A Bite of Douluo Continent

The Flying Claws retracted, instantly pulling Qi Han's body into the air.

A chilling blade of light burst forth from the cleaver tightly gripped in Qi Han's hand, slashing towards the position in front of the dark figure.

From God's perspective, the dark figure seemed to have collided head-on with the blade strike Qi Han unleashed, letting out a single scream before falling silent.

It was a small, black, four-legged animal, about half the length of a human. It looked somewhat like a honey badger, but its fur was pure black. Its nostrils were much larger than those of a honey badger, and it looked somewhat like a pig.

This is a unique spirit beast found only in the Kalai Forest: the badger-boar.

Because their race is not powerful and they do not have any particularly strong soul skills, the upper limit of this badger-boar soul beast race is very low. The strongest is no more than a hundred-year soul beast, and most are ten-year soul beasts. Few people would look up to them and hunt badger-boars for their own soul rings.

For a badger, this is undoubtedly a stroke of luck.

But now, with Qi Han's arrival, their happy life is probably coming to an end.

According to the Douluo Continent cookbook, badgers feed on honey and various fruits, which naturally imparts a fruity aroma to their meat. Due to their long-term climbing and running in the forest, the saturated fatty acid content in their limb muscles is extremely low, resulting in tender and juicy meat.

Therefore, the badger was honored to become one of the preliminary candidates for the ingredients in Qi Han's self-created recipe.

Badger: Are you being polite?

"Finally caught it." Qi Han released the claws of the Flying Claw and landed nimbly on the ground. He looked at the corpse that had been cut in half and the white soul ring that was slowly emerging from the corpse. He chuckled and walked over to grab one of the corpse's legs.

After glancing around and confirming that no one else was around, Qi Han vanished from the spot in the next instant, carrying the badger's carcass.

With a "thud," Qi Han tossed the badger carcass onto the cutting board, then took out a cleaver, his eyes gleaming with eager anticipation.

He was naturally in the training space at the moment.

Since the Samsung recipe of "Fish Belly Hides Sheep" is far from complete, the training space has not been closed, and Qi Han unexpectedly discovered a system bug.

Even if you don't practice the "Fish Belly Hiding Sheep" exercise in the training space, the flow of time within the training space will not change, maintaining the same 1:30 time flow difference between the inside and outside.

In other words, Qi Han can try to create his own recipes in the training space, which will save him a lot of time.

There is another benefit as well.

Conditions were rudimentary in the forest, and the kitchen utensils in the shop couldn't be taken out. In order to successfully experiment with the recipe, Qi Han prepared various kitchen utensils in advance.

But how can the kitchen utensils in Douluo Continent compare to the system's high-tech kitchen utensils?

All the kitchen utensils used in the training were designed according to the system's high-tech kitchen utensils. With them, Qi Han could simply throw away all the pots and pans he had bought.

One money-wasting trick a day, that's great.

With a flourish of his cleaver, Qi Han began the dissection of the badger.

Although the encyclopedia of ingredients contains diagrams of the badger's anatomy, the diagrams in the book are ultimately too simplistic. Only by personally dissecting each part of the badger can Qi Han truly understand this ingredient.

Perhaps because its name contains the character for "pig," the badger's body structure is somewhat similar to that of a pig. Qi Han quickly removed a whole badger skin covered in short black hair.

Badger skin is somewhat similar to pig skin, but it is thicker and more elastic. If stir-fried over high heat, it would probably have a good chewy texture.

However, upon seeing the fine, short black hairs on the surface of the badger skin, Qi Han's face contorted with pain.

Removing the hair will probably be a hassle, let's talk about it later.

After removing the epidermis, what was exposed to Qi Han was a thin layer of subcutaneous fat.

The Forest of Kalai is spring-like all year round, so the badgers don't need a lot of fat for warmth, and the thinness of their subcutaneous fat is exactly what Qi Han expected.

Carefully remove this layer of subcutaneous fat with a kitchen knife and put it in a small bowl.

This is a good thing; it can be used not only to render oil but also to fry the cracklings.

The fragrant fried pork cracklings sprinkled with chili powder...

Qi Han couldn't help but swallow.

I wonder what the fried pork cracklings from these badger pigs taste like.

After removing the subcutaneous fat, Qi Han took out the badger's internal organs. According to the encyclopedia, the badger's internal organs are also non-toxic, but as for how they taste, Qi Han would probably have to try them himself.

But considering that these badgers eat various fruits and honey year-round, how could their internal organs be inferior to pig offal?

It should be something to look forward to.

The badger that Qi Han had initially processed was now reduced to bones and flesh; the rest of its parts had been completely separated by Qi Han.

Muscle anatomy is a science.

Qi Han's knife sliced ​​through the muscle very slowly. Lacking much experience, he could only try cautiously to avoid damaging the badger meat.

After all, even though it's in the training space, if this badger gets damaged, the system won't conjure up a new one for itself.

In the end, we still have to go out and catch them.

Fortunately, Qi Han had prepared many meat dishes in the training space and was quite experienced. He carefully sliced ​​the meat along the grain of the badger meat with the cleaver, separating the different parts of the meat.

Intercostal muscles, abdominal muscles, thigh muscles, back muscles, shoulder and neck muscles...

Qi Han categorized the different types of meat and placed them aside. Soon, only a skeleton and a relatively intact head remained on the cutting board.

Badger: What a terrible thing to do!

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Temptation of Oil Residue

After removing the skeleton from the torso and setting it aside, Qi Han carefully removed the meat from the badger's head, then opened the skull and took out the entire brain of the badger.

