The story begins in Food Wars, when Alice took him home.

Looking at the plate of salted egg yolks in front of him, Soma Yukihira pondered for a moment before finally placing them on the cutting board and quickly chopping them into small pieces.

Then, grab a handful of loose salted egg yolks, place them on an electronic scale, determine the weight, and then use the meat filling to wrap the loose salted egg yolks.

"Why chop the salted egg yolk before wrapping it? Wouldn't it be better to just wrap it whole? This seems a bit redundant, or perhaps..."

Hojo Miyoko's face showed doubt. At this moment, she could see through Yukihira Soma's idea. Although she didn't know if it would taste good, the salted egg yolk and meat together would definitely taste good.

After all, both are salty, and the rich oil in salted egg yolks makes the meat's aroma more enticing, thus enhancing its flavor.

"If I had to say, the taste and flavor would be somewhat different."

The chopped salted egg yolks are evenly distributed throughout the minced meat, ensuring a tangible salted egg yolk flavor in every bite. Simultaneously, the oil from the salted egg yolks is released more fully, blending seamlessly with the minced meat for a smoother texture, richer flavor, and without any noticeable graininess.

Bai Yuan answered the question from the side. Don't underestimate the small detail of cutting or not cutting; it actually has a huge impact on the taste.

That's the power of cooking; a small change can completely transform the flavor.

"It's really a matter of how well the flavors blend. Chopped salted egg yolks blend better with the minced meat, resulting in a more harmonious flavor, and the meat is the main ingredient. If the salted egg yolks are not chopped, the flavor of the salted egg yolks is concentrated in a certain area, and when you bite into them, you will have a strong salty and oily taste."

At the same time, Alice Nakiri's voice rang out, providing some additional explanations.

Salted egg yolks are a very good ingredient. Bai Yuan once gave her a special lesson, introducing her in detail the famous salted egg yolks from various regions, as well as the ways to use salted egg yolks and what the differences are.

"So, chopped salted egg yolks are primarily meat-based, while unchopped salted egg yolks are centered around the salted egg yolk itself, and this time the theme is pork..."

Upon hearing Bai Yuan and Nakiri Alice's explanation, Hojo Miyoko suddenly realized what was going on and inwardly marveled at Yukihira Hajime's skill, as even she hadn't thought of that.

Break the salted egg yolks into smaller pieces and incorporate them into the meat.

This way, the meat can perfectly absorb the flavor of salted egg yolk. Is everything within your calculations?

Xingping Somajun.

On the other side, Liu Yu rubbed a thin layer of white vinegar on the pork belly, then placed oil-absorbing paper on it to promote the removal of acid.

Next comes the waiting. Good things come to those who wait. To make the lychee pork even more tender, she needs to let it ripen for at least an hour and a half.

During this process, Liu Yu chose to prepare a sweet and sour sauce.

Minced garlic, sugar, balsamic vinegar, cornstarch slurry.

Because the scallions were taken away, she could only use this to make a simple sauce, which she would use as the base for the braised pork with lychees later.

At that moment, Soma Yukihira wrapped the meatballs in chopped preserved egg, placed them on a plate, put them in a steamer, and prepared to steam them for twenty minutes.

Time passed slowly. Soma Yukihira sat cross-legged in the chair, his nose twitching slightly, and his brows furrowing unnaturally.

"This taste... Could it be that I'm going in the wrong direction with my research?"

Lifting the lid of the steamer, the meatball covered with preserved egg was crystal clear and looked shiny. Soma Yukihira picked up a piece with his chopsticks, took a bite and chewed, then his brows furrowed even deeper.

This tastes completely different from what he imagined!

"The texture is too hard, it's stuffy, was it not steamed long enough? Most importantly, it's only at the level of a first-class dish, there's no way you can use this dish to enter the competition!"

With that in mind, Soma Yukihira finished eating all the preserved egg and salted meatballs in front of him, closed his eyes, and began to think about a solution.

Chapter 243 Fool, your life has only just begun!

"How did he finish all the food?!"

In the audience, some people who witnessed this scene were utterly astonished.

Soma Yukihira only made four preserved egg meatballs, but instead of serving them to the judges, he ate them all himself in just a few bites.

This situation not only caused a stir among the audience, but even the judges on stage were surprised and looked at each other, wondering what Soma Yukihira was up to.

Could it be that he gave up the competition? That shouldn't be the case. Just now, this red-haired kid was acting like he was the only one who mattered in the world. How could he have become like this in the time it takes to finish a dish? Anyone who didn't know better would think he had been possessed.

"Is the meatballs too firm because they weren't steamed long enough? To make them softer, perhaps you could try a pressure cooker..."

Soma Yukihira didn't care about what others thought; at this moment, his attention was entirely focused on the raw materials and the steamer.

