Chapter 28 - Chef Lin The Judge! (1/2)

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Among the judges of this cooking contest, there was a familiar person—Lin Shuwei.

Chef Lin had appeared on Hunan TV’s “Chinese Restaurant” show before. He was the executive chef of the Intercontinental Hotel Group in China Region. He had also served as the head chef at the G20 summit, the UN World Tourism Organization Conference, and the Fortune Global Forum.

He was also the most important judge in this competition.

Lin Shuwei’s eyes were fixed on Xu Le’s figure.

Stir-fried shredded potatoes was indeed an ordinary home-cooked dish, but it could examine a chef’s basic skills and understanding of cooking.

In Chef Lin’s opinion, every contestant’s performance was actually very outstanding.

But that was all. They did not surprise him.

If they were in the hotel, he would pass all these contestants’ finished products.

This was because the stir-fried potato strips of this quality were more than enough to be served as dishes.

But this was not a hotel kitchen.

This was the competition venue.

If it was just an ordinary dish of potato shreds, no matter how well it was made, it would only be an ordinary dish.

It was like a painter painting. So what if you copied 70% similarity to the painting of Mona Lisa?

If you were in a painting competition, you would have to have your own creativity and expression. You would have to draw the things in your heart to move the judges.

Painters were like this, and so were cooks.

Chef Lin had always believed that cooking was also an art!

“He’s creative.”

Lin Shuwei nodded slightly when he saw Xu Le’s actions.

He had cut the potatoes diagonally and removed the sticky fibers, making the shredded potatoes crispier.

Furthermore, Xu Le’s cutting skills were comparable to other chefs.

This was simply unimaginable.

Among the 30 chefs present, Zhang Tong and Wang Tao were the youngest.

But they were also 31 and 28 years old respectively.

At the very least, they had been involved in the culinary industry for nearly 20 years.

Xu Le was an eight-year-old child.

How many years of culinary skills could he learn?

One or two years was probably the maximum.

…

After cutting the potato shreds, the next step was to wash them clean.

Xu Le looked around and saw many chefs washing the potatoes under the water. He frowned.

Many people would think that the purpose of washing potatoes was to wash them clean.

But that was only one reason.

More importantly, it was to dilute the starch on the surface of the potato. Therefore, the effect would be better if he soaked them in still water.

Xu Le grabbed the shredded potatoes and placed them into a large basin of water.

Then, he added a few spoonfuls of white vinegar.

The purpose of adding the white vinegar was to produce an oxidation reaction with the potatoes, so that it could release a large amount of starch and the texture would be more crispy.

While soaking the shredded potatoes.

Xu Le grabbed a handful of tabasco pepper from the side and cut them into thin strips. He then took out a few small onions and cut them into pieces.

At this moment, the shredded potatoes were almost finished soaking.

He fished them out and placed them on the kitchen towel to drain the water.

Next was the stir-frying segment.

After adding the oil in the pot and heating it up, he added scallions, dried chilli peppers, and pepper into the pot. He fried them for 30 seconds and released the fragrance within.

30 seconds later, Xu Le scooped out all the fried spices. The chilli and pepper had been fried into a dark brown color, and the color of the onions had turned golden.

“The timing of the stir-frying is just right.” Xu Le leaned over to sniff and said in satisfaction.

If the stir-frying took too long, the final dish would have a bitter taste.

He took out a filter and filtered the hot oil in the pot.

After filtering the pepper granules and chilli seeds, he poured them into the shredded potatoes and started stir-frying them.