Yu Antong looked at the first Pot Helmet he baked in frustration.
Didn’t the owner say that this temperature is just right? Why does this one get burnt?
Yu Antong looked down at the charcoal fire in the stove and found that it was brighter than before.
“What’s going on?” Yu Antong’s head was filled with questions, “How do you control the fire in this kind of oven?”
The shop owner didn’t teach him how to solve this problem just now!
“Let me see.” Jiang Yuxiu squeezed past Lin Haoning in front of the oven.
Jiang Yuxiu had burned a charcoal-fired stove in her hometown. After looking at it for a while, she thought of the reason. She clapped her hands and said, “I know why it was burnt. It’s because the charcoal added by the shopkeeper before has not completely burned. Now it’s burning brightly.”
Seeing that Jiang Yuxiu understood this, Yu Antong hurriedly asked, “What should we do to reduce the heat?”
Jiang Yuxiu saw that the iron lever coming out of the charcoal-added oven mouth could be pulled up and down. She pulled the iron lever’s insulated handle down as she said, “It should be done like this.”
Closing the oven mouth to reduce the amount of air entering could reduce the intensity of the fire. Although she had never used this type of oven, the principle should be the same as the charcoal-fired stove in her hometown.
“It works, it works!” Yu Antong watched the fire become smaller and finally got his head straight.
He quickly continued to make the dough, but as soon as he rolled it out, the dough was crushed and the fillings inside was exposed.
Lin Haoning looked at the time and said anxiously, “Master, there are still fifty minutes left. If we can’t roll it out as thin as it can be sold, let’s just forget it. Let’s get a thicker version, otherwise we won’t have enough time.”
If it’s too thin, it would break, spilling out its filling. Those fillings would get burnt into charcoal inside the oven. That’s why Lin Haoning suggested that way instead. The taste might be a little worse and the judges’ score will not be as high, but it’s better than not being able to bake twenty servings of them.
“No.” Yu Antong frowned and shook his head, “If we make it thicker and bake it, it will turn into shaobing1 
cakes.”
Today’s judges are all regular customers of this street. They’re very familiar with the taste of the food here. Even if the taste is slightly off, they can taste it and may say that their cooking is not authentic. What’s more, if it’s too thick… it might no longer be counted as a “pot helmet”.
Lin Haoning’s solution could only be used as a last-ditch effort.
Yu Antong thinks that they haven’t reached that point yet, and he could try again. “We still have time. Let me try again.”
Rolling out the dough looked simple, but it required skill. If he couldn’t grasp the key point at once, it would be difficult to master during this short time.
When Yu Antong was rolling out the third piece of dough, he rolled it out twice. He suddenly remembered that when the shop owner showed him how to roll out the dough thinly, he put it in his palm, patted it alternately with both hands, and used gravity to let the dough stretch. After it became thinner, it was attached to the oven wall. Maybe he could try…
Yu Antong came up with an idea. He rolled out the piece of dough in his hand a few times until it was not too thin and the indentation could be seen through the dough. He then placed it on his palm and alternately stretched and patted it with both hands.
After going back and forth more than a dozen times, the dough became thin and translucent, but it did not break and leak the filling!
“It’s done!” Jiang Yuxiu said happily, “It’s okay this time.”
Yu Antong didn’t have the shop owner’s years of experience, so he couldn’t do it using a rolling pin like he did. Instead, he needed to use a different approach. Sadly, his method took twice as long, but it was still feasible.
Yu Antong’s face also showed joy, as he finally made progress. He followed the shop owner’s method and stuck the dough on the cooking surface wall of the oven.
“Yuxiu, you know how to operate this kind of oven. You are responsible for watching the heat, adding charcoal, and taking out the Pot Helmets when they are cooked.” Time was tight, and Yu Antong did not dare to relax. He immediately arranged their jobs. “Haoning, come over and make the filling.”
Lin Haoning cut the dough into fist-sized pieces, flattened them and added fillings, then wrapped them into balls. Then Yu Antong continued the next steps. Yu Antong succeeded in rolling it out previously, so he was confident enough to do it again. This time, his attemp’s speed improved. As he finished this one, the previous one should be cooked.
Yu Antong kept moving his hands and said while making the Pot Helmet, “Yuxiu, cut this first finished product into small pieces and let me try it.”
