The Top Fishing
Chapter 656 - 281: Cooking Bear Paws

Chapter 656: Chapter 281: Cooking Bear Paws

He wiped the knife tip on the fur and stood up, saying, "Alright, the initial processing of the prey is done. After skinning and removing the innards, this bear still weighs over a hundred pounds, and its meat quality is even better than I expected.

To store fat for the winter, this period is when they eat in large quantities. The meat is marbled with fat which, aside from the red meat, includes quite a bit of white fat. Outdoors, this is even more precious than the red meat.

The bear paw was separately removed, and I’ll stew it this noon. There’s a saying, you can’t have both fish and bear’s paws, but today I’ll have both."

"Damn, are you sure you weren’t a hunter before? Watching you handle prey, I feel you’re more skilled than those veteran hunters."

"I get that feeling too. My uncle is a butcher and has been all his life. Watching you handle the prey, skinning it, you seem even more adept than he is. Never realized before that you had this trick up your sleeve."

"Master Lin is truly versatile. Starting from a few thousand followers, I’ve gradually realized that he knows much more than we think; there’s nothing he doesn’t understand, a treasure trove of a broadcaster indeed."

"Time to eat, let’s go, having both fish and bear’s paws, let’s do it."

The atmosphere in the live stream was boosted by Lin Yang’s professional handling of the prey.

Lin Yang then unceremoniously picked up a huge bear paw and swaggered over to the cabin.

The presence of a fireplace made cooking much simpler. He examined the bear paw, deftly handled the minute details of the fur using his exquisite skills, and after a quick rinse of the pot, he began stewing the bear paw.

While Lin Yang boasted about having both fish and bear’s paws, the bear’s paw was actually much larger than one might assume—big enough to fill the entire campfire pot.

With limited conditions, there was no way to finely process the ingredients. After adding just salt and water, he started stewing it.

The knowledge inherited from hunters touted that bear paws are tricky in terms of cooking time, requiring several hours of stewing. While stewing, he also took the opportunity during his free time to start smoking the meat for preservation.

After preparing the firewood and the stove, Lin Yang took his tools and returned to the initial scene of handling the prey.

"Alright, the bear’s paw is stewing and won’t be ready for a few hours. While we wait, let’s finely process the meat and start setting up for smoking," he announced.

After greeting, he took out his hunting knife and continued to busy himself.

The blade passed effortlessly through the front legs, hind legs, and joint connections, dividing the prey into five or six large pieces of meat.

"Huh? Weren’t you done processing the prey? Why are you dissecting it further?"

"I knew it, dismembering the limbs so efficiently, didn’t even hear a thing."

Lin Yang grinned broadly, "Just now, the main parts were dealing with the innards and skinning. What we’re doing now is the final preparation process before smoking."

Why do this?

Actually, the reason is quite simple, just like how pigs are divided at home into different sections like the front shoulder, hind quarter, back, and hip; different parts have different qualities and levels of fatness.

During the smoking process, the level of heat varies slightly. By separating them, we can preserve the better flavors of the meat as much as possible. Let’s get started!"

Soon, Lin Yang, carrying an ax, went to the woods and rapidly chopped down several pine trees about as thick as a bowl.

He quickly constructed a triangular rack using these pine logs.

Using his dagger, he sliced each piece of meat differently, hung them on a thin branch, and in no time, many large and small pieces of meat were hanging on the rack.

With preparations complete, next came the crucial part of smoking. He used dry grass to light fresh pine needles, and soon rich smoke began to rise from underneath the fire.

Pine needles, which are high in oil content, can still ignite even when wet, though they produce more smoke.

If you were making a normal fire, you wouldn’t add too many at the start to avoid large flames and low temperatures, which can affect subsequent burning.

However, smoking meat uses a completely opposite strategy. From the start of the fire, Lin Yang intentionally added a large amount of fresh pine needles to keep the fire smoky and flameless. When he felt the temperature was right, he added a few more chunks, maintaining a very stable condition.

In this relatively low-temperature roasting and smoking environment, the surface moisture of the meat slowly evaporated and became firm, with more smoke particles adhering to it, quickly changing the color of the meat surface.

Lin Yang gently prodded it with a small knife to check the details and said, "See, smoking meat isn’t as hard as everyone thinks. In just a short while, a thin layer of pine smoke has already formed a preliminary film."

The basic technique is that parts with high fat content should be closer to the warm center of the fire, while parts with high muscle content should be a bit further away."

Once the initial moisture is dried out and the pine smoke wraps the meat to protect it from bacteria, the smoking is pretty much done. The same principle applied to the previously smoked fish."

Given we have a large reserve of fine meats and the temperature will drop soon, rough processing should suffice. Whereas in regions such as Sichuan and Guangdong in China, a single pig can be smoked and preserved for many years."

Watching the many pieces of meat slowly change from bright to dull in color gave quite a sense of accomplishment.