"Wow, my Braised Pork Belly!"

Shen Jiayue couldn't help but swallow her saliva when she saw the Braised Pork Belly, and she kept bragging to her cousin Chen Yan, "Yesterday, my Xu Bao made Braised Pork Belly for me. It tasted incredibly delicious. He even said he'd save a few pieces for you, but unexpectedly, you didn't come."

Chen Yan sneered. With the way you two carry on with your public displays of affection, I'd have been overwhelmed if I had come. Wait a second... Braised Pork Belly? I have to eat more later. Considering how much my tender heart has been hurt, it wouldn't be excessive to eat more Braised Pork Belly, right?

When lunchtime started, Wu Kexin and Panda, who had come to get lunch boxes, were live streaming together, while other people sat at the nearby dining table eating.

"Wow, this Braised Pork Belly smells so good. Brother-in-law, your cooking is really amazing!"

Chen Yan no longer cared about the fattening concerns of Braised Pork Belly; she just wanted to enjoy a few more pieces with rice.

The fatty but not greasy texture, the sweet and salty flavors blending together, the rich aroma, the thick sauce... The more Chen Yan ate, the more delicious she found it, even more so than the Braised Pork Belly sold for 599 per serving in some of Shanghai's private kitchen restaurants.

Of course, the most straightforward difference was that the 599-per-serving Braised Pork Belly came as one large piece, a single portion. Someone with Chen Yan's appetite would need two servings, let alone those with even bigger appetites.

And today, Lin Xu made over ten pounds of meat in one go.

After a bunch of them ate for a good while, there was still more than half left, which was way better than the one-serving portion of Braised Pork Belly.

After the meal, Shen Jiayue and Panda each took their lunch boxes and left.

Wu Kexin lazily set her live-streaming phone high up in a corner, letting her followers get a direct sense of Lin Ji's Food's terrifying customer flow during the lunch peak.

After the midday rush, the place was a mess.

While the waiters were cleaning up, Wu Kexin took down the phone used for live-streaming.

Meanwhile, Lin Xu was getting ready in the kitchen with a piece of pork belly about twenty centimeters square on a side and some Dried Vegetable that had been soaked in the morning but not used up.

These are the ingredients needed for Pagoda Meat.

Besides these two items, Pagoda Meat also required one very important tool—a mold.

The so-called mold is a conical container that looks like an inverted pyramid, into which you put the neatly cut Pagoda Meat upside down and then add the Dried Vegetable. After steaming, you flip it onto a plate, and there you have the beloved dish, Pagoda Meat.

This container is used for shaping.

Actually, the ancient method of making this dish also used a mold, but it wasn't this kind of stainless-steel container. Instead, it was a conical bowl, a type of porcelain bowl specially made for similar kinds of dishes.

However, now, such molds have all been replaced by stainless steel products.

After the live stream started, Lin Xu first greeted the fans in the live-stream room.

Then, after introducing the ingredients and utensils he would be using, he began to work on the preparation.

He placed the piece of pork belly into a pot, added water, then scallion and ginger along with cooking wine, and turned up the heat to boil.

After it came to a boil and the scum was skimmed off, he added a few Sichuan peppercorns and star anise and a bay leaf, using the spices to add some base flavor to the pork and also effectively remove any gamey taste.

After boiling for approximately thirty minutes, the pork was thoroughly cooked, so he turned off the heat and took out the meat.

Then, while it was hot, he smeared a layer of honey on the surface of the pork skin. This would utilize the caramelization of the sugar when frying to color the pork.

"Damn, isn't Boss Lin scared of getting burned?"

"He's truly a Heartless Iron Hand! That pork just came out of the pot. It must be eighty or ninety degrees, right?"

"No wonder his cooking tastes so good. He's even toughened up his hands."

"I wanted to learn this, but after seeing Boss Lin's operation, I decided to give up. My tender hands can't handle this treatment!"

Next to him, Wu Kexin was also curious, "Aren't you afraid of getting burned?"

Lin Xu said with a smile, "You get used to the burn after a while."

He placed the evenly spread meat in front of a fan to dry off the moisture while taking this time to set a wok on the stove and heat the oil on high, preparing to fry.

When the oil in the wok reached medium heat, Lin Xu took the piece of pork belly, now dry on the surface, and placed it skin-side down into the hot oil.

"SIZZLE..."

A fierce noise erupted as the hot oil in the pot boiled furiously.

