Chapter 479 - 313: A Sufficiently Fresh Way of Eating

Chapter 479: Chapter 313: A Sufficiently Fresh Way of Eating

[Without a doubt, Hawaiian pizza is the greatest invention in the world!]

[Correct IP. In the United States, Hawaiian is really the only fruit pizza. You should see the pizzas we have in Great Xia.]

[Hawaiian is trash. I choose durian and pineapple!]

[I agree with the person above. Durian and cheese is pretty good too.]

[Wednesday half-price, buy-one-get-one-free, just sayin’.]

[The guy above is definitely a Pizza Hut fan. Team Tuesday/Wednesday is here. Domino’s forever!]

Erica scrolled through the comments under the picture. Almost ninety percent were from Da Xia People. The few foreign IPs barely made a ripple, especially since some of them weren’t even posting in English.

The two of them stared, dumbfounded, as they opened one bizarre-looking pizza picture after another. They kept pinching to zoom in and out, but they really couldn’t figure out what the flavors were.

Erica turned her phone screen around. "Lin, what are all these comments saying? I’ve never seen this kind of pizza flavor before. What is it?"

Lin Chen spared it a glance and smiled.

"Durian. It’s a tropical fruit from Southeast Asia. You probably can’t buy it fresh in North America. I wonder if you could find it at a large Great Xia supermarket. Its main producers are Thailand and southern Great Xia."

"It’s very nutritious, with a texture similar to ice cream. It’s known as the ’Queen of Fruits.’ Its only downside is its strange, smelly odor. People who can handle it become obsessed with it, but those who can’t find even the smell unbearable."

"Because its smell is so strong, some high-end hotels or hotels in Thailand have clear signs prohibiting people from bringing it inside. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Great Xia’s stinky tofu, but they’re on the same level."

"Stinky tofu?"

They were still trying to wrap their heads around the first thing, and now there was a new term. The two of them were completely baffled.

"It’s fine. We might not be able to get durian, but we can definitely get stinky tofu. We can go check the Great Xia supermarket over in Albany another day. If not, we’ll go to Victoria. They’ll definitely have it there."

He trimmed all the excess fascia and lymph nodes from the surface of the beef. In front of everyone, he first cut off the white backstrap from the back. Then he washed all the backstrap pieces clean, sliced them in half with a serrated bread knife, and tossed them into a pressure cooker. He added a couple of slices of ginger and a few drops of white liquor, then sealed the lid to cook under pressure for an hour.

"What kind of pot is that?"

Beef Dad pointed curiously at the strangely shaped metal pot that looked like a barrel, especially its lid, which was completely different from a normal glass lid and was also made of metal.

"A pressure cooker. It’s one of the most common pieces of cookware in the daily lives of us Da Xia People. It was passed down from France, but the French don’t use it much. We in Great Xia, on the other hand, use it much more frequently. A pressure cooker is used for foods that are hard to cook or require a long stewing time."

"For example, meat that would normally take two hours to cook only needs half an hour in a pressure cooker. It can save a lot of cooking time."

"And this backstrap is a bit unusual. It’s not meat, it’s fascia. The texture really is similar to a leather belt. If you try to cook it in a regular pot, you might not be able to chew through it even after cooking it all day. You have to use a pressure cooker."

After briefly explaining the origin and working principle of the pressure cooker to the crowd, Lin Chen’s hands never stopped moving as he began to break down the beef.

"This cut is the chuck eye roll. In southern Great Xia, it’s called snowflake beef, or ’bo ren’. Its unique and dense fat marbling gives it an exceptionally fine and soft texture, rich in fat."

"Moving toward the leg is the shoulder area, which is the oyster blade, commonly known as ’chi bing’. Below the oyster blade is the shank, also called ’san hua zhi’, and further down is the beef tendon."

"Connected to the chuck eye roll is the ribeye, and behind the ribeye is the sirloin. Underneath these two is the filet. But in Chinese cuisine, these cuts are collectively called ’diao long’, or at most are separated into ’diao long’ and ’diao long ban’."

"On the belly is the flank steak, which is called karubi in Western cuisine. In the world of hot pot, it’s called ’fei pin’. The shank on the hind leg is the ’wu hua zhi’, since it has more muscle than the foreleg. The area from the hind leg to the rump is the rump meat, also called ’mi long’ or ’huang gua tiao’, and known as ’nen rou’ in hot pot."

"The only one that’s different is this piece."

His explanation was rapid, and the movement of his blade was just as fast. With a few swift cuts—SWISH, SWISH—he separated all the corresponding parts, but left them in their original positions for easy identification.

The tip of his knife moved forward from the hind leg, past the flank, past the oyster blade, and finally stopped at a large piece of white fat on the chest.

"You all probably think this is just ordinary fat, don’t you? No. In the world of hot pot, its reputation is greater than any of those other cuts. It’s called ’xiong kou you’, which, as the name implies, is a piece of fat from the cow’s chest."

"It doesn’t have the greasy texture you’d imagine from fat. It’s crispy. It makes a CRUNCHING sound when you eat it, without the slightest feeling of greasiness. It’s quite magical. People who love it will order it every time they have beef hot pot."

After he finished portioning out all these cuts, the remaining parts were of no use, so he tossed them directly back into the plastic bin on the cart.

