Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe Chapter 411 - 323: Making Meatballs by Hand, No Spoon Needed

While waiting for the food to be served at the car window, he carefully observed all the ingredients on the countertop.

From the flour, dough, and bun skins to the tal basin filled with a mountain of at filling and the stear, the only place he could make adjustnts was the at filling.

This bowl of at filling had obvious differences in details from what he had seen before.

The lighting inside the food cart wasn’t as good as outside, relatively dim, so without careful observation, it was hard to notice anything special.

Upon deliberate observation, he faintly saw many semi-transparent jelly-like gel crystals in the at filling, much like the vinegar jelly used in their Japanese cuisine.

"Congealing and crushing the broth, then mixing it with the at filling? What do the Great Xia People’s minds contain to co up with so many strange and quirky ideas?"

After figuring out the rationale, he imdiately began to think about whether this thod could be utilized by himself.

After all, he was a top chef with many years of experience. If he couldn’t produce a decent product this ti, he might as well close his business for good.

"Chinese cuisine has buns and dumplings, Western cuisine has them too, and Japanese cuisine as well, but if it’s just using dough skin, fundantally there’s not much difference from buns and dumplings. If t with custors who have had soup dumplings before, they might even find it rather out of place."

"Besides dough, what else could serve the purpose of a skin? Sothing that can perfectly lock in the moisture inside and provide enough support without breaking when picked up."

He had a faint feeling that this ti he had really found the suitable breakthrough.

Once the skin problem was solved, the rest would be easy!

Additionally, he felt that the handmade atballs Lin Chen was making seed very promising.

Once this thod was learned, any ingredient could probably be made into atballs, right?

"Bang—"

"Bang—"

"Bang—"

Lin Chen’s knocking motion was very rhythmic, and every ti the tal rod ca down, the squid at was precisely deford.

Originally a large piece of squid at the thickness of a tiger’s mouth, after about ten minutes of pounding, had turned into a mass of at paste.

Lin Chen didn’t look like he was going to stop, continuing to pound until there were no large particles visible to the naked eye.

The pounded squid at paste was separately placed into a clean basin, picked up repeatedly by hand, and slapped down forcefully to quickly gelatinize the squid paste, making the texture more bouncy.

Then the previously cleaned squid head and tentacles were diced and added to increase texture, appropriately seasoned, and finally mixed with a whole box of red flying fish roe.

Shrimp balls were treated the sa way, but pork balls were a little different.

The already ground lean pork didn’t need to be pounded, but when Lin Chen brought out that piece of pure fat, chopped it, and started pounding, Nagishiro Sho began to feel puzzled.

Adding extra fat to make pork atballs?

Wouldn’t it be fine to just use a mix of lean and fat ground at?

Or is there a significant difference in texture and flavor between machine-ground and hand-pounded ones?

He wasn’t the type to keep questions to himself, so he imdiately asked.

"Lin, what’s the purpose of pounding the fat separately?"

"For comparison."

Lin Chen answered straightforwardly: "Because for us Great Xia People, machine-made atballs are everywhere, but handmade ones are very rare, so I want to see if there’s any difference between handmade and machine-made ones."

"If there’s not much difference, it could make things easier in the future, haha."

"So that’s it."

Nagishiro Sho ca to a sudden realization, thinking he had overthought it; Lin Chen had never tried it either!

After continuously pounding for more than half an hour, Lin Chen rubbed his sowhat sore arms and wrists, finally relaxing with a sigh of relief.

No wonder fewer people are making pure handmade atballs; he was exhausted after just making such a small amount.

If mass-producing, he would probably have to pound continuously for more than ten hours every day, and he would need to hire several more people.

Additionally, soone would be needed to squeeze the atballs, cook them, and sell them; the number of people required wouldn’t be small.

Yet the price of atballs can’t be too high, or no one will buy them, and thus, it’s naturally an unattractive line of work.

"Whatever, let’s taste it first; anyway, I just hired two employees~"

He didn’t think too much about it because the nu changes every day. Even if he needs to make them, it’s only one al a day, so there’s no worry of overwhelming the staff.

"The squid balls have flying fish roe inside, the pork balls have diced mushrooms, what should I add to the shrimp balls?"

This problem puzzled him for a long ti, from last night until now, and still hadn’t been decided.

It’s not that he couldn’t think of what could pair with it, but there were too many things that could pair, and he wanted to find a unique secondary ingredient to add.

The shrimp ball itself focuses on the springy texture of the shrimp at, with a rich shrimp flavor, so the choice of secondary ingredient should not have a strong taste, to completely preserve the aroma of the shrimp.

"For now, let’s not consider fruity shrimp paste; as neighbors of a nation where people can’t even accept fruit pizza, putting fruit in atballs is certainly not a good idea."

