Culinary God in Wilderness

Thanks to the pan’s ability to retain heat, the Phil wouldn’t cool down too quickly. Placing it next to the fire further reduced heat loss.

However, because it was being kept warm, its temperature was higher than if it were resting at room temperature. The resting time, therefore, had to be shortened, or it would end up more done than intended.

There was nothing to be done about it. This was the Alaskan wilderness in winter, after all.

Metal conducts heat well, meaning it can retain heat, but it also loses it quickly.

If it wasn’t placed next to the fire, the pan would lose all its heat in under two minutes. The drastic temperature change would prevent the steak’s interior from cooking evenly, making it impossible to achieve the desired level of doneness.

As a result, when it was time to sear it again, the center would be less done than planned.

These were the kind of small details a chef needed to mind. A qualified chef had to know how to adapt to their environment and ingredients to create a delicious dish.

During the two minutes the steak was resting, Lin Chen kept busy. He sliced some of the narrower pieces off the whole tenderloin and, along with the earlier trimmings, cut everything into uniformly thick shreds.

His movements were incredibly fluid. Slicing and shredding were done in one seamless motion, making it a delightful sight for Connor.

The moment he set the knife down, he lifted the pan’s lid and prodded Phil with his finger, carefully feeling the steak’s springiness.

"This is a method that professional steakhouse kitchens use to judge doneness. You test how cooked the steak is by pressing on it."

"It’s actually very simple. Touch your thumb to your index finger without tensing up. Then, use your other hand to poke the fleshy part at the base of your thumb."

"The firmness when your thumb touches your index finger corresponds to rare. Touching your middle finger is medium-rare, and your ring finger is medium-well. You can all try this for yourselves. Once you memorize that feeling, you can easily judge a steak’s doneness without having to rely solely on time." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"Searing it again doesn’t take long. The center of the steak is already at 60 degrees Celsius or higher; it’s just the surface that isn’t hot enough. So all you need is to heat it again over a high flame."

"If you follow the searing and resting method I described, the pan should have been on the heat source the whole time. You just need to crank up the fire before the final sear. Then, thirty seconds should be enough to finish it."

As Lin Chen explained the process, Connor listened patiently without interrupting, trying to integrate all these new details with his own past experiences cooking steak.

If nothing else, just by remembering and learning this technique, he’d be able to cook a steak to his preferred doneness, even out here in the wild.

This deer alone was enough to sustain him for two months.

Over the high flame, the pan quickly began to smoke again, and the familiar sizzling sound grew steadily louder.

After searing each side for a dozen or so seconds, he moved the pan off the fire and onto a log. He then sliced off a piece about a finger’s width thick with his sharp combat knife.

The instant the knife cut through, just from the sensation on the blade, Connor could tell this was a perfect medium-rare venison Phil.

And he was right.

The sliced Phil was a faint pink in the center, flanked by a cooked brown on either side—the hallmark of a medium-rare steak.

A rare steak would have been light pink on the sides, with a reddish-pink center that was closer to raw.

For a medium-well steak, the pink in the center would have almost vanished, and the sides would be cooked completely through, with a much deeper sear on the surface.

The palm-sized Phil was cut into eight even pieces, which were then flipped and arranged neatly in the pan to keep warm.

The enticing pink hue and the rich, meaty aroma assaulted Connor’s senses.

Without needing a reminder from Lin Chen, he grabbed a pinch of sea salt and sprinkled it evenly over the meat, followed by a dash of crushed black pepper.

Forgoing utensils, he snatched a piece with his bare hands and shoved it into his mouth.

The surface of the Phil had been seared to a crisp, forming a crust. He could clearly hear a CRUNCH as he bit into it.

The perfect thickness provided the satisfying pleasure of a hearty mouthful of meat. As his teeth sank into the center, the tender venison burst with juices. That faintly sweet, sanguine flavor, combined with the sea salt and black pepper, instantly won him over.

"Oh my god, my God! This is it! This is the flavor! You really are a professional chef. Even out here in the wild with limited supplies, you can still make a venison steak that rivals a restaurant’s."

Like a man who hadn’t eaten in days, Connor devoured the Phil in front of him, leaving nothing behind.

A whole three-hundred-gram steak, and he finished it in less than a minute?

’Dude, are you even chewing? Or are you just swallowing it whole?’

The corner of Lin Chen’s mouth twitched. He suddenly felt the urge to stop cooking for this guy.

On one hand, the fact that he was eating with such gusto was a clear acknowledgment of the chef’s skill.

On the other hand, ’he might just be really, really hungry.’

’When you’re that hungry, doesn’t everything taste good?’

Connor swallowed his last bite, wiped the grease from the corners of his mouth contentedly, and glanced outside the fence.

"By the way, Lin, could I trouble you to cook another one, rare this time?"

"Sure."

Lin Chen said nothing. He’d already said all he needed to. If the guy insisted on eating a rare steak, there was nothing he could do about it.

’If he gets sick from the food and has to drop out of the competition, it’s not my problem.’

「A few minutes later.」

A venison Phil that looked even more tender than the last was fresh out of the pan.

Connor grabbed a handful of snow, squeezed it, then tossed it aside. He then picked up the steak from the pan and put the thumb and index finger of his other hand in his mouth.

"FWEEET~~~"

The shrill whistle was piercing, its sound carrying far into the distance.

"Awooo..."

The next second, a gray figure rose without warning outside the fence, shaking the powder snow from its fur.

