Strange World Alchemist Chef – Book 1

Chapter 003 – Five Flavour Crystal Dragon

 

Translated by Prosperousfood.com

Rehosted and re-translated by Gumihou

Edited by Pill Bug

 

“You want to give it a try?”

Uncle Wu looked at Wu Xuan with some disbelief. This young man has been following for years and it would not be an exaggeration to say that everything Wu Xuan knows came from him. Therefore, if Uncle Wu did not how to do something, how could Wu Xuan know it?

A little more concerned now, he touched Wu Xuan’s head, “Little Xuan, are you sure your head is alright?”

Wu Xuan smiled at this obvious show of concern, “Uncle Wu, why don’t you just let me try? If I failed we can still serve these out. There’s nothing to lose.”

It… makes sense. [1] There should be no harm letting Wu Xuan try, but… “Is your head alright to do this?”

[1] “Yes, it’s fine now.”

[2] After another concerned look at him, Uncle Wu stood aside and said, “Very well, you may give it a try. [1] But, do you have enough time?”

“There should be enough time, I’m only making one dish,”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Uncle Wu. [3] “We could serve your dish alongside the soup and-”

“Actually, I was thinking we could just serve this one dish to the elders,” said Wu Xuan confidently.

“Excuse me? Just one dish for a table full of people?”

Uncle Wu was staring at him in shock, but Wu Xuan ignored Uncle Wu and shifted through the piles of vegetables on the shelf. He ended up picking up two baskets full of beansprouts.

“… …” [3] Sure, that’s probably enough beansprouts to stuff a person full, but isn’t that still too boring? Even for a cooling dish?

[3] Never mind, as the senior in the kitchen, he still has the authority to decide what goes out from the kitchen. It’s rare to see Wu Xuan so assertive, it’s good to encourage this.

[3] He wondered what Wu Xuan was going to do… when Little Xuan began to pluck the mung beansprouts, taking off the head and tails, leaving only the smooth white body. This was… not surprising, after all, that’s how one should trim beansprouts for important diners, but what was incredible was the speed!

[3] Since when did Wu Xuan develop this kind of speed?!

“Uncle Wu, I believe we have some meat here right? Can you minced them up for me?” said Wu Xuan, who was busy trimming the sprouts.

“Minced the meat? All right,” Uncle Wu, collected the fresh meat leftover from his cooking and began to mince them. There were chicken, duck, fish, crab and bird meat [4].

“I’m done with the sprouts, let me help you mince.”

Uncle Wu had just began chopping the chicken when Wu Xuan came over. Startled, he looked over and saw beansprouts sparkling like white crystals on the clear water. “What… when-?” [1]

He was still standing there dumbfounded when Wu Xuan picked up the Chinese cleaver and began chopping up the meat. [2] He blinked, all he saw were shadows! After images of where Wu Xuan’s hand was supposed to be and the sound of something like the buzzing of a bee…

When he blinked again, the chunk of meat had turned into a sticky little pile of mince. In fact, it went beyond chopped to something closer to sticky gloop [5]…

[2] [3] Little Xuan, ah! Why did you ruin the mean like that, ah?!

However, before Uncle Wu could say anything, Wu Xuan had already minced up four different types of meat into four more piles of gloop…

[2] [3] “… …” this uncle has to go sit down.

[2] [3] Obviously, Wu Xuan had… somehow gained martial arts and cultivation skill in the couple of days he did not see the boy. It was… not an unlikely thing, but… did he have to ruin food like that?

 

Please read this at kitchennovel dot com ~ щ(゜ロ゜щ) (」゜ロ゜)

 

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Wu Xuan was also surprised by this weak body’s ability. At first, he thought it would be good enough if he could be half as fast as before. However, to think he’d actually be even faster than before! [2] Not twice as fast but closer to 10 times faster!

He got so into it that before he knew it, he had trimmed all the beansprouts and minced all the meat needed. Wow! This pair of sissy looking hands were very nimble, precise and quick. As though they were especially designed for precision cooking.

[2] Suddenly, a crazy idea went through his head. It was something he had thought of but dismissed when watching an anime back in his own world. With these hands, maybe…

“Uncle Wu, do we have any fine needles? I do not need very fine ones, but I need something that is thinner than the beansprout.”

“Oh? Oh, yes we do,” Uncle Wu [2] looked at him uncertainly, but went off to fetch a sewing box anyway.

[2] While Uncle Wu went to fetch the sewing box, Wu Xuan took the time to season the five different types of meat.

