Culinary God in Wilderness

The snow outside the fence was now butt-deep, forcing him to go out and shovel every day to avoid being trapped here.

’Beef... beef... What other ways to cook it haven’t I tried yet?’

’Half a bag of flour left, maybe a little over two hundred grams. If I’m careful, that’s only enough for one or two more uses. Should I ask the production team for a trade?’

’Forget it. The price went up to fifty kilograms last time. Even with all this meat, I can’t be that wasteful. I’ll just eat potatoes.’

After two months of surviving in the wilderness, he had lost 10 kilograms, dropping from his original 85 kilograms to 75.

According to Ariana, he had lost the least amount of weight of all the contestants, and his weight loss was the healthiest.

The contestant who lost the most had shed over twenty kilograms, becoming as skinny as a skeleton.

"Lin, I’m here~"

As he was spacing out, Andre’s voice drifted in from outside.

The moment he stepped into the yard, his eyes were glued to the beef leg hanging in the air from the second floor.

"You’ve been air-drying this beef leg for a long time. Isn’t it ready yet?"

"No, the temperature isn’t right. And I don’t want to smoke it, so I just have to wait."

"Ah, I see. It’s true, the days are getting shorter and shorter. It feels like it gets dark again not long after the sun rises."

After a few brief pleasantries, an awkward silence suddenly fell over the yard.

As the finals drew nearer, they both knew that opportunities to meet like this were becoming scarce. Neither could guarantee there would be a next time.

"Here. This is some beef jerky I made. Try it and tell me what you think."

As if remembering something, Andre pulled a piece of beef jerky from his pocket. It was as thick as a chopstick and frozen rock-solid by the cold.

"Thanks."

He took it, sliced off a small piece with his survival knife, and popped it into his mouth.

Aside from a faint saltiness, there was only the primal aroma of the beef itself, along with a distinct smoky fragrance.

Smoking like this is the best method for preserving food in the wild, bar none.

As he chewed, he seemed to think of something, and his eyes suddenly lit up.

"I’ve got it! I just thought of a new way to prepare beef!"

"What is it?"

Andre looked over, his curiosity piqued.

Even though he only came once a week, he had rarely eaten the same dish twice. He knew full well how difficult it must be to keep coming up with new recipes when ingredients were so limited.

"I guarantee you’ve never had beef like this, because it’s a cooking method that only exists in Great Xia."

Lin Chen excitedly retrieved a beef tenderloin from the storage room. After trimming the sinew and fascia from the surface, he cut it with the grain into thick slices and dropped them into a pot to blanch.

"Isn’t this just boiling?"

"Patience. This is just the first step."

Lin Chen smiled mysteriously and handed him a wooden club.

Andre’s expression changed slightly at the sight of it.

"We’re pounding it again?"

He had tried to make beef meatballs himself a few times after returning to his camp, but failed without exception. That’s when he finally became convinced of Lin Chen’s principle that the meat had to be incredibly fresh to work.

So, seeing the familiar wooden club, he couldn’t help but be puzzled.

"We’re not pounding it into a paste this time. We just need to break up the fibers."

Once the water in the pot came to a boil, Lin Chen patiently skimmed off the scum over and over until no more bloody foam floated to the surface.

There was no need to worry about controlling the heat; he cooked it through on high, then took it out to begin the pounding.

Under their repeated pounding, the thick, palm-sized slices gradually broke apart along the muscle grain, turning into fine strands of meat.

"We can stop once it’s all broken up. The next step is a real test of patience. We have to shred the beef into thin threads by hand, the thinner the better."

"What exactly are we making? Hand-shredded beef?"

Andre grew more and more puzzled. Although he had no idea what Lin was making, he obediently followed his example.

"This is called meat floss. It’s a type of snack. You can use it in desserts, for baking, or eat it with plain congee. It was originally made for young children, but it slowly found its way into other culinary areas."

The two of them sat around the indoor stove, warming themselves by the fire while shredding the beef in their hands, tearing each piece into threads nearly as fine as enoki mushrooms.

Having never made meat floss before, Lin Chen eagerly grabbed a handful and tossed it into a flat-bottomed pan. He added some soy sauce for color, plus salt, oyster sauce, and white sugar for flavor. After tossing it all together, the pale white meat shreds were evenly coated in a tempting brown color.

He stir-fried it quickly and continuously with chopsticks, holding the pan high over the fire to maintain a low heat and prevent the beef shreds from burning.

As he kept tossing and turning the shreds with his chopsticks, the moisture on the surface gradually evaporated.

When it had evaporated to a certain point, something magical happened.

Right before Andre’s wide eyes, countless fluffy fibers began to appear on the surface of the beef shreds. And as Lin Chen continued to stir, they multiplied at a nearly exponential rate.

The entire process took only a few minutes, but in that time, the pan of beef shreds had transformed into a strange, fluffy, cotton-like substance.

The freshly made beef floss sent up gentle puffs of steam. The sweet and savory flavor from the soy and oyster sauces had been completely absorbed by the shreds, and a captivating meaty aroma filled the room.

Curiously, Andre picked up a pinch of the meat floss and rubbed it between his fingertips. It wasn’t very hot. It was fluffy, with a texture completely unlike beef.

He placed it on the tip of his tongue and gently pressed. The taste was savory and slightly sweet. It didn’t feel like eating meat, but he could still taste the beefy flavor. It was just as Lin Chen had said; it felt like eating baby food.