Chapter 322 - 210: The Wilderness Chef’s Craftsmanship (Part 2)

Chapter 322: Chapter 210: The Wilderness Chef’s Craftsmanship (Part 2)

Lin Chen shook his head and placed a flat-surfaced stone on the grill rack.

"We’re pan-searing venison steaks."

After speaking, he grabbed a small pinch of his pre-mixed seasoned salt and sprinkled it on the surface of the venison loin, pressing it gently to help it absorb.

While the stone was heating over the fire, he picked up a piece of deer fat that he had trimmed off earlier and placed it on the stone’s surface.

"Let me quiz you. What’s this piece of deer fat for?"

"Huh? Why is there a test just for a meal?"

Erica had already been lost in a fantasy of enjoying a delicious meal. She never expected a surprise quiz question to pop up.

She reluctantly bit her lower lip, resting her chin on her fingers as she began to think.

"Let me think... I feel like I’ve seen something like this before... Ah, I remember now!"

"In Alaska, didn’t you do the same thing with beef tallow? Yes, yes, that’s right! The purpose of the deer fat is to keep the steak from sticking when you sear it!"

"And what else?"

"There’s more??"

She scratched her head, staring at the unchanging piece of deer fat for a long time, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of any other use for it.

"What is it? I can’t figure it out."

"You’ll see in a bit."

After he spoke, Lin Chen fell silent, quietly watching the piece of white deer fat on the stone.

As the shimmering air continued to bake it, the stone’s temperature finally began to rise, and the bamboo grill rack underneath was noticeably singed black.

Then, in an instant, where the deer fat touched the stone, a small bubble of oil quietly appeared.

Soon, the bottom of the entire piece of fat began to sizzle. Visible grease seeped out, bubbling constantly as it entered a normal searing state.

At first, Erica didn’t realize what was happening. She just looked at Lin Chen in confusion, but after receiving a subtle hint from him, she froze for a second before it dawned on her.

"To test the temperature?"

"Yes, that’s right. To test the temperature."

Lin Chen used his tongs to smear the deer fat all over the stone’s surface. "You should know that when you’re searing a beef steak or any other kind of steak, you need to heat the pan first. Usually, you judge the temperature by the smoke."

"Besides greasing the ’pan,’ the main purpose of the deer fat is to test the temperature. After all, this is a stone, not a metal pan, so the heating speed is definitely different."

"As long as the deer fat starts sizzling like this, it just needs to heat up a little longer to reach the right temperature for cooking."

Their actions also caught the attention of Bartel, who was a short distance away.

He had noticed Lin Chen earlier when he was digging out the smokehouse, but he hadn’t thought much of it. After all, a chef who couldn’t even smoke meat would be more ridiculous than a Hunter like him failing to catch a Lobster.

But when he saw Lin Chen actually starting to prepare dinner, Bartel immediately recalled what Erica had said that afternoon.

’The most famous chef in the world of wilderness survival?’

Muttering this phrase, his feet had already started moving on their own. He wanted to see just what kind of dish this popular wilderness chef would make.

’It can’t be the same as the roasted venison I was planning to make, can it?’

Hearing footsteps behind her, Erica glanced back at him, offering a smile and a nod as a greeting before her attention quickly returned to the stone in front of her.

By now, the stone’s surface was hot enough to give off plumes of white smoke. The lychee-sized piece of deer fat had been seared golden-brown on all sides, shrinking by more than half.

Lin Chen held his hand flat above the stone to feel the temperature. The rolling heat wave was so intense it felt like his skin would get burned if he left it there for a few more seconds. Only then did he nod in satisfaction.

Without needing to be told, Erica conscientiously reached out her own hand to feel the temperature as well.

Then, under two pairs of watchful eyes, Lin Chen gently placed the loin steak, which had been marinating for the past five minutes, onto the surface of the stone slab.

"TSSSSSS—"

A thick plume of smoke rose up, accompanied by a sharp, tantalizing sound.

Almost instantly, a faint, meaty aroma wafted past their noses, mingled with the fragrance of spices.

The palm-sized venison loin sizzled on the stone slab. The bottom edge turned white with incredible speed before slowly changing to a seared brown.

