Chapter 1451: Fried Meatballs ≠ Fried Meatball! Lucy’s Cry: Down with Capitalism!

Chapter 1451 -565: Fried Meatballs ≠ Fried Meatball! Lucy’s Cry: Down with Capitalism!

“Fried Meatballs are fundamentally different from regular deep-fried meatballs!”

Old Gao set the oil pot on the stove, turned the heat to max, then brought over the pea starch that had been soaked in advance, first mixing it into a thin slurry and slowly pouring it into the marinated minced meat.

Then he sprinkled in some White Sesame and started mixing it with his hands.

Lin Xu asked curiously:

“What are the differences, Master?”

His understanding of Fried Meatballs was still stuck at ordinary deep-fried meatballs.

Off to the side, Xie Baomin said:

“The biggest difference is… dry.”

Dry?

That counts as a difference?

Just as Lin Xu was about to tell his senior not to mess around, Old Gao said:

“Your senior’s not wrong. The biggest feature of Fried Meatballs is that they have to be dry. If the outside isn’t dry and crispy enough, that means they haven’t been fried enough. If you squeeze one and oil oozes out, that means your heat control isn’t quite there yet.”

Once the starch slurry was poured into the minced meat, a few gentle stirs made it blend into the meat and turn sticky.

At this stage, you still have to prevent the minced meat from getting overworked.

You need the lean cubes and fat cubes inside to go into the oil in a relaxed state.

Old Gao finished seasoning the meat and slowly waited for the oil temperature in the pot to rise.

He said:

“Because the firepower is weak on a home stove, making Fried Meatballs is a bit tricky. In a restaurant it’s much easier—you shape them, fish them out, then re-fry them twice more and you’re done, pretty straightforward.”

Lin Xu was a bit puzzled:

“So you fry them three times total?”

“Yeah, three times in the shop. On a little home stove like this, you might even need four rounds of frying. Only then can you get that crispy-outside-tender-inside, non-greasy texture.”

When the oil reached about sixty percent heat, Old Gao started frying.

His left hand went into the basin, grabbing some meat and shaping it a couple of times, then squeezing out a round meatball from the space between his thumb and index finger.

It wasn’t big, just a small, round ball.

He dropped the ball into the pot, then kept adding more.

If this were a professional big stove, you’d have to turn the heat down now so the oil wouldn’t get too hot and burn the surface of the balls. But on a home stove you don’t need to worry—just keep it on high and fry away.

In one go, Old Gao put more than twenty meatballs into the pot.

Then he picked up a ladle and pushed along the bottom of the pot to prevent any meatballs from sticking to the bottom and burning.

The flame under the stove was high, and the oil stayed above sixty percent heat, so the balls quickly set, and a golden-brown crust formed on the surface.

At this point, Old Gao took a slotted spoon and scooped all the meatballs out in one sweep, then shook the spoon a few times over the pot before dumping them into a stainless steel basin he had prepared on the side.

Lin Xu asked curiously:

“You scoop them out right after they just set?”

“Yeah, you have to take them out as soon as they set, otherwise the fat will seep into the meatball.”

“Will they be cooked then?”

Old Gao picked up a fine-mesh strainer to skim out the bits in the oil and started frying the second batch.

As he worked, he said:

“That’s why you fry them over and over, until the meat core inside gets cooked through by the trapped heat, and all the oil soaked into this outer crust is driven back out.”

To make Fried Meatballs, you have to keep sending the balls into the oil and pulling them out quickly.

The aim is to prevent fat from soaking into the meatball, and also to make the meatball drier and crisper, while the meat inside stays more tender.

This technique is indeed easier on a professional stove—ten seconds or so per round, and after three passes the meatball is basically fully cooked and the shell totally browned and crisp.

But on a small home stove, this method is relatively tougher to execute.

Old Gao had to split them into three batches just to get all the meatballs fried and set.

Lin Xu noticed that every time his master took the meatballs out, he would deliberately shake them a couple of times above the pot.

At first he thought it was to drain the oil and figured, “We’re still going to refry them later, what’s the point of draining now? Once they go back into the oil won’t they get just as greasy?”

But after studying it for a while, he realized it didn’t have much to do with draining oil.

It seemed to be to crack the outer crust of the meatballs.

And once the crust cracks, the main effect is to make the meatballs taste even more fragrant and crunchy!

Once he figured that out, Lin Xu felt a strange kind of joy rise in his chest.

If you pay attention, you can uncover the tricks and key points hidden in cooking steps, without always relying on the system.

After all, the system is external—only skills you truly learn are yours.

Just as he was thinking that, a system notification sounded in his mind:

“Host shows strong Observation and has discovered the cooking secret of Fried Meatballs, completing the Hidden task [Observation]. Reward: one special-item 5%-off coupon. Congratulations to the host.”

Damn!

There’s a reward for this too?

Lin Xu hadn’t expected that simply by carefully watching his master’s technique for Fried Meatballs, he not only finished a Hidden task, he even got a special-item discount coupon.

Even though it was only five percent off, for Lin Xu right now it was exactly what he needed.

Because the [Olfactory Enhancement] priced at 6,888,888 points would save him more than three hundred thousand points with the coupon, and he just happened to be short those three hundred thousand for the redemption.

It was like Qiaoqiao’s mom opening the door for Qiaoqiao—everything lining up just right.

Lin Xu chose to redeem it without hesitation.

Very soon, another system notification sounded in his mind:

“Congratulations to the host for obtaining the special item—Olfactory Enhancement.”

Once the redemption went through, Lin Xu felt his sense of smell level up in an instant.

The aroma of peanut oil in the pot, the faint scent of the meatballs nearby, the fragrance of the dish his senior was stir-frying in the distance, and the smells from the cold dishes laid out on the central island in the kitchen—all of it rushed into his nostrils.

The system wasn’t lying; his sense of smell really had leveled up a notch. Right now he didn’t even need to look—just by smell he knew his senior was stir-frying sliced fish.