EBE Chapter 40 Stone Grilled Meat
Chapter 40 Stone Grilled Meat
With the help of their tribesmen, the spotted caterpillar was quickly decomposed and brought back to their settlement. For easy access to water, Lejing and her companions chose to have lunch by the stream in the valley.
Lezhi, who had followed the tribespeople back and forth several times, wasn't assigned any work. Everyone unanimously decided to let him rest on the sidelines. Especially after learning that the spotted caterpillar had originally targeted him but had been defeated by the furball, the tribespeople present were still shaken. They were all secretly relieved that this time it was just a weak spotted caterpillar; if it had been something else, the young would have been in danger.
The tribespeople were startled, but Lezhi himself didn't feel anything was amiss. Having been here for so long, except for those few days in the tribe, he encountered insects almost every day when he was outside the tribe, and Lezhi had gotten somewhat used to it.
"Leyou, I'll make lunch. It's not a heavy job, and cooking doesn't require running around. It's right here, so there won't be any danger." Tugging at Leyou's sleeve, Lezhi softened her tone, making full use of her status as a cub to make the request.
Looking into Lezhi's bright silver eyes, Leyou couldn't bring himself to refuse. He blinked and looked away, sighing helplessly, "Alright, then promise me that you'll come to me immediately if anything happens, and also, don't leave the sight of your clansmen."
"Okay, I promise." With a smug smile that said she had achieved her goal, Lezhi raised her left hand and held up three fingers as if making a vow.
"What kind of weird gesture is this? Alright, go ahead. It's a good opportunity to try out the yellow branches we dug up. Let me see how to use them."
"Okay, let's take a look at mine!"
After washing her hands by the stream, Lezhi began to examine today's ingredients. Besides the spotted caterpillars, there was also the insect meat that Lejing and the others had just hunted. The nearly one hundred-person gathering team was divided into ten groups, and Lejing distributed the prey according to the number of people in each group, with each group cooking their own food.
They had enough meat, plenty of rock fruit to replace staple food, and some fruits and vegetables collected individually by each member of the group, so their food supply was quite abundant.
Lezhi and his group naturally ended up in the same group as Le Nian and his group, who were already familiar with them. Their group's fire was already lit, and some of the tribesmen took out pots they had brought from home to fetch water from the stream. Others were making a simple fire pit to make it easier to cook later.
Lezhi arrived at a flat stone by the stream and used it as a workbench. He broke the insect meat into finger-thick slices. The meat was so fresh today that he decided to skip the grilling and have a barbecue on a stone slab in the wild.
Thinking of the stone slab, Lezhi asked Leyou next to him for help, "Leyou, could you please look around and see if there is a stone slab of a suitable size? It doesn't need to be too thick, and it should be as flat as possible. I need it in a while."
Seeing Lezhi's gestures indicating the size of the stone slab he needed, Leyou nodded. "Okay, I know what you need. Wait a moment, I'll be right there."
Seeing that Leyou readily agreed without any hesitation, Lezhi confidently entrusted the task to him and continued cutting the meat. After the meat was divided, Lezhi started cutting vegetables. The tribespeople contributed their own provisions, and Lezhi picked out suitable berries from the fruit, crushed them, and used them along with chopped yellow branches to give the sliced meat a massage.
After setting the marinated meat aside, Lezhi turned his attention to the stone fruits that had just been cooking in the pot. The meat patties had been so popular this morning, so he wanted to make some extra for the tribespeople who hadn't had any that morning.
Seeing that Lezhi was preparing so much food by himself, Le Nian volunteered to help. Just then, Lezhi handed over the task of chopping meat to him, as Lezhi himself was not very strong and it took him a lot of effort to chop the meat.
While crushing the cooked stone fruit, Lezhi brought over a few eggs that no one knew who had given them to him. According to his tribesmen, these were a type of insect eggs. Lezhi saw that the tribesmen's usual way of eating them was boiling them in water. From the cross-section, the internal structure of the eggs looked similar to those in his previous life, so Lezhi felt reassured and started using them.
Mix the chopped minced meat with crushed rock fruit, add egg liquid, salt powder and finely chopped yellow twigs for seasoning. After thinking for a moment, Lezhi also added a little bit of sweet berries. She asked Le Nian, who had superb arm strength, to stir the mixture evenly. Lezhi tested the consistency of the minced meat and felt it was about right before letting Le Nian stop.
Just then, Leyou, who had gone to find the stone slab, returned. He held up the square stone slab in his hand and asked Lezhi, "Lezhi, do you think this will do?"
"Wait a moment, let me try..." Lezhi took the stone slab, washed it clean in the stream, and then came to the fire pit that the tribesmen had just built. He placed the stone slab on the fire, held his hand above the stone slab, and felt the heat conduction speed of the stone slab.
Perhaps because of its suitable material and thickness, this stone slab is a perfect fit for Lezhi's cooking requirements. "Okay, no problem. As long as it's heat-resistant, there won't be any issues."
"Hmm, this stone should be quite heat-resistant. Never mind, you can try it first. If this one doesn't work, there are other ones. There are plenty of stones over there."
Touching his chin, Leyou smiled brightly.
"Okay." Squinting, Lezhi returned Leyou's smile and ran to the stream to move the ingredients she had prepared to the fire pit, officially beginning the cooking process.
First, place the specially reserved fatty meat onto the stone slab. Watching the fat render out under the high temperature of the stone slab, Lezhi uses chopsticks to spread the fat evenly, ensuring that the entire stone slab is thoroughly soaked in the fat.
Pushing the slightly charred fat to the side, Lezhi picked up a piece of marinated insect meat and placed it on the stone slab. The meat sizzled as it came into contact with the hot stone, followed by rising smoke.
As soon as Lezhi started making it, tribespeople began to gather around. There was no way around it; the meat patties Lezhi had brought that morning were just too potent, and everyone was curious how this cub had managed to make such delicious food.
Seeing how effortlessly he performed each movement, the people around him were completely captivated, unable to look away from the actions of his hands.
Lezhi did not notice the movement of his tribesmen. He was always very absorbed in cooking, and making a dish from scratch could calm his mind.
Focusing intently on flipping the meat slices on the stone slab to ensure the cooking time was right, Lezhi picked up a slice of meat and placed it on a prepared plate. "Alright, it's ready to eat. Hurry up and eat it while it's hot, in order."
These words were like the sounding of an attack horn. The tribesmen who had been drooling nearby exchanged glances and argued silently with their eyes. In the end, Leyou took the initiative to cut the meat into slices so that everyone could have the first bite, thus nipping the argument in the bud.
The marinated fresh meat slices are grilled on a stone slab, resulting in a perfect Maillard reaction on the surface. With every bite, the delicious meat juices burst in your mouth, making the meat incredibly tender. It also has a complex aroma composed of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy flavors, and you can't taste any of the original fishy smell in the meat.
"Oh, my mother tree..."
"It's so delicious! How can it be so delicious!"
……
After swallowing their food, the tribespeople stared intently at the slices of meat grilling on the stone slab, their mouths watering uncontrollably. That small bite of meat had completely awakened their taste buds, and their stomachs were rumbling in rebellion.
Suddenly, the sounds of stomachs rumbling filled the fire pit around the group. Hearing the sounds from the bodies of their tribesmen, they realized that they were surrounded by competitors, and a second conflict was about to break out.