Chapter 68: Damascus Steel Chef’s Scissors??

Because Li Xiao had informed the audience in the livestream room in advance before logging off yesterday, the number of viewers started to rise rapidly as soon as he went online.

In just the time it took to say a few words, the livestream room had already broken past 1,000 people.

Without him needing to give any instructions, Zhou Shishi, who was managing the sub-account, began to issue some small password red packets in the chat, making the atmosphere even more lively. These password red packets weren’t very big, but they were pretty good for the free-loaders. After all, the Bean Coins they got for free could be used to tip their favorite female streamers.

After exchanging a few pleasantries with the audience, Li Xiao got straight to the point.

"Friends who watched the livestream yesterday should know that I gave away ninety Pine Needle Crabs. Many of you aren’t quite sure how to prepare them.

"So today I’m doing a special livestream to show everyone how to cook Pine Needle Crabs at home.

"Considering that different viewers have different tastes, I’ve specially prepared a few different cooking methods and flavors to meet everyone’s needs.

"But first, let me introduce the livestream audience to my three roommates and my roommate’s girlfriend."

Li Xiao walked over to the kitchen.

"This chubby guy is Zhou Yu, and the little Mei girl next to him is Zhou Yu’s girlfriend, Zhao Shanshan.

"On the left, this bespectacled Wen Jing handsome guy is Zhang Jiawen, and on the right is my blond little bro, Huang Zhiyuan.

"I want to express my deep gratitude here. These four good friends helped clean all the ingredients, which will greatly reduce the preparation time I need later."

After introducing the four of them to the audience, Li Xiao entered the kitchen. He held one of the Pine Needle Crabs up to the camera.

This Pine Needle Crab had been scrubbed extremely clean. Not only had the small attached organisms on the shell been scraped off, but even the crevices in the crab’s joints had been brushed spotless, without a trace of dirt.

Although Li Xiao didn’t say anything, he silently gave them a thumbs-up in his heart. The cleaning work was very simple; whether it could be done well completely depended on how meticulous they were.

If the few of them had taken on the task but only dealt with it superficially instead of completing it seriously, then Li Xiao might still bring them along when eating and drinking in the future. However, it would stop there. At most, they would just become ordinary fair-weather friends, and they would lose contact as soon as they graduated. If they couldn’t even handle such a small matter well, he wouldn’t easily ask them for help if he really had some work that required manpower in the future.

After all, if they couldn’t even do a simple job like cleaning a Pine Needle Crab, what great things could they accomplish?

Now it seemed that his three roommates were still very reliable. In the future, if he wanted to go all out and expand his ventures, he could appropriately hand over suitable projects to these three. After all, they had such a good relationship, and he himself couldn’t possibly be short of money. When there was money to be made, he naturally had to bring his brothers along.

Li Xiao quickly retracted his thoughts and continued to explain to the livestream room:

"After you get a Pine Needle Crab, the first thing is to make sure it’s alive. If it’s dead, absolutely do not eat it.

"After a crab dies, the bacteria and enzymes in its body become very active. These microorganisms can accelerate the rotting of the crab meat, produce harmful toxins, and have a very bad impact on human health.

"After confirming that the Pine Needle Crab is still alive, you should consume it as soon as possible. If you don’t eat it immediately, you must cover the Pine Needle Crab with a damp cloth and put it in the crisper drawer of your fridge, but it can only be kept for one to two days at most.

"After all, this stuff is seafood. If you don’t eat it while it’s fresh and alive, the taste will be much worse.

"Before eating each Pine Needle Crab, it must be scrubbed clean because, after all, the Pine Needle Crab was salvaged from the sea. Therefore, there will likely be some small parasites or dirt on the Pine Needle Crab. If you accidentally eat them, it’s very likely to cause diarrhea, so you must be careful.

"The weight of each Pine Needle Crab is about 1.9 to 2.5 catties. A Pine Needle Crab of this weight is usually a two-year-old, meaning it took two years from birth to now.

"At this age, the meat of the Pine Needle Crab is the most plump and delicate. If you let the Pine Needle Crab continue to grow, although its size will be larger, the meat will also start to toughen, and the flavor won’t be as good as a two-year-old Pine Needle Crab.

"Because autumn hasn’t fully arrived yet, the current Pine Needle Crabs don’t have too much fat stored for the winter, which is the crab paste.

"So this time, I’m mainly teaching you how to make delicacies with crab meat."

Li Xiao placed the Pine Needle Crab in his hand on the cutting board, then shifted the camera to focus on it.

"The main edible parts of the Pine Needle Crab are its eight long legs."

Before the livestream, Li Xiao had considered that the audience’s cooking skills might vary greatly. Therefore, he didn’t plan to use any superb culinary techniques, but instead chose the simplest and most accessible method. Even a complete novice with zero cooking experience could follow his steps to complete it.

Li Xiao took out a pair of kitchen scissors from his utensils.

"I took into account that some viewers might not have very good knife skills, so wherever I can avoid using a knife, I will use other convenient tools as substitutes.

"This pair in my hand is a multi-functional pair of chef’s scissors. If you can’t find multi-functional chef’s scissors, you can also buy some single-function kitchen scissors.

"As long as it can be used to cut things, it’s fine, but you must buy a pair of high-quality chef’s scissors, or else it’s very easy to injure yourself."

Livestream chat:

"The chef’s scissors in the host’s hand look so cool!"

"Yeah, why are there patterns on these chef’s scissors?"

"These patterns aren’t real, right? Please tell me these patterns aren’t real!!!"

"If I’m not mistaken, these patterns should be Damascus steel???"

"If it were someone else, I’d think the patterns on these scissors were laser-engraved or etched with strong acid, but if it’s the host, I think they must be real!!!"

"Using Damascus steel to make scissors, isn’t this a bit of a waste of precious materials??"

Noticing the bullet comments in the livestream room, Li Xiao looked down at the scissors in his hand.

To be honest, although the patterns on these all-metal scissors were very beautiful, they really weren’t made of Damascus steel. He had just bought this thing casually at the supermarket. Although the brand was Zwilling and the price was over 800 yuan, it was still a bit short of the price needed to buy real Damascus steel scissors.