After completing the preparation of the first three relatively complicated sauces, the next work is very fast.
Put the ginger, onion, garlic and onion into the oil pan and saute until fragrant, pour in water and cooking wine, then add cinnamon, star anise and bay leaves.
Pour in oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, honey, two black peppercorns and a little lemon juice.
Li Xiao specially reminded:
"When making this simple home version of teriyaki sauce, be sure to remember that the ratio of oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, and honey is 1:1."
"Of course, if you like salty or sweet food, you can increase the amount of soy sauce and sugar accordingly."
"The amount of lemon juice must be small. If you don't know how much to add, you can choose not to add it."
Pour all the ingredients into the pot, cover the lid, cook on high heat for 15 minutes, scoop up the residue in the pot, add a little starch water and a portion of teriyaki sauce is complete.
While simmering the teriyaki sauce, Li Xiao immediately started preparing the sweet and sour sauce.
Sweet and sour sauce is divided into new-style sweet and sour sauce and old-school sweet and sour sauce, two different categories.
Although the 10-member judging panel are all elderly chefs, they are likely to prefer the old-fashioned sweet and sour sauce.
But considering that most of the viewers in the live broadcast room are young people, they will obviously prefer the new style of sweet and sour sauce.
Moreover, the new style of sweet and sour sauce does not have a complicated production process, making it easier for people to get started.
"What I'm making below is a new style of sweet and sour sauce. Its taste will be fresher, but it may not be as rich in flavor as the sweet and sour sauce I had before, and the texture will be slightly less."
"This sweet and sour sauce will use apple cider vinegar, ketchup, honey, aged vinegar, soy sauce, starch, and a few drops of lemon juice."
"Of course, if you don't have apple cider vinegar at home, you can just use ordinary water."
While talking, Li Xiao poured all the ingredients into a pan without water and salt.
Slowly mix the liquid in the pot over medium heat. This time he didn't use any fancy techniques.
Use the wooden spoon in your hand to slowly move in circles to completely combine all the ingredients.
When the liquid in the pot boils, Li Xiao finally adds a few drops of fresh lemon juice to complete a super simple sweet and sour sauce.
Turn off the heat and pour out the teriyaki sauce from the other side of the pot.
Li Xiao calmly pressed the completion button. He looked up and saw that there were still more than 10 minutes until the end.
Time is not as tight as before, but still, he is already behind many people in line.
Most people have completed this round of exams early. After all, many people come prepared.
What most candidates bring into the examination room are either finished sauces or semi-finished products that will be used in the sauces.
It can be easily completed by just heating it in the examination room or adding a small amount of fresh ingredients.
There is no need to make it from scratch like him.
When he pressed the finish button, the 10-member judging panel that was patrolling around immediately walked to the workbench.
After carefully examining the five pots of sauce on Li Xiao's workbench, the ten-member jury looked at each other in surprise.
Golden and silver garlic, sweet and sour sauce, XO seafood sauce, teriyaki sauce, beef chili sauce.
The slightly more complicated thing here is the hoisin sauce, but it's not that complicated.
Let alone a star chef, even a student who has just graduated from a chef school.
I'm afraid you can easily make several seafood sauces with different ingredients and flavors.
However, due to Li Xiao's previous performances, the 10-member judging panel did not show any contempt. Instead, their expressions became solemn.
There is a wise saying in the chef world that the simpler something is, the harder it is to make it well.
These five seemingly simple sauces must be special to them, and they are definitely not as simple as they seem.
Several people put 5 portions of sauce into their own plates with five grids.
Several people tasted the sauces on their hands with bated breath. After finishing one kind, they had to use the special tea provided by the venue to wash away the taste of the previous sauce before moving on to the next round of tasting.
But after all the judges tasted all the sauces, no one took the lead to speak.
They looked at each other in confusion at first, then frowned and thought, and started a new round of tasting.
When Li Xiao saw their cautious actions, he was speechless and thought he was the heir to some powerful force.
They have the right to turn their hands into clouds and rain. As long as these judges say one wrong word, they can die without a burial place.
Finally, the judge who came out to reprimand Li Xiao came out. He frowned and asked:
"Here, are you not very good at mixing sauces?"
After saying that, he immediately felt that his words were biased and quickly added:
"I'm not very good at expressing myself. I don't mean that your condiments taste bad, but they seem a bit too bland? No, it's just..."
Li Xiao waved his hand:
"It's not bland, I think this kind of sauce is good, very good."
"You can just evaluate it as normal."
The fat judge opened his mouth slightly and wanted to say something, but in the end he didn't speak. He clicked a few times on the tablet to complete the scoring.
The remaining judges also completed their scores one after another.
Soon, all 10 people finished grading.
The scoreboard on the workbench quickly jumped from 48.5 points to 56 points, which meant that Li Xiao only scored 7.5 points for this round of sauce preparation.
Although it seems not low, it actually has no obvious advantage over other candidates.
Because you can bring semi-finished products in advance, or even bring finished products directly into the examination room.
Many candidates can obtain some quite good quality sauces through various means.
This means that sauce preparation has always been a point-earning project, and many sauces are even prepared by five-star chefs.
Of course, the taste cannot be any worse, so over the years the average score for sauce preparation has been 8 points or more.
This caused all the judges to be very surprised when Li Xiao received a score of 7.5.
After all, in his worst round of exams, he got a full 9 points.
But in the round that was supposed to get high scores, it unexpectedly got low scores.
This is what puzzled the judges.
However, the judges didn't say much. Soon another candidate next to them pressed the finish button, and they put aside what was going on with Li Xiao and walked over there.
Soon, all the exam items in the morning were completed.
The candidates began to leave one after another and walked towards the dining hall.
The association here will provide a fast food. Of course, those who don't want to eat fast food can also solve the problem of eating by themselves.
The content of the afternoon exam is to choose 2 out of 10 designated dishes and complete the production of a complete set of dishes.
Li Xiao was too lazy to walk around for a meal. After all, it was quite far from the city, and an hour's rest time was not enough for him to go back and forth.
The meals provided by the association are quite good, including three meat dishes, one vegetarian dish and soup.
The taste surpasses Li Xiao's old university canteen, and is even far better than some ordinary small restaurants.
After all, this is the territory of the Chefs Association. If the food is too bad, it will really slap you in the face.
After the meal, everyone sat in the dining hall to rest in twos and threes, and many people pointed at Li Xiao.
Apparently they recognized him, he was the person who got the highest score in the second round of exams.
If it were just an ordinary top score, I'm afraid everyone wouldn't have much opinion.
However, the problem is that now everyone's total score is only 50 points, and Li Xiao's score has reached a terrifying score of 56 points.
The second place score is 44 points, the third place score is 43.5 points, the fourth place score is 43 points...
Li Xiao's score of 56 points is 12 points more than the second place.
The huge gap is simply shocking. After all, the difference between the 234 people is basically 0.5 points.
However, the score difference between the 1st and 2nd place was widened by an entire event.
What makes everyone even more angry is that Li Xiao is still conducting live broadcasts and taking exams at the same time.
When he didn't focus all his attention on the exam, he was able to leave everyone behind. This is what makes everyone fear the most.
