Chapter 1363 - 536: Salt-fried Lamb Lives Up to Its Reputation! The So-called Mystery Gift Pack, Is That It? [Subscription Requested]

Chapter 1363: Chapter 536: Salt-fried Lamb Lives Up to Its Reputation! The So-called Mystery Gift Pack, Is That It? [Subscription Requested]

The next day, after breakfast.

The village banquet masters had already arrived, and they’d brought a few helpers in charge of serving the dishes.

Some were cutting meat, some were killing fish; they all started busying themselves for the noon banquet.

If it’s done by contracting the tables, then according to the agreed price, it’s usually a few dozen yuan per table. The contracting side does all the work; the host family only needs to provide the ingredients and doesn’t have to worry about anything else.

This type is called a small contract. There’s also a big contract, where the host family doesn’t even need to handle the ingredients; the contracting organizer takes care of everything, even down to cigarettes and liquor.

For that kind, one table often costs around five to six hundred, and can go even higher depending on the host’s requirements.

But for the Lin Family’s banquet this time, they didn’t use contracting, because both Lin Xu and Shi Wenming are real experts at this; there’s no need to hand it off to others.

This time they were being paid wages.

For the whole process, the head chef works from yesterday afternoon until the end of lunch today, one day for three to four hundred yuan, and each helper in charge of serving dishes gets one hundred.

"Shall we start killing the sheep?"

"Let’s start!"

Lin Xu picked up the freshly sharpened pointed knife, exchanged for a sheep-slaughtering technique, and walked over to the two sheep.

The sheep weren’t particularly big, about a year old, with relatively tender meat.

Slaughtering sheep basically starts with draining the blood. After the sheep’s blood is cooked over water into solid blocks, it can be added into the mixed offal, or made into a tasty dish—Sichuan-style Hot Sheep Blood.

The method is actually very simple: cut the sheep blood into small pieces, blanch it, then put it in a bowl, pour in Soy Sauce, vinegar, and seasonings, add a handful of dried chili and a pinch of Sichuan peppercorns, then pour hot oil over it.

Finally add a bit of cilantro, toss the chili oil and seasonings thoroughly, and the dish is done.

The tossed hot sheep blood is numbing, spicy, fresh and fragrant, whets the appetite and goes great with liquor; it’s a very easy side dish to make.

Besides sheep blood, other blood like pig blood, duck blood, etc. can also be made this way, and they all taste excellent.

There’s a knack to slaughtering sheep: you have to tie one front leg to the opposite hind leg, that is, tie the left front leg to the right hind leg, or the right front leg to the left hind leg.

Once tied, press the sheep to the ground, with the untied front leg underneath and the tied front leg on top.

Then use the pointed knife to cut through the trachea and blood vessels on the sheep’s neck and let the blood flow out.

While draining the blood, the untied hind leg will keep struggling and kicking. When Lin Xu saw Zhang Chunsheng reaching to hold that leg down, he quickly stopped him:

"Uncle Chunsheng, don’t press that leg; the blood won’t drain well. It needs that leg moving so the blood can be completely let out."

A sheep’s blood vessels are relatively thin, so it’s not easy for the blood to come out. You need to let one leg keep moving so the blood will keep circulating and finally flow out through the carotid artery.

The cleaner the blood is drained, the milder the mutton will taste, with less of that rank smell.

Once the blood is drained, you can’t open it up immediately; you have to skin it first.

Skinning freshly slaughtered sheep is very easy. Except for a few key parts that need the knife, most areas only require a good tug and the skin will peel off.

After the skin is pulled off, hang the sheep up and start opening the carcass.

Cut open the belly and pull all the organs out in one go, then clean out the blood clots and membranes inside the abdominal cavity, and you can start cutting it up.

Lin Xu first broke down the carcass, removing the hind legs, front legs, ribs, neck and other parts, then started on the hind legs.

There are parts on the hind leg that shouldn’t be eaten, such as the "cloud skin" on the buttock area, which is the membrane tissue formed on the surface of the mutton from long-term movement.

This part is not only tough to chew but also has a strong muttony smell, so it has to be removed.

In addition, some of the membranes inside the leg must also be thoroughly cleaned, otherwise the cooked mutton won’t taste good.

After removing the membranes, use the knife to chop the mutton into big chunks, about three centimeters on each side.

The hind legs, spine, ribs, front legs, neck—after simple trimming, all these parts are chopped into chunks, then the mutton is soaked, and the second sheep is slaughtered.

Under normal circumstances, when making Salt-fried Lamb, apart from washing off the surface wool after skinning, you must not wash it again.

The chopped meat shouldn’t be soaked in water, nor blanched during cooking.

Only then can you taste the lamb’s own freshness and fragrance. There’s no need to add sugar; it naturally has a clear lingering sweetness.

But the lamb used for Salt-fried Lamb is supposed to be the sheep raised on medicinal herbs around Datong. The goats from the Central Plains don’t have meat as good as those, so soaking is necessary.

Otherwise the cooked mutton will still carry some goat smell.

After the second sheep was slaughtered, it was likewise chopped into three-centimeter chunks and soaked in clean water.

Taking advantage of this break, Lin Xu saw the fish were already killed, so he went over and explained to the head chefs the key points of the cutting technique for sugar-vinegar Carp.

Back home, when they make this dish, they basically just score the fish with diagonal cuts and call it a day. But if you want sugar-vinegar Carp to be tasty, you have to carve a peony-flower pattern on the fish. That way the fish body can fully spread out, and the fish meat will fry up crispier.

Sugar-vinegar Carp is all about that crispy texture of the fish meat wrapped in batter and fried, so you need to highlight this feature as much as possible.

"Hey, this flower cut pattern really looks better than plain diagonal cuts. Didn’t expect to pick up a new trick while working."

While the head chefs were doing the cutting, Shi Wenming took a few slaughtered Grass Carp and Grass Carp, and started chopping them into pieces—these fish chunks were for making smoked fish.

As he worked, he chatted with Jia Xingwang, who was helping beside him, about how the smoked fish tastes:

"The inside is tender, the outside is coated with a sweet-and-salty glaze. It’s incredibly satisfying, perfect with a drink."