The brains are about the same size as pig brains, and they look quite good.

Hmm... I can try baking pig brains in tin foil later.

Although pig brains can be added to hot pot, Qi Han said they taste better when grilled on their own.

Oh...right!

Speaking of which... how many stars would you rate hot pot?

"System? Is hot pot in the recipe?"

[This system includes eighteen classic hot pot base ingredients, collectively forming a two-star recipe: The Complete Hot Pot Base Recipe. If the host obtains this recipe, they can acquire the corresponding basic ingredients on their own.]

Does this mean that simply obtaining this two-star recipe is equivalent to getting everything related to hot pot for yourself?

Good heavens, isn't this a huge profit?

"System, you shouldn't have told me this." Qi Han sighed softly, his face full of teasing. "Guess what I'm thinking right now?"

[The system is obligated to provide truthful answers to all questions raised by the host; this is the rule.]

After a pause, the system spoke again.

[Based on the system's understanding of the host, the host is currently figuring out how to obtain the final two-star selectable recipe fragment.]

"Huh?" Qi Han laughed. "System, you really know me."

Yes, Qi Han only needs one more two-star recipe fragment to exchange for any two-star recipe.

He hadn't had time to think about which two-star recipe to choose before, since he hadn't even looked at the complete list of two-star recipes.

But now, no matter what's in the two-star recipe, nothing can stop him from redeeming the hot pot!

[This system does not assume the host can complete the "Hidden Sheep in Fish Belly" recipe in the short term. If the host cannot complete this recipe, they will not be able to obtain new recipes. Please prioritize your tasks.]

Eh?

It seems that's really the case.

Forget it, hiding the sheep in the fish's belly will take a long time. Let's focus on the promotion task at hand first.

Qi Han shook his head, discarded the bones that had been completely removed from the badger, leaving only the spine, which he placed next to the meat.

The lamb spine dish in Shandong cuisine is actually the complete spine of a sheep. Since the spine of a sheep can be used for cooking, Qi Han thought that the spine of a badger could also be tried.

Unfortunately, badgers don't have tails. If they had small tails like pig tails, cutting them into small pieces and braising them would make a nice side dish to accompany drinks.

Badger: Please, have some decency!

Badger skin, badger fat (subcutaneous fat), meat from various parts of the badger, badger internal organs, badger spine, and brain.

This was probably all the ingredients Qi Han could think of for cooking.

After a moment's thought, Qi Han first turned his gaze to the badger's fat. He could render oil from this and perhaps use it to cook other parts of the animal.

Cut the fat into small pieces, wash off the blood with warm water, pour it all into a pot, add half a bowl of water, turn on the cooking pot, turn the heat to low, and start slowly stirring the fat in the pot with a spatula.

Soon the water in the pot evaporated, and the fat turned a light yellow color, with a sheen on the surface. Bright oil stains began to appear slowly in the pot, gradually gathering into a clearly visible layer of oil, bubbling slightly.

There were some crisp "bubbling" sounds in the pot, which were the small oil droplets splashing up as the moisture in the fat was heated to boiling by the hot oil. As this sound appeared, the fat in the pot also began to show more obvious changes.

The fat was visibly shrinking, and the light yellow color on it was gradually deepening.

The oil in the pot increased, gradually overflowing from a thin layer at the bottom to fill almost half of the cooking pot.

The fat floated on the oil, making a crisp, pleasant sound. Large and small bubbles kept appearing on the surface, shrinking faster and faster, and the surface color gradually turned golden yellow.

The oil and fumes were completely absorbed by the system's high-tech range hood, while the rich, irresistible aroma of badger lard was perfectly preserved. Qi Han greedily took a deep breath, his eyes gleaming with greed as he looked at the oil residue floating on the surface.

Seeing that the oil was almost cooked, Qi Han carefully scooped up the oil residue with a sieve, drained the oil, and placed it on a plate.

The golden-yellow cracklings looked especially tempting under the light. If you got closer, you could smell the rich aroma, which seemed to have a hint of honey, adding a refreshing touch and making it not greasy at all.

Qi Han couldn't resist reaching out, picking up a small piece, and popping it into his mouth.

"Crunch." The heat was probably just right; the freshly cooked pork cracklings were very crispy, making a crunching sound when you bit into them, but they weren't too hard. As the cracklings crumbled in your mouth, the rich aroma burst forth, filling your mouth and nose.

So fragrant.

He couldn't resist filling a small plate, sprinkling it with the chili powder he had prepared, shaking the plate a couple of times to coat the golden-brown cracklings with the chili powder, and then picking up a piece to taste it.

Without chili powder and salt, the fried pork cracklings don't have much flavor, just a pure aroma. But when chili powder is added, this aroma blends with the spiciness of the chili powder, creating a rich and spicy taste.

"System, can this be rated as a one-star recipe? I think it would be great as a snack." Qi Han ate happily while discussing with the system, "Think about it? I've already thought of a name, let's call it Qi-style Fried Pork Cracklings."

[This system senses that the host is dreaming.]

"Okay." Qi Han shrugged, but he hadn't had high hopes to begin with. If a one-star recipe was this easy, what would it be?

After eating a small portion of spicy pork cracklings, Qi Han rubbed his stomach and looked at the abundance of ingredients on the table, unable to help but worry, "System, I have to keep tasting the dishes, how can I possibly eat all of this?"

To create a one-star recipe using badgers, you'd need at least a hundred badgers, right?

No matter how long Qi Han ate, he couldn't possibly finish all that badger meat.

[In the training space, the host will not eat until full; the system will assist in digesting the food consumed.]