Rainy nights, like smoke and fog, when the brocade twilight rain falls from the sky, a sense of hesitation arises.

The night was deep, and the rain poured down uncontrollably, and in the midst of the loud rain, there seemed to be some kind of mystery lingering. A pair of clogs stepped through the rain curtain, the heavy dampness enveloped the whole world, the strong rain pounded the ground, and the hand that tried to hold the hat unconsciously increased its strength.

In such a rainy night, because there will be no fire accidents, even the guard will not come out, because the rain is too strong, even the patrolling soldiers have stopped patrolling, all stay in the patrol camp, after all, such a heavy rain, in the context of peace and prosperity of the country and the people, even the small robbers do not like to work in this weather, let alone ordinary people, so in this pouring night, there is not even a mouse on the quiet street.

However, a dark shadow suddenly appeared, dressed in a robe, wearing a hat, and stepping on the wet ground with bare feet and clogs. The drainage system of Suzhou City is very good, such a heavy rain, there is not even stagnant water, the rainwater falls into a stream of water to flow towards the drainage outlet not far away, and soon disappears in the sewer, people walk on such a road, covered by the sound of the rain, even the footsteps of treading water can not be heard.

Because it is summer and the weather is hot, the scene of the King Chef Contest in the west of the city, the stoves on both sides are covered with awnings, which were originally used to block the sun.

Such a heavy rain even the patrol team is on vacation, let alone others. At this time, there was no one around the Chef Championship stage, not even half a ghost could be seen, only the roar of rain made a chilling echo in the empty West Square.

A tall figure walked from the dark alley to the front of the stage. The dark shadows stretched out in the rainy night.

The huge hat covered his entire face, and he couldn't see his face clearly, nor could he see his expression, but he felt that in the night when the north wind was whimpering and the cold rain was crying, the corners of his mouth seemed to be hooked with a smile, a smile that looked like a ghost crying as much as possible, and he was triumphant. As if suppressing the trembling pleasure in his heart, he rushed to the stage and squatted in front of the stove. Pull something out of your bosom and throw it into the hearth.

The cold wind is howling, and the rain is pouring in.

……

Heavy rain fell for many days, causing houses to collapse in a civilian area in the west of the city. There were two minor casualties. As a result of this accident, the final final of the King of Chefs competition was suspended for 15 days, and even the township test that was supposed to be held this year was postponed, and when the new date of the competition and the new township test were announced, there was only one day between the two.

Because of this, Su Miao was originally very opposed to Su Yan continuing to be her assistant, she wanted Su Yan to do more to read the book, but Su Yan was unwilling. He seems to be addicted to performing on stage, and he has to continue to go on stage. Su Miao couldn't help it, so he had to agree.

At the beginning of the rain, the leaves at the root of the wall were still rolling with crystal water droplets, when the day was just dawning, Su Miao squatted under the flower roots in the corner of the wall, dug the soil with a shovel, dug out a sealed jar from it, held it out with her hands full of mud, and sniffed it through the sealed altar mouth, although she didn't smell anything, she bloomed a happy smile and nodded with satisfaction.

Aftertaste came out of the room, passed by the corner, stopped, and looked at her in amazement, her hands covered in mud.

Su Miao sensed his arrival, turned around, smiled, and held the mud-stained jar high:

"Look, it's fermented!"

Aftertaste looked at her with an unacceptable expression, paused, and reprimanded stiffly:

"Don't wash your hands yet! Early in the morning, the clothes are not neat, what a system! ”

Su Miao looked down at herself who was only wearing a light pink sleeveless long nightdress, and touched her unkempt and uncombed long hair with her mud-stained hand, and in the expression that was more and more shocked and wanted to go crazy in the aftertaste, she flattened her lips, jumped up, and slammed the mud-covered jar into the aftertaste's arms, and said with a smile:

"Look, this is a baby!" Turned around and bounced to freshen up.

Aftertaste was stunned to see that all the mud on the jar was sticking to his clothes, the corners of his mouth twitched fiercely, and he was furious, he really didn't let him stop early in the morning!

Su Miao changed her clothes, happily followed a gloomy aftertaste out of the door, and went to the game site in the west of the city.

