ALL NOVEL Chapter 157 - Strange Creative Dishes
Chapter 157 Strange Creative Dishes
Granny looked at Xiaolu with a kind smile, which reminded Long Xi of her grandma involuntarily. Long Xi felt upset and nearly broke down.
Now she had a long way to go and did not know if she could survive to go back to see her grandma for the last time.
Lu Hua picked up a bucket of ice and poured it over Weiwei’s head.
Hulala! The whole bucket of ice fell down, drenching Weiwei into a freezing drowned rat. She was so cold and started to shiver.
Granny Piao felt horrified.
She thought in her mind that the next would be her. “Ah, will I die over here?”
Weiwei sadly walked aside, shivering because of the coldness.
Long Xi did not care about their actions at all.
She neglected all the external interference and concentrated on making her own dish without any distracting thoughts.
Just now, she had already found a huge log cutting board at a diameter of more than one meter, a height of half a person, and a weight of at least 100 jin, and two iron hammers each at around 300 jin. She hammered the bloody things into a meat slurry.
The cutting board was made of thick log planks that were 100 years old, which could withstand the heavy hit of the hammers.
She scooped up the meat slurry and put it on a plate. Then, she put a large piece of fresh beef weighing about 5 kg on the cutting board.
“How fresh is this beef?”
Long Xi could see clearly the muscles’ jumping on the fresh beef. When lightly touching it, she could find that it was still warm. The flesh surface was slightly sticky.
The beef should have left the cow for less than half an hour.
Of course, Long Xi had to be a professor to choose beef!
Then, she hit the beef violently with the two heavy hammers one after another.
This special cutting board, hammers, and fresh beef were exactly the three elements needed to make authentic, hand-made, Chaozhou beef balls!
Regarding the origin of Chaoshan beef balls, its most popular version was from Hakka. But Chaozhou people were much better at this.
Hakkas hit the beef balls with the back of a kitchen knife.
Because of lacking strength, the stickiness of the meat was affected.
Chaozhou people switched to use two special “iron maces”, each of which was a special rectangular hammer weighing 3 kg. The chef used the two hammers to hit the beef in succession until the beef turned into a meat slurry.
Hakkas used clear water to boil the beef balls, while Chaozhou people were more exquisite in that they switched to use beef bone soup to boil the beef balls. This ensured that the meat flavor would not penetrate into the soup and enriched a thicker beef flavor.
Xiaolu finally realized that Long Xi was about to make beef balls.
He could not help worrying about her.
Hand-made beef balls were delicious indeed, but had no relation to cruelty.
Would she stray from the topic?
Long Xi saw the worry in his eyes and said with a smile, “Don’t worry, I have a secret weapon!”
“Bang, bang, bang!” She clenched her teeth and widely opened her eyes, speeding up her hitting rate and strength. It seemed that she had some hatred for the beef.
Xiaolu and Yan Wangchuan were both amused by her expression.
This was Long Xi’s personality. No matter how difficult she was, she would be really strong and knew how to enjoy herself in a hardship.
She looked at another large pot on the stove, boiling soup with pigskin.
This pigskin soup would be added to the beef slurry. It would prevent more pectin of the beef slurry, to make the beef balls more tender and elastic.
However, this pigskin soup had to be added into the beef slurry several times. After the slurry fully absorbed the soup, the soup could be added in again.
After all, this dish did not need any deep technique, just patience.
She scooped out a spoonful of soup and evenly added it to the beef slurry.
After 10 minutes or so, she touched the beef slurry and added another spoonful of soup when seeing that the soup from before had been absorbed by the beef slurry.
She hit the beef around 23,000 times, while the fresh meat had turned into the beef slurry.
She picked up a little slurry to rub it and found no fiber in it.
She mixed the beef slurry with the previously prepared mixed meat slurry. Adding in a suitable amount of salt and pepper powder, she stirred them all in evenly.
Then, she hit and kneaded the meat slurry with strength until it would not fall when being held in her hands.
This step was the so-called “Adding Stickiness through Hitting”.
When this step was completed, the beef balls would be more tender and elastic.
She divided the meat slurry into several equal parts, and then took out pigskin jelly made of pigskin soup from the solar-powered refrigerator.
She cut the jelly into pieces of one cubic meter and wrapped them with some beef slurry and made it into a ball.
After wrapping up about 20 meatballs, she put them into the 90-degree soup made of beef bones to absorb the soup slowly.
Beef balls could be shaped firmly in this process and slowly absorb the delicate flavor of the soup.
At this time, Yan Wangchuan had completed his dish, living loaches braised with tofu.
Lu Hua had a taste and vomited it out at once.
The special feature of this dish was that loaches needed to be prepared one day in advance to spit out all the mud. Then, they could be used as ingredients.