"Hey, Beef Dad, could you do me a favor and take this meat back with you?"

"Of course, no problem. This is about the same amount we have left over normally. It’s perfect for grinding up to make sausages."

He nodded without hesitation. As he walked in to pull the cart away, he pointed at the meat on the counter. "What are you going to do with these?"

"No rush," Lin Chen said with a wave of his hand. "Room-temperature meat is difficult to slice. It needs to be put in the freezer to firm up for a bit. I’ll cut them into smaller chunks first to reduce the freezing time."

「An hour later.」

The pressure cooker began to release steam, and the beef bone broth had turned cloudy. A faint aroma of beef filled the air.

Only two customers were still waiting patiently: an old acquaintance of Bella’s who had arrived later, and the guy who couldn’t eat pork.

Of course, Beef Dad was also still there. He hadn’t been idle for the past hour; he had already turned that leftover beef into black pepper sausages, the best-selling flavor at their stall.

He opened the lid of the cooker and poked the backstrap with the tip of his knife. It was stewed until tender, and the knife pierced it easily.

He scooped out all the backstrap to let it cool, discarded the ginger slices, and poured the remaining liquid into the beef bone broth, turning up the heat to reduce it.

After an hour in the freezer, the beef was frozen slightly firm. You could still deform it a bit if you squeezed hard, which meant it was the perfect time for slicing.

"The reason for freezing it is to show everyone the difference between slicing frozen and fresh meat. Of course, friends who are confident in their knife skills can slice it fresh."

As the three of them and Erica watched, Lin Chen first took a piece of fresh beef that had been in the refrigerator. He gently rested the fingers of his left hand on its surface. With a light forward push and backward pull of his Chinese-style cleaver, a slice of chest fat as thin as a cicada’s wing was shaved off with ease.

The fat from this part was rather peculiar. It wasn’t white like the fat one usually sees, but rather had a faint yellow tinge.

When held up to the light, you could even see the brightness shining through it!

"Such fine knife skills!"

If watching Lin Chen break down the beef before had merely earned his praise, now, seeing this translucent slice of fat, Beef Dad’s eyes were filled with pure admiration, and there was even a hint of eagerness to try it himself.

He had been raising and slaughtering cattle for over twenty years. Day after day, it was the same routine. All he ever ate was pan-fried steak or grilled steak, or maybe beef sausage and hamburger patties.

He had tried making beef soup, too, but in the end, it was never as tasty as steak.

In his mind, "knife skills" only referred to the precision and smoothness of breaking down a cow into its various cuts.

But this slice of meat that Lin Chen had cut opened the door to a whole new world for him.

Lin Chen’s movements were fast, like a precision machine. Every stroke of the knife maintained the exact same form.

A push, a pull, a sweep.

Slice after slice of translucent chest fat lay quietly on the cutting board, fanned out like a line of dominoes.

After finishing one plate, he pushed the meat aside and picked up the piece that had been frozen.

SHK SHK

As the blade passed through, you could hear a clear sound of shattering and friction, just like cutting through paper.

The frozen meat barely deformed under pressure. The thin slices naturally curled into hollow rolls the thickness of a finger, forming a stark contrast with the plate of fresh slices.

"As long as your knife is sharp enough, fresh meat is also easy to slice. The advantage of frozen meat is that it doesn’t deform, which makes it safer. As long as the meat is fresh enough, freezing it for half an hour to an hour won’t affect the texture."

Following his demonstration, plate after plate of different beef cuts were neatly arranged in separate dishes, laid out in two rows on the counter.

Under the camera, the surface of every slice of fresh beef glistened brightly. Just looking at it was enough to make one’s mouth water.

"Actually, this isn’t even considered the freshest. So what level is considered the freshest?"

Lin Chen finished slicing the last plate and set it on the counter, ensuring that every cut was present in both fresh and frozen forms.

He turned on the faucet to wash his blade, wiped his hands, and smiled at the camera.

"In southern Great Xia, the city where dim sum originated, is also the most famous place for beef hot pot. The beef in the hot pot restaurants there is so fresh... because the restaurants are located right next to the slaughterhouses."

"A cow is slaughtered, and the next second, it’s transported to the hot pot restaurant. It’s displayed for customers on transparent counters, so fresh that the muscles in the beef are still twitching. It’s sliced quickly and then served at the table."

"The customers will pick up a slice of beef that’s still ’dancing,’ dip it into the beef bone broth to swish for just a few seconds, and pull it out as soon as the color changes. Then they coat it in their favorite sauce. That one bite is delicious enough to make foodies travel thousands of kilometers just to enjoy it."

Just listening to his description made the others swallow involuntarily.

This was especially true for Beef Dad. He knew just how delicious freshly slaughtered beef was. Sometimes, when he got a craving, he would even slice off a few pieces of raw beef and eat them directly.

As long as it was fresh enough, the beef was sweet, with no bloody or strange taste.

He took out an induction cooktop and plugged it in, then ladled a pot of clear beef bone broth onto it, adding a few slices of daikon radish to simmer.

He took out every usable condiment from the shelves and the refrigerator and laid them out on the counter, then chopped up some scallions, cilantro, and minced garlic.

Seeing these familiar condiments, Erica’s eyes lit up with craving. She raised her hand enthusiastically.

"Let me teach you how to mix the dipping sauce!"