Chapter 26 Secondary Processing of Ingredients
Spread your fingertips out, and the Blue Silver Grass will entwine like fine silver threads.
"A thousand threads reappear, a hundred flavors emerge."
"Let's try the combination of snow cherry and grilled meat first..."
Tang Chuan sat cross-legged by the stream, his mind highly focused, his consciousness sinking into the sea of his mind, trying to extract the properties of the two ingredients.
The refreshing sweetness of snow cherry fruit.
The grilled beef tenderloin is savory and firm.
During the weaving process.
Tang Chuan felt that his Spirit power consumption was nearly 50% higher than that of simply replicating.
The goal is to preserve the fibrous texture of the roasted meat while allowing the juice of the snow cherry to permeate it. The sweetness should not overpower the aroma of the meat, nor should the saltiness of the meat ruin the aroma of the fruit.
Blue Silver Grass intertwined in front of him.
This time, it's not simply about imitating the structure of a certain food, but rather an attempt to blend two completely different flavor characteristics together.
A soft rustling sound.
Within the Blue Silver Grass net, the grass strands first coalesced to form the general outline of the roasted meat, with the texture exactly the same as the previous replica.
Subsequently, the properties of snow cherry fruit seep into the meat fibers, like coating the grilled meat with a layer of sugar.
It roughly retains the flat shape of a kebab, but its whole body is pinkish-white with frost on the surface. When you get close, you can smell a mixture of charred and sweet aromas.
"Forehead..."
Tang Chuan hesitated.
The appearance and smell are truly pushing the limits of one's imagination.
Taking a bite, the firm texture of the grilled meat remains, but as you chew, the juice of the snow cherry bursts between your teeth, and the cool sweetness neutralizes the greasiness of the meat.
Alternating between hot and cold, salty and sweet flavors.
It creates a unique flavor, with the aroma of the grilled meat itself, plus a refreshing touch from the snow cherry.
It's like drinking ice-cold beer while eating barbecue.
"Did it work?"
Tang Chuan couldn't quite describe the taste, but it was definitely better than eating grilled meat or snow cherry alone.
Moreover, this kind of taste cannot be experienced by eating two kinds at the same time.
"I guess you could call it a success!"
"Feature compatibility, no conflicts."
Tang Chuan licked his lips and began the second experiment, combining the two characteristics in reverse to create a roasted meat-flavored snow cherry.
This time he adjusted the Spirit power ratio.
The savory flavor of grilled meat is incorporated into the flesh structure of snow cherry fruit, while retaining the fruit's juiciness and coolness.
The weaving speed of the Blue Silver Grass was a bit slow.
This is to prevent the fruit flesh from becoming soft and mushy due to its meat-like properties.
The final snow cherry fruit still has a snow-white skin, but it feels slightly harder than a regular snow cherry fruit.
Once you bite into it, the flesh has a subtle, salty, roasted meat flavor.
Sweet with a hint of salt, the cool juice, coated with the aroma of meat, slides down your throat, retaining the refreshing taste of the fruit while adding a sense of fullness.
It's a different flavor all at once.
Similar to the pickled fruit in Guangxi, it's made by adding salt and pepper and chili to fruit, making it quite stimulating to eat.
As he chewed, Tang Chuan smiled.
"Fun!"
"This is so much fun!"
His eyes gleamed with excitement, as if he had opened the door to a new world.
This is not just a simple combination of flavors, but a process of deconstructing the original characteristics of ingredients through Spirit power, arbitrarily combining the characteristics of different ingredients to create new foods that have the advantages of both!
"Let's try other combinations."
Tang Chuan's gaze swept over the highlighted entries in the "Ingredients Illustrated Guide" and he quickly locked onto a new target.
Detoxifying berry and honey-scented shrub fruit.
Detoxifying berries are sour and astringent, but they can detoxify. Honey-scented shrub fruits are sweet and fragrant, but they only have insect-repelling effects.
It would be great if we could combine the two to make a berry dish that is both delicious and detoxifying.
