Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Foreigners speak very directly; even if they’re being polite, it’s like that. They’ve never experienced Great Xia’s passive-aggressive ways, and his face turned red. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t say a word for a long time.

In the end, he just silently lowered his head and continued eating his spicy hot pot.

"Cough, cough, cough!?"

He had no idea what he had stabbed on his fork. As soon as he bit down, he could distinctly feel a burst of juices ’splash’ and spray directly down his throat.

The full-bodied red oil mixed with the numbness of Sichuan pepper instantly made him uncontrollably start coughing.

Lin Chen glanced at the remaining half of the food on his fork and kindly reminded him.

"Be careful when eating leafy vegetables in spicy hot pot; they absorb the broth the most and are the spiciest. You can’t slurp them, you have to bite."

Why didn’t you say so earlier!!

Boss Magna felt like he’d swallowed a burning hot iron ball; the fiery pain in his throat lingered.

It seemed not only his esophagus but even inside his throat had been splashed, making it impossible for him to speak; opening his mouth made him only want to cough.

Lin Chen came over and patted his back, with a bit of force, which made him feel much better.

"What method is this? It’s amazing. It’s the first time I’ve known that patting someone’s back works after choking."

"Ah? I don’t know either, anyway, we Great Xia people have been patted by elders like this since childhood, we’re used to it."

Having finally recovered, Boss Magna took the time to look down and see what food had taken him down.

He blinked.

Great, didn’t recognize it.

It looked a bit like undeveloped lettuce, but the color was yellow, and the middle stem was very wide. However, it tasted sweet, and had plenty of juice.

"What vegetable is this?"

"Baby cabbage; you can also understand it as undeveloped Chinese cabbage."

"What is Chinese cabbage?"

"... A type of vegetable! Quite common in Asian recipes."

He originally wanted to explain the difference between baby cabbage and Chinese cabbage but didn’t expect him not to even know Chinese cabbage, so never mind!

Chinese cabbage indeed doesn’t appear on Western dining tables; only Great Xia Supermarkets sell it, so it’s reasonable not to know it.

After the small incident ended, the two returned to the kitchen one after the other.

Lin Chen grabbed a heavy emperor crab and placed it on the table, staring at it in silent contemplation, actually flipping through the recipe in his mind again.

Although it’s not a rare ingredient, even if it turns out awful, there are certainly more in Magna’s warehouse.

They’ve been crab fishing, so how could they only catch two? He had said earlier that he picked two big ones, meaning there was still stock.

"Whatever, let’s just make it!"

Without much hesitation, he decisively tossed the emperor crab into the sink to scrub it clean.

He took a big basin and placed it on the table, found the crab’s belly button position at the bottom, and used the tip of a western knife to pry open the shell. A clean and swift stab was made into the connection with the body.

"Squish"

A large amount of turbid liquid gushed out following the withdrawn knife, quickly pooling into a small puddle with a texture like coconut water at the bottom of the basin.

Boss Magna held a lunchbox nearby while eating, peeking over.

"What are you collecting this blood for, you won’t use it for cooking, right?"

"Huh, you saw through it!"

"What??? You’re really using it for cooking? Is this stuff edible!?"

Boss Magna’s mouth was wide open, his face full of shock, even forgetting about the half-chewed food still in his mouth.

Of course, he hadn’t eaten less emperor crab; with dry sea fishing, seafood was the most abundant.

Ingredients that ordinary people must visit a hotel restaurant to eat, he had eaten to the point of getting sick and didn’t want anymore.

The normal procedure to handle emperor crab is to directly pry open the back shell, remove the guts, chop the limbs with the body, then freeze and package.

During the process, it must be washed, so he only knew that cutting crabs would definitely cause bleeding, but this blood looks like seawater. It’s indistinguishable, so he paid no attention, and never thought it could be used for cooking.

This isn’t something a normal person would think about!

You might use chicken, duck, beef, lamb, or pork blood to cook; that would be understandable, there are at least blood sausage dishes.

What the hell is crab blood??

"Honestly, it’s my first time knowing crab blood can be used for cooking too."

Lin Chen shrugged helplessly, straightforwardly expressing his sentiments.

And it’s true, the emperor crab didn’t grow this big for nothing; the amount of blood from its body was quite substantial.

In just a dozen seconds, a noticeable volume had accumulated at the bottom of the basin, visually estimated to be over three hundred milliliters.

This crab blood can be steamed directly to coagulate, but to make its texture more silky and akin to tofu, a small amount of egg white is needed for assistance.

Simple mixing evenly and sifting, avoiding egg white clumping that would affect the product quality.

The sifted crab blood is poured into a square container; he used a mousse mold, brushed oil on the walls to prevent sticking, and steamed it over water.

The king crab, after being drained of blood, also needs to be steamed until fully cooked. Why not just steam it all together, divided into two layers.

