Chapter 431 Mistake
After deciding to use grains as food ingredients, Xu Qing felt his mind open and his thoughts became clear.

This is the kind of ingredient he has been waiting for and looking for.

The general way to cook grains is to steam them into rice or grind them into flour to make pasta.

In terms of flexibility, of course it is better to grind it into powder and make pasta, which has more diverse cooking methods.

There are countless ways to make dumplings, buns, wontons, etc. What limits pasta is not the method used but people's imagination.

With Xu Qing's current cooking skills, he can make pasta in various ways that ordinary people would never imagine.

But this time, Xu Qing didn't want to do that. He didn't want to show off his skills in front of Wu Gu, but hoped to present the most authentic taste of Wu Gu. This was his respect for Wu Gu.

If they are ground into powder, it will be difficult to bring out their respective flavors and characteristics.

Xu Qing chose to make it into whole grain porridge.

Xu Qing selected the grains, washed them, soaked them for a while, and then put them into five casseroles respectively, waiting for the water to boil.

After soaking, the grains will become softer. The five grains have different hardness and require different heat, so they need to be cooked in five separate pots to maximize their flavor.

First, boil the water over high heat, then turn to low heat, cover the pot and simmer slowly, so that the grains become more fragrant and delicate under the action of heat.

One of the key points in cooking porridge is patience. It takes a long process to cook the porridge until it becomes thick, fully extract the aroma of the grains, and blend it with water.

If you just want to make it fast, the food you make can only be called rice porridge, not congee. In rice porridge, rice and water are separated, rice is rice, water is water, the two are just randomly put together, and each retains its own distinct characteristics, which is equivalent to rice soaked in water.

But porridge is different. After a long time of boiling, all the excess water in porridge is cooked out, and what remains is the water that is closely attached to the grains. The two are inseparable, yet they have fully integrated the advantages of each other.

It gives tasteless water the fragrance and sweetness of grains, and it gives hard grains the tenderness and delicacy of water.

The close fit between the two makes it even more delicious and tempting than the sum of the two.

However, cooking porridge has an obvious disadvantage, which is that it requires a long time to steam.

This long time has become a fatal flaw in the current five-level seal assessment.

In the time it takes Xu Qing to cook one dish, Yan Xian probably has to make two or three dishes.

If Yan finished the five dishes first, then no matter how delicious Xu Qing's dishes were or how suitable they were to the topic, he would still lose.

When Yan Xian and the five elders saw that Xu Qing chose to cook porridge as the first dish, they all shook their heads and sighed.

This was a tactical mistake.

Yan Xian felt even more regretful. He really couldn't understand why Xu Qing chose to spend a long time cooking porridge and why he chose to give up his advantage to others.

Although he couldn't figure out what was going on in Xu Qing's mind, Yan Xian would not let go of such a good opportunity.

He would not wait foolishly for Xu Qing to finish the first dish before continuing to compete with him just because Xu Qing made a tactical mistake. That was not fair, it was stupid.

Perhaps there are chefs from the light cuisine world who would do this, but he, Yan Xian, is from the dark cuisine world.

Even though he doesn't like many practices in the dark cooking world and hopes for a fair cooking showdown, his fairness means that he won't use tricks to influence his opponents or judges. Now that his competitor has made a major mistake, there is only one thing Yan Xian needs to do, and that is to seize the opportunity.

Yan Xian admitted that his cooking skills were not as good as Xu Qing's, but if there was a chance to defeat Xu Qing, even if it was only a one in ten thousand chance, he would never let it go.

But now, the extremely slim chance of winning suddenly became within reach, which made Yan Xian unable to stop his excitement. His heart began to beat wildly and his hands trembled with excitement.

It's like when you are struggling to survive under the boss's hands while fighting monsters, and at this moment the boss on the opposite side not only shows his health bar, but also has very little health. It would be strange if you are not excited.

Yan Xian quickly picked up the wine jug and took a sip of wine. With the help of the spicy taste of the wine, he suppressed the excitement in his heart and regained his usual calm.

Don't be anxious. The more tense the moment, the calmer you need to be.

Since Xu Qing chose to go slow, Yan Xian had to go fast, faster than ever before.

Because he knew very well that even though Xu Qing looked harmless while sitting there, once Xu Qing took action, he would sweep over with the force of thunder, leaving no room for defense.

What Yan first needs to do is to accumulate enough advantages for himself before Xu Qing actually takes action.

First up, the first dish, “Letter”.

Yan Xian didn’t know what idea Xu Qing had come up with that made him choose to cook porridge.

But "faith" has a different meaning for Yan Xian.

Because he grew up in the dark culinary world, and the dark culinary world is obviously not a place that can cultivate trust between people.

There are only intrigues and fights, and the strong are respected, stepping on the weak to climb up.

And "faith", in the eyes of the "strong ones" in the dark culinary world, is something only the weak have.

Only the weak will trust others and want to rely on others.

The strong do not need "faith", do not need reliance, do not need trust, all they need is the strong to take everything. The weak have only one choice: kneel down at the feet of the strong and accept the arrangements of the strong.

But, isn’t the most powerful person in the world the emperor who is high above everyone else?
Even the emperor needs a relationship of trust to govern the country well, so why don’t those people need “trust”?

Or maybe, they are just a group of weak people who think they are strong, and are just pretending to be strong to cover up their own weakness.

After realizing that the people in the dark cuisine world are the weak ones, Yan Xian has been looking for and understanding what the real strong ones should have.

In his opinion, "faith" is a bond, like an invisible thread, binding different people together and allowing them to create new destinies and new ties.

Even the emperor who is high above cannot govern the country by himself. He needs to work hand in hand with his subjects, connect them together with trust, bind them together, give them a common goal, and be able to work together to move forward.

In Yan Xian’s mind, the thing that best represents the word “faith” is silk thread.

The emperor is a dragon, and the silk thread related to the dragon is dragon beard noodles.

　Feeling much better, resume normal updates

　　
　
(End of this chapter)