, and the mid-field competition will begin the day after tomorrow.

Xu Qinyu knew that even the middle round was the same as ten years ago, and the second round was all white cases.

To put it bluntly, it is purely to test the chef's cooking skills and culinary abilities.

It is not like some competitions in later generations which have many varieties.

However, even in later generations, the larger the cooking competition, the simpler it is; it is just to test the chef’s cooking skills and foundation.

On the third day, Xu Qinyu went out early in the morning.

This time, in addition to Lian Hua, Yang Zhizhi and Xu Yunlan also went as usual.

A few days ago, the two mothers and sisters-in-law returned to Yuanbao Town after watching Xu Qinyu's competition. Knowing that the two were good sisters with Xu Qinyu, they did not urge them to go back. They let them stay in Xu's and watch the competition with peace of mind. It would not be too late to go back after watching the finale.

The four of them drove the carriage along the street outside the prefectural government.

The midfield competition is also simple. Each person is given five hours, which is ten hours, basically a whole day. There is plenty of time. Twenty chefs participate at a time, and the midfield competition can be completed in five days.

The reason why five hours is given is because for many pasta dishes, if you want to make steamed buns or steamed bread, the dough needs to be fermented. The fermentation of pasta is also crucial in pastry making. It can even be said to be the most important point. Because if the dough is not fermented well, the taste of the pasta will be completely wrong.

It takes two to three hours to ferment the dough in the summer, and even longer when it's cold.

The rules for the middle round are slightly different from the first round, and the top ten players can advance.

This time the scoring will be more difficult.

When we arrived at the scene, quite a few people were already waiting. Everyone already knew Xu Qinyu, and when they saw her coming over, many people greeted her.

"Ms. Xu, how are you? What kind of noodles are you planning to make today?"

"Will Miss Xu make breakfast at Xu's? I heard that Xu's breakfast is delicious, with custard buns, crystal shrimp dumplings, steamed wheat and so on, but I have never tried it. I thought if Miss Xu makes breakfast at Xu's today, maybe we can benefit from it."

Xu Qinyu just smiled and didn't answer.

She didn't plan to make custard buns or Xu's breakfast today. What she wanted to make was simple and complicated.

Soon, all the contestants arrived. The twenty contestants in the first round prepared at least forty stoves, countless steamers, and other miscellaneous tableware.

Xu Qinyu asked for two large stoves and a lot of steamers, as well as eggs, milk, two kinds of dried amaranth, papaya, pork belly, green onions, coriander and other ingredients, as well as a lot of seasonings.

When she asked for milk, dried amaranth and papaya, many judges were curious and wanted to know what this little cook wanted these things for.

I was also worried that she wasn't good at cooking white pastries. There are many chefs who are very good at cooking red pastries but are completely terrible at cooking white pastries.

The champion they want must be the most outstanding in both red and white dishes. If this young cook is not good at white dishes, they will have to reluctantly let her go. After all, it is very rare to see someone so young and so talented in cooking, not to mention a young lady. It is really amazing and unexpected.

When the judging started, Xu Qinyu ignored everyone else and started kneading the dough calmly.

Many other chefs still add water and flour in several batches when kneading the dough. Otherwise, either too much water or too much flour is added, and the dough is kneaded slowly.

Xu Qinyu was completely different. She mixed the ratio of water to flour at one time, and directly poured a large bucket of warm water into several prepared bowls of flour. In addition, she also poured an appropriate amount of milk and beat eggs into the flour, and then poured the soaked amaranth water into the flour according to the proportion.

Before kneading the dough, she had already washed and soaked the two kinds of amaranth for a while, then put the soaked amaranth in two small pots to boil out the pigment inside.

There is also amaranth here, which contains the most natural red and blue pigments, which can be used to color the dough.

She also squeezed out the juice from the papaya and poured it into another smaller bowl. There was a smaller amount of flour in this small bowl, so she added a little water, an egg, and then the papaya juice. Soon the dough in the bowl turned into a light orange-yellow color.

After the boiled amaranth water has cooled, pour it into the other two bowls of flour, one with more flour and the other with less flour.

