The Reviled God of Cooking Tries to Slack Off - Chapter 92

Qin Rushuang was also present. She had been busy before and had gone on a business trip shortly after finalizing the cooperation, so she hadn’t had time to pay attention to the details of the competition.

Today, she happened to be free, so she came to take a look. Like the contestants, it was her first time seeing the topic.

Although she was there on Lu Baiyu’s behalf to ensure everything ran smoothly, she couldn’t help growing curious when the topic appeared.

“Cutting potato shreds is fine—I know it’s a basic skill for chefs,” Qin Rushuang said, touching her chin as she looked at Jiang Tingzhou. “But isn’t it a bit too easy?”

Could a challenge like potatoes really serve as a filtering mechanism for all the experienced chefs here?

Though she phrased it as a question, her tone toward Jiang Tingzhou had clearly changed. It was no longer condescending, but polite.

Qin Rushuang voiced the same doubts the livestream audience had, and the bullet screen began to fill with comments:

【“Haha, potato shreds? That’s too simple. I can cut them too.”】

【“I don’t know what things like radish carving, chrysanthemum tofu, or Wensi tofu are, but potatoes? I’ve cut loads of them cooking at home. A contest about cutting potatoes? Tsk, feels bland and weird.”】

【“Honestly, I don’t think it’s that simple. Cutting nice potato shreds isn’t easy. You can’t use a grater in the competition—you have to use a knife.”】

Jiang Tingzhou saw all these bullet screens and comments.

He smiled and replied to Qin Rushuang, “We’re cutting potatoes, yes—but not just potato shreds,” he corrected. “And this time, they must produce a finished dish.”

As he spoke, the competition screen continued to display more details: the challenge wasn’t limited to just shreds.

After slicing the potato, they had to make a dish out of it. This was the complete knife skills test.

To accommodate this, the first stage of the competition was held in a very large venue. Each of the 200 chefs had not only knives and cutting boards, but also a full cooking station, complete with ovens and side ingredients. It wasn’t a full kitchen, but it was enough to make a dish.

“The first round lasts an hour. That’s plenty of time. As for how the potatoes are cut and what kind of dish to make—that’s up to the chefs,” Jiang Tingzhou said. “After all, no matter how good the knife skills are, they need to serve the dish in the end.”

This was a change Jiang Tingzhou had personally decided on.

Naturally, aside from the challenge itself, there were other details—like the extensive livestream setups throughout the venue.

Each cooking station had its own camera. In addition to the main screen at Jiang Tingzhou’s team’s location, viewers watching the livestream could switch between different angles on the platform.

This ensured fairness and served as a record of the competition, preventing cheating. The number of shots and angles available was also impressive. A giant screen at the venue continuously played live footage.

There were no partitions behind the chefs’ stations. After all, when it came to knife skills, there was no such thing as “stealing” techniques. These things couldn’t be mastered in an hour anyway.

Even so, Zeng Rong, standing next to Jiang Tingzhou, still frowned slightly, visibly concerned about this segment.

The original plan had been to cut fish fillets. A fine grouper had been selected, and it could be sliced into fillets only 0.1 cm thick. After blanching, the texture would be tender and delicious. Jiang Tingzhou could do it himself, but he had scrapped that idea and replaced it with this.

Potatoes were one of the most common ingredients. In terms of being “down to earth,” they certainly fit better than fish fillets. But…

“If knife skills were judged only by how thin they are, that’d be too one-dimensional,” Jiang Tingzhou explained. “With over 200 contestants, just measuring thinness wouldn’t be enough to differentiate them. Plus, since we’re making this into a show, we need innovation and surprises—just like with the braised pork. It needs to show off their creativity.”

That round had garnered huge attention. This wasn’t just a competition—it had to be a compelling program too.

That was all well and good, but how much creativity could you really squeeze out of a potato?

Zeng Rong wasn’t a professional chef, so he couldn’t say.

When the topic appeared on the big screen, the livestream viewership didn’t increase significantly. Clearly, many people thought the topic was mediocre at best. The barrage comments showed a faint sense of disappointment.

Even the chefs looked a bit stunned. They opened the ingredient boxes at their stations and saw the potatoes inside. Most of them stood there with knives in hand, thinking rather than moving immediately.

Zeng Rong grew even more uncertain and quietly asked Jiang Tingzhou, “Will this work?”

“Director Zeng, don’t underestimate chefs,” Jiang Tingzhou smiled. “They all have experience. At this level, improving your skills comes down to using your brain.”

Just as he finished speaking, time continued to pass—and someone began to move. Judging by the motion, he was going to cut potato shreds.

For both chefs and spectators, the first instinct when seeing “knife skills with potatoes” was to peel and shred them.

There was nothing particularly novel about cutting potato shreds. But a chef with excellent knife skills could turn even this simple task into a rhythmic performance.