Lin Xu covered the pot and waited until there were no more sounds from inside before lifting the lid and flipping the meat to continue frying.

Once the meat in the wok was fried, Lin Xu scooped out the chunks and placed them into ice water to let the pork skin puff up.

Twenty minutes later, he fished out the pork. The tiger skin pattern had formed, and it was quite pretty.

"Actually, you could make the Pagoda Meat now," he explained. "But in this state, the pork isn't easy to cut, and the fatty parts feel like they've melted, so it's easy to make a mistake. That's why it's better to put it in the freezer for a while to firm up the meat, which makes it much easier to cut."

He wrapped the meat in a plastic bag and placed it at the bottom of the freezer, then placed two thick blocks of ice on top of the meat. The purpose of this was to flatten the meat block to facilitate cutting it into the Pagoda shape.

While waiting for the meat to freeze, Lin Xu kept himself busy. He went back to where he was staying, retrieved his laptop, went to the store, edited the video of the White Jade Lotus Root Strips, and chose to upload it.

"Damn! I just realized Boss Lin does his own editing."

"He doesn't even have a team or an assistant. He does everything from shooting to editing all by himself."

"He's ventured into another field! He's done it again!"

"As expected from the King of Crossovers, even his video editing is awesome. So many clips simplified into such a direct edit. I'd deliberate half a day over making a photo slideshow."

"If one day Boss Lin actually learns postnatal care for sows, I wouldn't be surprised at all."

"..."

After Lin Xu finished uploading the video, he took out the nearly frozen block of meat, ready to cut it.

The meat was slightly frozen but not turned to ice, the perfect state for cutting, and it had been pressed very flat in the freezer, which would make the slicing process much more convenient.

He placed the mold upside-down on the meat and trimmed off the excess from the edges.

These trimmings could later be minced and stir-fried with the Dried Vegetable to enhance its texture when steamed.

After shaping, Lin Xu grabbed the kitchen knife and began cutting the meat.

He positioned the meat on the edge of the cutting board, with a metal basin next to it.

Then he made a cut along the edge of the meat block, about five to six millimeters thick, stopping half a centimeter from slicing through completely. He paused his cut, rolled the meat block over, lifted the slice he'd just made, and continued cutting straight down.

When reaching the edge, he left a half-centimeter margin again, then kept rolling and cutting.

The slices he cut were placed in the basin to the side—they couldn't hang continuously, or they would easily break apart.

The meat block slowly shrank as he cut, but he never fully severed it.

Wu Kexin watched in stunned amazement. She finally realized this dish wasn't something her superficial culinary skills could handle; it was a tremendous test of Knife Skills, patience, and physical stamina.

And the most important thing was, you couldn't slice too slowly; you needed to cut quickly.

Otherwise, once the meat thawed out completely, you wouldn't be able to make the cuts, and all the effort would be for naught.

After Lin Xu finished slicing the meat and placed it in the basin, he poured in a marinade made of light soy sauce, fermented tofu, white sugar, and other seasonings to marinate the slices.

Then he reassembled the pieces into a solid block with the skin side down in the mold.

Pressing down again to refine the Pagoda shape a bit more.

Finally, he poured the remaining marinade into the mold, allowing the meat to continue marinating.

After completing these steps, he washed and finely chopped the soaked Dried Vegetable.

He then stir-fried it with the trimmed fatty pork edges until dry, and packed it into the mold to fill the remaining space.

He topped it all off with a generous spoonful of the stock used to cook the meat, then placed the mold in the steamer to steam.

"Phew… no wonder I couldn't make it well. I'm tired just from watching."

Wu Kexin actually let out a sigh of relief when she saw Lin Xu place the mold in the steamer.

I regret choosing this dish. Since Boss Lin made it so perfectly this time, if I tried to replicate it next time and there was even a slight imperfection, my fans would say it's a flop... If only I had chosen the "Three Non-Stick" dish instead. That should be a bit simpler than Pagoda Meat.

While she was mumbling to herself, Dou Wenjing, having just completed her resignation procedures and carrying her office belongings from her previous company, walked directly into Lin Ji's Food, saying, "Boss Lin, Manager Shen said your company needed a general manager, so here I am for the interview…"

Lacking Monthly Tickets for additional updates, so I'm continuing to make up for last month's owed updates. This chapter has 5,700 words. I'm asking for Monthly Tickets, rewards, and all kinds of support, my friends! I'll try to update with 10,000 words every day, outworking those authors who only manage 6,000 every day!

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