The recipe for this dish isn’t difficult; there are hardly any seasonings involved. The hardest part is collecting the crab blood.

To get enough blood to make a plate of tofu, you usually need to use hundreds of crabs, which can take several to more than a dozen hours.

Using a king crab, he’s practically cheating, pulling the progress bar straight from 0 to 90.

Moreover, there’s a hidden advantage to using king crab.

The original version of this recipe likely used small crabs, whether from lakes or seas didn’t matter. Regardless of the type, the taste probably wouldn’t differ much.

But king crabs, which are huge by specification, are technically not crabs but a type of stone crab.

Crabs have four pairs of legs plus a pair of claws, while king crabs have three pairs of legs and are asymmetrical.

If we’re being strict, this method doesn’t entirely reproduce the dish’s original appearance.

Since street vendors can provide returning challenges, why shouldn’t high-difficulty challenge tasks have returning challenges too?

He just guessed blindly, thinking if there’s none, so be it. If there is, he could find time later to recreate the authentic version with small crabs.

There’s no strict requirement on the steaming time for crabs and crab blood tofu; just steam them until cooked. Steaming a few extra minutes doesn’t matter since those who can access such a recipe surely have decent cooking skills.

If someone can over-steam simple crabs, they might as well stop cooking and just wash up and sleep early.

He hasn’t steamed crab blood tofu before, but thinking of it like steamed egg custard, it doesn’t take long, roughly about ten minutes or so.

He’s already pre-split the king crab body for easy and quick steaming, and ten minutes is just about right.

The ingredients for this dish are merely green onions, ginger, and cooking wine, mainly to remove the fishy smell. There’s no need to prepare them too early; they can be cut just before cooking to prevent water loss affecting the flavor.

While waiting for the king crab to steam, Boss Magna finally finished off a whole bowl of spicy hot pot.

His entire face turned red, and sweat was pouring down, with beady drops of sweat visibly trickling down his cheeks.

His lips were evidently swollen, but not to an exaggerated degree, indicating he hadn’t yet reached his tolerance limit.

Finishing off the whole pack quietly suggests the spice level was just right; otherwise, he would’ve jumped around crazily long ago.

"Is it spicy enough for you? If not, next time I’ll make it medium spicy for you."

"......"

Magna slightly parted his mouth, with a hint of a glistening sheen flowing along the edge of his lips.

He felt completely dazed now, nodding instinctively in response to Lin Chen’s question.

"It’s still fine; I can manage the challenge."

"However, I did find that your chili seems to accumulate heat. It didn’t feel spicy at first, but after finishing the whole pack, it gradually kicked in, yet I feel like I haven’t reached my limit."

"You can train your spice tolerance, right? I think next time, I can handle this level even more comfortably!"

Lin Chen laughed and nodded, no longer surprised by his stubbornness.

Next time, he’ll make it medium spicy to finally see how things really go!

"So, what after steaming the crabs?"

"Remove the crab meat and roe, simmer the shells for soup, and then combine everything together, and that’s it."

Magna visualized the scene in his head and immediately grew interested.

"Hey, it’s really made purely from crab, fascinating. How on earth do you Great Xia People come up with so many creative ideas?"

"I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t have that kind of brainpower; let’s just attribute it to ancient wisdom."

The king crab, slowly steaming while they chatted, filled the air with a rich crab aroma.

Seeing that it was about time, he lifted the pot lid.

As the steam rose in clouds, before their eyes appeared a plate of pure white, jade-like... tofu!

"This is crab blood??"

Magna’s eyes widened, filled with disbelief.

Even Lin Chen found it a bit hard to believe his own eyes.

Using a clean cloth, he took the mold out, and also took out the crab legs and body beneath to cool down, making it easier to remove the meat later.

The freshly steamed crab blood tofu was extremely tender, shaking slightly like jelly and creating evident ripples.

The tofu exuded a rich crabmeat aroma overall. It smelled more like crab itself rather than tofu, only looking like tofu, that’s all.

The steamed crabs were briefly soaked in cold water to accelerate cooling, which also allowed the meat to shrink, making it easier to remove.

With large crabs like these, it was also easier to slice the meat; just cut open the shell with scissors and you could remove the intact leg meat.

The body followed the same method, cut it in half in the middle, then using a small spoon to scrape, the meat could be easily scooped out.

Although the crab seemed quite large, weighing fifteen pounds, in reality, the meat extracted weighed a little less than two pounds.

The picked crab meat needed to be shredded into fine threads with the blade of a knife so that the sautéed crab powder would be fine and look presentable.

The leg meat, body meat, along with crab roe, piled into a large, hefty bowl.

The leftover crab shells were chopped with the back of a knife, heated with oil in a pan until golden brown, then poured with hot water to simmer, making a golden crab soup.