Chapter 411: Chapter 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 metal basin filled with a mountain of meat filling and the steamer, the only place he could make adjustments was the meat filling.

This bowl of meat 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 meat filling, much like the vinegar jelly used in their Japanese cuisine.

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

After figuring out the rationale, he immediately began to think about whether this method 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 time, 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, fundamentally there’s not much difference from buns and dumplings. If met with customers 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? Something that can perfectly lock in the moisture inside and provide enough support without breaking when picked up."

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

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

Additionally, he felt that the handmade meatballs Lin Chen was making seemed very promising.

Once this method was learned, any ingredient could probably be made into meatballs, right?

"Bang—"

"Bang—"

"Bang—"

Lin Chen’s knocking motion was very rhythmic, and every time the metal rod came down, the squid meat was precisely deformed.

Originally a large piece of squid meat the thickness of a tiger’s mouth, after about ten minutes of pounding, had turned into a mass of meat 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 meat 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 same 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 meatballs?

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

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 immediately 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 meatballs 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 came 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 somewhat sore arms and wrists, finally relaxing with a sigh of relief.

No wonder fewer people are making pure handmade meatballs; 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, someone would be needed to squeeze the meatballs, cook them, and sell them; the number of people required wouldn’t be small.

Yet the price of meatballs 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 menu changes every day. Even if he needs to make them, it’s only one meal 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 time, 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 meat, 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 meatballs 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 somewhat 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 some 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 me, 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 me, John. Have someone 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 some time, 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 times 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 somewhat irregular, but as he continued, the ones coming out became 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. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Nagishiro Sho eagerly stepped forward two steps: "Can I try as well? Is there a time 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 come off cleanly."

Lin Chen was naturally happy to have someone help and straightforwardly handed over the metal 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 same water that boiled it for meat, 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 meat 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 meat pieces are more noticeable.

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

If not tenderized, the end result would be similar to Western-style meatballs, 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 meatball really stump me?"

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

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