It was the second day of our competition we all have done our preparation and now we are leading towards the place where this competition is going to be happen we were following our teachers who were in the lead .
For some reason my team was alone or I should say that we are being treated that way by others , their eyes were filled with jealousy and hatred towards us especially me especially the seniors ,they must had thought that they will take all the attentions and became the stars but here they couldn't even compare themselves with my performances . A guy who didn't do any outstanding thing in the school is now showing something out of their reaches .
We walked towards the back of the organisation and went in a lift , the bell boy there pressed button G4 . I must say I haven't seen this area because it's newly built ,as we passed through a big door we found ourselves in a place three times big as a football field with Modular kitchen constructed there and ingredients were on a large table in between . We were told to go in our respective places as per the number tickets provided to us earlier and we all went there.
Looking for our place I found the number 50 writing on the wall indicating it's our place to cook . I was shocked to see that it's just like a small kitchen of our house with every facilities , I thought to myself " When did they became that loose in budgets". I was looking around in the kitchen when Tom called me " Hey! Sam stop looking around and tell us about the dish we are making " .
There was still thirty minutes left before the competition so I went to them and told them to choose between two dished either an Italian or a French one on the basis of recipe I will tell them.
First was Lasagna (Bologna) ,an Italian dish it's recipe was as below
Ingredients are :
Bolognese Sauce:
2 ounces diced pancetta, finely chopped
1 medium Spanish onion or yellow onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
11 ounces ground beef
4 ounces ground pork
4 ounces ground Italian sausage
1 freshly ground clove
Dash freshly ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds peeled and chopped tomatoes (or one 28-oz can whole peeled tomatoes)
1 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Béchamel Sauce:
2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
Lasagna:
Enough lasagna noodles to make four layers in a 13x9-inch baking pan with the lasagna pieces overlapping each other a little bit
Recommended 16 sheets of De Cecco brand Italian lasagna noodles
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
As for the method
1.Make the soffritto:
Combine pancetta, onion, celery, and carrot in sauté pan with butter and cook over medium heat until onion turns pale gold
2.Add other ingredients:
Add the beef, pork, and sausage to the soffritto and increase the heat to high. Cook until browned. Sprinkle with the ground clove, cinnamon, and pepper.
3.Add the tomatoes:
Stir in the tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes. If you are using whole canned tomatoes, break them up as you add them to the sauce.
4.Add milk and simmer:
Add the milk, season with sea salt, then turn down the heat and let simmer for 2 and 1/2 hours. Stir at least every 20 minutes. Whenever the sauce simmers down to the point that it is sticking to the bottom of the pan, just add 1/4 cup of water and scrape up the browned bits from the bottom and continue to cook
And I explained further how to make Béchamel Sauce and how to prepare
Lasagna. This was the recipe I read online but it went above their head so I tried to explain them in a way that even an uneducated person can understand easily.
Second dish was lobster bisque ,a French dish.
I further explained them what to do next with telling everyone what they have to do and how ,I was trying to tell them in easy way remembering the previous one I explained.
After thinking for a few minutes they all voted for French one as they say it's easier in their mind .
As the time started I started doing my work, taking a large container of steel I put it on the stove and lit it up , filling it up with water more than 2 inches and bring it to a boil and putting salt after that I put the lobster in it and covered it with the lid . Everyone was doing their work perfectly ,they didn't wanted to bring all the burden of our victory on me .
As I had some time I started thinking how to distract Anna for sometime ,I tried to look for the ways and only thought some useless ideas . I wasn't able to think something so I thought there is only one way I will go to her office and gave her a kiss after which we will be busy for sometime as the kisses between us can became passionate easily ,and that time will be more than enough for James to took the sample for me ,as tomorrow is a martial arts competition so there is no need for a plan except that who will enter from our team .
Time went by as we all were indulge in our helping with the Karl who was our main chef .
The time was about to over and we were also at the last stages of our dish preparation we added the meat in the soup and garnish it . Our work was finished now everything that's left was for the judges to judge .
After the time was up we all went to judges one by one with our respective number slips ,there were three judges two women and one man . They all were in their early fifties from looks and wearing some high class dresses . All three of them were just tasting the dishes taking only one spoon of it and writing some scores on their paper .
It took them nearly one hour to fully judge all the dishes and we waited for another thirty minutes before they started to announce the results.
The old man was the one who hold the mic ,in a stern voice he said " We three tasted the dishes of the young ones and they all made them very nice but still there are rooms for you to improve . Then let me declare the results ,the first position goes to two teams their scores are 29/30 , they both made very tasty dishes and they are slip number 68 , we all looked in the direction where that team was standing it was Max's team with a blonde girl having deep blue eyes as their main chef and another one are number 30 who was also someone from their school ."
It was as I expected, the girl in Max team was not only a simple student she was the daughter of famous chef in Europe and she also had won a lot of prizes in past and there were some interviews of her in magazines also .
As the results were declared and we all stand there waiting it to get end ,my team got second position which was quite unexpected as I wasn't sure about our wining.
With this match over our team had 870 points and Max's team had 750 points ,they were trying to chase after us .
As we were going outside Max passed by my side gave a smug smile to me like he was telling like today he will win this competition too.
I ignored him and went to our room with my team to get ready for what I had to do next....