"The texture of the meat was quite different from what I expected. It should have been softer and more tender, rather than so firm, which disrupted its overall texture. This is most likely due to insufficient steaming time. However, if the steaming time is too long, it will also cause moisture loss, making the ingredients dry and affecting the taste."

The principle behind pressure cookers is to raise the boiling point through high pressure, reaching temperatures above 120°C, which helps shorten cooking time and is suitable for ingredients that need to be softened quickly. Perhaps a pressure cooker is more suitable for this dish than a steamer.

Soma Yukihira's brain started working at high speed. The differences between a steamer and a pressure cooker formed a bar chart in his mind, and the advantages and disadvantages of each were systematically quantified and clearly presented to him for him to choose from.

The reason he thought about it so carefully was that there weren't many ingredients left, just enough to make one more dish.

Even though there's still a lot of time left before the competition ends, he can't conduct experiments with half the ingredients as he did at the beginning.

Nowadays, experiments can only be simulated in the mind...

Standing in front of the kitchen counter, hesitating and worried that he might choose the wrong option, Soma Yukihira had been standing there thinking for almost half an hour.

He didn't make any move for half an hour, and his silence made everyone think that he had given up. They all turned their attention to Liu Yu next to him, and then found that she was aging the pork belly, also standing still without moving.

What a boring match...

This is what everyone at the scene thought.

"No matter what, cooking that is limited to thinking will never succeed. In this situation, we must practice. Practice is the only criterion for testing truth."

"Soma Yukihira, you don't need to be so timid!"

A voice suddenly echoed in his mind, and his eyes changed from blank to determined. Soma Yukihira acted swiftly.

The previous steps were exactly the same, except that before the last step into the pot, Soma Yukihira brought out a strainer.

Pour enough water into the pressure cooker, add the leftover scallions and ginger from the marinating process. As the temperature rises and the water boils, the aroma of the meat will be enhanced.

Place the steamer rack into the pressure cooker, put the plate containing the preserved egg and meatballs on the steamer rack, then close the pressure cooker lid and cook for 15 minutes after the pressure cooker reaches pressure.

At the same time, Liu Yu finally took action.

Remove the pork belly from the absorbent paper and cut it into small pieces along the grain. Then, use the back of a knife to pat the surface of the meat to make it stretch more. Make diagonal cross cuts to achieve a continuous effect, giving the meat a shape that looks like a lychee.

Cut the meat into triangular pieces after making cross-shaped cuts, and then cut some water chestnuts.

Season the meat with a little salt. Since there was no red yeast rice, Liu Yu skipped this step and only marinated it with a thin layer of salt. Then she added three spoonfuls of starch and a little egg liquid to increase the stickiness, and stirred it clockwise until it became firm.

Starch helps maintain the crispness of the lychee flesh on the surface while keeping it tender inside.

The flour coating on the water chestnuts ensures that the sweet and sour flavor is visible on the outside, while retaining the fruity aroma of the water chestnuts inside. This flour layer serves to preserve the fruity aroma.

"It feels just like what my mom makes, but my mom is too lazy to even cut it with a fancy knife."

"Indeed, most families don't pay much attention to the color of their dishes. If they have red yeast rice at home, they'll use it directly; otherwise, they won't insist on it."

Seeing Liu Yu's actions, the audience immediately started discussing.

Despite the limited resources, Liu Yu's cooking was just like what they cooked at home, which brought smiles to the faces of the viewers.

"The soul of the dish is the inverted wrapping, which involves wrapping the marinated lychee flesh upside down to make it look more like a lychee. Although this step doesn't have much impact on the taste of the dish, it greatly affects its appearance and can make people more appetized."

An excited audience member shouted out. At that moment, Liu Yu, after marinating the meat, suddenly reached out and picked up a piece, turned it upside down with the side cut with crosshatch patterns inside out, forming a small ball with the cut patterns facing outwards. From the outside, it looked about 90% like the lychees sold in the market.

"You're wrong. This step is also one of the secrets to delicious lychee meat, and it's definitely not a step that can be skipped to save time. Wrapping the lychee meat into small balls reduces the surface area exposed to heat and the area in contact with oil, achieving a crispy outside and tender inside effect."

"That's right. Because the meat slices are cut very thinly, if they are not rolled into small balls and fried on both sides, the final texture will be crispy on the outside and dry on the inside, making it chewy and tasteless. That wouldn't be lychee meat."

Upon hearing someone nearby say that the step of turning the buns inside out was merely for aesthetic purposes and didn't serve much of a purpose, an experienced chef couldn't help but refute it. At the same time, many others around him echoed this sentiment.

The technique of inverting the filling is arguably the core of lychee pulp. Losing this step will have a fatal impact on the texture and final taste!

