Culinary God in Wilderness

"As everyone knows, rabbits are famous for their low fat content, and wild rabbits even more so. If we were to roast a wild rabbit without any fat to insulate it, we’d just end up with a piece of rabbit jerky."

Inside the fence, Lin Chen was sitting on a rock, talking to the GoPro. Beside him, the pinkish rabbit lay silently on a giant leaf.

"If you want to make lean meat tender, in Western cuisine there are really only two methods: brining or sous-vide. Other than that, it’s almost impossible to achieve a soft, tender, and juicy texture through cooking technique alone."

"But I’m different. I’m one of the Da Xia People, and Da Xia chefs have countless ways to make lean meat more tender than you can possibly imagine."

With a swipe of his sharp combat knife, he easily separated the two meaty rabbit legs. He wrapped them tightly in leaves, at least five layers thick.

"My salt supply is limited, so I can’t afford to waste it on a brine. I’ll be using a different method to cook this rabbit."

Setting the leaf-wrapped legs aside, Lin Chen took his sharp combat knife and patiently began to butcher the rest of the rabbit, separating it by part.

Two forelegs, two racks of ribs, two pieces of breast meat, the various organs which had already been prepared, and the remaining carcass and rabbit head.

After finishing all this, he didn’t touch the rabbit meat again. Instead, he retrieved something from his tent that was wrapped in leaves and shaped like a sachet.

He untied the fishing line securing it, revealing a mass of white, lumpy material to the camera.

He tapped it a few times with his knife, and it immediately broke into many small, fine pieces.

"I wonder if any of my regular viewers can remember what this is made of?"

He grabbed a small piece of the white substance, placed it on a large leaf, and added a bit of water to dilute it into a paste. Then, he sliced the rabbit breast horizontally into thin, palm-sized pieces, tossed them in, and mixed them around, ensuring the white paste fully coated the surface of the meat.

"That’s right. This white powder is sunchoke starch that I made a couple of days ago by soaking and filtering chopped sunchokes. After a three-step process of sedimentation, filtering, and sun-drying, it becomes what you just saw."

"Even though it’s sunchoke starch, you can just think of it as potato starch. The effect is more or less the same."

"Think about it, everyone’s had fried chicken, right? Why is fried chicken so tender and juicy? It’s because it has a protective outer coating. The juices in the meat can’t escape, so it naturally stays tender and juicy."

"Marinating any meat in a starch paste achieves the same effect. The principle is to prevent the moisture in the meat from evaporating."

After marinating the meat slices, he grabbed another piece of sunchoke starch, crushed it, and sprinkled it evenly over the two rabbit forelegs. He patted them lightly a few times to ensure the starch completely filled every nook and cranny on the meat’s surface.

"For any friends out there interested in trying the dish I’m about to make, it’s best to add salt and your favorite seasonings when marinating the rabbit. My resources are limited, so I can only stick to the original flavor."

"As for the marinating time, it doesn’t need to be too long, but it shouldn’t be less than half an hour. It’s best to refrigerate it, which helps the flavors penetrate faster."

Lin Chen patiently explained the principle behind each step to the camera, with no intention of holding anything back.

Next, he fetched the shallow milk pot, which contained a thick, congealed layer of fish oil.

"This is what I rendered from Red Salmon heads and scraps, so it contains a lot of impurities besides the fish oil itself. That’s why it congeals. High-concentration fish oil, like the kind in capsules, generally won’t solidify."

Lin Chen placed the milk pot directly over the fire. Under the high heat, the fish oil in the pot quickly melted. The small amount of residual fish broth soon began to CRACKLE and spatter everywhere.

Unafraid of the heat, he held his hand over the pot to gauge the temperature. When the rolling waves of heat became almost too hot to bear, he picked up a thin slice of rabbit breast that had been marinated in the starch paste and gently placed it in the pot.

The pale yellow fish oil instantly began to boil. Countless large bubbles scrambled to climb up the surface of the rabbit meat, and the starch paste on the bottom solidified at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The milk pot was just too small, only able to accommodate two slices of rabbit meat at a time.

The shallow layer of fish oil made it look like it was deep-frying, but it couldn’t submerge the meat’s surface. It was more like a cross between pan-frying and deep-frying.

After just twenty seconds, he flipped the slice of rabbit meat.

"If you have the means at home, it’s best to use more oil and deep-fry it. That will make it even more tender, and you won’t need to flip it, which saves a lot of time."

Soon, two steaming-hot, fried pork-tenderloin-style rabbit slices were fresh out of the pot.

Even after being placed on the pot lid, the thin, golden-brown coating on the meat’s surface continued to SIZZLE as it rendered oil.

He sprinkled a little sea salt on them while they were hot, then immediately put the next two slices into the hot oil.

There wasn’t much rabbit breast meat, yielding only six slices in total, but the fish oil in the pot had already visibly decreased by nearly half.

He poured the remaining fish oil into a flat-bottomed pan and neatly arranged the two forelegs that had been dusted with dry powder inside. Then, he dug a pit next to the fire, buried the two leaf-wrapped hind legs, covered them with dirt, and placed a few pieces of charcoal on top.

Because he had switched to a different pan, the already scarce fish oil immediately became a thin layer, releasing a rich, fishy aroma as it heated up.

Amidst a continuous SIZZLE, the fair, pinkish rabbit legs slowly turned golden brown. The dry powder on the surface completely disappeared when they were flipped, replaced by a distinct, crispy crust.

Taking advantage of the break, Lin Chen picked up the pot lid and used a pair of twig chopsticks to lift a slice of the glistening ’pork tenderloin’.

Judging by its appearance alone, aside from not having the tender red color of a pork tenderloin skewer, there wasn’t much difference. It just had an extra layer of batter, making it a fried version.

He pinched a little salt between his thumb and forefinger and sprinkled it evenly from a dozen or so centimeters above.

He casually tore a piece open, and a visible wisp of white steam rose from the tear.

In the camera’s close-up shot, every fiber at the meat’s torn edge glistened, whether from oil, juice, or a mixture of both.

Just by looking at it, you could tell how tender this thing was.

"Ah, I should’ve waited until tonight to make this. It’s not as tempting for people in the middle of the day!"

Lin Chen shook his head in mock regret and shoved the slice of meat into his mouth, chewing heartily.

CRUNCH.

The outer coating was even crispier than he’d imagined, with a slight chewiness to the crunch. The tender, juicy rabbit meat inside was so hot that he shook his head back and forth, forced to toss it around in his mouth before he could swallow.

The rabbit meat itself didn’t have much of a distinct flavor; it was like a more tender version of chicken breast. Instead, the aroma of the fish oil completely overpowered the taste of the rabbit itself.