Gourmet: Midnight Vending-Chapter 319 - 296: Somewhat Similar, Yet Somewhat Different

Chapter 319: Chapter 296: Somewhat Similar, Yet Somewhat Different

Like Zhou Yu, Chen Mo also chose to make Lion’s Head first.

This dish indeed has a difficulty level, and the time required to make it is long.

Chen Mo took out a long strip of pork belly from the cabinet, which was bought from the supermarket when going to summer camp that day. He initially thought of finding an opportunity to eat it, and now the opportunity has come.

Chen Mo recalled the time he tried making Lion’s Head in the dining car after Hou Yao left the unfinished building early in the morning, along with the recipe analyzed and provided by the system in his mind.

Chen Mo had some insights while making this dish.

The recipe given by the system upon request was not [Stewed Crab Meat Lion’s Head], but [Steamed Crab and Minced Meat]. At the time, Chen Mo was curious because the names seemed like two completely unrelated dishes.

Later, after searching for information online, he discovered that the original name of Lion’s Head in the early days was "Sunflower Minced Meat." It is rumored that a high-ranking official renamed it to Lion’s Head during the Tang dynasty.

Unhurried, Chen Mo followed Zhou Yu’s example, first tearing off a strip of pork belly skin, cutting a small slit, hooking the slit with his finger, and slanting the blade along the inside of the pork skin to pull it forward.

The entire piece of pork skin was easily separated.

"Damn, I can’t believe I didn’t know such a good method before!"

Thinking back to how he used to cut pork skin slowly and carefully at the junction of pork skin and meat, sometimes cutting off some fat due to unsteady knife control, Chen Mo felt a bit foolish for those times.

Zhou Yu, watching from below, slightly twitched his lips.

He wondered if this guy had always done it this way or just learned it by observing just now?

Regardless, Zhou Yu noticed that the piece of pork belly Chen Mo was handling had alternating layers of fat and lean meat, like top-quality supermarket meat.

His earlier worries temporarily eased.

Initially, Zhou Yu was concerned that his competitor, instead of cooking in the cafeteria, chose to cook in his dining car. Was it because he was prepared in advance?

After all, in Huaiyang cuisine, aside from knife skills, the most important aspect is the ingredients themselves.

There is a saying in Huaiyang cuisine: "Freshness is fundamental."

Especially in seafood and vegetable dishes, it emphasizes cooking fresh ingredients immediately, and selected vegetables are seasonal.

If this competitor focused on the ingredients, even with superior skills, he might find it challenging to compete.

So when Zhou Yu saw the ordinary strip of pork belly in Chen Mo’s hands, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The skinned pork belly was cut into slices with alternating fat and lean pieces, then horizontally into strips, and finally vertically into granules.

Chen Mo’s knife skills were not as fast as Zhou Yu’s, who could cut continuously with the knife going up and down with a clatter.

He placed one hand on the ingredients, cutting slowly with the other hand, with every move steady and unhurried. It seemed effortless, and soon after, he had cut the entire pork belly into pomegranate-sized granules.

Then...

"Hmm?" Zhou Yu suddenly widened his eyes, noticing that Chen Mo switched from cutting to chopping as his hand speed suddenly increased.

If it was for chopping stuffing, there wasn’t the sound of a knife striking the cutting board. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

"This is..." Zhou Yu knew what it was, but he was a bit surprised. This young man looked so young, and even his earlier cutting techniques seemed a bit immature. How did he suddenly become so fierce?

This technique involved chopping down with each cut, but not completely; the blade had to maintain a certain distance from the cutting board. In other words, each chop had to be controlled with strength.

Zhou Yu practiced this for many years; he could do it, but it was tiring to chop the stuffing like this. Plus, this technique only added flair and didn’t determine the dish’s quality.

"This is Shattered Snow Traceless!"

Zhou Yu turned his bewildered head and saw Mr. Hou standing up excitedly pointing at the dining car.

"What is Shattered Snow Traceless?" Fang Zhizhong was also shocked.

He was shocked by the name, not understanding what was so impressive about chopping stuffing.

Hou Yao pointed to the dining car and said, "It means each chop doesn’t go to the bottom, and the pork belly shatters like snow without leaving a trace!"

"Wow... is it that awesome?"

Zhou Yu, listening from the side, felt dumbfounded. If he had known they liked this show, he could have shown off earlier. It’s just chopping meat, so why make it sound like Shattered Snow Traceless?

But none of that mattered; Zhou Yu remained confident.

Ultimately, the competition was about which dish tasted better. He had absolute confidence in his culinary skills; simple chopping was not a threat!

Unbeknownst to the others, Chen Mo put in significant effort for this step.

Indeed, each chop required controlled strength. Fortunately, when cooking in the dining car, there was a progress bar.

At this moment, the progress bar felt like the song at 240 speed in Audition Dance Battle, fast and stylish!

As soon as each chop was done, he had to immediately catch the light point and retract the knife. Repeating this process for a full minute finally revealed a giant [Perfect!] above his head.

It seemed easy, but it was exhausting.

Chen Mo heard Hou Yao speaking earlier.

"Shattered Snow Traceless? That’s a nice name. From now on, it’s mine!"

The Shattered Snow Traceless Sword Skill was born.

Unlike Zhou Yu’s understanding of this dish, Chen Mo’s meticulous work in first dicing the pork belly and using this chopping method had a hidden mystery.

Zhou Yu’s Lion’s Head preparation involved a step of mixing the minced meat with a special technique to extract the meat’s elasticity.

But Chen Mo did it differently.

Using similar ingredients as before, after cutting the meat mixture, Chen Mo also diced the water chestnuts to almost the same size as the meat granules, placing them in a bowl, then adding scallion and ginger juice and some fine salt.

He then donned disposable gloves and began mixing.

Zhou Yu nodded to himself; based on this meat-mixing step, this young comrade’s approach to making Lion’s Head was at least not as good as his own.

He hadn’t achieved the simple elasticity, so when the Lion’s Head is put into the pot and slightly impacted by boiling water, it will inevitably fall apart, turning the stewed Lion’s Head into a pot of meat soup.

With that in mind, Zhou Yu closed his eyes and began to rest.

There was no need to watch further.

Indeed, Chen Mo merely mixed to ensure the meat granules, water chestnuts, the ginger-scallion water, and a little dry starch added at the end were as evenly combined as possible. He then set the mixture aside and commenced his next cooking step.

From this point on, their cooking steps gradually began to diverge.

Zhou Yu directly boiled the molded Lion’s Head in clear water until it took shape, then switched to a clay pot and continued slow cooking with boiling water, adding only a little fine salt as seasoning.

Chen Mo did it differently.

He heated up a pot with lard!

As the oil temperature rose, he added clear water to bring it to a boil, meanwhile prepared another clay pot and coated its bottom with the pork skin he had just cut off.

He then laid a layer of green cabbage leaves at the bottom.

In his hand, Chen Mo formed the meat mixture into child-fist-sized balls, gently patting each with water starch on the surface with a wetted hand.

Repeating this, he formed ten meatballs!

Carefully laying these meatballs on the cabbage leaves in the clay pot, he poured in the just-boiled pork lard, covering the top of the meatballs completely.

"Phew..."

Chen Mo’s hand rested on the stove’s rotary knob.

This dish’s most crucial and essential moment was now.