Chapter 297: Chapter 191: Sweet and Sour Eggplant + Dry-Fried Eggplant = Flavored Eggplant! [Extra for Grey Come and Go]_2
"I like eggplant stew. I hope the contestants can make it and show me how good this dish can get."
"What about sweet and sour eggplant? Doesn’t sweet and sour eggplant deserve a name?"
"I think Eggplant Dragon tastes the best. It’s fried till it’s crispy, then topped with minced pork sauce—the flavor is just amazing!"
"Everyone should try Eggplant Sandwiches. If they’re not delicious, I’ll eat my hat."
"..."
The comment section of the livestream was a battleground for all kinds of eggplant lovers, and it actually made Chen Yan, who was following the stream, hungry.
She pinched a piece of snack from her cousin’s hand and popped it into her mouth, then curiously asked:
"My brother-in-law doesn’t seem to have made many eggplant dishes before. Yueyue, which one do you think he’ll make?"
This question actually stumped Shen Baobao:
"I don’t know either. The only eggplant dish I’ve had from him before is Braised Eggplant and Pork Sauce. There’s only half an hour for this round; he probably doesn’t have time to make fresh noodles, right?"
What Xu Bao makes isn’t important.
The important thing is that as long as he wins, it’s fine.
Chen Yan rolled her eyes helplessly at her younger sister.
If husband-obsession were an illness, Yueyue would definitely be terminal.
At the competition site.
The contestants were all picking the ingredients they wanted to use.
Guo Xinghai grabbed a piece of salted fish from the pantry—it looked like he was going to make Salted Fish Eggplant Stew.
Wei Qian, on the other hand, picked up a chunk of pork belly—probably planning to make Minced Pork Eggplant.
Lin Xu watched everyone busy picking ingredients, feeling a bit lost and not sure what to make.
Although he liked eating eggplant, the only eggplant dish he’d ever made was Braised Eggplant and Pork Sauce.
But for today, that was definitely out of the question.
Because there weren’t even any noodles on the shelf, and it was way too late to make dough and hand-roll fresh noodles.
Thinking back on the techniques he knew, there were actually a few methods he could choose from, like sweet and sour eggplant or dry-fried eggplant—he could make either today.
But sweet and sour eggplant and dry-fried eggplant were both too common.
Besides, one was sweet and sour, the other was numbing and spicy—the flavors were a bit too one-dimensional, and making them might not score him major points.
Think, think, think—is there any other dish that’s tasty and might score high?
This round, the ingredients are set.
Everyone’s articles have to be about eggplant.
So it had to be something creative—only then would the judges be impressed.
He walked himself again through the methods for sweet and sour eggplant and dry-fried eggplant, and then a new idea suddenly popped up in his mind:
What if you combined those two dishes together, would that make it better?
Following that train of thought,
he gradually worked out the approach for the whole dish.
First, the eggplant had to be fried till it was really crispy—that way, when you poured the rich sauce over, the collision between the fragrant, crunchy texture and the sweet, sour, numbing, spicy sauce would be even stronger.
To achieve that, the eggplant needed to be sliced a bit thinner.
Otherwise, the fried eggplant would definitely get soggy.
As for the sauce, it also needed to be simmered until nice and thick.
Ideally, thick and glossy, like crystal-sugar pork hock.
That way it would cling to the eggplant.
And it would help the eggplant stay crispy for longer, without getting soft.
After so much time cooking, Lin Xu’s experience was getting richer and richer—he could even use what he’d learned and deduce entirely new dishes.
Once he figured out the entire process,
he picked up two long, purple eggplants, then got some dried chili, Sichuan peppercorns, garlic, plus white sugar, Chen Vinegar, cornstarch and other seasonings, and brought them back to his cooking station to start prepping.
"What is Boss Lin making this time?"
"White sugar and Chen Vinegar are probably for sweet and sour eggplant. The chili and Sichuan peppercorns are for dry-fried or spicy eggplant. But putting all these together? Can’t figure this one out."
"Could it be spicy sweet-and-sour eggplant?"
"Or maybe sweet-and-sour spicy eggplant."
"Hey, what are you two even on about?"
"Doesn’t matter what he makes—just hope Boss Lin hurries up and wins, don’t do anything weird."
"..."
In the satellite van outside Building 1,
Zeng Xiaoqi said excitedly:
"Mr. Zhen! We’ve surpassed Minsheng Channel’s ’Hot News Pursuit,’ and we’re not far off from the Sports Channel’s ’Today in Sports.’ If things keep going like this, maybe in the finals, our show could win the lunchtime ratings for the entire station!"
This was just so exciting.
The channel known for last-place ratings had suddenly pulled off a salted-fish comeback.
What could be more satisfying than that?
Zhen Wensheng was watching the livestream online, and the comments gave him an idea.
"Xiaoqi, what do you think about interacting with the TV audience? Have them leave comments on our WeChat public account, guess what Lin Xu is making, and whoever gets it right wins tickets to the scenic area."
Well...
Zeng Xiaoqi figured it was worth a try.
It’d be a decent way to bring a wave of traffic to the travel channel’s official account, too.
Back at his cooking station,
Lin Xu cleaned the eggplants thoroughly with salt.
Then he put them on the cutting board.
This was a brand-new attempt with nothing to reference, so everything needed to be as careful and cautious as possible.
This round, he didn’t even care about taking first place—he just wanted to make sure he didn’t get eliminated.
He put the washed eggplants on the cutting board.
First, he cut off the eggplant stems, then sliced the eggplants in half lengthwise.
After cutting them open, he thought for a moment, then halved them again.
Mm, now these looked more like the real deal.
But with the eggplants cut this way, there was too much of the seedy pulp part—in his experience with fried skewers, that kind of eggplant gets soggy very quickly, and it’s hard to make it crisp.
He needed to remove the excess pulp.
He used the side of his chef’s knife to shave away most of the pulp, then cut the remaining part diagonally into strips about one centimeter wide.