Let's get right to it.
Tang Chuan first used Blue Silver Grass to store the detoxifying properties of Detoxifying Berry in the grass fibers to remove the sour taste. Then, he used the sweet and fragrant pulp of Honey Fragrance Shrub Fruit as a base to evenly penetrate the detoxifying ingredients into the pulp.
The Blue Silver Grass rustled, and the pale purple Spirit ring steadily provided energy.
A moment later, an amber-colored candied fruit landed in the palm of the hand.
The outer skin is the caramelized shell of the honey-scented shrub fruit, and the inside is transparent pulp formed from the detoxifying berry components.
Tang Chuan took a bite.
"Crack!"
When you bite into it, it's crisp and sweet like honey, with a subtle fruity aroma and no sourness or astringency.
Tang Chuan deliberately took a little bit of the venom from the Datura snake, dipped a small amount of Blue Silver Grass in it and smeared it in his mouth. He only felt a slightly fishy and numb sensation, but did not feel poisoned.
"It works."
Tang Chuan couldn't resist making a few more, and was in a great mood.
"By using one ingredient as a base and applying the characteristics of another ingredient to flavor or modify it, we can perform secondary processing of the ingredients, thus overcoming their inherent shortcomings..."
Tang Chuan, having gained some insight, spoke and began trying again.
This time, he chose his own Spirit, Blue Silver Grass, as the base, and then incorporated the unique flavor of passion fruit into it.
As Spirit power circulated, the golden threads in the veins of the Blue Silver Grass leaves glowed faintly.
The palm-sized silver grass began to change; the leaves became more lustrous, and tiny spots resembling passion fruit seeds faintly appeared on the leaves.
A fresh and complex fruity aroma replaced the original grassy scent.
Tang Chuan put the grass leaves into his mouth.
The texture remains slightly chewy like Blue Silver Grass leaves, but when chewed, the unique sweet and sour aroma of passion fruit fills the mouth, masking the slight astringency of the Blue Silver Grass itself.
"This is good!"
Tang Chuan nodded in satisfaction.
This is the right way of thinking!
The primary and secondary ingredients are clearly distinguished, and the advantages of one ingredient are used to compensate for or enhance the base of another ingredient.
He struck while the iron was hot and tried several more combinations.
By incorporating the properties of calming flowers into water, a fragrant drinking water with a calming effect is obtained.
By imbuing the iron spear with the luminescent properties of the fluorite fruit, a continuously luminous, illuminating spear was created.
In the latter half of the experiment, Tang Chuan also encountered failure.
For example, when trying to combine snake venom with snow cherry, the fishy smell of the snake venom completely ruined the sweetness of the snow cherry and made the flesh turn black and bitter, so it had to be discarded.
For example, you could combine iron with grilled meat to make a grilled meat dish with an iron shell.
However, it was discovered that the hardness of iron would compress the meat fibers, making the meat dry and tough.
In the end, the only solution was to adjust the amount of iron used to make a thin iron lunchbox, which turned out to be an unexpected bonus for keeping roasted meat warm.
Tang Chuan finally understood.
The secondary processing of these ingredients is not about haphazardly combining them, but about finding the balance point where the characteristics of the ingredients complement each other.
The higher the complexity, the greater the cost.
Combinatorial complexity is positively correlated with Spirit power consumption.
With each attempt, whether successful or not, Tang Chuan's precise control over Spirit power and understanding of the characteristics of ingredients deepened.
The moonlight illuminated Tang Chuan's tireless figure as he continued his creative work.
He was completely immersed in the joy of this exploration, constantly arranging and combining the characteristics of ingredients, not limiting himself to two, but to three, four, or even five.
Although it requires extremely high mental strength, the possibilities it brings are limitless.
Xiao Wu rolled over in the hammock.
She mumbled sleepily, "Tang Chuan... smells so good."
Upon hearing this, Tang Chuan snapped out of his reverie and looked at the dozens of successful and unsuccessful works around him, a smile playing on his lips.
[end of the chapter]