Chapter 249 - Fish (1/2)

In fact, the energy drink business in western countries is booming and is a multi-billion dollar market. Who would have thought that an ingredient in many consider toxic would be a much used ingredient in a product so popular? It reveals that most edible ingredients, even toxic ones, have a use in cooking, you just need to know how to use it.

Though it isn't without risk as it's very vital and hard to ensure that the consumer doesn't consume too much of the toxic substance. People have died from consuming too much Ma Huang, it's all about finding the balance. Wang Ming felt so enlightened this opened a whole new world for him, there's so many ingredients that is unhealthy and/or toxic, which he has not used, but now maybe he could.

But that would have to wait until after he still had to win this round. He wanted to get to the next round to learn more; he wanted to observe and get a feel of how the others are cooking. From just a few moments, something changed inside Wang Ming. He once again found his drive to learn. In these past years he had come to a point where he's become stagnant. He thought they had learnt everything he needed to learn.

He felt like he had learnt most basic skills and even mastered many harder skills. So he didn't need to learn anymore, he could just open his restaurants and live the life he wants together with his girls. But now he realized that he still has a lot more to learn, a lot more he could do. With this thirst to learn, Wang Ming felt like he had unleashed untapped potential. He could become so much better if he's just willing to learn.

His attention snapped back to the competition when Meng Zhong announced the next round to start. With the new flames inside his heart, Wang Ming widened his eyes and focused to the maximum. He wanted to analyze all the details to this next ingredient he needed to get it right badly. It's already the 13th ingredient out of 20 and he's still 2 behind if he doesn't get most of them right, he has no chance to get to the next round, he also depends on at least the contestant ahead of him gets two ingredients wrong, if they get everything right then it doesn't matter at all.

His stress levels went up thinking that he wouldn't be able to get to the next round, which he forcefully calmed by biting his tongue, not strong enough to leave damage but definitely hard enough for him to feel it. He kept reminding himself that he has to take it one round at a time. As long as he gets everything right then he has tried it best, it's only up to fate at that point.

With a steady hand, Wang Ming opened the lid that covered the platter and his enemy. On the platter was a type of white fish Wang Ming had seen and even cooked with white fish many times before, but what made it very hard to distinguish which fish this is because…

”As you can all see, there's a new twist to this round, the ingredient is cut and already cooked and not only that covered in fish sauce. So you cannot use the shape or the color before, they had cooked it to figure out what fish this is. You can all eat the ingredients if you want to find out what fish it is. Good luck everyone.”

The production had been very cunning this round. They had cut the fish into a cube shape, so you couldn't figure out anything about the size, the worst part is the fish sauce, even if the chefs tries to taste the fish, they would get distracted by the strong fish sauce to taste. Everyone on stage was scratching their heads trying to figure out what fish is on the platter.

It could be a very popular fish in China halibut, but it could also be cod, bass, flounder, tilapia, and even more. Most white fish don't have a lot of oil in their tissue which makes their meat flakier and more dry, the biggest problem here is all of them have the same characteristics, it would be like distinguishing different red pepper brands from each other, incredibly hard.

Looking at the cube of fish meat on his platter, Wang Ming could exclude one thing and that's the fish couldn't be a benthic fish, fish that lives on the seabed (Bottom of the ocean). Since those are flat fishes, the production had purposely cut this fish meat thinly, but it wasn't thin enough to be a benthic fish. Wang Ming wanted to both strangle and applaud the production for coming up with a challenge like this. It's so hard but yet it's interesting and entertaining, this truly tested your knowledge.

Since the fish couldn't be a flat fish, Wang Ming turned his mind towards the other white fishes like cod, halibut ect. Cutting a small bite Wang Ming tasted it, he tried to ignore the heavy taste of fish sauce and only focused on the fish, but he didn't get any clue, normally it would be hard to try to figure out what fish this is only by taste, the fish sauce made it even harder.