When Uncle Wu came back with the sewing box, Wu Xuan picked through the needles and took out a few appropriate ones. He disinfected the needles and pierced the needles into the mincemeat. Then, he poked the mean through the beansprout. [1]

Within a few seconds, the entire beansprout tube was stuffed with meat!

“Little Xuan, you … you are not thinking of stuffing all these beansprouts with meat?” Uncle Wu was non-plus. He looked at the heap of beansprouts. There were so many of them!

Won’t it take a long time?

Wu Xuan smiled, “It won’t take long once you’re familiar with it. We still have a bit of time.”

Though it was late afternoon now, they still have a few more hours before they have to serve dinner. [6]

While they were speaking, Wu Xuan already stuffed quite a few sprouts already. [1]

Uncle Wu looked at the large piles of sprouts, “Why don’t I help you?”

“No need, no need, Uncle Wu can rest for a bit. There’s more than enough time.”

Uncle Wu looked like he wanted to say something, but in the end retreated. [1] Aside from the sound of cooking from the community kitchen, and the bubbling of the steamer no other sound could be heard.

Time passed quickly, Wu Xuan had already stuffed most of the sprouts. There were still some unstuffed sprouts left.

“All right, now we can shape them.”

Wu Xuan begins to shape the sprouts. The stuffed sprouts had different colours in them. A short while later, there was a sparkling dragon in the middle of the table! [7] It was so lifelike and that it looked like it will soar to the sky. The stuffed sprouts made the scales look colourful and even more vivid!

“I can’t believe you just made this….” [3] Uncle Wu stared at the crystal dragon in shock [1]. Regardless of what it tasted like, it certainly looked impressive. But, just how… [1]

“Hehe,” to be honest, the Wu Xuan of old could not make this. However, these special hands of his was able to turn a fantasy into reality!

This was only something transmigrated Wu Xuan could make!

He looked at the crystal dragon with a pride. It looked very good and everything went according to plan. It was certainly one of the smoothest cooking he had ever done.

Wu Xuan looked down at his pretty, feminine hands with a smile. These hands are very nimble and agile, and he was also pleased with them.

“What is the name of this dish?” Uncle Wu asked.

Wu Xuan grinned, “Since five types of meat were used to make this. Let’s call it Five Flavour Crystal Dragon!”

 

[Gumihou raises her hand: Excuse me, are you serving raw sprouts stuffed with raw meat?]

 

[1] Delete unnecessary things: Such as repetitive ‘smiles’, ‘sighs’ whatever

[2] Embellishments or adjustments of stuff. Because Spendthrift Luo can’t be trusted not to keep his characters out of OOC territory.

[3] Prevention of OOC: Why did Uncle Wu automatically assumed that Wu Xuan will cook the entire dinner?

Especially after this thought? ‘This young man has been following for years and it would not be an exaggeration to say that everything Wu Xuan knows came from him. Therefore, if Uncle Wu did not how to do something, how could Wu Xuan know it?’

Prevention of OOC! Prevention of OOC!

Also, allow WX to do his thing because Uncle Wu is nice! Not because WX overwhelmed him with his protagonist aura of bullshit nonsense.

[4] Bird meat? Why bird meat? Why not beef? Why bird?!

[5] Sticky gloop vs chopped meat: Have you ever seen a beansprout? Unless the meat has been turned into the consistency of jam that has been sieved through fine mesh, don’t even think about stuffing it through that ‘ruyi’ stick.

Speaking of ruyi sticks…

https://thewoksoflife.com/ru-yi-cai-as-you-wish-vegetables/

Cooking Master Boy’s anime and manga misrepresent what Ruyi stick really is

Why am I talking about Cooking Master Boy? See Note [6] [6] Which begs the question: Why did Uncle Wu cook everything a few hours before, including his fried chicken fingers and ‘heaved a sigh of relief’ when there’s still a few hours left to dinner?

[7] Ahh, the Five Flavoured Crystal Dragon

Is basically taken from Cooking Master Boy’s Crystal Phoenix, the anime version

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=284862718568768

The manga version actually looked more realistic

https://mangahub.io/chapter/cooking-master-boy/chapter-14

The live action version

Some Japanese attempted the Crystal Phoenix – Lying down version

1kg of beansprouts

https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm31883851

 

Someone attempted the Crystal Phoenix – Standing version

Not as many beansprouts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYJgWw3BY3U

 

Someone else ‘attempted’ the Crystal Phoenix

Erm…

https://www.dcard.tw/f/food/p/231857842