Chapter 172: Braised Octopus

With how much Shen Hui valued winning and losing, if she wasn’t seriously injured, she would definitely force herself to go on stage. Xu Le immediately realized this.

Xu Zhexian understood the concern in his eyes and said, “Don’t worry, she just spilled some soup. It’s not serious. It’s just that she can’t bend her fingers for a while, so she can’t go on stage and help you.”

The most crucial thing at that moment was that they were missing one assistant. Just as Xu Le was about to ask the program team for more people, the host noticed the situation here and said anxiously, “Oh? Is there an assistant missing on your side? Then for the sake of the fairness of the program, let’s have the other side remove an assistant too…”

The assistants from the Master Chef’s side had never been of use. He could often handle all the procedures alone, but if Xu Le lacked one more assistant, it would really be troublesome.

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it!”

One VIP member sitting in the front row of the audience suddenly raised his hands. Xu Le looked down and saw that the person had lifted the baseball cap on his head. He smiled and said, “Let me help!”

Behind the scenes, Chen Zui was shocked to see Alex. “Where did he come from?”

Chen Yeqi rolled his eyes and said into the walkie-talkie, “Don’t let him go on stage. He’s the director of KI and might have fans in the country. This is unfair to us.”

The host stumbled and reached out to find a reason to stop Alex. Fortunately, when he turned around, he saw another girl joining Xu Le’s team.

Lu Yuxi nimbly tied her long hair with a bamboo chopstick and smiled at Alex. Her expression seemed to say, “I’ll make up for the spot.”

…

Alex did not mind and said to Xu Le, “Good luck.” Then, he sat back in his seat.

As soon as Lu Yuxi appeared, a few seconds later, there was an explosion of applause from below the stage. If there was a reason, it could only be that she was too beautiful! She was not stunning at a glance, but her eyebrows were gentle, her nose bridge was extremely high, and she was good-looking and elegant.

Xu Le looked at her in confusion. He had been with Lu Yuxi for a long time and was used to her face, so he was never concerned about her beauty.

He only said, “Thank you.”

“It’s fine. I hope I can be of help later.”

Lu Yuxi tilted her head with a nervous expression. She often watched Xu Le cook, but if she really had to cook, the things she made would definitely not meet the competition standards.

Fortunately, Xu Le had no intention of letting her cook at all. He would definitely have a lot of work to do that day. Lu Yuxi could just be his assistant.

The host had no choice but to cancel the idea. Soon, the staff pushed the huge cart onstage to display the ingredients. There was live seafood, jade green vegetables…

The ingredients on both sides were the same. There was no fixed cuisine for this round and participants could freely choose. There was a dazzling array of ingredients that was fresh and comprehensive. They were neatly placed on the table.

Octopus, potatoes, eggplant, conch meat, river prawns, pork belly, tenderloin…

Xu Le picked the octopus that had sticky tentacles and said, “I’ll make a braised octopus, lion’s head meatballs, and… a light conch.”

When Li Qing heard that, he asked in surprise, “Huh?”

“The difficulty of these dishes isn’t high, and the method is relatively simple. Isn’t it a little inappropriate in such a competition?”

After Zhang Tong tactfully expressed his opinion, Xu Le smiled and did not change his mind. His previous achievements were well-known, so they only hesitated for a moment and did not refute.

“Li Qing, clean up the octopus. Dad, you and Lu Yuxiin each take a piece of pork hind leg meat. It has to be completely lean and hit it with the hammer.”

“Sure.”

After the two of them agreed, Xu Le began to cook the side dishes of the braised octopus.

The fat and lean pork belly was cut into equal pieces and placed into the water. After pouring a circle of cooking wine, he added fragrant leaves and sprinkled onions, celery, and carrots. These ingredients could remove the stench and also increase its nutritional value.

Finally, he sprinkle white pepper grains and blanched over the fire. After there was no foam, he scooped out the meat and picked out the spices.

For the next step, he was going to stir-fry to produce a brown sugar color.

Zhang Tong said, “Are you planning to stir-fry with oil or water?”

“After stir-frying with oil, I’ll add water and the color will be brighter.”

Xu Le filled the pot with oil and sprinkled a handful of rock sugar and a little warm water. As the temperature in the pot rose, he kept stirring with a soup spoon. Soon, the sugar was brown and small bubbles appeared on the surface.

Only then did he put in green onions, ginger and pork belly. He stir-fried them a few times and poured the sugar evenly on the meat.

According to the traditional order of braising, he added cooking wine, soy sauce, and pepper. After the color changed, he poured in boiling water to cook.

Li Qing removed the octopus’s eyes. After cleaning the small lumps, he washed them with salt. It was best to soak them in water.

After the pork belly was stewed, in order to save time, he poured the pork and tea tree mushrooms into the pressure cooker.

Then, he added a little of the essence from the tea tree mushrooms and two dried chili peppers to increase the spiciness. He allowed it to simmer in the pressure cooker for 10 minutes.

The excess gravy at the bottom of the pot was left to stew the octopus. After waiting for three minutes, it would be ready. He poured the two into the pot and collected the gravy. When it was ready to be served, he sprinkled a handful of spring onions to enhance the color.

As usual, the first pot was for the taste. Li Qing took a bite of the fish whisker. The springy octopus was fresh and heavy. It immediately stimulated his taste buds and the aftertaste was slightly sweet. The pork belly was fat but not greasy.

He couldn’t help but nod. “As expected of you! I’ve eaten this dish in other restaurants in the past and it feels ordinary. The taste is very different when you cook it.”

“It’s just that I lack a bowl of rice to eat with it.”

When Xu Zhexian was hammering the meat, he saw Xu Le’s casual and exquisite method of adding seasoning. He was shocked. He didn’t need to taste it to know that this dish was even more authentic and delicious than those cooked by chefs with decades of experience.

Next, Li Qing focused on dealing with the octopus and braised pork belly. Xu Le stir-fried the sugar and added seasoning. Zhang Tong was in charge of finishing up the stewing in the last three and ten minutes respectively. The few of them carried out the work methodically.

An hour later, Xu Le began to deal with the red wine. He used the side of the knife to flatten the conch bit by bit. After wiping it until it was smooth, he used the knife to chop it. He ensured that all the impurities would be left on the chopping board at the bottom. He took out the portion that was used to cook and poured it into the hot oil.

Dried conch was one of the dishes of Fujian cuisine. There was a famous saying in Fuzhou that all bad things had to have ginger.

Not only could ginger remove strange smells, but it could also increase fragrance.

After a spoonful of yellow wine, the pot sizzled. Then, the fragrance of the wine and the ginger spread out and seeped into the wine.

When the wine was completely dissolved, it would be ready when it had turned bright red. Before it was ready, he would add a small spoonful of soup to increase the taste.

The red conch chosen had to have similar-sized shell. First, he had to break the shell, then scrape the dirt off the surface of the shell. After wiping it with a cloth to ensure that the bitter smell was removed, it had to be cut into thin slices.

With the knife parallel to the chopping board, the snail meat was cut three to four millimeters thick. There was a faint glow in the middle. When it was laid flat on the chopping board, one would discover that the snail meat was shaped like petals.