Published at 2nd of October 2022 8:36 pm

Chapter 2675: Chapter 219 casting pearls before swine

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

Translator: 549690339

Initially, when Badhan and the others saw Yuan Zhou’s actions, they all held their breath and concentrated on him. But then, they wanted to smell the fragrance first and get their noses closer to the plate without anyone noticing.

As the lid was removed, the first thing he felt was not the fragrance but a golden light that flashed in front of his eyes. Then, he felt a burst of rich and strange fragrance.

To be honest, at his age, he should be very familiar with the smell of all kinds of dishes. He was confident that there was no smell that could make him drool. After all, he had seen a lot. As the saying went,”it’s hard to make water once you’ve gone through the sea.” He had seen the taste of the food made by various top chefs, and he felt that he had seen a lot.

The dish cooked by Yuan Zhou today had directly struck his confidence. With a flash of golden light in front of his eyes, his nose was wrapped by the rich fragrance.

The fragrance was indescribable. There was the smell of char, sweetness, crunchy, meat, fruit, and flowers. All kinds of fragrances were mixed together. Ordinary people would definitely think that it was a hodgepodge mixed together. Their nose would definitely not be able to take it. It was too mixed.

However, the dish in front of him was different. He had not even seen its shape yet, but its fragrance was already overwhelming. It did not rush in like a swarm of bees. Instead, like perfume, it had three different tones, one in the front, one in the middle, and one in the back. It was complicated and fragrant. It did not make people feel irritated, but rather very fascinating.

Silently touching the corner of his mouth and making sure that there was no drool, he looked at the dish as if nothing had happened. He was already satisfied with the fragrance, but he still had to look at the shape of the plate.

It was amazing at first glance. It wasn’t that he had never seen such a lifelike scene before. A huge golden gourd was hanging on a green vine. It looked very realistic. The steam that was rising from it was like the mist of a Fairyland, adding a bit of immortal aura to the dish.

The gourds were big, and the vines were thick. The dark green leaves were scattered on the vines in twos and threes. Even if one looked closely, they would think that they were decorations made of vines. The large oval plate just happened to accommodate them, and it looked exquisite and beautiful.

The most important thing wasn’t the realistic shape of the dish, but the feeling of the whole dish being natural. It was as if it was naturally placed like this, without a trace of craftsmanship. This was the reason for Mohamed’s surprise.

As for Badhan and Sanada Yuichiro, they leaned closer to take a look, as if they wanted to put their eyes on the plate. As they leaned closer, they sniffed hard, as if they were smoking a big cigarette, making people unable to look at them. They also mumbled things like “I’m old, my eyes are not good anymore, I have to get closer to see clearly” and so on, perfectly interpreting the phrase ‘shameless people are invincible’.

Compared to these two, everyone felt that Mohamed was the one who had really seen the world.

Actually, it wasn’t that Mohamed didn’t want to be like them. The truth was that he was a beat too slow. When he wanted to join in, there was no more space, so he could only hold it.

Fortunately, there were only a few people on the scene. Apart from Yuan Zhou and a camera aimed at the judges, there was no one else. Otherwise, this highly respected image would probably be lost.

Only after three minutes did they come back to their senses with a dry cough. It was the first time that the three of them were so immersed in the same dish at the same time. It was really unbelievable. However, when they thought of Yuan Zhou’s previous performance when he was cooking, they felt it was only natural.

When he came back to his senses, Sanada Yuichiro’s white eyebrows furrowed slightly as he said,””Head chef Yuan, is this the famous Eight Treasure Calabash duck in China?”

His tone was a little hesitant and disbelieving. After all, there were rules in this competition. It had to be a lost or newly developed dish. Otherwise, no matter how good the taste was, it wouldn’t count.

After being with tengyuan Jiayuan for a long time, he naturally knew some of the customs of China, especially some of the dishes with extraordinary craftsmanship. The eight Treasure Calabash duck was one of the dishes that tengyuan Jiayuan could not forget.

Sanada had never eaten it before, but he had seen the pictures shown to him by Fujiwara Jiayuan. The dishes weren’t as exquisite and perfect as Yuan Zhou ‘s, but they were very similar. They were all in the shape of gourds.

“It’s true that part of the inspiration came from the eight Treasures Calabash duck. Judges, you can try the taste of my bright pearl casting in the dark today.” Yuan Zhou said directly.

He thought of this dish to attend Akara’s meeting. Unlike tiel, who took ten years to make a new dish, he only decided on the menu a month ago, mainly because he had spent some time on the chef test before. Also, he was usually very busy, so it was already very important for him to take out a whole month to make a new dish.

Upon hearing the name, the three people, no matter if it was Sanada who had just felt that Yuan Zhou’s dish didn’t meet the standard, Badhan who had been secretly sniffing the fragrance, or Mohamed who had been holding the dish, were all stunned. What was the relationship between the Golden appearance and the name of the dish? wasn’t it a little too perfunctory?

With such an exquisite and fragrant dish placed in front of them, no one was able to move their eyes away. They even felt a little that Yuan Zhou was not even qualified to eat the eight Treasures Calabash duck that he had cooked.

Otherwise, it would be a waste if he didn’t eat such a fragrant dish. He had completely forgotten the rules of the meeting. There was no need to try a dish that didn’t meet the requirements.

The duck’s head was hanging on the vines like a medium connecting the gourds and the vines. The whole duck was fat and golden. If one looked carefully, one could see that the duck was wearing a layer of transparent gauze with a slight sauce color. Because of the thickness of the sauce, it was as if it was born on the surface of the duck’s skin. Except for the part where it was in contact with the plate, which was slightly deformed due to the pressure of the weight, a little bit of it stained the bottom of the plate. Of course, this was the inevitable result of the duck touching the plate. The other parts were very clean, without any sauce dripping.

The glistening sauce added a touch of gentleness to the already golden duck, making people’s blood boil with excitement.

Apart from the head, the entire body of the duck was caved in from the middle into the shape of a gourd. Unlike the traditional gourd duck, which was tied to the duck body with cotton threads, Yuan Zhou’s one was also in the shape of a gourd and was also perfect. However, he didn’t use cotton threads. Instead, he didn’t know what material was used and it couldn’t be seen anymore. He could only see a line as thick as a finger across the duck, dividing the gourd into two. Its color was also a little darker than the rest of the body, dark gold.

After Yuan Zhou said the name of the dish, he directly took a sharp bamboo knife from the tray and gently cut down the duck’s neck. The duck was originally airtight. Except for the waist of the calabash which was slightly darker in color, the other parts of the duck seemed to have not been slaughtered. There was also no toothpick or cotton thread used by Calabash ducks to seal the opening. With the force of the bamboo knife, the duck slowly opened from the middle to both sides like a flower blooming.

Because the duck had been deboned in advance, the remaining layer of skin and meat was smoothly cut open, revealing a layer of slightly Red Duck skin.

That’s right, duck skin.

……

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