The whole city has become wet, the streets on the beams of the grass and trees on the sky are full of damp breath, although the hot sun hangs in the sky to release the heat to make people believe that it is still the middle of summer at this time, but the strong sun can not dispel the humidity in the city of Suzhou, these damp fall on people, the skin immediately becomes a wet piece, although the rainy season in the south of the Yangtze River has been spent for many years, but like this year, because of the heavy rain unusually humid weather is still difficult to adapt, The skin seems to be stuck with moisture, and people can't even sweat out.

Su Miao didn't like it very much, but when passing by the west of the city, she saw that the collapsed houses had been cleaned up, and new houses had begun to be built in full swing at the original address.

came to the west of the city under the stage, it was very rare that Tong Ran did not come.

Su Miao has always been the last to arrive, although she will not be late, but she is used to arriving at the last minute and never rushes early. In the past, Tong Ran arrived first and then waited for Su Miao, but he didn't expect that this time it would be Su Miao waiting for him, and there was less than a quarter of an hour left before the game.

Su Miao wrinkled her nose, a little unhappy, she has always appeared in the finale, but she didn't expect to be robbed of the finale opportunity by Tong Ran today.

I don't know if it's because of the heavy rain that has been raining for many days has extinguished people's enthusiasm, or because it has rained for many days and caused too many things to happen around people, in short, it's obviously the last game, but today's audience is half less than usual, and even the gambling game in the teahouses on both sides is much more depressed than the previous games, so cold that Su Miao even thinks that it should be because she smashed her signboard in the last game, so people don't want to watch her compare.

The judges held their morning meeting as usual. Before he arrived, there were many fewer people in the audience area than usual, and Su Miao sat in the corner under the stage. Grunted and asked aftertaste:

"There are a lot fewer people today, so it stands to reason that there should be more people today, right?"

"It's not time yet, what are you anxious about, you are so showy?" Aftertaste squinted at her and asked coolly.

Su Miao looked at him, blinked her eyes twice, and replied unabashedly: "Love! Of course I love it! No one was looking at me. I wasn't motivated when I was competing, and the more people looked at me, the more motivated I became. ”

Aftertaste looked at her. Speechlessly, he twitched his eyebrows, raised his chin to the audience area opposite, and said:

"Don't worry, that little henchman of yours is always there."

Su Miao was slightly stunned. Follow his gaze. Sure enough, seeing the front row of the viewing area, Feng Erniu stretched her neck and looked around, she would stand in that position almost every time she came, that position seemed to have become her exclusive seat, Su Miao raised her eyebrows, her body was crooked, half leaning on her aftertaste's shoulder, looking at Feng Erniu and saying:

"She didn't go grocery shopping again?"

"How could it be. Once or twice she ran out secretly, and three or four times eighty percent was with her mother's consent. Looks like she's got a crush on you. Aftertaste let her lean on and said with a smile.

Su Miao blinked, stared at Feng Erniu for a while, and grinned:

"That's an interesting girl."

Aftertaste glanced at her, she was half leaning on his shoulder, and he stroked a handful of her slightly messy long hair, and a smile curled up at the corner of his lips.

When Tong Ran, who had just entered, saw this scene, a pair of willow eyes were slightly downcast, and he walked over with a folding fan lightly, and the smile at the corners of his eyebrows and eyes was graceful:

"Miss Su, it's really early today." He stood in front of Su Miao and said with a smile.

"It's not that I'm early, it's that you're late." Su Miao was still leaning on the shoulder of the aftertaste, and said lightly, a little lazy.

Seeing this, Tong Ran's eyes sank slightly, a ghostly light flashed in his eyes, paused, the corners of his lips hooked up a smile of unknown meaning, and he didn't speak.

Su Miao sat on the bench, leaning on the aftertaste and looking at him with her neck tilted, her face expressionless.

Tong Ran stood in front of her, looking at her condescendingly, as if smiling.

At this moment, the judges, who seemed to have finished the meeting, finally appeared in the audience's field of vision, and each returned to his seat and sat down.

There were also people in the audience area, perhaps because of the heavy rain before, today is obviously the last final, and the people watching the game are really not as many as in the previous games.

