Chương 136: Blindfold On, Listen to the Ingredient Speak

Three months remained until the Global Culinary Champion League formally opened. After the joint session in New York, the three of them went back to their own cities. But this time an invisible thread had been strung between them. Every week they held a remote video call, discussing menu strategy across the various round themes, sharing their latest ideas and technical insights. Ethan was the technique fanatic as ever.

Lately he'd been studying a new low-temperature method that preserved the juices of meat to the greatest possible degree. Kira had become obsessed with fermentation, experimenting with different cultures to make her own miso and soy sauce. Chris, meanwhile, poured most of his energy into the daily work of Le Château.

He knew his greatest present strength was stability and a grasp of the whole picture — but in technical precision and the depth of his understanding of ingredients, there was still a gap between him and Ethan, and Kira. And this high-pressure top-tier kitchen was the best whetstone there was for grinding those weaknesses down. On his system panel, the numbers were climbing steadily too.

[Culinary Rating: A− (86/100)] [Ingredient Sense: B (72/100)] [Heat Control: B+ (76/100)] [Flavor Atlas precision: 85%] The "Ingredient Sense" line especially had risen from an initial B− to a B — no small progress. But in Chris's eyes it was nowhere near enough. His current understanding of ingredients rested mostly on the system's data analysis and accumulated knowledge — an understanding of the what.

When he watched Kira handle an ingredient, that was a near-instinctive state, one fused with the ingredient itself, an understanding of the why. He wanted to reach that state. Chef Vincent seemed to see straight through him. One afternoon, after prep was done, Vincent called Chris into his private kitchen.

"From today, your training moves to the next stage." Vincent's expression was grave. He took out a black blindfold and handed it to Chris.

"Put it on." Chris was puzzled, but he did it. Darkness fell across his eyes in an instant; with all visual information stripped away, his hearing, smell, and touch were amplified several times over.

"If you want to truly understand ingredients, you must first learn to give up seeing with your eyes." Vincent's voice came from ahead of him.

"The eyes deceive you. You'll assume a steak must taste good because the marbling is beautiful. You'll ignore a tomato that could be full of flavor because it looks ugly."

"From now on, you'll use your hands, your nose, your ears, to have a conversation with the ingredient." The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. As he spoke, Vincent placed something in Chris's hands. It came into his hands cold and slick, its surface a fine dense scattering of scales. Chris stroked it lightly with his fingers, feeling the curve of its body and the spring of its muscle.

He leaned in and smelled it — a faint briny tang of the sea drilled into his nose.

"It's a fish," Chris said.

"Sea bass, I think. About a pound and a half. Very fresh — dead no more than six hours."

"Not bad." A trace of approval was in Vincent's voice.

"Now, tell me — what kind of dish does it want to become?" The question caught Chris short. How could an ingredient want anything?

"Don't analyze with your brain. Don't reach for fixed recipes." Vincent guided him.

"Feel with your hands. Feel whether the flesh is firm or soft, whether the fat content is high or low. A fatty, rich tuna and a delicate-fleshed Dover sole — their 'wishes' are completely different." Chris shut his mouth and said no more. He gathered every scrap of attention onto the fish in his hands. With the pads of his fingers he pressed the body gently. The flesh had good spring; pressed down, it bounced back fast. That meant its protein structure was very intact.

He felt the gills too, and the belly, reading the texture of the different parts. In his perception the fish grew more and more three-dimensional. It was no longer an "ingredient" but something closer to a living thing. Its flesh was firm and fine — not suited to overcooking, or it would turn tough. Its flavor was light and elegant — not suited to being buried under a heavy sauce. A cooking method slowly grew clear in his mind.

"Steamed," Chris said softly.

"The simplest way, to keep its own flavor to the greatest degree. Maybe with a little ginger thread and scallion oil, to lift the aroma."

"Why not seared?" Vincent asked.

"Searing would make the skin fragrant and crisp, but it would also lose the moisture inside faster. Its flesh is too delicate — it's not worth the gamble," Chris answered. Vincent said nothing. He took the fish from Chris's hands and passed him something else. This time it was a round, slightly rough-surfaced root vegetable. Chris smelled it — the fragrance of earth.

"Potato."

"What does it want to become?" … For the better part of the next month, every afternoon, Vincent trained Chris this way. Blindfolded, Chris touched over a hundred different ingredients. From cuts of meat off different parts of the animal, to vegetables of different seasons, to seafood in every form. At first he still had to lean on knowledge and experience to judge. But gradually he found his perception of ingredients growing sharper, more immediate.

He could even tell, by touching the temperature and moisture of a steak, the cooking time best suited to it in the present conditions. And his system, through this training, underwent a marvelous change. [The "Flavor Atlas" module is upgrading…] [New layer added: "Dynamic Inference"…] When Chris next opened the Flavor Atlas, he found the whole interface different. In the past, the system had only told him that "ingredient A" and "ingredient B" were a flavor match — a static, database-based association.

Now, when he fixed his attention on an ingredient, the system gave a series of dynamic suggestions. [Target: Norwegian salmon (loin)] [Current ambient temperature: 22°C, humidity: 65%] [Dynamic suggestion 1: After a light cure, sear one side to medium-rare to maximize the fat aroma and the silkiness of the flesh.] [Dynamic suggestion 2: If smoking, keep cold-smoke time under 20 minutes to avoid the smoke overwhelming the natural flavor of the fish.] [Dynamic suggestion 3: Poaching or steaming not recommended; in the current state, that treatment would cause flavor loss exceeding 35%.] The system no longer offered a single pairing scheme. It had begun to act like a seasoned chef, giving the most precise cooking advice keyed to the ingredient's real-time state and its environment. Chris knew his "Ingredient Sense" was undergoing a qualitative leap. He was evolving from a "knowledge-type" cook into a "perception-type" cook.

And that ability might just become his most powerful secret weapon on the floor in Paris.