I'm the Culinary God-Chapter 840 - 363: A Handy Little Divine Artifact for Chilly Late Autumn: Tomato Sour Fish Soup! Justice Dundun Strikes Online!
Tsk, are you not planning to go to work this afternoon?
Lin Xu went upstairs and clicked on the Lin Ji’s Food topic, discovering everyone was sharing a new short video account:
[Mommy Loves Dundun the Most!]
Could this be Shen Baobao’s newly created account?
He clicked on the account and saw the profile picture was a selfie of Shen Baobao hugging Dundun. In the photo, Director Shen had a sweet smile, her delicate features impeccable, but the Dundun in her arms looked utterly disdainful.
The contrast between the person and the cat was striking, full of humor.
The account’s followers had already exceeded fifty thousand.
There was only one video on the account, a video of Mom making chestnut jelly and chestnut cake last night:
[Heard that a new house needs elders to move in for good fortune, so let the first post of the new account be for my mother-in-law. Two ways to eat chestnuts, Dundun was dumbfounded!]
Wow, just starting with short videos, she’s already learned clickbait?
Last night, while making jelly and cake, Dundun was sleeping the whole time, alright?
It was you, the mother, who was shocked the entire time, shouting and yelling, Dundun got annoyed and eventually went to the room upstairs.
He shared this video to his own feed:
"Sharing this under threat, if you want to see Dundun’s daily life, remember to follow. In the future, my account will focus on food, while Dundun’s daily routine will be managed by its mom."
After sharing, other accounts started sharing too.
"Hahaha, Dundun fans are ecstatic!"
"Already triple following, hoping for frequent updates."
"Dundun~ my Dundun~~~"
"Dundun fans finally have their gathering place, so excited!"
"The lady boss’s voice in the video is so cute, even though Dundun wasn’t shown the whole time, I still watched it several times from beginning to end, eager to taste the caramel jelly."
"What a coincidence, me too. Lin’s Mom spoils the lady boss, I want a mother-in-law like that."
"When Lin’s Mom said it wasn’t troublesome, I suddenly felt so touched."
"Me too, this family atmosphere is so enviable."
Lin Xu briefly scanned the comments, feeling quite good about them, thinking maybe their sweet Baobao really could transform into an influencer.
Around four in the afternoon, he brought two blackfish to the kitchen, slaughtered them, and began preparing Tomato Sour Soup Fish.
The method for this dish isn’t actually difficult; it’s almost identical to pickled fish.
However, the difference is that pickled fish relies on pickled veggies for the sour flavor, whereas sour soup fish needs tomatoes. The unique sour aroma of tomatoes enhances the dish’s freshness, which is why tomato broth remains popular in hot pot restaurants.
While slaughtering the fish, Lin Xu selected some cleaned tomatoes, scored the surface, then placed them in the steamer to steam.
Nowadays, tomatoes are of the firm variety, hard to fry soft, so steaming them in advance makes peeling easier and turns the tomatoes soft and mushy.
This way, when fried, the tomatoes become more mushy, and the sour aroma is more intense.
After cleaning the blackfish, he separated the bones from the meat as done for pickled fish, sliced the fish filet with a slanting knife, added a hint of salt and scallion and ginger water, stirring until gooey and sticky.
Next, he added an egg white and a touch of potato starch, mixing evenly, and finally a bit of peanut oil, lightly kneading and then marinating.
The fish bone was cut into sections, the fish head into chunks, and marinated similarly.
After finishing these, he prepared some yellow lantern pickled peppers to add a spicy kick to the sourness, making it even tastier.
"Boss, do you need side dishes for the sour soup fish?"
"Put in some, soak some wood ear mushrooms, and add some enoki mushrooms to enhance with fungi."
Lin Xu arranged these, and the tomatoes were about ready.
Taking them out, he peeled off the tomato skins and used a garlic crusher to mash all the tomatoes into mush.
This step was akin to the method in the Yun Gui Region; however, they excel in roasting tomatoes, whereas Lin Xu used steaming.
Once all tomatoes are mashed into a pulp, it’s ready for cooking.
He boiled water on the stove, added a bit of salt, blanched the enoki mushrooms and wood ear mushrooms, and placed them at the bottom of a basin.
Given the two fish were quite large, Lin Xu divided them into several portions so everyone could taste them.
Upon preparing the base ingredients, he poured out the water from the pot, scrubbed it clean, repeatedly sliding the frying pan, then adding cooking oil to the pot, fried the fish bone and fish head inside.
After frying, he took them out, added a spoonful of lard back to the pot, heated the oil, and added scallion, ginger, and garlic to fry briefly.
Once fragrant, he removed them, then added a big spoonful of tomato paste.
When making Tomato Sour Soup, simply using tomato isn’t enough for the sourness and color; tomato paste is needed to enhance both.
Although tomato paste is useful, it requires being fried in hot oil until aromatic and thoroughly cooked, releasing all the fermented flavor from the paste for the sour soup to turn out flavorful and enticingly sweet and sour.
With the tomato paste fried aromatic, he poured in the mashed tomato pulp, added salt, and continued to stir-fry.
This step is to thoroughly cook the tomato pulp, mixing it perfectly with the tomato paste.
Once the rich sour aroma wafts from the pot’s sauce, Lin Xu added the prepared yellow lantern pickled peppers, then splashed in some rice vinegar along the pot’s edge.
To make the sour aroma even more robust and mellow.
Finally, he tossed in the fried fish bones and fish heads, briefly stir-fried them, and added boiling water.
He seasoned the pot with salt, sugar, light soy sauce, and a touch of dark soy sauce, covered the pot, and boiled vigorously for five minutes. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
Through boiling, extract the essence from the fish bones into the soup, so the Tomato Sour Soup tastes even more delectable and enticing.
After five minutes, the soup in the pot had completely transformed into a red broth, the unique sour aroma of tomatoes and the fresh scent from the fish bones mixed together, enticingly making one’s mouth water.
