Chapter 972 San Lan Hotpot

Qin Zhong looked at the chefs’ cooking utensils. OMG! They are all a combination of metal and meteor material! WTF! They use a Dragon-blade material to forge a cooking knife?!

Old Wang then brought them the fish fin and everyone came to get a share of it.

Lin Liang got himself a bowl. Wow, he added the crab-mushroom from the mushroom forest! And look, he even separated the meat and the shell. The meat was crafted into a flower while the shell and mushroom were used to boil the soup. The fish fin was then added in later. The crab-mushroom has its own salty taste and so no other seasoning is needed. The fin itself is smooth and juicy. It is different from the Sky Nine Fin as it absorbs the soup well. Not only does it keep the juice within it, its own aroma of wine also mixes well with the soup. Once it enters your mouth, you will start to feel the urge to suck it. This fish fin crab mushroom is definitely one of the best in the field of culinary!

Huang Zhong poured himself a big bowl and swallowed it in one shot. Lin Liang was speechless at such disregard towards the delicacy. Old general, can you at least respect the food… Being no match to Huang Zhong, he dared not let that slip out of his mouth.

Ye Beibei was resting himself on Cao Cao’s body while enjoying his fish milt very much.

“Beibei seems to like his godfather a lot…” Ye Xiaoming told his wife.

“Yeap, Uncle Cao plays with Beibei whenever he is free,” Wang Lily said. “But it is a pity for his wife… I heard that she passed away a long time ago.”

“Oh yeah, brother, the 4th of May is day for the Five Schools Competition. What category are we joining?” Zhang Zhengxiong asked.

“The survival category is an obvious choice. After that, you can join the martial arts battle and Lele can join the hidden weapon. As for me, I’ll join whichever I feel like joining when the time comes. The six-men team will consist of you, Lele, Lil’Dino, Lil’Tian, anyone from Old Liu’s side and me.” Ye Cang sighed as he ate the food. “We have been eating light meals. Can we have something that has a stronger flavor next time? Sigh. I don’t think you guys know the way to do it. I guess I’d have to take over.”

“Then, let’s have San Lan Hotpot next time. I know the skills,” Old Wang smiled.

“San Lan is located in the southwest. It uses the fats from Père David’s deer as the main oil and forms the soup base with more than forty ingredients. It’s spicy yet aromatic. In terms of the ingredients, we can even make some amendments to it. Just the chillies itself would comprise of a few different types…” Old Wang further explained.

“Oh, San Lan Hotpot is a good idea. It has been awhile since I last ate it. It surely does make my saliva drip. But you only managed to taste the most authentic one in San Lan. Those in the Imperial Capital are inedible.” ThornyRose recalled the very first time she had San Lan Hotpot. It was when she headed to San Lan for the Five Schools Competition and the opponents brought them to a local restaurant to introduce their local specialty. The restaurant was not a fancy place and looked more like a cave but the aroma it gave out was like a factory producing the finest food one could find in the world. How unforgettable. After that, she would always go all the way to San Lan for it with FrozenBlood during the end of the season.

“San Lan’s dishes are different from Lin Hai’s. Lin Hai focuses on freshness while San Lan uses spices to bring out the taste of other ingredients, triggering one’s taste buds to the highest extent. But of course, this is only the spice category of San Lan’s dishes. Other San Lan dishes require refined skills too, for example, Boiling Water Napa Cabbage. After going through the hassle of making many modifications, this dish is one soup experts must master. Put the ten fresh ingredients into the water, process it through a special technique and the final outcome of the soup will be as light as tea. It is often matched with jade cabbage as well. You may think it looks ordinary but its soup is extremely thick and flavorful…” Old Li was once an apprentice of Master San Lan.

“My late husband was a citizen of San Lan. He was the only chef that I’d ever met who knew how to use spices that well. Qian Yidao was his apprentice.” Old Marilyn said and Qin Zhong knew who her husband was. The Hundred Spice Priest. The other federation addresses him as the Saint of Spices. He knew all about spices across the globe. His San Lan Mixed Stew is his signature and no one could ever imitate it. Never close. People could even exaggerate that he could use cat’s excrement to make the juice of A10 beef. That was one of his pranks to insult an English chef. He was totally different from his junior. The Hundred Spice Priest was tricky. Yeap, tricky…the prank on the English chef was still tolerable but the one on the Japanese…gosh, it’s just so disgusting thinking about it.

What Old Marilyn recalled was that it was Qian Yidao who gave up on chasing her and gave the opportunity to his master… She was mad after knowing the truth and so she got together with Hundred Spice. The thought of Hundred Spice put a smirk on her face. This old fella is sure tricky even when it comes to death. How could he leave me alone…

Old Wang and Old Li were afraid of the Hundred Spice Priest. They were often tricked by him and yet they were grateful for his teachings. People may have heard that he excels when it comes to spices, but little did they know that his regular cooking skills are not anywhere weaker than Qian Yidao’s. It is just that… he doesn’t care. In fact, he was the annoying one among all the chefs. He never liked the idea of cooking regularly. Those people who dislike him would probably have trauma after knowing what they had put into their mouths. Imagine the disgust if they knew they had praised how great the food was when they had no idea about its ingredients. Or maybe you could say he is more like playing with the ingredients instead of really cooking. He is the only one who can cook the San Lan Mixed Stew. 131 spices, the portion, weight and mixture. It is totally the finest of taste. Only people who play around with spices to this level could come up with another San Lan Mixed Stew. It is somewhat similar to Qian Yidao’s Emperor’s Sky.

“If you’ve ever tasted the Mixed Stew, there will be no other stew that can be better…” Panty Uncle recalled the one time when he had the chance to taste the San Lan Mixed Stew during his young age. It was also when he realized cooking shouldn’t be something people can look down on.

“Is it really that nice?” ThornyRose’s words made Qin Zhong laugh. “Comparing the San Lan Hotpot with the Mixed Stew is like comparing heaven and earth. What a pity, Hundred Spice Priest…”

“Really?!” ThornyRose felt it was fake but Lin Liang cleared her doubts. “Well, that’s true… His level of playing around with spices is unreachable by anyone else. Once he gets to smell or taste of a spice, there will be millions of ideas flashing through his mind.”

“Sister Marilyn, do you have the recipe? I can definitely cook it!” Ye Cang’s words literally gave everyone a shock. You?!

Old Marilyn let him have a glance at the recipe and Ye Cang blinked. “Hmm…quite complicated…we’ll talk about it again after some time…”

Just the categories of spices gave him a headache. Yet, he felt that the knowledge he gained was a lot. So, these animals’ excrement and urine can be used as spices. So I was right about the fact that excrement can be included into a dish. It was just that they didn’t believe me.

“Stop thinking about it. Old Li and I knew the recipe of this dish long ago but when we really put our hands into cooking it, we then realized it was difficult” Old Wang smiled and asked everyone to eat more of the fish fin.

After filling his stomach, Huang Zhong put on his diving suit and walked towards the Million Wine Tree. “I’ll go get something for dinner tonight.”

“Uncle! Get something smaller! A different species! Don’t get something too big! We won’t be able to finish!” Even though Wu Na knew it was useless reminding him, she shouted anyway.

“Since we are all full, let’s go for a walk in the mushroom forest.” Liu Bei stretched and started picking his teeth. The others then followed him to the mushroom forest.