I'm the Culinary God

Lin Xu scooped the softened rice noodles from the water and placed them in the basket to drain.

Sour soup noodles, depending on the type of meat, are generally divided into pork noodles, lamb noodles, and beef noodles. After work yesterday, Lin Xu brought some pork tenderloin and pork intestines, intending to make pork noodles.

He took the pork tenderloin and the intestines, which had been cleaned yesterday, out of the refrigerator. He sliced the tenderloin into thin pieces and marinated them using light soy sauce, scallion and ginger water, pepper powder, egg white, and corn starch.

Next, he cleaned the pork intestines and cut them into chunks, washed them with starch, and also marinated them with light soy sauce and other seasonings.

When cooking the noodles later, add the pork meat and intestines, cook them until done, and remove from the pot; the resulting pork will be tender and the intestines delightfully crunchy.

Originally, Lin Xu wanted to use some pork liver, but storing fresh pork liver overnight in the refrigerator makes it taste gamy, and it’s not suitable for cooking this way.

After preparing the meaty ingredients, Lin Xu began preparing the vegetarian ingredients.

The cleaned lettuce leaves were placed in the draining basin, scallions were chopped into small pieces, tomatoes were peeled and diced, red pickled peppers were chopped, and the soaked sour radish was sliced thinly.

Logically, Guizhou sour soup noodles should be made with red sour soup.

But red sour soup requires fermenting cooked glutinous rice with tomatoes, red peppers, and ginger, and the preparation cycle is at least over a month.

Making it now is not feasible, so Lin Xu plans to mix tomatoes, pickled peppers, sour radish, and pickle water.

Mm, as long as the sour and spicy taste is right, it’ll be equally delicious.

With these ingredients ready, Lin Xu took a wire mesh and placed it over the stove, putting a handful of dried chili peppers, green chilies, and millet peppers on it to make roasted chili.

Then he roasted two tomatoes.

Using these charred tomatoes and peppers, along with garlic, ginger, and cilantro, he pounded them into a very simple sour and spicy dipping sauce.

With the dipping sauce ready, it’s time to cook the noodles.

The pot was heated, some cooking oil was poured in, and ginger slices were added to infuse their fragrance before tossing in the peeled and diced tomatoes to be sautéed until juicy.

This step requires some patience, sautéing the tomato pieces until they become a tomato paste.

To accelerate the tomato softening, some table salt can be added, but not too much, as the pickled peppers, sour radish, and pickle water already contain salt, and too much could make it overly salty.

Once the tomatoes have completely softened, add the chopped pickled peppers and sour radish and continue frying.

During the pickling process, pickled peppers and radishes inevitably have a fermented aroma, which needs to be sautéed thoroughly at this point to allow the odor to dissipate with the steam.

Then pour in the prepared pickled vegetable sour water.

Bring it to a boil and simmer briefly, also to remove the fermented smell of the pickled vegetables.

Boil it and pour in an equal amount of pork bone broth.

The acid in the soup is too intense, so it needs to be balanced with aromatic broth, and the best choice, naturally, is pork bone broth; its rich aroma makes it extremely satisfying to eat.

If making lamb noodles, use lamb broth; for beef noodles, use beef bone soup.

Using the right broth for the meat results in a more delicious flavor.

After boiling, the capsicum from the pickled peppers and tomato paste turns the soup in the pot a tempting red color.

If a freshly killed live fish is added now, it would be the famous Guizhou sour soup fish.

Lin Xu poured the rice noodles into the pot, brought them to a boil, then adjusted the taste with a small amount of sugar for enhanced flavor, a dash of light soy sauce, and a pinch of sweat-inducing pepper powder.

Once the rice noodles were cooked through, he reduced the heat and scattered the pork and intestines into the pot.

After the pork and intestines were set, he turned the heat up briefly to bring it to a boil, turned off the heat, added the lettuce, stirred to let the rice noodles cover the lettuce, then poured in the roasted chili and crispy fried bits, completing a pot of sour and fragrant crispy fried bits noodles.

Lin Xu took two small-sized clay pots, cleaned them, and heated them on the stove, then ladled the finished sour soup noodles into them.

The sizzling sound fully awakened appetites.

"Baobao, come down to eat."

"Okay, okay!"

Shen Jiayue, done with her workout, looked at the two servings of clay pot rice noodles on the table, her eyes sparkling:

"Wow, they look so tempting!"

Lin Xu placed two freshly fried eggs into the clay pot, officially starting this rich-flavored Guizhou breakfast.

The two each held a small bowl, clamping some rice noodles from the clay pot, dipping them into the dipping sauce to lower their temperature, then placing them into the empty bowls to begin their feast.

The soup in the pot is quite hot, so initially, it’s better not to drink the soup but rather eat the noodles and various toppings.

This is similar to the Yunnan rice noodle method; start with the staple food, leaving the soup-drinking step for last.

The rice noodles have a smooth texture, and in the mouth, you can taste the rich rice flavor; paired with the sour and spicy dipping sauce, it’s sour, spicy, and appetizing.

A few bites in, the cold is driven away, clean and clear.

After finishing the rice noodles, clamping a slice of tender pork tenderloin or crispy pork intestines adds significant satisfaction from the food.

However, the most exceptional is the crispy fried bits.

The crispy bits, from when they were placed in the pot until now, have been close to ten minutes, yet they maintain their crispy texture in the mouth.

They haven’t softened in the hot sour soup, and their original salty and slightly sweet flavor hasn’t diminished.

This aspect differs from pork grease; pork grease, due to its higher oil content, would have softened during soaking, becoming greasy.

But these crispy bits remain crispy and tasty.