Culinary God in Wilderness

"What about that Andre fellow? Did he go back?"

Connor rubbed his stomach, not the least bit embarrassed. "He must’ve seen that my kill was bigger than his and was too ashamed to stick around. Probably ran off with his tail between his legs, hahaha!" 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"Maybe."

Lin Chen changed the subject, pointing to the deer on the ground outside. "How do you want to eat your kill? Pan-fried, roasted, or in a soup?"

"Whatever you want. I’m not a picky eater, as long as it tastes good."

As he spoke, he rolled up his sleeves, pulled a combat knife from his backpack, and walked into the yard to drag the deer out of the burlap sack.

Only when he got a clear look at the whole animal did Lin Chen recognize what it was.

It was a white-tailed deer—a doe, with no antlers.

"White-tailed deer are an incredibly alert and agile species. Even with a hunting bow, the slightest noise can startle them. And you actually managed to catch one."

"Haha, of course I couldn’t have done it alone," Connor said as he skillfully hoisted the deer and began to skin it. His movements were so fluid you could tell he’d done this plenty of times before.

"But don’t you forget, I wasn’t alone."

’Coyote?’

Lin Chen froze for a second before it dawned on him.

From what he knew about white-tailed deer, they weren’t a migratory species. They typically stayed within a one-kilometer radius of their habitat, and their patterns of movement could be predicted.

They liked to eat or rest in specific locations but wouldn’t rest in the same spot twice in a row. This meant that once you found a place where a white-tailed deer had rested, you could find the deer itself by following the tracks nearby.

If you then set a trap in advance along their path, with Coyote doing the driving and a person steering, forcing it into the trap wouldn’t be too difficult.

As Connor skinned the deer, Lin Chen’s gaze swept over the hide. Sure enough, he saw no significant wounds, only a deep gash on the neck. It looked like the animal had been bled on the spot right after it was caught.

Between his tracking experience, hunting methods, and the way he processed the kill, it was clear Connor had impressive wilderness survival skills. Or, at the very least, he was an expert on the habits of certain animals.

’The production team probably didn’t do a very detailed background check when casting. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have brought on a butcher just to round out the numbers.’

’This was normal, though. Pretty typical of the corner-cutting you see from foreigners.’

’The production team probably never expected that the contestant who sounded the scariest—the butcher—would be one of the first to voluntarily quit because he couldn’t hunt anything, right?’

Lin Chen didn’t step in to help. He just stood by and watched quietly.

It was the first time he had seen a foreigner butcher a large animal in person, and he wanted to see if the process was any different from what he’d learned in school.

He had only learned how to break down chickens and fish in school, but the principles were the same. The anatomy of most animals wasn’t much different from those two—it was just a matter of scale.

Under his watchful eye, Connor swiftly and cleanly finished processing the deer, tossing the organs unceremoniously into a snowbank.

In weather this cold, there was no need to worry about the organs spoiling and breeding bacteria from being left out.

"All right, Lin, now it’s your time to shine."

Connor wiped the blood from his hands with a handful of snow and passed the combat knife to him, his eyes filled with anticipation.

He had simply gutted the animal and taken off the hide in one piece, nothing more.

He wasn’t so skilled at the finer work.

He also wanted to see how a professional chef would handle the rest.

Unlike Andre, even though he lived in the suburbs, he had internet at home. He’d heard a thing or two about Great Xia and had a general idea about East Asia as a whole—he knew the people from that region would eat anything.

’If they eat everything, they must know how to prepare everything, too.’

As Connor watched expectantly, Lin Chen took the knife and started sorting through the pile of organs, quickly picking out a few odd-looking parts.

"This greenish part is the gallbladder. The bile is bitter, so you can’t break it, or it will ruin the taste of the other organs."

"This yellow gland is the adrenal gland. You can’t eat it; it can have a noticeable effect on a person if consumed."

"These parts that look like fat are lymph nodes, a hotbed of pathogens and toxins. They have to be completely removed."

"This is the spleen. It’s also a lymphatic organ, so we’ll toss it."

"The environment in Alaska hasn’t been polluted, so the remaining organs are edible. If we were in a more heavily industrialized region, I’d only recommend eating the heart. The other organs tend to accumulate a lot of heavy metals."

"These discarded parts aren’t edible, but they can be used as bait for traps. It’s up to you if you want to keep them."

After sorting and dealing with the organs, he started butchering the deer carcass.

He grabbed a front leg with his left hand and pulled it away from the body. The sharp combat knife slid under the armpit in one clean slice, exposing the joint. He then cut a full circle around it, severing all the connecting tendons and muscles.

Grabbing the leg with both hands, he yanked it outward with force. With a loud CRACK, he easily removed the entire leg from the carcass.

The process for the hind legs was slightly different, but the overall technique was largely the same: follow the bone structure, find the joint, and cut.

After removing all four legs, he pressed the tip of his knife against the end of the rib cage and sliced off the entire belly flap, followed by the meat on the outside and inside of the ribs.

"This is the belly meat, one of the fattiest parts of the animal. This is the rib meat, also high in fat. The meat inside the rib cage is pure lean. And this cut here is the diaphragm..."

He patiently explained each cut as he made it.

He wasn’t just speaking for Connor’s benefit, but also for the viewers watching at home.

In about ten minutes, the roughly seventy-kilogram white-tailed deer was completely and cleanly butchered, its parts laid out neatly on the snow.

"Do you want it cooked Western-style or Chinese-style?"

