Chapter 873: Extra 1: Delay King Xu Actually Delivered (Part 2) Chapter 873: Extra 1: Delay King Xu Actually Delivered (Part 2) “Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup is a very special sea cucumber dish. I have seen many ways to cook sea cucumber and tasted numerous sea cucumber soups, but I have never encountered a dish like Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup, which from preparation to flavor is so unique and exceptional,” he said.

“First, I would like to introduce the method of this dish, which is very unique. Normally, if high broth is needed in a dish, only one type would be used, but this dish uses two different broths–meat broth and chicken broth. From simmering the two broths to adding the sea cucumbers for red braising, until finally lifting the cucumbers out to dice them, and adding diced mushrooms and bamboo shoots, then simmering to reduce the sauce and lastly thickening it, the whole process takes nearly 12 hours. The sophistication of this dish’s concept and the complexity of its steps definitely make it one of the top five dishes I have ever seen,” he stated.

“Even a day later, the exquisite experience of tasting this dish still lingers on the tongue. This dish looks incredibly appealing, as you can see from the picture beside. With the enhancement of Master Jiang Feng’s excellent knife skills, the dices of sea cucumber, mushroom, and bamboo shoot are plump and uniformly sized. After a long period of simmering and final thickening, this delicately dense Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup appears as if draped in a thin, lustrous veil, offering an indescribable taste upon entry,” he added.

“Fresh, salty, tender, and smooth are the most direct sensations this soup can offer you,” he explained.

“The freshness comes from the high broth, the saltiness from the bamboo shoots, the tenderness from the sea cucumber, and as for the smoothness, I’m not entirely sure, but based on my understanding of Chef Jiang Feng, the wonderful smoothness most likely comes from the final thickening,” he speculated.

“I have emphasized many times before that sea cucumber is inherently a tasteless ingredient that relies on other substances to enhance it. It is sandy and fishy, and without careful handling by the chef, a sea cucumber dish could turn into something extremely dreadful. When I was younger, I even wondered why such a frightening ingredient was so beloved by many chefs, but as I gained more exposure, I gradually began to understand. Some dishes excel not in flavor but in texture. Sea cucumber is tender yet prickly, and even with long cooking, it does not become overly soft or mushy. If the chef handles it properly, it can retain its natural elasticity. Such a nourishing and high-quality ingredient, with endless flavor possibilities and room for creativity, is hard not to be a favorite among culinary masters,” he reflected.

“And this Soup encompasses all the possible advantages a sea cucumber dish could have, being impeccable in both texture and taste,” he praised.

“As a joke, when tasting this Soup, I even felt as if I was tasting a seafood porridge that Master Jiang Feng had painstakingly simmered for many hours. This is not sarcasm, nor is it a backhanded compliment. Trust me, if you had ever tasted the porridge personally simmered by Master Jiang Feng, you would know what kind of praise this is,” he shared.

“Having talked so much about Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup, let me talk about another dish by Master Jiang Feng–Golden Jade Cabbage,” he continued.

“When you first hear the name of this dish, don’t think it’s something beautiful and magnificent, as rich and opulent as gold and jade. Please turn to the next page and look at the picture on the following page, you might be disappointed because it is just an ordinary, common stir-fried cabbage,” he warned.

“Indeed, it is just a stir-fried cabbage,” he concluded.

“Although I didn’t time it, the dish, from the moment the cabbage hit the pan to before it was served, took no more than 5 minutes. The process was not much different from how cabbage is usually fried, except that this dish was topped with a pot of soup.”

“A pot of sea cucumber and abalone soup that Master Sun Maochai meticulously attended to almost without pause, occasionally adding ingredients, took nearly 10 hours to prepare in total.”

“I cannot definitively say how the soup was, as I did not pay much attention to it during the entire competition nor did I have a chance to taste it myself. But I can roughly guess that if you were to drink it on its own, it would not be a wonderful soup.”

“It was very fishy.”

“Unlike Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup, this soup fully exposed the fishiness of the sea cucumber, which was like, and perhaps even superior to, the marine fishiness common to many seafood products. However, it was precisely this fishiness that made the ‘Jade and Gold Cabbage’ remarkable.”

“It is difficult to describe the feeling of the first bite, because it was truly marvelous. The cabbage’s excellent ability to absorb and lock in flavors allowed it to soak up all the essence and flaws of the sea cucumber and abalone soup in just a few minutes of stir-frying, merging and blending them with its own fresh, tender fragrance to create a completely new and wonderful taste.”

