I'm the Culinary God

Lin Xu: "..."

It’s better not to have this opportunity.

Even non-poisonous snakes are scary enough. If you add a poisonous snake, wouldn’t it force people to change careers?

Soon, Ma Zhiqiang brought a basin of hot water around eighty degrees.

To prevent the temperature from being insufficient, he even measured it with a kitchen thermometer.

Xie Baomin put the snake, which had already lost its head, into the hot water, scalded it for about forty to fifty seconds, then took it out. He used a towel to grip the snake’s body and rubbed it forward, causing the scales to fall off.

"After scalding the snake’s scales, you can’t clean them with a wire ball or brush as it may damage the outer skin. Just soak them in hot water and gently rub them backward, and the scales will fall off."

The whole process was like undressing the snake, revealing the green-yellow patterns on its skin, while the white scales on its belly peeled off, revealing the snake skin underneath.

Xie Baomin cleaned off the snake’s scales from head to tail and washed it again.

Then he picked up the kitchen knife and chopped the whole snake into segments about five centimeters long.

"Later, I’ll make you a famous Flavorful Snake dish. As for the remaining two snakes, I’ll leave them to Little Zhuang and Little Zhu to bake. Since you two aren’t afraid of snakes, feel free to experiment."

Flavorful Snake?

Lin Xu remembered having eaten this dish at a Xiang cuisine restaurant before; it was aromatic and spicy, with tender and delicious snake meat.

If he’s making this dish, then...

Just thinking about the delicious snake meat instantly swept away the fear and timid emotions brought by the flower snake earlier.

Yes, if you bring a live snake over, I would back up several steps in succession and wouldn’t dare to even look at it.

But if you bring over a serving of Flavorful Snake, sorry, I have to change to a bigger bowl.

As a foodie, one must flexibly adjust one’s bottom line.

Zhuang Yizhou started butchering the flower snake, preparing to stew it with an old hen, making a Dragon and Phoenix dish, while Zhu Yong planned to use the technique taught by Guo Xinghai a few days ago to make a sizzling snake pot with the flower snake.

Xie Baomin chopped up the snake meat, washed it again, then heated a pot of oil, pouring in the snake meat to deep-fry it.

Fresh snake meat contains a lot of moisture and has a grassy odor, so deep-frying not only extracts the excess moisture and grassy odor but also makes the texture of the snake meat firmer.

Snake meat doesn’t need to be fried too hard, just until the surface is slightly golden and curled.

Remove the snake meat and drain the oil, then start preparing the auxiliary ingredients.

Scallion, ginger granules, garlic cloves, dried chili, millet spicy pepper, red chopped pepper, Erjingtiao pepper, onion, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, bay leaf, Angelica dahurica, cardamom...

All ingredients and seasonings were prepared, and Xie Baomin started cooking.

Lin Xu looked at the prepared dish ingredients—there were dried chilies, millet spicy pepper, red pickled peppers, and Erjingtiao peppers, a total of four types of peppers. No wonder it was a Xiang dish, it seemed like snake meat was just a garnish!

No wonder Flavorful Snake has both a Guangdong version and a Xiang version. So many chilies would definitely be unbearable for Guangdong people who have a preference for fresh flavors.

Time was getting late, and without any delay, Xie Baomin started cooking.

He placed a wok on the stove, added some tea oil and half a spoon of pork fat.

Snake meat has low fat content, so to enhance its flavor, pork fat is added to enrich its richness and taste.

With the oil heated, he added scallion, ginger, and garlic, stir-frying until fragrant, then added dried chili and red pickled pepper, stir-frying until red oil emerged, then added various spices.

Once the aroma was extracted, the deep-fried snake segments were added to the wok, stirred over high heat.

Along the edge of the wok, some rice wine was drizzled to further let the snake meat’s odor dissipate, then light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and salt were added.

Finally, pour in pork bone broth and a few bits of crystal sugar and began to stew.

Apart from being aromatic and spicy, the freshness and perfect doneness of the snake meat are crucial in Flavorful Snake.

To make snake meat tender and chewy, after boiling over high heat, it needs to be stewed on low heat. If stewed continuously over high heat, it would turn into Snake Soup by the time it’s ready to serve.

Snake meat needs to be stewed for about twenty minutes, and Xie Baomin turned his head to ask:

"How about it, junior, have you learned it?"

To be sure, yes, this method was not difficult. Even without technique, Lin Xu could imitate it, but killing a snake, that was not possible.

Technical issues can be resolved, but psychological discomfort can’t be easily twisted.

"It’s okay, junior, keep an open mind. If it doesn’t work, let a non-poisonous snake bite you a few times. Once you’re fully exposed to snakes and have killed a few with your own hands, your fear of snakes will naturally be resolved."

Xie Baomin spoke seriously like a psychologist, suggesting a solution, but Lin Xu felt it wasn’t quite right.

The senior is the type who wouldn’t find squirming eel segments scary, but instead scold the non-squirming ones for being lazy—an oddball not to be treated with common sense.

As for the method he said for overcoming the fear of snakes, it was probably nonsense.

Lin Xu smiled without saying much, and started preparing the Osmanthus Abalone.

He squeezed out the excess broth from the abalone soaked in stock and placed it on the cutting board, first cutting it into evenly thick abalone slices, then further modifying it into strips.

Osmanthus Abalone is different from Sour and Spicy Abalone; this dish needs to be cut into strips about half a centimeter square, then cooked.

Lin Xu cut the abalone into strips, then beat eight egg yolks.

He added a small spoon of fine white sugar, a small spoon of salt, and a small spoon of pepper powder to the egg yolks, stirring with chopsticks.

"What are you making, junior?"

Xie Baomin came over, surprised to see Lin Xu beating egg yolks.