Its head was low, and its narrow black pupils, set in yellow sclera, stared eerily in their direction.

Just being watched by it made Lin Chen’s skin crawl.

’When did that thing get there? I didn’t notice it at all!’

Connor passed the steak through a gap in the fence. The Coyote licked its nose, snatched the meat in its jaws, and lay down in the snow, holding it between its front paws as it tore off large bites.

"You feed it cooked food?"

Lin Chen stared thoughtfully at the gray shadow outside the fence.

In Great Xia, it was common knowledge that you shouldn’t feed captive animals raw, bloody meat, let alone live prey. It was believed to awaken their bloodlust and savagery, increasing the likelihood of an attack on humans.

He wasn’t sure what the consensus was abroad, but zoos seemed to feed their animals specially formulated food, so he figured it was probably a similar principle.

If Connor was using cooked food to feed this Coyote, ’it might actually increase its compliance.’

’Then again, it depends. Most wild animals prefer raw meat.’

He had seen experiments where various foods were left in the wild and monitored by a camera for twenty-four hours. The results consistently showed that raw meat was, by far, the most popular choice.

"Yeah. At first, I was just trying to distract it with food. I never expected it to be interested in the cooked meat. It came looking for me two days in a row, so I tried to get a little closer."

Connor’s face filled with pride and satisfaction as if recalling something.

"It has a great temperament. It’s my good buddy. Of course, it’s also extremely wary. Even I rarely get the chance to touch it."

"But whenever I go out to hunt, I make sure to give it a share of whatever I catch. That way, it’ll be willing to help me again next time."

"I have to say, a wolf’s sense of smell is incredible. As long as I can find animal tracks, it can follow the scent right to the source. Its success rate is nearly one hundred percent."

Listening to Connor’s boastful tone as he described his relationship with the Coyote, Lin Chen would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little envious. But he also knew that such a rare occurrence could never be replicated.

Besides, he had personally killed and butchered a Black Bear and four Yukon Wolves. The scent of bear and wolf blood clung to him.

Humans couldn’t smell it, but to an animal with a sensitive nose, he probably seemed like an extremely dangerous individual.

The Coyote remained vigilant as it ate. Even while tearing at the meat, its eyes were still locked on the yard, as if terrified the two men would come closer.

After a few more glances, Lin Chen looked away. He added salt, sugar, and light soy sauce to the shredded meat, mixing it thoroughly by hand. Then he added a bit of water and starch, stirring vigorously until the mixture thickened and became elastic.

Without washing the pan he’d used for Phil, he cut off a small piece of fat and tossed it in to render, pressing down on it as it fried to speed up the process.

Once most of the fat had rendered out, he added a spoonful of Pishan County broad bean paste and stir-fried it rapidly.

The fermented fragrance of the bean paste intensified with the heat, and that unique aroma reawakened Connor’s appetite.

He knew the last dish was Western-style, so this one had to be Chinese.

Once the bean paste was fragrant and had released its red oil, he added the marinated meat shreds. He used chopsticks to break them apart, ensuring they heated evenly and didn’t clump together.

After a few tosses, the meat visibly changed color, each shred evenly coated in a layer of red chili oil.

He quickly shredded a green pepper and tossed it in, stir-frying for a few moments before grabbing a handful of fresh snow and adding it in place of water.

The snow melted instantly, sending up a huge cloud of steam. As he continued to stir-fry, splattering oil droplets caught the flame and ignited with a WHOOSH.

A raging fire shot half a meter into the air, but it died down just as quickly as it had appeared, lasting only two seconds.

The sudden flare-up startled Connor. It even sent the Coyote outside the fence darting back a dozen meters. The animal stared nervously in their direction, the bloody Phil still clenched tightly in its jaws.

The melted snow quickly blended with the viscous sauce in the pan, absorbing all the flavors and transforming into a rich glaze that coated every single shred of meat.

In just two or three minutes, a fragrant dish of savory shredded venison with green peppers was ready!

"A traditional shredded pork with green peppers doesn’t use broad bean paste. But while venison is relatively mild for game meat, it still has a slight gamy taste. A strong-flavored paste like this helps to cover it up."

He took a bite himself. With the gaminess masked, the venison tasted almost identical to shredded beef.

Lin Chen had taken a taste, but Connor was growing anxious, unsure of what to do.

The shredded venison with green peppers looked incredible, and the cooking process had been fascinating to watch. There was just one problem: even an idiot could see that it was piping hot, and he had no desire to burn his fingers.

He could grab the venison steak by hand because, for one, he had cooled his hand with snow, and for another, the steak wasn’t that hot after resting. Even after the final sear, the surface temperature didn’t reach 100 degrees Celsius, topping out at around eighty or ninety.

With the cooling effect of the snow, the temperature he felt for that brief moment was probably around sixty degrees, which naturally didn’t feel scorching.

But this pan of shredded meat had been flash-fried over high heat the whole time, and it had even caught on fire.

Just looking at the steam billowing off it, he could imagine how hot it was.

"Lin, do you have any utensils?"

"Only these," Lin Chen said, wiggling the chopsticks in his hand. "You wouldn’t know how to use them. Oh, wait, I just remembered. There’s a spoon."

He went into the cabin and brought out the spoon Andre had used before, handing it to him.

"Wouldn’t know how to use them?"

Connor frowned, staring intently at the two wooden sticks between Lin Chen’s fingers, his expression defiant.

"How would you know if I haven’t tried? They’re just a couple of twigs. Just you wait, I’ll carve my own!"