The texture of Red Salmon flesh is quite similar to other salmon, but it lacks the same rich marbling of fat. If cooked all the way through, its texture becomes very tough, like canned tuna—the kind of tough that gets stuck in your teeth.
Only by cooking it about three-quarters of the way through, preferably low and slow, could one preserve its tender and smooth texture to the greatest extent.
Adding the wild apples also served a unique purpose. Besides cutting through the richness and fishy taste, the acidity accelerated protein denaturation. Under high heat, it quickly cooked the surface of the fish, forming a protective layer that locked in the moisture inside.
It achieved a similar effect to searing a steak to seal in the juices.
After finishing the entire pot of delicious fish and soup, his belly could be seen rounding out noticeably through the camera lens. His complexion was incredibly rosy, and his forehead was even covered in a fine, shimmering layer of sweat.
BURP~
Lin Chen contentedly set down the empty pot and let out a satisfied burp.
[Enjoying a delicious fish soup in the wilds of North America. Happiness Points +5]
'Five points, huh? Not bad, not bad.'
He felt completely lethargic, too lazy to even lift a finger. All he wanted to do was fall over and go to sleep right then and there.
As a southerner, he had grown up drinking fish soup, but he never imagined that he could derive such immense happiness from it one day.
'Judging by how my body feels, five points is probably the maximum I can get from a single event. I really can't imagine getting a greater sense of satisfaction than this from food alone.'
In just half a day, he had already accumulated nine Happiness Points. Now, he just needed to make something simple to get that final point, and he could redeem another piece of knowledge.
Without a doubt, the next thing he would redeem had to be the encyclopedia of plants.
With fish and mushrooms as a source of protein, it seemed like a particularly unwise choice to him to ignore the resources all around him and waste time and energy on risky hunting.
Now that he had protein and fat, the only essential nutrient he needed was carbohydrates, and those had to be dug out of the ground.
With the Yukon Territory being Canada's largest and most famous producer of yellow potatoes, it was a sure thing that the banks of the Yukon River would be rich in potato resources.
There were also sunchokes and sweet potatoes, which were other common sources of carbs in North America.
As long as he could find any one of them, he would have a way to extract starch and could then prepare even more delicious dishes.
In this desolate wilderness, besides building a home and hunting, tinkering with food was the best way to soothe the soul.
For the rest of the day, he made some simple repairs to his shelter, expanding it to cover the entire fissure in the rock formation.
It wasn't that he didn't want to expand it further, but the limited area of his waterproof tarp and parachute simply couldn't support any more growth.
The shelter maintained its triangular shape, which would best protect it from the biting night winds.
He planned to build a second-floor loft later for drying meat and resting during the day, leaving the ground floor exclusively for sleeping at night.
As for the stove, he just needed to partition off a small area at one end of the fissure. He could then assemble a small chimney on the rock face with wood and stones to channel the smoke outside, preventing it from polluting his sleeping area.
As he threw himself wholeheartedly into renovating the shelter, the sky quietly darkened without him noticing.
Taking advantage of the remaining light, Lin Chen gathered another batch of firewood to add to the campfire before turning and disappearing into his tent.
"Early to bed, early to rise, my friends. The nights here are too dangerous, so let's just get to sleep early~"
After saying goodnight to the camera, he slid right into his sleeping bag. A few moments later, the sound of even breathing could be heard.
"He's sleeping already??"
In the livestream chat, a flood of question marks completely overwhelmed the screen.
The audience looked at the time in disbelief. It was only eight o'clock, with still three or four hours until a normal bedtime. It was peak time for prey to be active, and this guy chose to go to sleep?
Many of them, refusing to believe it, scanned the other contestants' streams. Almost all of them were roaming the forest, wearing Hat Lamps, carrying Engineer Axes, and slinging hunting bows over their backs.
Comparing the tense, suffocating atmosphere on those streams to the increasingly loud snores coming from Lin Chen's, the foreign viewers nearly had a meltdown.
"The others have been starving all day and still have to force themselves to build shelters. This guy, on the other hand, pan-fries fish belly, stews fish soup, eats until his stomach is bulging, and now he's going to bed early. What the hell, is he here on vacation?"
"I just spent some time in Contestant #9's stream. He's having the best luck. He found the carpenter, which means they're both not far from the Yukon River. They're building a permanent shelter together right now."
"With the carpenter's help, building that shelter must be a breeze. He's got all sorts of useful tools. It's a shame they have to separate after tonight and can't team up again for another week."
"I'm curious what terms Contestant #9 will offer the carpenter in exchange. From what we've seen so far, he seems to be one of the strongest contestants this season."
"That farmer isn't bad either. He wove a gillnet and caught over a dozen Red Salmon in one go. Once they're dried, he won't have to worry about food for at least two weeks."
"The saddest is Number Six. Everyone else has gotten something, more or less, but she's gone hungry for another day and hasn't even found a water source. She has no choice but to risk hunting at night, or she might not even make it through tomorrow."
While the netizens were heatedly discussing the potential developments for the next day, a video of Lin Chen making pan-seared Red Salmon belly and a creamy white mushroom and salmon chowder in the wild had already appeared on YouTube.
In just a few short minutes, the view count had already surpassed a thousand.
"You can make fish soup like that?"
Just from looking at the footage, besides not being as exquisitely plated as in a restaurant, the thick soup didn't seem to have any difference in quality.
Many curious homemakers couldn't believe this was food that could be made in the wild with practically no ingredients. They resolved to go to the supermarket the next day, buy a whole salmon, and try it at home.
If they could easily replicate a delicious, restaurant-quality fish chowder at home, they would definitely become the most popular neighbor within a several-hundred-meter radius.
「Inside the show's base camp.」
Seven or eight staff members stared, dumbfounded, at a pot of brown fish soup with a few unidentifiable black objects floating on the surface, along with chunks of fish that had broken into misshapen pieces.
"Is this the same kind of fish soup that the chef from Great Xia made?"
Facing several pairs of skeptical eyes, Daniel scratched his head in embarrassment.
"He's a professional chef and I'm not. As long as it's edible, that's good enough, right?"
"Are you sure this is edible?"
The host pointed at the unidentifiable burnt objects floating in the fish oil. "What are these?"
"Uh... Burnt fish skin?"