I'm the Culinary God

The Soy Sauce Meat was really tasty, rich with sauce fragrance, salty and savory, and after you finished you could even taste a faint sweetness lingering; that flavor together with the firm texture made the Soy Sauce Meat especially delicious.

But after all it was midnight, and Lin Xu wasn’t very hungry, so he put down his chopsticks after eating two slices of meat.

He set a wok on the stove, poured in the fat that had dripped onto the tray, and simmered it over low heat for a bit.

He did this to get rid of any off flavors, and to use the high heat to blend the aroma of lard and Soy Sauce together, making the fat more fragrant and the taste better.

Once it was rendered, he scooped out the fat and poured it into a small bowl.

The next morning.

Lin Xu finished washing up, went downstairs to the kitchen, and started making breakfast.

He first put on the pumpkin porridge to cook for the morning, then mixed some dough for scallion pancakes, and took out the tofu skin he’d brought back from the shop yesterday.

He’d originally planned to wrap minced meat in tofu skin this morning, but now that the Soy Sauce Meat was ready, that tofu-skin meat roll would have to wait until next time.

He cut the tofu skin into wide strips, then into pieces, blanched them in hot water, then fished them out and set them in a basket to drain.

While he had this bit of time, he took out the Soy Sauce Meat he’d made yesterday and sliced it into thinner pieces with a kitchen knife.

Last night he’d steamed it first and then sliced, which made cutting easier, but now he was cutting it raw, so it was relatively firmer—though that texture actually made it easier to slice thin.

Once the meat was cut, he squeezed the water out of the tofu skin and spread it on a plate, then divided the sliced Soy Sauce Meat into two portions, and put one portion over the tofu skin.

As for the remaining half, that would be steamed together with Chinese cabbage leaves.

He cut the cabbage, both stem and leaf, into pieces, laid them out on a plate, and arranged the Soy Sauce Meat on top.

With both dishes fully prepped, he put them into the steam cabinet and started steaming.

Taking advantage of this time, he chopped some scallions for the pancakes, then put a big spoonful of flour into a bowl, added two small spoonfuls of salt and two small spoonfuls of Five-Spice Powder.

He fetched the rendered fat from yesterday, heated it, then poured it into the bowl, mixing it while hot into a paste—that became the oil roux most commonly used for scallion pancakes.

With the oil roux, the pancakes wouldn’t just have layers, their aroma would also be much richer.

While Lin Xu was busy in the kitchen, Shen Jiayue and Chen Yan were being called awake by Han Shuzhen to go up to the rooftop and do exercises, and Old Shen was already there with a skipping rope, hopping around until he broke a sweat.

If you eat a lot of meat, you’ve got to exercise more.

And the whole point of exercising is just to be able to eat more meat.

The real driving force behind Old Shen’s lifelong commitment to working out has always basically been eating.

Get your body trained strong and sound, then you can really go to town on meat and booze; if your body falls apart, no matter how much money you have you still can’t hug a big pork shank and gnaw on it—that’d be such a pity!

In the kitchen, Lin Xu rolled out the rested dough with a rolling pin, spread on the prepared oil roux, sprinkled over chopped scallions, then rolled it up, cut it into small dough portions, twisted both ends, pressed them flat into discs, and rolled them out into pancake rounds.

He oiled and heated a flat pan, then laid the pancakes in to cook.

This kind of pancake is a very common staple in Northern households, and it’s very filling.

By the time the scallion pancakes were done, the workout upstairs had also finished.

Lin Xu lined the pancakes up neatly on the board, cut them with a knife, and heaped them into a basket, then brought down the clay pot of pumpkin–millet congee.

Lastly, he took the two steamed dishes out of the steam cabinet.

As soon as he opened the steam cabinet door, a fresh, savory aroma wafted out; the fragrance of tofu skin mingled with the umami of the Soy Sauce Meat—just the smell was enough to whet your appetite.

And the other plate with cabbage even smelled a bit like a big mixed Stew.

He sprinkled some scallions over both plates, heated a little peanut oil and drizzled it over, and the aroma grew even richer, while the addition of fat would also improve the texture of the tofu skin and cabbage leaves.

He carried the two plates to the table, then set out last night’s leftover roast chicken and little pickles and other dishes—a plentiful and delicious breakfast was officially ready.

Shen Jiayue came bouncing down from upstairs, grabbed a scallion pancake from the table, took a bite, and said with a big grin:

"So good, so good, it actually kind of feels like eating meat—no wonder, it’s made with the broth from the Soy Sauce Meat. It’s like eating a meat pancake... Dad, you didn’t have these kinds of scallion pancakes when you were a kid, did you?"

Shen Guofu sat down smiling, took the thin porridge Lin Xu handed him, and said:

"When I was little, getting to eat a scallion pancake was no easy thing. Back then your grandma would steam some mixed-grain mantou, tear one open, smear a bit of lard and coarse salt inside, rub it while it was hot until the lard melted, then take a big bite—that was already the greatest treat."

Chen Yan took a tiny sip of porridge from her bowl, then picked up a scallion pancake to eat:

"My mom told me, back then our family was the poorest in the whole alley. At New Year’s, other families set off firecrackers; we couldn’t afford any, so we’d take the whip used for spinning tops and snap it a few times in the yard—having some noise counted as celebrating the New Year."

Shen Guofu picked up a slice of Soy Sauce Meat with some tofu skin and popped it into his mouth, chewing as he said:

"New Year’s is all about a bit of noise so you know it’s here. With so many families setting off firecrackers, how could Heaven possibly tell who’s lighting real Pao and who’s just fooling Him... Huh, this Soy Sauce Meat with tofu skin actually tastes pretty good together. Nice—first time I’ve discovered you can pair them like this, this dish is satisfying."

Han Shuzhen shot him a look:

"As long as there’s meat, there’s nothing that tastes bad in your eyes, is there?"

"Not entirely. When I was running sales in the Southwest, I came across people eating rotten meat—that I couldn’t handle. I’m sure the flavor’s fine, but I just couldn’t get past that mental hurdle."

When he was young, Shen Guofu also roamed all over the country and had seen all kinds of local delicacies.

He couldn’t eat rotten meat, but he didn’t mind beef stomach soup; he could wolf down stinky tofu till he was full, but he wasn’t much into stinky Winter Melon or stinky amaranth greens.