I'm the Culinary God

"Serves you right for running your mouth. A perfectly good meal and you’ve managed to kill everyone’s appetite."

The others all started greeting Ren Jie:

"Jie-ge, does your wife have any sisters left?"

"Yeah, Jie-ge, introduce someone to us, will you? With you living your little happy life every day, don’t forget your brothers."

"Back when we did the assessment together, we agreed not to look for girlfriends within three years. And you? Quiet as a thief, went and got engaged... If you don’t treat us to at least two Lin Ji roast chickens, this just won’t fly."

Ren Jie chuckled:

"No problem if you want roast chicken. I’ll find some time and ask Lin Xu to make more, bring a few dozen over, let the canteen chefs shred them up, and we’ll eat together."

He didn’t dare promise much else, but when it came to Lin Ji’s roast chicken, that was absolutely no problem.

The next morning, when Lin Xu arrived at the shop, he saw the Fish Belly that Old Huang had delivered.

Strictly speaking, Fish Belly is what it’s called in the Central Plains, specifically referring to oil-prepared Fish Maw; dried swim bladders of sea fish are called Fish Belly or Flower Gum and are a famous ingredient.

The larger the Fish Belly, the more precious it is; those over a foot long and wide are said to be worth an apartment.

There are many ways to eat Fish Belly; the most common are Cantonese dishes like abalone sauce Fish Belly, superior stock Flower Gum, Flower Gum stewed with hen, and so on—mainly for making soups or braised dishes.

But in the Central Plains, they use an oil-preparation Technique to turn the originally dry and hard Fish Belly into a loose, porous, sponge-like texture, then use braising and other cooking methods to make it into a delicacy.

Finished braised Fish Belly is not only delicious, with a tender yet springy and crisp texture, it’s also the opening course of high-end Henan banquets, holding a pivotal place in the entire cuisine.

"What made you suddenly crave Fish Belly, man? I don’t have any really good stuff on hand. The pre-prepared ones are all mediocre, and all frozen. So I brought you some Fish Maw I’ve been hoarding. Why don’t you try oil-preparing it yourself?"

There are pre-prepared Fish Belly products on the market, mostly made from trimmings of processed Fish Belly, so they’re cheap—less than twenty yuan a pack.

But that kind of Fish Belly has a mediocre texture and almost no flavor; if you want it to taste good, you have to do the preparation yourself.

When it comes to making Fish Belly, there’s a saying: "Seventy percent is in the preparation, thirty percent in the cooking." Meaning, if you want good Fish Belly, seventy percent of the Kung Fu lies in the preparation; the cooking only accounts for thirty percent.

The importance of the preparation step in the whole dish is obvious.

Lin Xu hadn’t expected Old Huang to throw him such a tough problem.

He calmly redeemed a preparation Technique from the points mall, then said with a smile:

"My mother-in-law wants to eat it. Since it’s not busy in the run-up to the New Year, I’ll give it a try... Not just Fish Belly; I’m also planning to make Pork Skin Belly later. Boss Huang, you can eat more of that—hardly any fat."

The so-called Pork Skin Belly is a Fish Belly–like ingredient made from Pork Skin, with a loose, porous texture that can puff up even more dramatically than Fish Belly.

You can use it in cold salads, stews, stir-fries, dry pan-frying, and so on—lots of ways to eat it.

Hearing this, Old Huang immediately laughed and said:

"Once it’s done, I’ve just got to taste it, no matter what."

Talking about food reminded Lin Xu of Old Huang’s wife wanting to eat rice noodles, so he continued:

"Oh right, didn’t sis-in-law say she wanted rice noodles? I’ll make some when I have time. I can’t guarantee it’ll be the original Southern Yunnan flavor, but it definitely won’t taste bad."

"Alright then, we’ll just wait to eat."

After taking the Fish Maw into the back kitchen, Zhuang Yizhou saw it and laughed:

"Good thing Guo Xinghai isn’t coming to work today. If he saw all this Flower Gum, he’d go nuts."

People from Guangdong love these dried belly and Fish Maw ingredients, mostly for soup; they have quite a few complaints about cooking them after oil-preparation, feeling it’s a waste of heavenly goods.

Such great soup ingredients, and you insist on making them into dishes—what a waste!

Lin Xu put the dried Belly into warm water and carefully washed off the surface dust.

Oil-preparing Fish Belly is a rather slow process that takes more than two hours overall and requires two pots of oil: one low-temperature and one high-temperature.

The process itself isn’t complicated: first use oil at about thirty percent heat level to soak and soften the Belly completely; then move it into oil at about sixty percent heat to fry. At this stage, the dried Belly quickly puffs up into sponge-like Fish Belly.

Once it has puffed up, you then pass it through oil at eighty to ninety percent heat to make sure the inside of the Belly is fully heated and expanded, thereby completing the transformation from Fish Maw to Fish Belly.

It sounds simple, but each step is actually quite difficult.

Especially the high-temperature frying: if the frying time is too short, the Fish Maw inside won’t expand; if it’s too long, the outer Fish Belly will burn and discolor—and discoloration is a major taboo in Fish Belly preparation.

No matter what, the Fish Belly must be as white as jade, not scorched, not burnt.

Once it picks up color in the fryer, that’s an unrecoverable disaster.

Lin Xu washed the Fish Maw clean in warm water, then used kitchen paper to dry the surface moisture, and poured half a wok of clean, unused Pork Lard into the pan.

Fish Belly has to be as white as jade, which sets a high bar for the fat you use.

Among vegetable oils that tend to color food, only corn oil barely works, but corn oil doesn’t have enough fragrance, so in the end you still have to use colorless Pork Lard.

As soon as the lard went into the wok, Lin Xu put the Fish Belly in.

You have to start it in cold oil so that the Fish Maw warms evenly inside and out and the Belly can soak and soften as much as possible.

He turned on the burner to low heat.

This step requires the Belly to soak slowly, so you can’t use high heat; you have to use a tiny flame to let the oil temperature rise gradually, so the low-temperature fat can slowly penetrate into the Fish Maw.

If the oil temperature exceeds 100 degrees at this stage, the Fish Maw on the outside will immediately start to puff, while the inside remains solid, resulting in a shell-like Belly that’s expanded outside but hard inside, and basically inedible.

If you want to prepare Fish Maw properly, you must keep the oil temperature at about thirty percent heat and use a tiny flame to slowly prepare it until the Fish Maw softens and contracts; only then can you move on to the next puffing step.

While Lin Xu was busy in the kitchen, Shen Jiayue was holding Dundun and going with Chen Yan to the JEEP 4S store to pick out a Wrangler...

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This Chapter is 5000 words, brothers, I’m begging for a Monthly Ticket!