Chapter 489 - 323: Fragrant White Steamed Buns

"Let me think..."

Lin Chen didn't answer her right away. He crossed his arms and began to think.

"It's for lunch, but we still have more than five hours until then. That's plenty of time to make just about anything."

"But I have to consider the workers' preferences and tastes, not just cook what I like."

"That makes sense," Erica agreed, nodding.

"These workers come from all over Great Xia. The average age is over thirty, and many are in their forties. People their age aren't big fans of the stuff young people eat. They just prefer simple, home-style meals."

"Plus, they do a lot of physical labor, so the staple food needs to be filling. We'll definitely need a lot of rice. Based on the ratio that 100 grams of raw rice becomes 200 to 300 grams when cooked, if we make it a medium consistency, that's about 250 grams—roughly one bowl of rice."

"We should prepare for three bowls per person, so that's 300 grams of raw rice each. Multiplied by the number of people—let's say 25—that means we need to cook 7.5 kilograms of rice."

"We also have to account for the tastes of the workers from the north. Southerners prefer rice, while northerners prefer wheat-based foods. So, let's reduce the rice a bit, say to 5 kilograms, and then make mantou with 3 kilograms of flour."

After calculating the amount of staple food needed, he immediately shouldered the bag of flour, cut it open, and began scooping it into a large stainless steel basin to weigh it.

He certainly wasn't going to knead the dough by hand. He just tossed it into the dough mixer. He added warm water, salt, sugar, and yeast, and once it was kneaded until smooth, he left it to rest at room temperature.

The rice cooker at home had a limited capacity, so he would have had to cook several batches. However, the driver had the foresight to bring over a wooden bucket, so keeping the rice warm wouldn't be an issue.

Once the new stove was built, he could even steam the rice directly in the wooden bucket, which would be more convenient and taste even better.

"The staples are sorted. So, what about the main dishes?"

The driver had only brought two large, stainless steel insulated containers, which seemed to imply he only needed to make two dishes.

Oh wait, it could also mean one dish and one soup.

Construction site lunch boxes were usually like that. As long as the staple food was filling and there was some meat, people didn't even mind just having vegetable soup poured over their rice.

Several dishes flashed through his mind, but in the end, he decided to make the simplest option: a one-pot stew.

"In the northern parts of Great Xia, because of the cold weather and wheat-based diet, people generally prefer to eat hot food. Plus, the variety of plants that can grow in the cold is limited. Over time, many cooking methods evolved that involve stewing all the ingredients in a single pot."

"I've decided to make a fusion dish, primarily with a red-braised flavor profile, and I'll try to figure out a way to stew all the ingredients together."

"Figure out a way? Can't you just toss everything in a pot and stew it?" Erica tilted her head in confusion, clearly not understanding what he meant.

"The final presentation will be a one-pot stew, but if I just chop up the meat and vegetables and boil them together, the texture will be pretty mediocre. I'm a professional chef, after all. I can't cut corners like that. I have to add a little something special to a basic dish."

Once Erica took out her camera and started filming, Lin Chen immediately began to wash and prepare the ingredients.

First, he cut the pork belly into long strips, blanched them with ginger slices and Huadiao wine, and then diced them into bite-sized cubes. He seared them in a pot to render out the excess fat. Then he added rock sugar to caramelize it, and finally poured in dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, and Huadiao wine, stir-frying until the meat was evenly colored. He transferred everything to a pressure cooker, added enough water to cover the meat, and began to cook it.

He also blanched the pork knuckle, pork tail, and beef tendon, setting them aside. After the pork belly was done, he would pressure-cook these other cuts one by one.

He shredded carrots, zucchini, and broccoli with a grater. He had Erica run to the market to borrow Mr. Beef's meat grinder to mince the beef rump. He then mixed the ground beef with the shredded vegetables, adding eggs, flour, starch, water, salt, pepper, and five-spice powder. He stirred it all until it formed a thick, paste-like mixture.

He heated a pot of oil and began squeezing the beef and vegetable mixture into individual balls, dropping them in to deep-fry until golden brown.

This wasn't the first time Erica had seen him squeeze meatballs through the web of his thumb and index finger, and she was suddenly intrigued. She rolled up her sleeves, moved closer, and prepared to try it herself to see what it was like.

As someone who could pick up a new language quickly, she mastered the technique of squeezing meatballs in just a few tries.

By the time she had made thirty or forty of them, her speed was slowly catching up to Lin Chen's, and the vegetable-and-meat balls she squeezed out were becoming more and more round and uniform.

The freshly fried meatballs sizzled with oil on the surface and were a beautiful golden-brown. When he lifted them out with a slotted spoon, you could distinctly hear the crisp CRACKLE of their shells.

Erica, who hadn't eaten breakfast, was practically drooling. When Lin Chen wasn't looking, she stealthily snatched one and popped it into her mouth.

She was smart enough not to pick one from the top layer—those had just come out of the oil and were scalding hot. She had to eat one from the middle layer that had cooled for a moment.

The seemingly simple fried meatball had a completely different texture from what she'd imagined. It didn't have the firm texture of a typical meatball at all. Instead, it was very soft, and she could even clearly taste the flour.

