Chapter 1464 - 569: Smoked Braised Meats—A Unique Flavor! Northeast Sashimi! [Happy Lunar New Year’s Eve]

Chapter 1464: Chapter 569: Smoked Braised Meats—A Unique Flavor! Northeast Sashimi! [Happy Lunar New Year’s Eve]

Northeast cuisine is originally quite rough, and the steps aren’t that meticulous, but in the show, Lin Xu partnered with the detail-oriented Qiu Zhenhua, and the chemistry wasn’t there, so the show’s effect was average.

However, exploring restaurants is different; Yuan Debiao is big and naturally carries the unique humor of a Northeasterner, coupled with enough professional knowledge. Such a person doing a show on restaurant exploration should have better results.

"Since you’re all urging me, I’ll follow along and shoot a couple of episodes as a trial, first to see your pace."

There are routines for shooting restaurant exploration; as long as you master the techniques and have enough professional knowledge as a base, you can basically make a name for yourself online.

Nearing 11 AM, the marinated dishes were ready.

Everyone walked out of the tea room, starting to observe the most important step in smoking meat — smoking.

In the kitchen, a large iron pot was already prepared, and next to it was a grate filled with marinated food, which had handles and could be directly placed into the pot.

Yuan Debiao said:

"Smoking meat divides into cold smoking and hot smoking. What we usually use is hot smoking, which is faster and colors aggressively, but it’s hard to master. If smoked too long, there’s no remedy."

The biggest difference between hot smoking and cold smoking is that hot smoking involves heating the iron pot red-hot first, then quickly adding prepared White Sugar, followed by placing the grate filled with marinated food, and covering the pot.

After about a minute, it’s about time to take it out.

Lift the pot lid and take out the marinated food to air dry.

Hot smoking demands high requirements on a chef’s experience and technique, and you must adjust the amount of sugar based on the quantity of food and the temperature of the iron pot.

"Beginners should avoid hot smoking, not only because it’s easy to mess up, but most importantly, it’s easy to get burned."

Thinking about it, the red-hot iron pot, hastily scattering White Sugar, and quickly arranging marinated food—if by any chance you touch the pot, at least you’d get a big blister.

If too much sugar leads to overly bitter smoked marinated food, it’s basically ruining a whole pot of marinated food.

So Yuan Debiao recommends cold smoking.

This is relatively simple, easier to grasp, and allows for flexible control of the degree of smoking on marinated food.

According to the duration of smoking, marinated food divides into three stages: golden yellow, tender red, and jujube red. During cold smoking, even a beginner can easily master it, which is why Yuan Debiao recommends it.

Dai Jianli asked:

"Do cold smoking and hot smoking use the same kind of sugar?"

"No, hot smoking uses powdered White Sugar, which produces better smoke effects; cold smoking uses White Sugar, which is more loosely structured, allowing heat to penetrate more easily."

After saying this, Yuan Debiao then said to Xie Baomin:

"Old Xie should really understand, he once performed in front of my dad in his twenties and after he left, my dad gave me a good beating..."

Tsk tsk tsk, Master brother even did such a thing?

Xie Baomin smiled:

"In those days, young and wild, who’d have thought something so simple you still couldn’t do? If we went back, I definitely wouldn’t smoke meat and let you get beaten."

Yuan Debiao smiled, just about to say old Xie is loyal. ℴ

Xie Baomin then said:

"I’ll make Snowy Bean Paste!"

Yuan Debiao: "..."

Stupid thing, you’re not satisfied with how badly I got beaten, are you?

Snowy Bean Paste is a challenging dish in Northeast cuisine; it requires whipping up egg whites, wrapping bean paste, and low-temperature deep frying, allowing egg whites to expand and inflate in oil.

The entire process demands high culinary skills and experience.

In his twenties, although Yuan Debiao could make Snowy Bean Paste, its presentation and taste were average, definitely not comparable to old Xie’s.

Possibly after he left, young Yuan Debiao could be hung up and beaten.

After the jokes, Yuan Debiao looked at the apprentice next to him and asked:

"Did you brush oil?"

"I did."

He said to Lin Xu:

"Before smoking, the ready marinated goods need a layer of oil brushed on, which helps caramel smoke adhere to the surface of the meat, improving appearance."

Lin Xu didn’t expect such a detail.

Learned a new trick.

Yuan Debiao placed a sheet of tin foil at the bottom of the iron pot, sprinkled a small half bowl of White Sugar on it based on the amount of marinated meat, spreading it slightly while sprinkling.

Then he placed the grate filled with marinated food inside the iron pot.

Everything was ready, he put on the lid.

This is typical cold smoking routine, after covering the pot with the lid, Yuan Debiao said to everyone:

"Next is smoking, this process is very short, pay attention to observe."

After speaking, he turned on the stove under the iron pot and adjusted it to medium-low heat.

In hot smoking, the fire stays off, just heat the iron pot red-hot, then turn off the fire and scatter sugar to start smoking.

While in cold smoking, you need to slowly heat White Sugar in the pot, the whole process is easier to handle, and the degree of smoking can be controlled.

However, cold smoking also has drawbacks; this slow coloring effect is not as good as hot smoking. ℯ𝐥.

Hot smoking suddenly releases a lot of caramel smoke in a short time, adhering to the surface of the food, giving it a reddish and lovely appearance.

Cold smoking in comparison is a bit lacking.

Not long after Yuan Debiao ignited the stove, white smoke started emerging between the pot lid and the iron pot.

When the white smoke became thick, Yuan Debiao said:

"Around now it’s about golden yellow, soon yellow smoke will emerge, and the color will change to deep yellow, eventually turning light red..."

As soon as his words fell, the white smoke turned yellow.

This indicates the inside color is also changing.

Dai Jianli curiously asked:

"So when’s the best time to take it out of the pot?"