A bold thought flashed through Xu Le’s mind.

Although the chicken soup was indeed fresh and flavorful, it was no different from traditional cooking. Moreover, Lu Yuxi had also expressed her doubts in the previous round. Could it be that he really had to make two main dishes?

Dried stirred noodles with red oil and sesame sauce was the most appetizing. With cucumber shreds and fried peanuts, it would definitely improve the flavor.

Xu Le immediately compared the sesame sauce with the peanut butter and added MSG, sugar, and pepper.

On the other hand, the red oil was fried with dried, fragrant chili powder. Scallions, onions, peppercorns, dried peppers, sweet fruits, fragrant leaves… There were more than a dozen spices. They were thrown into the hot oil, where it emitted smoke and then cooled. After the crackling sound, a fragrance was produced.

He stir-fried slowly. After all the spices and ingredients had turned browned, he scooped out the contents and threw them away. He heated the oil again and waited for it to cool.

The chili powder was made with cone peppers, bell peppers, and Indian peppers. After drying them, they were ground into powder and mixed according to the proportion. When 60% hot oil was poured down, it immediately forced out a choking dry fragrance.

Xu Le took the opportunity to pour some white wine inside.

The white wine quickly evaporated under the high temperature, leaving only a faint fragrance.

To cater to the texture liked by most people, Xu Le specially paid attention to the fragrance of the red oil. He did not put anything too spicy. After the crystal clear balls in the pot were scooped up, they were wrapped in red oil and sesame sauce. Finally, he sprinkled a handful of sesame cucumber shreds and cooked peanuts.

It looked, smelled, and tasted delicious. Just looking at it made one’s appetite increase.

Xu Le was nervous about his sudden improvisation. He carefully took a bite. The sesame sauce was thick and sticky. It was red, smooth, and slightly spicy. It was wrapped in soft and smooth powder.

Before he could react to the taste, he involuntarily ate a few. As if he was addicted, his stomach was extremely satisfied.

He stood there for a long time. Finally, Xu Le nodded, as if an invisible faith was guiding him.

He was going to make it like this!

As soon as he opened his eyes, Xu Le’s gaze landed on Lu Yuxi’s phone. She was frowning and looked very unhappy. On the red and green bullet screen of the phone, there was a mixed evaluation of him.

“Let me see.”

“Sigh, stop looking. It’ll affect your mood.”

As Lu Yuxi spoke, she was about to exit the live-stream. However, when she saw Xu Le’s outstretched hand, she hesitated for a while before handing the phone to him.

“They don’t know you. There are many people talking nonsense. Ignore them.”

On the screen, the Master Chef had already reached the stage of cutting chrysanthemum tofu. After the soft and smooth inner tofu was cut out on his palm and placed into the water, it immediately bloomed into a white chrysanthemum.

The tofu was as thin as a needle and swayed gently in the water.

“Isn’t this the same principle as the Wensi Tofu you made previously?”

Lu Yuxi curled her lips and was very indignant.

Many audience members who had never come into contact with him had their horizons widened and praised the Master Chef. There was no lack of negative comments about Xu Le.

“He’s just a child. Hurry up and wash up and sleep. Hurry up and let me see the true appearance of the Master Chef. I’m looking forward to it!”

“In any case, that little chef will definitely lose in the end. I can’t tell anything special from the thing he made. It’s obvious that it’s tasteless.”

“Everyone, quickly vote for the Master Chef!”

“Master Chef, you can do it. Just anything for the child will do.”

“The braised octopus looked like it had mutated, yet the judges kept praising it. Could there be any cheating involved?”

“Octopus can be paired with braised meat? I’ve never seen it before, okay?”

A bunch of harsh words flashed past Xu Le’s eyes. He pursed his lips and ambition rose in his eyes.

Soon, the first half of the competition ended. The few of them returned to the stage. The Internet voting on the big screen was still soaring. The host shouted the countdown, “Five, four, three… one! Stop! Alright, now we can see the accumulated votes of both sides from last night to now. Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands… Oh, the number of votes is too large. The backstage will convert it to votes equivalent to the live votes at the scene.”

The conversion was incredible. They did not expect that there would be so many people participating in the voting. Xu Le received 467 votes, while the Master Chef received 442 votes. The difference between the two was huge.

He raised his eyebrows and said to Li Qing, “Thank you for helping us draw more votes.”

“That’s of course. With my face, if I stand there…”

Before Li Qing could finish bragging, the live votes were also counted in. He exclaimed, “Why? Is there something fishy about the voting?”

Xu Le’s lead was pulled back again. He even had three fewer votes than the Master Chef.

The host heaved a long sigh of relief and said, “The online voting ends here. When the second half of the competition ends, we’ll use the accumulated votes as the standard.”

Li Qing rolled his eyes in anger. As Zhang Tong walked, he asked in a low voice, “Could it be that the production team did something to the voting?”

“Impossible. The online voting is all public and transparent. Besides, they don’t dare to do that.”

Once it was exposed, all the competitions and publicity around the world would be ruined.

The requirement for the second half of the competition was still three dishes. There was no theme and it was free to play.

Xu Le counted the remaining ingredients. If he had a comprehensive plan, he should be able to use them well for cooking.

Just now, Lu Yuxi had been extracting shrimp roe for two hours. Out of the dozens of kilograms of river prawns, she only extracted two pots of them. He poured them into the pot and kept stirring them over a small fire until the water vapor in the shrimp roe was dried and the color was bright red.

The prawns were added with flour and salt to ensure that the texture was fresh and tender. Then, they were cooked in oil.

Then, he cooked the prawn shell from before. This way, it was convenient to take out the prawn head. The prawn head was the same as the crab roe. Only mature female prawns had it, so it was very precious and rare.

He did not throw away the prawn shell. He poured the oil back into the pot and stir-fried it with a small fire. The oil at the bottom was filled with the essence of the prawn shell. It was golden and clear. This was the fourth ingredient of the six prawn noodles—shrimp oil.

After adding water to the shrimp shell that had been stir-fried just now, the lid was covered and it would be boiled with salt for an hour. When the lid of the pot was lifted, the bottom of the soup would become pale yellow and thick.

At this point, the prawn shell had already become very crispy. After forcing out the soup inside, it was directly stir-fried with medium heat. As it was stir-fried, he used a spatula to crush the prawn shell. After it was completely fried, he placed it in the blender and ground it into prawn powder.

The most troublesome thing about the Six Shrimp Noodles was the extraction of side ingredients. Shrimp roe, shrimp oil, shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp head, and shrimp powder were indispensable.

Next, he had to add flour to the shrimp powder to make the noodles. This way, the noodles would have a fresh shrimp smell.

Xu Le rolled up his sleeves and started kneading the dough.

On the other side, Chen Yeqi was completely stunned. He said, “He won’t be able to finish so many procedures. It turns out that Xu Le was preparing the ingredients for the second half of the dishes from the beginning. We won’t make it in time.”

Chen Zui said, “Then let’s change to another dish.”

Chen Yeqi said nervously, “You saw Xu Le’s capability. If we don’t cook the same dish as him, can we still win?”

“Don’t worry, there are still two more dishes. Just make them the same.”