Chapter 302: Chapter 193: Finally Stepping into the Beauty and Hairdressing Circle! This Round of Rewards is Interesting! [Seeking Monthly Ticket]
Huo Yifan carried the basin and went back.
He had originally come just to enjoy the excitement, but instead, he watched his own composure collapse.
If heaven gave him another chance to do it all over, I would definitely not develop any curiosity towards steamed radish strips, nor would I teach someone named Lin Xu the method of preparing White Robed Shrimp.
I wouldn’t even come to the Fishing Platform to participate in this darned cooking competition.
Wasn’t it good to be a little cooking genius in the Xia Palace?
Why run over here just to be humiliated?
And to have my defenses thoroughly broken down.
Just as Huo Yifan returned to his stove, Lin Xu wandered over again.
This time, however, he wasn’t there to learn about White Robed Shrimp but to observe Guo Xinghai’s stir-fried grouper slices.
Fresh grouper is actually best when steamed, as it allows one to taste the unique freshness of the grouper as well as the delicacy and flavor of its meat.
But for those who eat grouper frequently, getting tired of the same flavor is natural.
Therefore, other ways of preparing grouper emerged, including stir-frying.
When Lin Xu arrived, Guo Xinghai had just filleted the grouper and was carefully picking out the rib bones.
Seeing that there was still quite a bit of meat left on the fish frame, and thinking that his little one hadn’t eaten yet, Lin Xu asked curiously, "Are you not going to use the meat on the fish frame?"
"Right, I don’t need it... Are you that free?"
After Guo Xinghai finished removing the rib bones, he wiped off the mucus on the surface of the Fish Skin with a towel. Then, holding down the fish meat with one hand, he tore at the Fish Skin with the other, gave it a strong pull, and the entire piece of Fish Skin came off.
Next, he sliced off the red meat portion close to the Fish Skin, leaving only the white meat.
"My ingredients are processed and airing out right now. They need to dry before I can move on to the next step. If you don’t need this, I’ll take it. I’ll steam it for my cat to try; it hasn’t tasted grouper before."
Guo Xinghai: "..."
Your cat’s diet is this luxurious now?
He placed the fish frame, rib bones, and Fish Skin on a plate and handed it to Lin Xu. "Then take it. Grouper bones are quite hard; make sure it doesn’t get stuck in its mouth."
"It won’t. My Dundun is very good at eating fish."
As Lin Xu passed by Huo Yifan’s stove with the fish meat, he saw the pile of green shrimp that had their shrimp meat removed. He suddenly thought that since he was preparing grouper for his little one, he might as well let it taste top-tier freshwater shrimp too.
A bit of savory, a bit of mild—that makes a balanced meal.
"Master Huo, do you still need these green shrimp, the ones you’ve taken the shrimp meat from?"
"Don’t need them... What do you want these for? To make shrimp oil?"
"No, it’s for feeding my cat."
Huo Yifan: "..."
Anyone else who got their hands on such top-tier green shrimp would first think to make shrimp oil. And they wouldn’t discard the shrimp shells after making the oil; they’d crush them and add them to fillings to enhance the umami flavor.
But this Lin Xu... he actually plans to feed them to his own cat.
Are all geniuses’ thought processes this peculiar?
"Then take them."
He gathered the green shrimp shells and handed them to Lin Xu.
And so, Lin Xu returned to his stove with a plate of fish parts and a plate of shrimp shells.
He boiled a pot of water.
After the water boiled, he put the green shrimp shells in to blanch them. Once cooked, he took them out, placed a steamer rack in the pot, and then put in the fish parts from Guo Xinghai to steam.
When feeding cats, steaming meat maximally preserves its nutrients, much better than boiling.
When the boiled-red green shrimp shells had cooled enough to handle, Lin Xu put them on a disposable plate and handed them to a staff member, asking them to pass it to Shen Baobao.
Before long, a certain plump and adorable little one in the audience area started smacking its lips and eating the shrimp.
Once the fish was done steaming, the radish strips were also completely dried by the fan.
It was time to spray oil.
He filled a spray bottle with some edible oil and carefully spritzed it onto the radish strips in the bamboo basket.
Seeing this, fans in the live stream chat became curious again:
"What is Boss Lin doing now?"
"It looks like he’s doing a hair treatment."
"Goodness, now that you mention it, it really does look like that! I use a small spray bottle for my hair treatment too."
"So, does this dish have something to do with beauty and hair care?"
"The way he fluffed the radish strips just now was exactly like how my hairstylist fluffs my hair."
"It’s confirmed then! Boss Lin has crossed over into the beauty and hair care world for this round of the competition!"
"To learn a craft, go to Jingxi! Number one in beauty and hair care!"
"Wrong, it should be Lin Ji!"
"Right! To learn a craft, go to Lin Ji! Number one in beauty and hair care!"
Laymen could only enjoy the spectacle.
But the experts on the advisory panel had already figured out what was happening.
"If I’m not mistaken, next he should be sprinkling Potato Starch, right?"
It was only when Song Dahai saw this step that he finally realized Lin Xu was making steamed shredded radish.
Who would have thought! Such a simple and homely dish as steamed shredded radish could be made so exquisitely that it’s even more exaggerated than the beauty filters on short video platforms.
No sooner had he spoken than Qiu Zhenhua pushed up his glasses and said, "This technique of spraying oil is really clever. It not only prevents the radish strips from absorbing water during steaming but also prevents too much oil from causing the starch to clump when it’s sprinkled... It makes me want to try it myself."
He Baoqing asked, "Steamed shredded radish made this way certainly looks good, but in the end, you still have to toss it with sesame oil and Garlic Paste. Wouldn’t that just ruin the whole effect?"
"Not necessarily!"
Xie Baomin felt a rush of joy.
He had never imagined his junior martial brother could make such a commonplace dish look so upscale; no wonder he hadn’t chosen to make White Jade Lotus Root Strips.
This dish, if made well, would be every bit as stunning as White Jade Lotus Root Strips.
Seeing the other head chefs looking at him, Xie Baomin said,