How To Melt An Ice Cube 18 Contest 2

It looked a little weird but it was the taste the mattered right? Not how the dish looked at least this is what the young man believed. He had made one of his family's traditional recipes that had called for pork, soy sauce, sugar and salt. Even thought it was supposed to be done in with a large portion of pork all that was left were pieces that no one had wanted. However, even if the pork was smaller it would still work out just fine. He was positive that he would make his family proud at the compet.i.tion when he returned home with the Emperor's good will.

Rubbing his hands together he couldn't wait for the tasting to begin in antic.i.p.ation. His pork looked as though it was burnt from the soy sauce and sugar caramelizing together to form a thick sauce over the pork, but that was just the color of the dish. If one were to bite into the pork you would first taste sweet than salty outside coating followed by juicy tender pork on the inside. The dish was very easy to do but one had to ensure that the pot was kept at optimal temperature or else the sugar would burn leaving a gross aftertaste to the pork.

________

The runner up was from the north part of the country here they didn't have to much rice, however, flour was the common ingredient used. His name was Yang Yang. From his own hands, he had created the most prized restaurant in the north. The most famous dish in his restaurant was chicken soup dumplings. The dumplings were bite sized with a flat bottom that was pinched at the top. On the inside was ground up chicken that had been combined with spices and sat within its own broth that it had been cooked in.

Adding the broth inside the dumpling added a great deal of flavor the first time you bit into the dumpling. Creating a new experience from a traditional dumpling that he had used last year. The unique flavors all came together to create a delicious aroma and taste.

On Yang Yang's stove top there were used bamboo steamers that the dumplings had been cooked in. On the very bottom steamer instead of putting in dumplings Yang Yang had placed fragrant herbs to infused with the steam and partially give the outside of the dumpling a different taste than any other dumplings that had come before.

This was a technique that he had been developing ever since losing last year to Hu Ge. The Emperor had said "for dumplings they were good, but what was special about them? What would make him want these dumplings above all other?" Yang Yang had been left thinking about this for a whole month before completely changing the way that he had made dumplings. Now he had not just filling, but soup that was also complemented by the herbs on the outside.

Yang Yang knew that he had the answer that he couldn't provide last time in the compet.i.tion. He could not wait to kick Hu Ge off his high pedestal and stand on it himself.

___

Hu Ge, the champion from last year hadn't won by sheer luck but with ability. He prided himself on being creative with the dishes that he would make. Each year for months on end he would live in the wild and create dishes with the food that he found. One night when he had been cold with very little food besides rice on him. After eating just bland rice for days on end Hu Ge couldn't take it anymore and tried something different

Instead of boiling rice in water and waiting for it to become fluffy that night he had wrapped the little amount of rice left in bamboo leaves to give it some flavor and then boil it that way. To his surprised it made a type of sticky rice and gave it a completely different texture then it normally had.

Hu Ge rushed back to his kitchen with multiple piles of bamboo leaves to further perfect the craft of creating sticky rice. He mixed cooked mushrooms, pork, spices and a few peppers into the rice before wrapping the mixture into the leaves. Which is the dish that he had made for the Emperor today. The Emperor was going to be the first person to try the dish, who had not helped in preparing it

To keep it completely a secret from everyone else he would not unwrap the bamboo leaves on till the Emperor was about to try it. He Gu was absolutely confident that he would keep the champion t.i.tle and continue to maintain his family's honor.

______

Mai stared at everyone's dish and realized that she might have underestimated

them a little. She was not worried though, because who didn't like soup with thick chewy noodles in it. Although if she had been able to pick her food at the same time as everyone else she definitely would have made something else. However, Mai was not disappointed in her dish as others could be if they had to make something with the bare minimum of leftovers that had been left. Mai liked to fight against the odds. "Its actually a good thing that you guys didn't let me pick first! I would have made something so amazing that the sheer amount of flavor would be too overwhelming" Mai thought to herself. This line of thinking helped her prepare for when the Emperor was going to be standing over her trying her food to judge. In the end she stood there tall as a tree and confident in her dish waiting to be announced the winner