Chapter 424 - 163: Dishes? I Only Need One.

Chapter 424: Chapter 163: Dishes? I Only Need One.

Seeing Su Chen’s confident expression, Ling Shuyu felt her own confidence grow. "Don’t worry. Mr. Lu said he had President Shang help contact a courier company in the Capital City. If you need anything, there’s a plane with a layover in Malaysia tomorrow that can make a delivery. If we can’t get it settled by tomorrow, then we’ll have to arrange a private jet."

A private jet would be a bit too costly.

Su Chen didn’t say anything. ’Shang Mingke isn’t just helping me,’ he thought, ’he’s also helping Liu Ahbao.’

"Alright, let’s head back to the hotel. I’ll make a list. You, Liu Shengnan, and Zhang Jiayi will start by sourcing what you can locally. Anything you can’t find, we’ll ship from back home. As for timing, there’s no rush, as long as we get everything before the competition starts."

After they returned to the hotel, the other employees from Delicious swarmed over to see what was going on, but Ling Shuyu blocked them all at the door.

"The boss needs to rest. We’re going to have a meeting now about our new assignments!"

The specific topic was their new work assignments.

After all, the dish Su Chen had decided to make could be described as the culmination of Sichuan cuisine!

Whether it was the seasoning or the selection of ingredients, it represented the pinnacle of Sichuan cooking.

Perhaps, to most people, it was just an ordinary home-cooked meal, but in reality, only the chef truly knew what level of mastery was required to make the dish perfectly!

The first thing Su Chen did upon returning to his room was make himself a cup of coffee.

’It’s ridiculous that a hotel in Malaysia doesn’t have any tea leaves!’

Holding his coffee, he sat by the window and opened the system’s recipe synthesis interface, which he hadn’t used in a long time.

’If I input the entries like this, I wonder how the system will react?’

Previously, Su Chen had only ever entered the ingredients he used when cooking and then synthesized a recipe.

But this time was different.

As everyone knows, there is one aspect of preparing Sichuan cuisine that sets it apart from other culinary traditions.

Sichuan cuisine isn’t actually that strict about cooking techniques. A Lu Cuisine dish, for example, might require three or four different techniques like dry-frying, simmering, boiling, and braising, all for a single plate. For Sichuan dishes, however, as long as you have precise control over the heat, you’ll be most of the way there.

But when it comes to seasoning, the requirements are incredibly strict!

Therefore, to make good Sichuan food, seasoning is the first step.

So, Su Chen began by entering not ingredients, but seasonings.

"Star anise, bay leaf, sand ginger, angelica root, galangal, cassia bark, dong quai, costus root, white cardamom, fennel, nutmeg, amomum fruit, licorice root."

As he added the various spices, the system’s synthesis frame flashed, sometimes purple, sometimes green, and occasionally even white.

Next came the ingredients.

In one go, Su Chen entered over one hundred different ingredients into the synthesis frame. By the end, even the synthesis system started to get sluggish.

The moment Su Chen confirmed the synthesis in his mind, a flash of light burst forth.

’So... what’s the deal with a golden recipe?’

Downing the now-cold coffee in his cup in one gulp, Su Chen closed his eyes and found himself in the practice room.

"The difficulty in making this dish isn’t in the technique, but in the seasoning. So, to make it delicious, I have to put the bulk of the effort into preparing the seasonings beforehand."

Instead of summoning the ingredients first, he summoned all the necessary seasonings.

Facing a golden recipe for the first time, Su Chen approached it with extreme caution, not expecting to succeed on his first attempt!

...

After Ling Shuyu finished arranging all the tasks, she took Liu Shengnan and Zhang Jiayi out to look for the required ingredients.

"The boss is really crazy... Over a hundred ingredients. Is he seriously not joking with us?" Zhang Jiayi was a bit dumbfounded when she saw the list.

That was over a hundred different items!

It was no exaggeration to say he had listed nearly everything a normal person could possibly think of.

"The boss said we might not use all of them, but it’s better to be safe than sorry."

Liu Shengnan found a chain supermarket on the map. "Let’s go to the supermarket first. We’ll check a few of them, and then for whatever ingredients are still missing, we’ll have President Shang arrange an air shipment."

The three of them hailed a cab and headed for the location on the map.

Back at the hotel, Bai Xiaobo and the others were completely dumbfounded when they saw the list.

"What kind of dish is this for? Holy crap, if you put all this stuff together, a single bite would probably make you ascend to heaven on the spot, right?"

Zhang Heping held the list. "It feels a bit like the seasonings for braised meat. But those few extra ones don’t seem to fit. This is definitely outside my area of expertise."

Shi Qi couldn’t figure it out either. Liu Ahbao, on the other hand, said, "I have a guess, but I’m not sure."

"What is it?"

Ah Bao hesitated. "I’d rather not say for now. Let’s keep it a secret. I’m not sure because... I can’t believe that for a major world competition like this, Boss Su would use *that kind of thing* to compete."

"What do you mean? Just say it already!" Shi Qi was dying of impatience.

’Why is he being so cryptic?’

"Looking at all the past competitions, every dish the contestants presented was exquisitely refined to the highest degree. By Michelin’s judging standards, any one of them could have been considered three-star level. But the thing I’m guessing the boss is making... Hah, forget it, forget it. I hope I’m wrong. But if I’m right, then we’re in for a real show."

Faced with Liu Ahbao’s riddles, the others just rolled their eyes at him before quickly getting to work.

First, they started contacting shops back home online. Fang Chang took on this task; in his years of doing business, he had gotten to know quite a few bosses on the raw material supply side.