From the moment the filet was placed on the stone, Lin Chen didn’t move the two pieces of meat.

He didn’t touch it until an alluring crust had clearly formed on the bottom of the filet and the color change had crept halfway up its cross-section. Only then did he pick it up with his tongs and flip it over.

When the seared bottom was flipped over, a rich, meaty aroma washed over them.

"How do you like it cooked?"

"Rare!" Erica answered without hesitation.

Lin Chen shook his head. "Let’s go with medium. This is the wilderness, after all. Even though this deer might have been farmed, we can’t rule out the possibility that it was caught in the wild."

"Fine, medium is okay too. Medium-well is absolutely unacceptable. That’s a waste of a good filet!"

While the filet of venison was slowly cooking on the stone, Lin Chen quickly chopped some coyote cilantro leaves. Then, he picked up the piece of deer fat, now seared into a dark-brown, crispy crackling, and held it out to Erica.

"Sprinkle a few grains of salt on it yourself. Blow on it to cool it down before you eat."

"Salute!"

Erica gave a solemn salute, then a smile as radiant as a blooming flower spread across her face as she held out her palm.

"?"

Lin Chen looked quizzically at her delicate little hand, but didn’t say anything and loosened his chopsticks.

PLOP.

The crackling dropped softly into her palm.

Erica had already grabbed a few grains of salt with her right hand. Just as she sprinkled them from above, a piercing heat suddenly spread from the bottom of the stationary crackling.

Her expression changed, and she quickly started shaking her palm. But the crackling was much hotter than she had imagined; everywhere it rolled left a trail of scorching heat.

"Ouch!!"

She let out a strange yelp and quickly tossed it to her right hand, but her right hand soon couldn’t stand the searing temperature either. She began juggling it back and forth between her hands like an acrobat.

A full two minutes passed before she, still shaken, cautiously held the blackened crackling and touched it to her lips. Only after confirming it wouldn’t burn her mouth did she dare to pop it in.

"CRUNCH."

With a crispness like a potato chip, it shattered, and a rich, fatty aroma instantly burst forth in her mouth.

The deer fat, which had seemed to be completely rendered, still oozed a mellow grease as she chewed.

The faint saltiness mixed with the slight, mouth-scalding heat fully released the crackling’s aroma.

Erica, who hadn’t even felt hungry before, hadn’t yet swallowed when an extreme feeling of emptiness emanated from her stomach.

"You can do this with fat? This is so delicious! It’s just like a potato chip!!"

People from North America generally don’t eat fatty meat. As someone of mixed European-American heritage who also did this kind of work, her tolerance for fat was relatively high.

But this piece of fat, rendered from the deer fat itself, had just completely redefined her understanding of it.

It was neither thin and crispy like bacon, nor did it have the unpleasant texture of plain fat.

It was like the product of balling up a bunch of bacon and roasting it—the surface was as crispy as a potato chip, yet it also had a texture somewhat like the skin of fried chicken.

The center still retained a tiny, faint hint of a fatty texture, but the high heat had turned it into a sticky, sauce-like consistency. One bite sent an oily fragrance bursting out, instantly awakening the sleeping glutton within her.

Seeing the look of sheer bliss on Erica’s face, Bartel frowned skeptically.

’It’s just a piece of burnt fat. Is it really worth that kind of expression?’

’Is this woman an actress? Or has it just been so long since she’s had meat that her feeling of happiness is magnified?’

As a Hunter who spent his years in the wild, he ate venison often and was already used to the taste of the meat and fat. Even after tracking prey for days and nights on end, he would rarely have such an exaggerated emotional reaction to eating it.

’Then again,’ he thought, ’back when I first started hunting deer, I reacted pretty much the same as this young lady.’

While the two were lost in their own thoughts, the venison steaks had already been resting for over a minute.

After about two minutes, Lin Chen placed the two steaks back on the stone to reheat them; thirty seconds per side was enough.

The filet of venison, its surface seared with an alluring, brown Maillard-reaction crust, glistened under the setting sun.

The knife blade scraped back and forth across the steak’s surface, making a crisp, crackling sound.

He sliced it open, and the cross-section revealed a perfect, tender pink.