In addition to these three colors of dough, there is also an ordinary dough, which is made by adding flour to warm water without adding anything else. The mixed dough is directly put into the old dough for fermentation.

Both the judges and the crowd watching below were a little stunned. They thought Miss Xu was amazing, but they also had no idea what kind of noodles she wanted to make.

The judges were also nervous, seeing that this young cook was so skilled at kneading dough, without even adding water in portions, she must be able to make pasta and plain dough. But how come she made so many different colors of dough, some even with milk and some with eggs? It was really strange, what on earth was she trying to do?

Xu Qinyu added old dough lumps to several bowls of kneaded dough for fermentation, and then put them in the steamer. There was no open flame in the stove, only a few pieces of charcoal, and the residual heat of the charcoal was used to ferment the dough.

Because it is already autumn and the weather is a bit cold, the dough ferments very slowly. If you use the residual heat of the charcoal fire to ferment, it will be much faster. Just be careful not to over-ferment it or use too much charcoal fire. Just steam the dough until it is cooked.

While the dough was rising, there was nothing much for everyone to do, so they just waited on the side. It was a bit boring though, so Xu Qinyu didn't start preparing for the next step.

The two pasta dishes she prepared were indeed simple, but not simple either.

There are two kinds of pasta, the sweet one with egg and milk, which can also be considered as milk steamed buns, but not simple milk steamed buns. She is going to make "National Beauty and Heavenly Fragrance", which is peony flower steamed buns, which really tests the skills of the pastry chef. It is very troublesome to make peony flower dough, so she did not make such complicated and tedious milk steamed buns in Xu Ji, but gave it to Da Niu privately. Da Niu has a talent for making pasta. Now she has made various exquisite pasta patterns, and when she is more proficient, Xu Ji will also be able to add these exquisite and beautiful pasta.

There was one salty one left, which she planned to make into flower rolls. Flower rolls are simple to make, but if you want them to taste good, you have to prepare the filling well.

The dough is not fermented yet, so she is not in a hurry to prepare the filling. She can just wait until the dough is almost fermented before preparing the filling.

The twenty chefs had basically kneaded the dough and were preparing to ferment it. The rest of the time was spent waiting, and the people below were also talking about it.

"What is Miss Xu planning to do? Why did you add amaranth juice and papaya juice? I see the dough is green, red, and yellow."

"It must be the same as braised pork in red sauce. Even though the cooking method is weird, it tastes good."

"That's right, although Miss Xu's way of cooking is weird, it's really delicious."

"Then we'll just wait."

Many people are still looking forward to what Xu Qinyu wants to do.

The same was true for the twenty judges in a row. They paid more attention to Xu Qinyu than anyone else, and their eyes were on Xu Qinyu almost the entire time.

In this way, everyone rested for at least two hours, and the dough fermentation was completed gradually.

Some people don’t know how the dough is fermenting, so they always open the lid every hour to check on the dough’s fermentation.

Xu Qinyu was completely different. After more than two hours, she smelled the smell and knew that the dough was fermenting. She opened the lid and saw that all the dough had been fermented. The dough had expanded a lot. Although the surface was smooth, when she tore it open with her hands, she found that the inside was densely packed with honeycombs and had excellent resilience.

She took out the dough and began to knead it to prepare the petals.

"Did you notice that Miss Xu never opened the lid during the whole process? By the time she opened the lid, the dough had already fermented."

"Yes, Miss Xu seems to be good at pasta."

"Did you see what Miss Xu is doing? Why doesn't she knead the dough and cut it into pieces? She kneaded the dough like this, rolled it like this, and even used chopsticks to make the edges wrinkled. What is she trying to do?"

"So what exactly is Miss Xu planning to do? How come I can't tell at all, is she really going to make noodles?"

Xu Qinyu did not hear the whispers below, all her attention was on what was in front of her.

The petals are rolled out layer by layer, and then the edges of the dough are rolled out thinly to carve out the patterns of the petals. There are large patches of purple-red petals, and then there are tiny orange-yellow stamens. Then, the fingers somehow wrap the petals around the stamens, and shake them gently, and a gorgeous, elegant and majestic peony flower appears in front of everyone.