“Flaws are merits, and merits are flaws. This is probably the most headache-inducing and difficult dish to critique. It was delicious, uniquely delicious, not like the universally appealing, upscale boiled cabbage. Its excellence took an unconventional path, standing out distinctly. Even if I tell everyone here that the combination of the fishiness of sea cucumber and abalone with the cabbage created a wonderfully delightful taste, many might not believe it, thinking I am making it up or even that my taste buds have decayed with age, taking on bizarre preferences.”

“But believe me, even if it’s indescribable, this is a dish that will make you exclaim in your heart upon tasting it, and while exclaiming, you’ll find yourself unable to say anything else but ‘wow.'”
“Even though I’ve read quite a few books over the years to write articles, amassed numerous words, and even memorized many old poems, I still cannot find the words to describe it.”

“It is a delicacy, just in a slightly different way, indescribable but only experiencable with the tongue. Here, I must also regretfully add that chances are, most of you will not have the opportunity to experience it, nor do I know when, if ever, I might again. After the competition, I asked Mr. Jiang Feng, and he mentioned that perhaps one day Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup might make it to the menu of Taifeng Building, but the ‘Jade and Gold Cabbage’ never will. It’s regrettable but understandable, as this dish indeed presents quite a challenge for the chef.”

“Having discussed two Chinese dishes, let me spend some time introducing Chef Arno’s two new Western dishes–the ‘Nameless Soup’ and ‘Nameless Hodgepodge.'”
“Those familiar with Chef Arno should be very aware of his cooking style, which is a rare, rustic, and primal approach to cooking. He seldom uses costly, high-end ingredients typical of Michelin-starred restaurants in his dishes; you won’t find caviar or foie gras in his menu, fish are rarely involved, and gold leaf, more a gimmick than a garnish, is absolutely out of the question. I once joked with others that if you were to ask which chef in Michelin-starred restaurants offers the best value for money, it would undoubtedly be Chef Arno. Although his dishes are the most expensive, the cost is justified by the culinary skills rather than the ingredients, offering a strangely wonderful sense of value.”

“If I were to tell you that the next two dishes I’m about to introduce are, in my opinion, the finest two dishes Chef Arno has ever made, you definitely wouldn’t believe me. But it is indeed true that this top chef, known worldwide for his roasting and frying, excels most in stir-frying and stewing, which is truly baffling.”

“It’s said to be two dishes, but to me, it looks more like a combination. The core part of both dishes comes from the same pot of thick soup, a pot of pure meat thick soup stewed from cheap whole chicken, pork, and beef. Though I just used the word ‘cheap,’ this doesn’t mean that the ingredients are of poor quality. On the contrary, they are excellent cuts of meat, it’s just that the best and most expensive parts weren’t chosen, nor did Chef Arno opt for the beef with the finest, most delicately dispersed marbling.”

“This pot created the thick soup for these two dishes. The production process is not as simple as that of ordinary broth. Although there isn’t a high demand for skimming the soup, the stirring and filtering are more demanding and test the chef’s skills. From what I saw, Chef Arno continuously watched over and tirelessly stewed this thick soup for nearly ten hours.”

“I believe everyone must be curious by now, wondering what kind of dishes would make Chef Arno patiently and carefully tend a thick soup for ten hours. It seems that only some sophisticated and expensive ingredients would do justice to such a broth, but in fact, these ingredients will indeed surprise everyone because the soup is actually a vegetable soup.”

“It’s made up of ordinary vegetables, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, carrots, and the like, commonly seen in ordinary thick soups. At first taste, the soup’s flavor also seems very ordinary. When I took the first sip, I even felt like I was drinking the thick soup my wife made for me.”

“Of course, this is just a comparison. My wife’s cooking skills are very poor, and perhaps using my mother’s would have been more appropriate, but I feel the term ‘wife’s thick soup’ fits better.”

“This is a pot that doesn’t make you feel amazed or find it delicious and fresh at the first sip, but it is very warming and even resembles an ordinary, happy story. A soup stewed by a wife in a humble home spending hours to reward her husband, hard at work outside. Though lacking expensive ingredients and even without a trace of meat visible in the soup, it gives one a taste of beauty in the ordinary and brings out the flavor of home.”