“Okay.” Jiang Yuxiu looked at the fire and felt that it was stable for the time being and she didn’t need to worry about it for the moment, so he asked the proprietress for a knife. When the Pot Helmet cooled down a little and the skin became crunchy, she cut it into smaller pieces.
“Crunch~ Crunch~”
The Pot Helmet’s crunchiness could be heard from its cutting sound alone. The bread was rather flaky, like a thick puff pastry.
“There is only half an hour left. Contestants, please hurry up.”
The voice of a staff member dressed in black echoed without any emotional fluctuation, like a robotic, synthesized voice.
Time was running out. Yu Antong was rolling dough in front of the chopping board with his back to the door of the kiosk, not caring about anything. At this time, he heard a commotion at the door, as if someone came in, but he didn’t look at them.
There was nothing interesting to see. The people who come in are either customers who come to buy Pot Helmets or staff members of the program team. The most likely one was the host who always harasses the contestants by asking questions while they are cooking.
When he was relaxed before, he thought it was good to chat with the host. Now he understood why the other contestants would shoo away the host unceremoniously every time they saw the host approaching them.
“Master, it’s done. You can try it.”
Just as Yu Antong was thinking, Jiang Yuxiu’s voice sounded, and he patted the bread and turned around.
“Why are you here?”
When Yu Antong turned around, what he saw was neither a customer nor a staff member, but Xing Lixuan, who was wearing black sports and leisure clothes.
His sleeves were half rolled up, half of his forearms exposed, one hand in his pocket, and he stood in the kiosk. He looked handsome and cool, attracting everyone’s attention.
“Ahhh! What kind of luck did I get today!” The extroverted girl spoke to her companion, lowering her voice but unable to conceal her excitement, “I will actually see the live version of my OTP in my lifetime!”
Her companion held her hands tightly. “Xing-zong is really handsome! A blast! It’s worth it for me to meet a real domineering president!”
“Yes, yes, it turns out that the novel I read before didn’t lie to me. There really is a man who can attract everyone’s attention as soon as he appears and kill passersby with his aura.”
“Today is my lucky day, I must go buy a lottery ticket soon!”
When Xing Lixuan came in, he saw Jiang Yuxiu holding a plate in one hand and a piece of cut Pot Helmet in the other hand to feed Yu Antong. The way he glared at her made her frightened enough to put the things down.
‘Why is he so jealous? I’m just helping Master taste-test his bread because he’s too busy!’
Xing Lixuan didn’t answer Yu Antong’s question. Instead of using chopsticks, he directly picked up a small piece of Pot Helmet with his hands and brought it to Yu Antong’s mouth, “Want to eat?”
Xing Lixuan often fed him at home, and Yu Antong naturally opened his mouth to take it, and his lips touched Xing Lixuan’s fingers.
Yu Antong chewed and tasted it carefully. Although the Pot Helmet was very thin, it still had a layered texture when biting into it. The outer layer of the dough was flaky, and it made a crunchy sound when he bit into it. The aroma of roasted sesame and its filling filled his mouth. In the middle, the inner part of the bread that was close to the filling retained its soft texture due to the filling’s moisture seeping in.
As for the fillings, the combination of salty, sour, and sweet pickled vegetables and fresh meat was perfect, and he simply can’t get enough of it!
The whole Pot Helmet looks a little dry and hard to eat on the outside, but it wasn’t. On the contrary, it was easy to bite, crunchy, and bursting with meat juices. It was indeed a classic snack all over the Chinese mainland.
“I think it tastes good, but I don’t know if it reaches the level here.” Yu Antong put on another piece of Pot Helmet, and waited for Jiang Yuxiu to take out the cooked one, and then said to her, “You send it to the customers in the store. Let them try it and hear their comments first.”
The customers in the store are also old customers on this street. Their tastes should be roughly the same as the tastes of the food evaluation volunteers invited by the program team from the food court.
If their evaluation is good, then the evaluation of the Pot Helmets he made would be adequate. It wouldn’t differ too much.
Although the program team stipulated that they were not allowed to have any conversations with the shop owners after the study time, they did not say that they were not allowed to communicate with the customers in the shop.
