Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle-Chapter 705 - 359: Relaxation (Part 2)

Under normal circumstances, once a teammate has explored the wrong path, they should proceed onto the correct path. So why is Qin Huai still speeding down the wrong road?

"Zheng Siyuan has his own ideas, and I have mine. Have you ever tried Zheng Siyuan’s Four Happiness Glutinous Rice Balls? If you get the chance, you can ask Zheng Siyuan to make them for you, though he might not particularly enjoy making them. His Four Happiness Glutinous Rice Balls are completely different from mine; he has his own approach to making snacks. You’ll know once you try them."

"His snacks...have a very distinct personal touch."

Zang Liang: ?

A few minutes later, the Double Crab Buns were out of the pot. Normally, Tan Wei’an would be the one to taste them, but Zang Liang was too curious to know why Qin Huai was so certain that this batch of Double Crab Buns would crash and burn, so he volunteered to taste them.

Then Zang Liang discovered that whether Zheng Siyuan’s snacks had a personal touch or not, he didn’t know, but Qin Huai’s crashing did have quite a distinctive personal touch.

There was a certain beauty to crashing into a wall and not turning back, even taking two steps forward after hitting the wall.

That afternoon, Zang Liang gained a brand new understanding of unorthodox methods.

For the next week, the Double Crab Bun research team fell into a long, dead-end loop.

Everyone had their role, but nobody was doing their job properly.

Zang Liang found a little sense in the thickening process, but only a little. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

He understood, but not completely.

He learned it, but not entirely.

This couldn’t really be blamed on Zang Liang. Cao Guixiang’s thickening techniques were inherently difficult, Qin Huai hadn’t even mastered them, let alone taught Zang Liang. Even when Zang Liang was thickening, Cao Guixiang watched via video call and thought he learned pretty quickly and had no major issues; it was simply a matter of technique not being fully developed, so the thickening wasn’t quite right.

The inadequately executed thickening directly led the Crab Yellow Sauce to be slightly improved, but just slightly, still far from what everyone desired.

Zheng Siyuan’s progress wasn’t ideal either. When Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan felt the dough should be fluffier, they realized it shouldn’t be that fluffy and should have more chewiness.

When they kneaded the dough towards being more chewy, they found it shouldn’t be that chewy and needed to be a bit fluffier. You could say that shifting a bit to the left was wrong, and moving a bit to the right was also wrong; they could never find that balance in between.

Qin Huai and Zheng Siyuan, for the first time, felt so unfamiliar with dough, despite being pastry chefs for so many years, they suddenly felt they didn’t even know how to knead dough properly.

Not to mention Qin Huai, his case wasn’t just an ordinary crash.

He was crashing, slightly crashing, then improving slightly, looking pretty good, nearing success, and then crashing in the end. Again, slightly crashing, then improving slightly, looking pretty good, nearing success, and recently crashing again, stuck in a dead loop.

Whenever he felt he was nearing success, success would smack him hard, telling him: "You still dare to think you’re near success? Keep dreaming, get lost!"

In those 7 days, Qin Huai got smacked by success over 70 times at least, his face nearly swollen from all the slapping, yet he still couldn’t touch the point of balancing the meat cooking and the pastry.

Now Qin Huai fully understood why Zheng Siyuan was afraid to face reality for a long time after the first Double Crab Bun crash because only by making them would one realize just how difficult it was to face such a crash.

This wasn’t an ordinary crash; it was a crash that made one confront their technical skills and ability issues.

As for Tan Wei’an, he was actually suffering the most.

Though Tan Wei’an seemed to be hovering outside the team for 7 days, making Green Bean Cake for 7 days straight and even showing some progress, being the most successful in the team, in reality, his true task during those 7 days was to taste the Double Crab Buns because he was the one who understands Crab Yellow snacks the most in the team.

The terribly crashed Double Crab Buns could be handed to Ouyang to taste, but whenever Qin Huai was close to success, it was necessary for Tan Wei’an to repeatedly taste and judge them to catch where the success point was.

Tan Wei’an really wanted to catch it, but he truly couldn’t; after eating for 7 days, he even wanted his great-grandfather to appear in a dream and tell him where exactly the success point of the Double Crab Buns was.

It’s said that last night, Tan Wei’an already called his dad, asking him to return to their old home and see if there were any notes left by his great-grandfather.

To check corners, cellars, or under tiles to see if there was a small hole, with a box inside, containing a treasured notebook, recording all the recipes and insights sold by his great-grandfather.

Opening the first page of that book would be the Double Crab Bun making guide, allowing them to graduate from Double Crab Buns painlessly and end Tan Wei’an’s painful tasting mission.

As for the others, these 7 days didn’t go too well for them either.

As Qin Huai’s chief tasting officer, Ouyang didn’t dare eat breakfast anymore to support his brother’s snack business. Every day, once he opened his eyes, he headed to Xiao Ou Handmade Lemon Tea Store to shake the tea, and when the time was right, he would go to Yunzhong Restaurant to taste. After eating to his fill, he went back to shake tea again, then to taste more, and then to the gym to exercise and burn it off.

Even the personal trainer Ouyang spent a fortune on praised him for improving rapidly. Ouyang was eating and training well, but he was consuming a lot of carbs. Progress was possible, but not like this, as it could harm his health.

And the one who issued our Double Crab Bun mission, Uncle Wang, the only one who had tasted Xu Nuo’s Double Crab Buns, was also on the verge of getting Double Crab Bun PTSD.

At the beginning, when Qin Huai invited Uncle Wang to Yunzhong Restaurant for a private tasting of Crab Yellow Sauce and Crab Yellow mixed noodles, the morally upright Uncle Wang would still ponder over whether or not he deserved to taste such an advanced private meal given his relationship with Master Qin.