However, Yan Wangchuan had no time to do this step.
Lu Hua gave him a bad comment and thought Granny Piao’s dish was better than his.
As a result, Yan Wangchuan paid 10 chips and received the ice bucket punishment.
After soaking in the soup for half an hour, Long Xi scoop them up in a bowl. Adding some soup, she passed a bowl to Lu Hua.
The good smell of scallions and shredded ginger came to them along with the hot steam.
Beef balls were presented in an irregular oval shape one by one, looking like some stubborn and naughty babies. This was the special feature of hand-made beef balls.
Long Xi said, “This dish is called beef balls with hammers thousands of times.”
Lu Hua said nothing, but scooped up a ball. He blew on it and bit it lightly.
The fresh beef ball, which was newly hit, showed its flavor of density, tenderness, and elasticity. The natural flavor of beef immediately became fresh in his mouth.
He felt as if countless tiny cows were running happily on his tongue, or as if countless beef-flavored bouncing candies jumped on his tongue.
This hand-made beef ball was really the one in Stephen Chow’s film that could be used for table tennis!
He took another bite. The pigskin jelly made of the condensed flavor of shrimp soup and chicken soup had melted. The gravy leached out and the flavor was lingering on his lips and teeth.
He asked, “What is the other kind of meat in the beef balls? It is tender and smooth, but I cannot tell what it is.”
Long Xi said with a smile, “You should not have eaten this kind of food. I chose this to match the cruel theme. Uh… it’s sheep placenta.”
“What?” Lu Hua almost choked.
Long Xi said calmly, “It’s sheep placenta. How does it taste?”
Lu Hua said, “It tastes very good. And this is the best beef ball I have ever eaten before. I like the flavor! It is cruel to cook with the placenta.”
Yamamoto Shang interrupted, “But the rate of cruelty is not enough. If you can choose the sheep placenta from a live sheep, it will be perfect!”
Lu Hua listened to his words and even threw up.
He stared angrily at Long Xi with anger, saying, “How can you give me this kind of food?”
Long Xi smiled cunningly and said, “Just have some. It’s really nourishing. It’s okay. Can you sense any fishy smell?”
Xiaolu said with a smile, “Uncle Lu, just consider it to be shrimp meat.”
Perhaps the taste of the beef balls was too good, or Xiaolu was saying some good words for Long Xi. Lu Hua did not bother with that and even ate up all the beef balls with the soup.
Lu Hua said, “I ate them all. The result is obvious. Granny Piao should accept the ice bucket punishment.”
Xiaolu and Long Xi both rushed to say, “Can I accept the punishment for Granny Piao?”
Lu Hua said with a hard mind, “No, it’s the rule! Anyone who breaks it will be punished, including me!”
Granny Piao reluctantly accepted the ice bucket punishment.
Long Xi said to her, “Granny Piao, go over to the stove to warm up. Don’t get cold.”
Granny Piao was too cold to say anything. She nodded and walked to the stove.
At this time, a good smell came out. Chef Qian had already completed his dish.
What he made was the famous dish that Long Xi thought of, a dish of the tail-burning feast in the Tang dynasty called “Spring of Head”. It sounded poetic, but cruel. It was made of living quails.
More than an hour ago, he marinated the quails with seasonings. He cut the ginger into pieces and patted the garlic. Then, he fried the ginger and garlic. He mixed them with light soy sauce, salt, red wine, and black sesame oil and added some chopped scallion shreds.
This was his hand-made barbecue sauce.
The next step was to tear off the skin of the quail along with its feathers.
His hands were shaking!
After all, he was a normal person, so he hesitated to do this!
He made a psychological construct for himself and finally did it.
This bloody scene was really disgusting!
More importantly, the skinned quail was still alive. The pain was predictable.
Even the quail hoped to be killed directly!
Although he knew clearly that it was cruel, he had no other choice now.
He had to win! His daughter was still waiting for him in the cage!
He took two long iron chopsticks to burn on the fire.
Then, he pinched a quail with the iron chopsticks. No matter how it struggled and screamed, he did not loosen his hands…
Soon, the quail was roasted to death alive.
Its eyes were still open, as if it died with a grievance.
He evenly added the barbecue sauce all over its body, and painted some rose honey on the abdomen of the quail to make it delicious.
Then, he baked two quails and put them on a plate in a good shape.
The fragrance overflowed.
The two quails lying on the plate were opening their eyes widely, stretching their necks, and slightly opening their mouths. In this way, the two quails were built with the beauty of swans singing.
A few vivid apricot flowers carved from carrots were placed beside the quails with a few dewdrops on the petals, which looked like buds booming in the morning. It brought a sense of spring.
Chef Qian blandly said to Lu Hua, “Director Lu, please have a taste.”
Lu Hua burst into hearty laughter.