You could hear the steady thump-thump-thump of the knife hitting the board. Even without a grater, the shreds produced were uniform in thickness—perfect for frying. A simple hot-and-sour shredded potato dish could still showcase exceptional skill.

Yet the comments kept coming:

【“Well, that’s not hard. Honestly, looks pretty average.”】

【“Yeah, I think I could do that too.”】

【“Looks just like what my mom makes at home.”】

There were plenty of remarks like that. Livestream popularity didn’t seem to rise, but Jiang Tingzhou kept watching intently—not only the screen, but also the venue from his elevated position.

Suddenly, he spotted something and quickly told the director, “Zoom in on the cutting board and knife work of the chef on the left side of the third row.”

The camera adjusted at once.

At first glance, the chef’s movements seemed ordinary. The cuts were even, but his speed was slightly slower than others, giving viewers that familiar “I could do this too” illusion—hence the earlier barrage of dismissive comments.

But ten seconds later, the camera zoomed out—and revealed the key detail:

The chef had removed the apron’s cloth belt, wrapped it around his head several times, and blindfolded himself.

He was cutting blindly.

Even without seeing anything, his potato shreds remained precise and consistent.

This time, the earlier detractors fell silent. Then came a wave of barrage comments:

【“Hahahaha, where’s that guy who said he could cut potatoes? Come on, show us.”】

【“Whoa, this is awesome! I didn’t know you could do that.”】

【“Blindfolded cutting? This is what a real chef looks like!”】

For shredded potatoes, “uniformity” was only the starting point.

Once the blindfolded chef appeared, viewership noticeably spiked. More people started tuning in.

The camera then cut to Ye Shunxin.

Her knife skills had been honed through constant practice—elegant and precise. She used a kitchen knife to slice potatoes into ultra-fine shreds. Though she wasn’t blindfolded, the resulting strands were unbelievably thin.

She slightly tilted her head, aware of the camera filming her. She also saw Jiang Tingzhou standing at the elevated position, which motivated her to put in even more effort.

When her first batch was done, she placed them into water and gently shook the bowl. The potato shreds fanned out like strands of spider silk.

The comments exploded: 【“Holy crap, so thin!”】

Words alone couldn’t do it justice. The host took out a sewing needle on-site to demonstrate: the potato shreds were fine enough to pass through the needle’s eye.

This was a needle used for quilting, so the hole was relatively large—and Ye Shunxin’s shreds could pass through two of them. This was the legendary “silver needle thread” level of finesse.

These potatoes had been specially selected by Lu Group. They were tough and not prone to breaking—easier to handle than Wensi tofu.

In terms of “thinness,” Ye Shunxin’s dish was unmatched. But because the strands were so fine, stir-frying them would cause breakage. So instead, she blanched them briefly and dressed them with oil and vinegar for a cold dish.

Others had similar ideas but chose different execution. One chef used the fine shreds to create crispy golden potato sticks—fried to perfection and incredibly delicious.

And that was just the beginning.

With that spark, the rest of the chefs started to get creative.

Potatoes could be cut into shreds, slices, ribbons.

Some focused on uniformity, others on thinness—some pushed the limits of how thin a slice could get.

Ultra-thin potato slices, nearly transparent, were turned into crispy chips. One chef baked hollow “bubble potato crisps” that crackled satisfyingly on camera.

Another sliced a potato in a spiral without cutting through the bottom, then fanned it open, brushed it with sauce and butter, and baked it—resulting in fragrant Hasselback potatoes. Others made French mille-feuille-style layered potatoes.

Some used intricate techniques to create “netted” potatoes—like coir raincoats. Once fried, they looked like tornado potatoes with seasoning dusted on top.

One chef even carved a potato into a long, continuous “waterfall” ribbon several meters long, then sliced it into long noodles—serving up a bowl of “longevity noodles” made entirely from potato.

Under professional cameras, all of this was streamed live. The variety and finesse dazzled the viewers.

The barrage comments flew across the screen:

【“A single potato turned into all this. I can’t take it…”】

【“I never thought a potato could look so gourmet…”】

【“So this is the legendary skill of senior chefs?”】

And that still wasn’t the end. Outstanding knife work also lent itself to plating.

One chef’s final dish looked like an ordinary bowl of cheesy mashed potatoes—but on top, they had carved two potato flowers resembling roses. The whole thing resembled a lush flowerpot—delicate and lifelike.

Another chef casually cut potato wedges, frying them into crispy garlic fries. But underneath, they had carved a lifelike little bear from potato. Even the fur texture was detailed.

The bear had expression on its face, gazing up adorably at the towering potato wedge mountain, wide-eyed and innocent.

At this point, no one dared say that the “cutting potatoes” challenge was a boring competition anymore.