"Scallions and cilantro are too common, and the audience for cilantro might be small. As for mushrooms, they are already in the pork balls, and I don’t want to repeat that."

Lin Chen quietly stared at the minced shrimp in the bowl, lost in thought, as images of shrimp-related dishes flashed through his mind one by one.

"Recently, a lot of hotpot restaurants in the Great Xia are trying new ideas, like pepper shrimp paste, bamboo fungus shrimp paste, and colorful shrimp paste, but the peppers here are just bell peppers and lantern peppers, with no spiciness at all. The bamboo fungus is all dried goods, and the flavor is sowhat overpowering after soaking."

"What else could pair with shrimp... wait a minute, isn’t corn and shrimp a good combo?!"

Initially, his thoughts had been revolving around shrimp paste, but after ruling out all the flavors, he subconsciously thought of dumpling fillings.

As one of the most classic flavors, corn and shrimp definitely rank in the top three most popular seafood dumpling fillings.

"John, I need so fruit corn kernels, preferably the sweet kind. Do you have any there?"

"Yes, it’s corn season right now. How much do you need?"

"Just pack a bag for , not too little. I can freeze it if I can’t use it all."

"Got it."

John had just finished the small basket of soup dumplings in the box and was biting into the remaining cockscomb dumplings with big bites. Instead of leaving, he directly took out his phone and put it to his ear.

"It’s , John. Have soone bring two bags of sweet corn kernels to the restaurant, fresh ones, as soon as possible!"

Since the delivery of the corn kernels would take so ti, Lin Chen wrapped the minced shrimp with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for chilling.

He filled a pot with water, sprinkled a bit of sea salt and two slices of fresh ginger, and heated it on high heat.

Before the water boiled, just as small bubbles started to appear on the edges of the pot, he reduced the heat, grabbed a handful of cuttlefish paste, kneaded it a few tis in the palm of his hand, and deftly squeezed it out through the crook of his thumb and forefinger.

The spoon was dipped in hot water, gently scooping at the opening of his hand, easily picking up a cuttlefish ball.

"???"

This technique amazed the three of them, even Jonathan, who was secretly paying attention, couldn’t help but gape in disbelief.

"Wait a minute, how did these balls just appear?"

"He didn’t use an ice cream scoop?"

"I can hardly believe my eyes!"

Lin Chen’s lips curved slightly upward, his hands working nonstop, squeezing out one ball after another.

Initially, the shapes were sowhat irregular, but as he continued, the ones coming out beca more and more round; without a close look, they could almost be mistaken for perfect spheres.

The hand-beaten, pounded cuttlefish paste was incredibly smooth and fine, requiring no exertion while squeezing. Just a slight tightening of the three fingers below, and the cuttlefish paste naturally squeezed through the gap of his hand.

The index finger and thumb mainly controlled the shape. Initially small, as the paste squeezed out, they were gradually enlarged, and then shrunk again, yielding a perfect sphere.

Of course, saying it is easy, but actually doing it requires certain skills and a feel for it.

Nagishiro Sho eagerly stepped forward two steps: "Can I try as well? Is there a ti limit or anything like that?"

"No, just squeeze them out and drop them in the water. Anyone can master this skill with practice. The only thing to note is to wet the spoon before scooping, otherwise the paste will stick, and it won’t co off cleanly."

Lin Chen was naturally happy to have soone help and straightforwardly handed over the tal bowl with the cuttlefish paste, while he fetched a milk pot to continue boiling water.

Different flavors of balls require separate boiling water, especially seafood. You can’t use the sa water that boiled it for at, as it would cause a flavor mix.

This batch of pork paste looked visibly different from the cuttlefish paste, being relatively coarse with visible chunks of at and bits of fat.

The pork balls he made were not in the style of Chaoshan beef balls but leaned towards the handmade pork balls of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan regions, primarily used for hotpots, with a coarser texture, where the at pieces are more noticeable.

Having only at filling isn’t enough, as the texture would be too rough due to the at pieces. To achieve a tender and fine texture, so starch and water need to be added and mixed in.

If not tenderized, the end result would be similar to Western-style atballs, hard and not juicy.

Although John and Magna were also eager to try, they had no confidence in their skills, fearing they might ruin the carefully prepared ingredients, so they stayed on the side to watch, not daring to speak up.

Nagishiro Sho mimicked Lin Chen’s actions, scooping several balls in a row, but all were misshapen, with the best being only football-shaped.

"Hey, I just can’t believe it! Can a small atball really stump ?"

All those oddly shaped balls were destroyed by him, and he re-kneaded them into his palms.

With more attempts, he seed to have found the right feel, and the balls he squeezed out beca more and more regular in shape.