In addition to this whole blooming peony flower, Xu Qinyu also rolled out green dough into leaves, and then used a knife to carve leaf patterns on the green leaves. With the accompaniment of green leaves, the flower looks even more delicate and beautiful.

A flower of "national beauty and heavenly fragrance" is completed.

The crowd below was dumbfounded. They didn't know what to say and thought they were hallucinating.

Everyone was stunned. After a long while, someone finally stammered, "Isn't this a peony?"

The peony flower was still so realistic and vivid, with petals stacked layer upon layer, elegant, luxurious, delicate and beautiful, as if a real peony flower appeared before their eyes.

"I, am I really seeing things? How can this be a peony flower? Can a steamed bun be made to look like a peony flower?"

"Oh my god, my life is worth it, I have seen pastries like this before."

"Oh my god, this is the first time I've seen this kind of pasta. Is this pasta? It's not like they picked a peony and placed it in front of us."

Even the judges were staring at the peony flower made by Xu Qinyu in amazement. The other contestants were even more dumbfounded. They stopped working and stared at the peony flower in front of Xu Qinyu.

Xu Qinyu ignored the others and started to make the flower circle skillfully.

She was extremely fast and obviously very skilled, and one graceful and elegant peony flower after another appeared before everyone.

Soon, Xu Qinyu made several steamed peonies. She made thirty-five of them. Besides the ten that were randomly selected on the spot, there were still a few more.

After she put the peony flowers into the pot and started steaming them, she began to prepare the stuffing for the steamed buns.

The other chefs hardly moved, their attention almost entirely focused on Xu Qinyu. Only when she put the peony flowers into the steamer and started steaming them did they all come back to their senses and start to get busy. Everyone knew in their minds that this young cook was probably going to do a perfect job again.

Kong Kun was watching from the sidelines, and he knew that he had not lost unfairly. Even though he had not tasted the food, his skillful pastry making skills were unmatched. His pastry skills were average before, and it was because of his pastry skills that he lost. He had worked hard on pastry skills for the past ten years, but now he found that he could not even beat this young cook who was less than 20 years old.

Kong Kun sighed softly. His father also said that he was a good cook and told him not to worry. He also said that he would definitely be the champion this time.

But with a talent like Miss Xu around, there's no chance for him to get the chance.

However, after seeing Miss Xu's craftsmanship, he was already convinced.

Xu Qinyu was still preparing the stuffing. Making flower rolls was even simpler. What he prepared was pork and green onions, and added chili oil and pepper powder made from dogwood, as well as the five-spice powder and salt that he had just ground. He spread the prepared stuffing evenly on the dough, then rolled up the dough, cut it into fist-sized pieces, pressed it in the middle with chopsticks, and rolled up the two sides, and a flower roll with pepper and pork stuffing was ready.

She prepared a lot of steamed buns, at least three layers of large steamers, each layer could hold about twenty buns, for a total of about seventy steamed buns.

Because she was hungry herself, the extra food could be shared with Zhizhi, Yunlan and Lianhua.

By the time the flower rolls start to be steamed, the peony flowers are not yet done. In such a large steamer, they need to be steamed for 15 minutes.

When she smelled that the taste was about right, Xu Qinyu unloaded the firewood from the pot, and the air was filled with the sweet aroma of milk and noodles.

The flower rolls were not yet steamed, so Xu Qinyu did not open the steamer on the "Peony Flower" side.

When the steamed buns were done and the aroma of meat mixed with a strange aroma of pepper, sesame and green onion wafted out, Xu Qinyu knew that the steamed buns were done and unloaded the firewood here.

She first opened the lid of the peony flower pot, and everyone stretched their necks to look into her steamer. Even the steamed 'peony flower' buns were not soft, but still full and blooming as before steaming. As soon as the lid was opened, the sweet smell became more intense.

Everyone was amazed and didn't know what to say. They just admired Miss Xu in their hearts.