The deep-frying process had formed a crispy shell on the outside that crunched in her mouth. It vaguely reminded her of eating a crispy fried cutlet.

Although Western cooking often involves rolling all sorts of meatballs, very few actually make it to the customer's table, with the main example being meatballs in tomato sauce.

She had never eaten a flour-and-beef meatball with such a peculiar texture before.

It wasn't amazingly delicious, but it wasn't bad either. She could taste the faint aroma of spices and pepper. It just felt like a very ordinary dish.

"This is just a semi-finished product. The flavor is pretty average right now."

Without turning his head, Lin Chen explained, "The main reason for adding flour and starch is that after deep-frying, the inside develops a honeycomb-like crispy texture that's invisible to the naked eye. When we stew them later, they'll soften up, and every little hole and crevice will soak up the broth."

"How should I describe it... Have you ever had a cream soup with a puff pastry crust?"

"!"

The moment he mentioned that, Erica understood instantly. She got what he was trying to say.

By the time the entire mixture had been fried into meatballs, nearly an hour had passed.

The red-braised pork and the pork knuckle were already done in the pressure cooker. Now he was cooking the beef tendon. Next would be the pork tail, and with that, all the large cuts of meat would be fully prepped.

Although the kitchen here had a range hood, its performance was mediocre at best. It wasn't suitable for high-smoke stir-frying. Moreover, there were sensitive smoke detectors in the living room and bedrooms, and it would be easy to accidentally set them off.

If that happened and the fire department showed up, he'd be the unlucky fool stuck with a hefty bill for no reason.

So, while frying the meatballs, he had to open every possible window in the living room. He also set the air conditioner to ventilation mode with the fan speed on high to prevent too much smoke from lingering inside.

After he finished frying, he immediately ladled the hot oil into a stainless steel container to prevent it from continuing to heat up and smoke in the iron pot.

Next, he casually cut the remaining napa cabbage, carrots, onions, and potatoes into rolling chunks, and put the wood ear mushrooms and sweet potato vermicelli to soak. With that, the prep for lunch was more than eighty percent complete.

He glanced at the time. It was only about eight o'clock. There were still a full four hours until lunch was served at noon.

"Do you know how to make bread?"

he asked suddenly.

"No, why? Are you going to make bread?"

"Sort of. This is a Great Xia-style bread. It's characteristically white and round. The fluffy ones are light and soft, while the dense ones are substantial and filling. It's the most common staple food for people in northern Great Xia."

Because he'd been busy frying meatballs and preparing the meat, he hadn't had time to tend to the dough. So, after the mixer finished, he had wrapped the dough and put it in the fridge for cold fermentation. He had just taken it out to let it return to room temperature.

Cold fermentation has many advantages and is a very common technique in Chinese pastry. It not only saves time but also allows the amylase and protease to work slowly, breaking down more sugars and improving the dough's flavor. At the same time, there's no risk of over-proofing and ruining the dough.

"This is called a mantou. The method is very simple. You just wait for the dough to proof, shape it into round balls of equal size, and let them proof a second time. They aren't baked in an oven; they're steamed."

"Steamed?"

Erica looked like she was remembering something. "That word sounds so familiar. Didn't you mention it back in Panama?"

"That's right. The one where we wrapped food in a banana leaf and buried it in the earth. But that wasn't steaming in the truest sense. Real steaming involves boiling a pot of water and placing the food on a rack above it, using the high-temperature steam to cook it. This technique is probably used most often in Great Xia."

After just one demonstration, Erica immediately learned the technique for shaping the mantou.

She picked up a piece of dough and rolled it into a ball. She flattened it slightly with her palm, then used her right hand to push it forward while her left hand rotated the flattened piece, repeating the process in a circular motion.

After a few rotations, the dough became noticeably more resilient and naturally thickened. At this point, she could reduce the force, using a deft touch to gradually shape the dough into a perfect round. She pinched the seam at the bottom shut and finally flipped it over. The surface was now perfectly smooth, completely free of its earlier unevenness.

Using both hands, she pushed in from the sides toward the center, rolling the dough taller to create a shape similar to a cornbread cone. And with that, it was done.

With the two of them working together, several kilograms of dough were transformed with incredible speed into smooth, white balls arranged neatly on the steamer trays.

While the dough was going through its second proof, Lin Chen started boiling water. After the water came to a rolling boil for a while, the room temperature began to rise, and the proofing process sped up.

When he lifted the cheesecloth again, the dough balls, which had been shaped like cornbread cones, had already expanded to twice their size. Their overall shape had become rounder, and the surface looked like it was covered in a smooth, matte film, almost like a silicone toy.

The fresh, wheaty fragrance unique to fermentation was especially rich. It was completely different from the aroma of sliced bread, lacking any milky or buttery notes. It was just the purest scent of wheat.

"They look so delicious! I have to try one later!"

She had already been amazed by Great Xia's baked goods before. Now, seeing these cute little dough balls she had helped make with her own hands, Erica's mouth started to water. She wished she could just grab one and take a bite right then and there.