Jiang Yuxiu immediately understood what Yu Antong meant. She walked out from behind the counter with a plate, asked the customers in the store to take a piece each, and then asked them what they thought.
“How does it taste?” Jiang Yuxiu asked nervously, “Is it the same as what you had in this store before?”
“Hey, if you don’t tell me, I wouldn’t notice the difference! At most, it’s probably like, 10% different.” An uncle was still unsatisfied after finishing a piece, and asked Jiang Yuxiu for another piece, “I feel that the seasoning is a bit different from Lao Zhao’s exclusive recipe, but the taste is very good. Still very delicious!”
Lao Zhao is the owner of this store. The secret seasoning formula ratio in his store was not told to them. When Yu Antong created the fillings, he adjusted the proportions of ingredients himself according to the seasoning list. It was normal for there to be slight deviations in this aspect.
A young boy commented, “I don’t feel any difference when eating it. It feels 100% the same. It’s both delicious.”
An upright lady added, “I used to watch TV and thought the dishes you cooked on the show were flashy and the reviews were ridiculous. It’s probably just all smoke and mirrors. Ah, how wrong I was. I’m eagerly looking forward to trying your cooking in the future!”
That lady didn’t expect that such a young man could cook this amazingly, especially sine this was his first time cooking Pot Helmet.
“I never dreamed that I would be able to eat a Pot Helmet made by Yu Antong himself!” The cheerful girl said with a satisfied look on her face, “It’s delicious! My xiao didi is great!”
……
After listening to the comments from these customers, Yu Antong felt confident.
It tastes very good and is very similar to what is sold in the store. They can’t tell the difference without tasting it carefully. Old customers who are more finicky can taste it, but they also like his version.
Yu Antong felt relieved now, as long as he continued at the current speed, there would be no problem.
“If it’s hot, why don’t you take off your apron?” Xing Lixuan walked around the counter to watch Yu Antong roll out the dough, and saw that his face was red and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.
He couldn’t do anything else, so he could only wipe Yu Antong’s sweat with a wet wipe.
The air conditioner was on in the kiosk, but Yu Antong was too busy around the oven baking, and he had to reach out to stick each dough one by one. No matter how much the air conditioner was turned on, he would still sweat.
Yu Antong retorted, “It’s not hot, so there’s no need to take it off.”
–Plus, if it’s off, his belly would be very visible.
Since his pregnancy became apparent, their team’s chef uniforms have changed from slim and stylish ones to loose aprons now. Fortunately, many other players also hang an apron directly on their front, so not many viewers raised this issue.
Although he didn’t mind people knowing that Xiao Nian was his and Xing Lixuan’s biological child after the child was born, he didn’t want outsiders to see his pregnant belly now.
“Would you like some water? I’ll get you a glass of water.” Xing Lixuan added, “Drink some water to rehydrate.”
The cold and ruthless voice of the timekeeper staff sounded again, “There are only ten minutes left…”
“No, no! I don’t need anything.” The space in the store was not spacious, and Xing Lixuan stood tall in this station, taking up a lot of space.
Yu Antong pushed out Xing Lixuan who was in the way. “Go away. I’m asking the judge to maintain a fair and rigorous attitude and not to harass the contestants. Yuxiu, come here quickly, this Pot Helmet is going to be burnt!”
Xing Lixuan never thought that he would be so cruelly pushed away by Yu Antong.
The two young girls in the store covered their mouths, looking in disbelief as they saw this went down.
“I didn’t expect that Yu Antong and Xing-zong would interact like this. Yu Antong didn’t want to talk to Xing-zong at all when he’s cooking.” The girl whispered to her companion, “I believed the little jokes posted on the Internet.”
“What joke?”
“This one!” The girl took out her phone and showed it to her companion.
Assistant: “Sir.”
Xing-zong: “Cooking is so energy-consuming, does he know his mistakes?”
Assistant: “Madam has advanced all the way and formed a CP with other players. He exclaimed that he would not go home until he won the championship.”
Xing-zong “…arrange a judge’s seat for me.”
Her companion laughed wildly after reading it. “Hahaha, what kind of nonsense is this!”
The girl: “His wife is addicted to cooking, so Xing-zong can only go on the show and force herself to be in the same frame, but he still gets ignored, ah.”
The author has something to say:
A certain President Xing: …
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