Chapter 30 - Pagoda Meat! (1/2)

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

The pagoda meat originated from Shanghai.

The taste and texture were similar to that of [Pickled Vegetables with Pork Belly], but its look was completely different.

After successfully making the pagoda meat, it should look like a golden multi-layered pagoda. This could only be achieved by relying on the chef’s superb culinary skills.

Xu Le directly entered the system space and used his remaining Gourmet points to exchange for several recipes from the System Shop.

Not only this [Pagoda Meat], but also the vegetable, main and dessert dishes…

Before the second segment of the cooking contest, all the chefs would have an hour to prepare.

Xu Le used this one hour of preparation time to practice in the system space for half a month, memorizing all the cooking methods.

…

An hour later.

The second stage of the culinary competition officially began.

Every chef was assigned to a makeshift kitchen and their cooking was recorded on the camera the whole time.

This culinary contest was broadcasted live on three platforms: Hu Ya, Dou Yu, and Bilibili.

Perhaps it was because Xu Le was participating in this year’s competition, so the popularity of the broadcast was extremely high and the number of people watching had exceeded 8 million!

The netizens wanted to see what position Xu Le, who was known as the Little Master Chef, would achieve in this culinary competition.

“Pagoda meat…”

Xu Le looked at a square piece of pork belly in front of him. It was about 20 centimeters in length and width, and 4 centimeters in thickness.

This was the fresh black pork that was slaughtered that morning. The meat quality was very good, sturdy and elastic, and the size was just right for making pagoda meat.

Due to the fact that the preparation for this dish was too time consuming, Xu Le had only practiced this dish dozens of times during the 15 days in the system space.

He took out the familiar alcohol spray gun and aimed it at the pork belly skin, burning it black.

Then, he placed the entire piece of pork belly in a large basin of clear water and cleaned it with a steel wire ball.

After all the black parts were removed, the skin of the meat was slightly yellow, and it was already emitting the fragrance of the lard.

Xu Le’s aim in this step was to get rid of the stench in the flesh.

He took out a large bowl and added aniseed, cinnamon, onions, ginger slices, and a few spoonfuls of red rice flour.

The seasoning that had been prepared was placed on the cleaned pork belly. He also added a suitable amount of yellow wine to remove the smell.

After the water boiled, the foam was removed.

After boiling the pork for 15 minutes, he only needed to cook the pork belly to a slightly cooked state.

After 15 minutes, Xu Le picked up a large pair of tongs and fished the meat out of the pot.

This pair of tongs was about half a meter long.

It was almost as tall as Xu Le.

The scene of Xu Le, an eight-year-old child, struggling in front of the stove looked rather comical.

However, Xu Le did not care about anything other than cooking.

From the moment he put on the chef’s uniform and started cooking, he had already been completely focused on it, enjoying the pleasure that cooking itself brought him.

The purpose of applying a layer of salt on the meat skin was to prevent the oil from splurting out when the pork was fried.

The pig skin now had a bright red color.

This color came from the red rice flour that Xu Le had added into the pot previously.

He started the fire to boil the oil. When the oil temperature was about 60% heated, Xu Le placed the entire piece of pork belly in the pot and started frying it.

The meat skin become more chewy and elastic after being fried, and it was less likely to become overcooked.