"Both. Can we do both?"

"No problem."

His eyes scanned the various cuts of meat, and recipes for several dishes immediately came to mind.

He started by picking up a long, strip-shaped muscle.

"This is the deer tenderloin, also known as Phil. It’s the most tender and leanest part of any animal. In Western cuisine, it’s used for pan-seared steaks; in Chinese cooking, we use it in stir-fries."

The tenderloin is a long strip of muscle, thick in the middle and tapered at both ends. For a steak, you wouldn’t use the ends. Since tenderloin is already a rare cut and requires trimming, its price is naturally higher.

But that’s no problem. Chinese cuisine excels at using trimmings, so nothing will go to waste.

It was morning now. The faint sunlight didn’t provide much warmth, but it wasn’t as cold as it was at night.

He decided to cook right there in the yard. It was convenient, and it would also be a good opportunity to build up his tolerance to the cold.

He brought the leftover torch from the cabin out into the yard, relit it, and set the skillet on top. He sliced off a small, thick piece of the belly fat and tossed it in to slowly render out the oil.

By the time thick plumes of blue smoke were rising from the skillet, the piece of deer belly had shrunk by more than half. It was now a tempting golden-brown, giving off a rich, fatty aroma.

He picked it up, sprinkled a little salt on top, and offered it to Connor.

"A little snack. Want some?"

Connor, who was already ravenous, couldn’t hold back at the smell. He snatched it and shoved it into his mouth.

CRUNCH... CRUNCH...

The crisp sound was clearly audible, and his face instantly lit up with delighted surprise.

"Hey! This tastes a lot like bacon, doesn’t it?"

"Bacon is just cured pork belly, so you’re not wrong to say that."

Lin Chen cut a two-finger-thick piece of tenderloin, sprinkled its surface with sea salt and cracked black pepper, patted it gently, and then carefully placed it in the center of the skillet.

SIZZLE.

The delightful sound made Connor gulp, his eyes fixed on that piece of Phil.

He’d eaten his fair share of it; he ran a farm, after all. But he usually got his Phil pre-cut. He’d never experienced the process of catching and butchering it himself before putting it straight into the pan.

He had killed the deer last night, but it was too heavy, and he was too exhausted to haul it back in one trip. So, the deer had actually been sitting in the snow for over ten hours.

The normal aging period for a steak is forty-eight hours; higher-quality cuts might be aged for sixty hours, or even up to seven days.

If the aging time is insufficient, the lactic acid that hasn’t fully broken down can give the meat a slightly sour taste.

But he couldn’t be bothered with that now. Making him wait another two days would be worse than death.

The torch’s flame was intense. A faint white color quickly crept up the bottom of the deer Phil, while the part touching the pan’s surface took on a distinct, seared brown—the mark of a perfect Maillard reaction.

"Most of our viewers probably know how to pan-sear a steak, but I want to explain it for those who aren’t as experienced with cooking. You have to use high heat, and the pan needs to be hot enough to smoke. That’s how you get a Maillard reaction in the shortest amount of time, what’s known in Western cooking as ’searing the edges.’"

"I explained the principle behind this to Andre not long ago. You use high heat to make the surface of the meat form a crust, which locks the juices inside so they don’t leak out too much. This is how you get a tender, juicy texture."

As he spoke, he quickly flipped the Phil over. The side he revealed to the camera had the perfect, seared dark-brown color of a classic steak.

After searing both flat sides, he seared the edges. This is an essential step; otherwise, the juices will leak out from the sides.

"By the way, how do you like it cooked?"

"I usually have it medium-rare, but since we’re out in the wild, what do you suggest?"

"Medium. Can’t go any rarer than that, just to be safe."

Lin Chen had already anticipated his answer and replied without a second thought.

"The internal temperature of a medium-cooked steak reaches 60-65 degrees Celsius. For deer and beef, anything above 60 degrees is enough to kill most bacteria and meet safety standards."

After searing all four sides, he moved the skillet off the flame and covered it with the lid from the stockpot.

"After searing a steak, there’s a crucial step called ’resting.’ I’m sure many of you have heard of it."

"The principle behind resting is to let the residual heat slowly penetrate the center of the meat. This increases the internal temperature while reducing the time the outer layers are exposed to direct heat, resulting in a more evenly cooked steak with a better texture."

"If you just kept searing it without resting, at such high temperatures, the outside would probably be burnt by the time the inside reached medium."

"If you were at home, you could just let it rest on a cutting board, a baking sheet, or a wire rack—anything works. Let it sit for three to five minutes."

"For a steak that’s three centimeters thick like this one, searing each side for ninety seconds and then resting will get you to about medium-rare. Another round of one minute per side before resting will bring it to medium, and one more round after that for medium-well."

"For those of you at home, you can add butter and rosemary or thyme about a minute before it’s done. If you want to add garlic, you can toss it in with the steak right at the beginning."

"Once the butter and aromatics are in, tilt the pan and use a spoon to baste the steak with the liquid. This helps the meat cook evenly, reduces the number of times you need to flip it, and allows the flavor of the infused oil to seep into the meat."

"Of course, if you’re eating at home, I have an even simpler method: just spoon two or three spoonfuls of the aromatic oil directly over the steak after you’ve plated it. The effect is pretty much the same."

"The reason restaurants don’t do this is mainly because the oil pools at the bottom of the plate. When a server carries the dish, it might slosh around, messing up the plating and ruining the presentation."