The last game of the Qin'an Division is also the last final of Su Miao and Tong Ran, the current situation is that Su Miao temporarily leads by one game, if Su Miao wins this game, then Su Miao will win the championship of the Qin'an Division Finals, and at the same time advance to the Liangdu Finals as the chef of the Qin'an Division; If Tong Ran wins this game, such a cursed draw will appear again, and it seems that no one wants to see such an ending again, and such an ending is something that many viewers absolutely never want to see.

Mr. Jiang made a brief opening remarks, and then struck the golden gong with a golden mallet, and the final game kicked off in this way.

Both sides were clearly well prepared, and after the start of the game, they neither thought nor discussed, went straight to the ingredient table to get the ingredients, returned to their stoves, and began the intense cooking work.

Su Miao took a fresh catfish, removed the gills and scales, and cleaned it.

This time she brought three jars, and the jars contained her homemade sour soup.

The boatman used sour soup to cook fish soup, turning sour fish soup into a very famous snack on Shihu, but the boatman's skills are limited after all, whether it is the taste of sour soup or the taste of fish soup, it is just a snack at best, Su Miao knows the orthodox method of sour fish soup, although she has never done it, but she has learned, the only thing she lacks is the experience of failure.

So it took her half a month, to be honest, she didn't think about making this soup at all before the heavy rain, she planned another one, but because of the sudden heavy rain and the delay of the competition, she finally made up her mind to choose to cook sour fish soup.

If you want to make sour fish soup, the most critical step is sour soup, sour soup is divided into two kinds, one is white sour soup, also known as clear sour soup, which is brewed with rice soup, and the rice soup is made with good glutinous rice, the soup must have a sweet aftertaste, and the cooked rice soup must be full of rice fragrance.

First, mix the old noodles used to make noodles, put them in a basin, add ten catties of warm water, mix them and pour them into the pot, stirring while heating. Then boil the glutinous rice flour with water, pour it into the pot, wait for the soup in the pot to boil, put it into an earthen jar, and seal it for about seven days.

Then there is the red sour soup, the red sour soup is to wash the tomatoes and put them into the jar, pour in the ginger, salt, garlic, chili, glutinous rice flour and white wine, fill the jar and then cover it with water for 15 days, take out the raw materials and chop them into crushed puree.

After that, it is spicy sour, which is fried with sour chili peppers until you see red oil, then fresh tomatoes are added and stir-fried, and then the broth is added to boil and strain the dregs.

The last two flavors are chutney and shrimp paste, the chutney sauce is a sauce made from fresh red peppers, fish and glutinous rice, with a small amount of salt and sweet wine, and put into the jar to ferment; Shrimp paste is actually a kind of shrimp sour, shrimp paste is sold in Suzhou City, there is a sauce called "rice shrimp paste" in Suzhou City, which is made of small shrimp and rice after rotting with salt, Su Miao has not enough time, after buying shrimp paste from the market, pour sweet wine lees and burnt chili noodles into it, and put it into the fermentation jar to ferment.

The most important thing about this soup is these sour soups, the method of cooking is very simple, put the pot on the fire, put the oil, pour in the ginger slices, garlic cloves, wood ginger, peppercorns and stir-fry over low heat, and then pour in the red sour soup and stir-fry until fragrant, at this time put in the tomato sour soup and continue to fry until fragrant. Add bamboo shoots, soybean sprouts, add the prepared white sour soup to a boil, put the catfish in the pot and simmer over low heat for 3 to 5 minutes. When the fish is ripe, add salt, chicken powder, paprika, pepper and sugar to the soup, continue to simmer for five minutes, then pour in the prepared wood ginger oil, put it in the soup bowl, add the green onion and coriander to adjust the color.

The sour fish soup has a mellow sour taste and a fragrant entrance, which is very distinctive.

The taste of this soup is a very special dish in the whole chef competition, Jiangnan people like sweet, the most important taste of other cuisines is "sweet and salty", only this soup is sour, sour just right, sour makes people feel numb, the entrance is a kind of soft bones crispy heart wonderful taste is characteristic, people only need to taste a bite, and then unforgettable.

But I never thought that there would be a huge problem in the last step of cooking.

"Second sister, why can't this fire rise?" Su Yan frowned, stood up from the stove, and said suspiciously. (To be continued.) )