“If we were to speak of using the simplest, most rustic ingredients to make the warmest, most delicious food, it would definitely be this dish.”

“It’s hard to believe that a dish from Chef Arno would carry such a warm-hearted style, but it is indeed true, and don’t be surprised just yet, because there’s still another dish waiting to amaze you.”

“Nameless Hodgepodge.”

“This is a genuine hodgepodge dish, the raw materials being all the remnants filtered from that very soup. After hours of stewing, the original chicken, pork, and beef, and even some tiny bones completely dissolved and fragmented, mixing together and making it impossible to distinguish what was what. Chef Arno then stir-fried this mix on high heat, seasoned it with spices in a process as crude as Brassica rapa, with a taste that is likewise simple and crude.”

“Although it may not be appropriate, this is a dish with a strong sense of the jianghu.”

“It’s hard to believe that a dish which leaves diners unable to discern what they are eating could appear on the table of a high-end restaurant. This dish seems more suited for those worn-out, greasy, even somewhat dirty stir-fry shops. Bustling, noisy, steaming, with a cacophony of voices, a few good friends, a cheap beer diluted with water, a delicious dish, a simple, vivid life.”

“Although I cannot understand, nor can I know why Chef Arno, who became famous at a young age and all dishes are known for being expensive, even his name synonymous with high-class cuisine, would excel in such two dishes that embody ordinariness to the extreme. But when I think about the time spent behind these two ordinary dishes, I suddenly feel that the utmost ordinariness is also a kind of luxury.”

“Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup, Golden Jade Cabbage, Nameless Soup, and Nameless Hodgepodge are four dishes with different styles, each with its unique features. The only commonality might be that they are extremely complex and extremely delicious. The dishes presented by Master Jiang Feng and Chef Arno in the final match each displayed two extremes of deliciousness.”

“The two dishes by Master Jiang Feng were luxurious and expensive; even the seemingly homely Golden Jade Cabbage required sea cucumber and abalone soup as a complement. Chef Arno’s two dishes, on the other hand, were ordinary, were of everyday life, like dishes that everyone could make and everyone could execute effortlessly. (although they were all extraordinary)”
“Initially, when I contacted the chief editor to tell him to hurry the other food critics to submit their articles because Taste was about to be published in the next two days, he was quite surprised. It might be because he didn’t expect that I would actually have Taste published on schedule this year, nor did he expect me to urge it so urgently. Actually, before this contest, I hadn’t thought that I would be so proactive in writing this article and so actively demanding Taste to be published.”

“I’ve realized that over the years, I had entered into a trap, one created by my own arrogance and pride. When I was young, I was passionate and fervent about gastronomy, daring to travel north and south across the world with just a camera, a pen, a notebook, and a backpack, seeking and tasting different delicacies from various places, regardless of their rank or price, always curious and reverential.”

“But as I aged, and as my fame in the industry grew, I lost that passion and reverence for food. To this day, I can no longer remember the last time I set out enthusiastically with a backpack, traveling miles and crossing mountains, based on someone else’s mere mention of a mysterious delicacy.”

“I even once arrogantly thought that there were no more delicacies in the world that could touch me. Having lost the basic reverence for food, I gradually came to find every dish ordinary, even those created by masters and famous chefs, and regarded them merely as ordinary tasty dishes.”

“In this regard, I think I need to learn from my friend Mr. Han. He is about my age, and in earlier years, he also traveled far and wide tasting food from different places. But to this day, his immense longing for, passion for, and even respect for food endure. He goes to Taifeng Building on time every day like any ordinary moment, frustrated if he fails to secure a dish, and even sends me WeChat messages to boast when he secures one. Before I ridiculed him as if he had never tasted fine food or seen the world, but now, it seems I am the one who should be mocked; I have tasted fine foods, but I haven’t truly savored them.”

“This time, the four dishes, like a sobering blow to the head, woke me up. There is still so much unknown, mysterious deliciousness in the world worth exploring. I previously thought I had seen it all, but it was just because my experience was shallow. Whether luxurious and high-end, or ordinary and cheap, each has its merits and its wonderful aspects.”

“Therefore, I’ve made a significant decision. Starting this year, Taste will return to its previous status as a monthly magazine. Like in my younger days, I will revisit places I’ve toured and those I haven’t, those I’ve sought out and those I haven’t. I hope Taste can be as diverse and vibrant as before, and I too can remain as enthusiastic and always reverential as before.”