At this moment, listening to the chattering students below the stage, Shinomiya Kojiro, wearing glasses, maintained a particularly grim expression throughout.
As a former Totsuki Culinary Academy graduate, the aura he exuded now was suffocating and instilled fear.
"Quiet. Anyone who dares to speak again will be expelled." Then, Shinomiya Kojiro frowned slightly and said coldly.
As soon as his words fell, the entire kitchen, which had been somewhat noisy, instantly fell silent.
All the students, with surprising tacit agreement, closed their mouths, held their breath, and didn't even dare to fart in front of this Totsuki Culinary Academy graduate.
"This breakfast assignment is for you to make a French vegetable terrine."
"I've already written the recipe for this dish on the whiteboard in advance. You just need to follow the ingredients provided on site and complete the dish individually, without forming teams."
"The assessment time is within 2 hours."
"Those who fail to complete the dish on time, or who fail to satisfy me, will be deemed unqualified."
"During cooking, no whispering or exchanging opinions is allowed."
With that, all the new students present immediately sprang into action.
After getting their ingredients, they began to race against time to make the French vegetable terrine.
…
"How could this be…" Megumi groaned, her face turning pale as she stared in horror at the ingredients she had received.
Initially, when she learned that the breakfast test was vegetable terrine, she was overjoyed because Zhang Fan had made this dish before at the Izakaya.
And this scenario was exactly the same as the first class after the start of school.
Although Shinomiya's recipe was for Nine Treasure Vegetable Terrine, which included carrot, cucumber, green beans, corn kernels, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and snap peas.
It had two more vegetables than the Seven Treasure Vegetable Terrine Zhang Fan had made.
But that didn't matter; she just needed to follow the recipe provided on the whiteboard.
Combined with some understanding she had gained from Zhang Fan, accurately recreating this dish should be fine.
However, she had calculated everything but failed to account for a problem with the ingredients on site.
She looked at the wilted lettuce on the cutting board, her eyes gradually losing their light, and she couldn't help but feel a sense of despair.
If she were to use such low-quality vegetables, even if she successfully completed the Nine Treasure Vegetable Terrine, it certainly wouldn't pass Shinomiya's inspection.
After all, he couldn't even tolerate students using hair gel, so how could he overlook this issue with the ingredients?
"Oh? Is she the unlucky student who got the wilted vegetables?" Shinomiya, standing near the podium, was observing the students in the entire kitchen.
When his gaze fell upon Tadokoro Megumi, he was surprised to find her looking flustered, constantly staring at the wilted lettuce, and he murmured to himself.
The wilted lettuce on site was actually something he had secretly placed there in advance.
Because lettuce is prone to oxidation and difficult to cook with heat. Furthermore, low-quality lettuce can severely affect the taste of vegetable terrine.
The reason he did this was simply to further screen qualified candidates and increase the elimination rate of this breakfast test!
…
"What should I do?" At this moment, Tadokoro Megumi trembled slightly, utterly lost and on the verge of despair.
She thought about how well she had completed all the assessments yesterday.
Even the dinner test of 50 fried steak sets, she had finished faster than Yoshino Yuki and Sakaki Ryoko.
Yet, she never expected her luck to be so terrible at this critical juncture, getting bad ingredients before she even started cooking.
"Wait, regarding the problem of wilted vegetables, I remember Shopkeeper Zhang once…"
Suddenly, a light bulb went off in her head.
She remembered how Zhang Fan had specifically told her how to deal with wilted vegetables back at the Izakaya.
Slap!
A loud sound.
She saw her hands swing up and then slap her own face hard.
This sudden action naturally attracted the attention of all the students in the kitchen, and even Shinomiya Kojiro on the stage was momentarily stunned!
"Shopkeeper Zhang, thank you."
"I finally understand how important experience truly is!"
Feeling the stinging pain on her cheeks, Tadokoro Megumi's gaze, however, was now filled with determination.
------------------------
There are already 70+ chapters available on my Patreon!
The story will continue to update 1 chapter per day on Webnovel,
while early access chapters are posted on Patreon.
Maybe it's not worth it today but it could be later
[email protected]/Kazenova223
You can take a look if you want!