After wrapping all the triangular slices of meat upside down, Liu Yu arranged them neatly on a plate.

Heat oil in a wok until it reaches 60-70% of its maximum temperature. Then, carefully and quickly add the wrapped lychee pieces into the wok to ensure that the pieces are cooked evenly.

"Hmm, that's about it..."

Looking at the sizzling oil in the pot and smelling the aroma wafting in the air, Liu Yu thought to herself, then reached out with her chopsticks and gently stirred it. At this moment, the lychee flesh in the pot was already half-cooked, so it didn't matter if she stirred it casually.

Before the outer shell of the lychee flesh becomes brittle, even a slight touch will cause them to stick together like glue, making them difficult to separate, and thus ruining the whole thing.

Looking at the distinct pieces of pork belly, whose surface had hardened, Liu Yu silently lowered the temperature, preparing to slowly fry it at a low temperature so that the outside would be crispy enough.

After frying the lychee flesh for two minutes, add the water chestnuts, fry briefly, then remove from the pan and serve.

Instead of immediately placing the lychee flesh on the strainer onto the plate, Liu Yu, remembering Teacher Bai Yuan's instructions from the previous night, took the strainer-loaded lychee flesh to a bowl of cold oil that had been prepared beforehand. She then used a spoon to scoop a spoonful of cold oil and poured it over the lychee flesh to cool it down quickly, thus prolonging its crispness.

Once this step is complete, the remaining steps are both the simplest and the most difficult.

Lychee pork, as a stir-fried dish, requires precise control of the cooking time and temperature.

Take out the sauce that was previously made with minced garlic, sugar, vinegar, and cornstarch.

Although a few key ingredients are missing, the basic sugar and vinegar are all there. This fulfills the three essential elements for making lychee pulp.

Sugar, vinegar, and lychee pulp.

Wash the pot thoroughly, turn on the heat to high, add the prepared sweet and sour sauce, and stir quickly with a spoon to make a paste.

The broth cooked at such a high temperature will become thick, bubbly, and brighter. As a stir-fry dish, it needs to be completed as quickly as possible. When the broth in the pot becomes bright, Liu Yu quickly pours in the lychee flesh that has been cooled with cold oil, stirs it quickly three or five times, thickens it with cornstarch, and then takes it out.

As you can see, although red yeast rice wasn't used, the sauce developed an amber color after caramelizing, which is still very tempting.

"My cooking is done!"

After placing the lychee flesh into a plate, Liu Yu's voice rang out. Then, a drone quickly hovered in front of her, and a plate of lychee-shaped flesh with a reddish color appeared on the big screen, attracting the audience's attention.

"It looks pretty good."

"The color is amazing! It's clearly missing a lot of ingredients, yet it looks even more delicious than what you'd find in a fancy restaurant. How is that possible?!"

Seeing that rosy complexion, the audience in the front row couldn't help but swallow hard, while Liu Yu walked towards the judges' table under the spotlight and placed the dishes in front of the judges.

"Haicheng Lychee Meat, please try it."

As they spoke, Liu Yu handed over chopsticks and gestured for them to eat.

"It's quite impressive. Even though it doesn't use red yeast rice or even have scallions in the sauce, it still has a bright red color and a sweet and sour, mellow taste, which shows the mastery of the cooking time."

Jinshan nodded as he looked at the dish in front of him. The original Lychee Pork didn't actually have red yeast rice added. The chefs at that time were very skilled and had a good grasp of the cooking time. Even without red yeast rice, the Lychee Pork could still have a bright red color and a delicious taste.

"In fact, the earliest lychee meat was made this way, without the need to add red yeast rice during cooking."

Why did things change later? Because at that time, there was a restaurant in Fuzhou where the master chef taught his apprentices how to cook. The youngest apprentice just couldn't learn how to make lychee pork. The lychee pork he made was grayish-brown in color and only looked like cooked meat. It was clear that he would never pass the test.

To avoid his master's punishment, he took it upon himself to go to the market and buy various natural red dyes, intending to use pigments to color the lychee. After many experiments, he finally discovered that red yeast rice was the best, and it did not affect the flavor of the lychee flesh itself.

In addition, the unique fermented aroma of red yeast rice adds a complex flavor to the lychee meat. Its sweet and sour taste helps to enhance the complexity of the dish.

The master was astonished after tasting it, finding it even more delicious than his own cooking, and with a perfect color. He eagerly asked his apprentice what he had added, and upon learning it was red yeast rice, he experimented many times, adjusting the proportions. Subsequently, it became a sensation throughout Fuzhou.

It was also because of the addition of red yeast rice that lychee pork transformed from an obscure dish into a local specialty of Fuzhou. After further development, it eventually became the traditional lychee pork we know today.