Free Web NovelChapter 1149: Chapter 465: Gourd Means Fortune—A Pun-Approved Dish: Eight Treasure Gourd Duck! [Subscription Requested]
The real challenge of the entire dish lies here, which is to completely extract the duck’s bones from the neck area, while also removing all the lymph nodes and connective tissues, so it can be used.
At this point, there is already a small incision near the duck’s neck due to the bloodletting, Lin Xu carefully enlarges the incision with a kitchen knife, then with a downward chop of the knife’s tip, the connection between the duck’s neck and spine is severed.
Qi Zhentao leaned in to take a look and couldn’t help but exclaim:
"Master Lin’s knife skills are amazing!"
The duck’s neck had been cut off, yet the duck skin remained intact, a feat only achievable by someone with extreme control over their strength.
He muttered:
"Actually, it can be done with kitchen scissors. Using a kitchen knife is too risky."
Xie Baomin chuckled:
"In the past, the old masters used to accomplish everything with just one kitchen knife, which is why my apprentice brother also likes to do it this way; use a kitchen knife whenever possible, and create conditions to use it otherwise. In short, everything is done with one knife."
Lin Xu cut off the lower half of the duck’s neck, then separated the head from the neck, and once again chopped off the duck neck’s bones.
With this, the entire duck’s neck could be pulled out.
As he pulled it out, he conveniently cleared away the trachea and esophagus, leaving only the open-ended duck skin and the entire duck head.
After extracting the duck’s neck, he turned the opening inside out to expose the duck’s spine.
Then, with the kitchen knife, he began carefully removing the bones.
Xie Baomin commented:
"When deboning a whole chicken or duck, inexperienced people might drag the bones out along with the meat, leaving only a thin layer of skin. But a master will leave as much meat as possible... The art of deboning is to separate the bones, not to pull the meat out forcibly alongside the bones; that would be a terrible waste."
Lin Xu meticulously removed the meat from the duck’s back with the kitchen knife, while also cleaning out the bones from the duck breast.
When reaching the root of the duck wings, he first severed the membranes connecting the wing root to the spine, then pushed the root inward, allowing the entire wing root to retract while the wing bone protruded from the deboned chest cavity.
He pulled the wing bone forward with force, and when only a bit of membrane remained at the head, he severed it with the kitchen knife, pulling out the whole bone.
Then he removed the other wing in the same manner, and the whole deboning process became much easier.
"Old Qi, were you this nimble when you were an apprentice?"
"No, when I first entered this industry, I was just washing dishes and cleaning up in the kitchen, thinking being a master chef would be great with people fawning over you. So I secretly practiced with my knife, and when the chopping chef left with the store’s servers, I seized the opportunity to show off and finally moved out of the odd jobs role."
Xie Baomin chuckled:
"Back then, chefs were highly sought after, and servers eloping with chefs was common. Unlike now, where being a chef is the least popular job, with long hours, high intensity, and low pay..."
He was cut short by Qi Zhentao:
"Say less, there’s a restaurant owner here."
Xie Baomin was stunned for a moment before realizing that his apprentice brother was indeed the owner of Lin Ji’s Food, fortunately avoiding saying anything about heartless bosses.
He laughed and said:
"Even with bosses present, one must speak up, what’s there to be afraid of?"
"He is my boss..."
"Oh, so you still know how to maintain your boss’s reputation, not bad, it seems Old Qi has truly left the shadows... Apprentice brother, there’s almost no meat on the duck’s back, the duck skin is directly against the spine, so you need to be careful."
Lin Xu responded:
"Not a big problem."
If it were an old duck, this step would be easier, as the subcutaneous fat is thicker, but with a young duck, there’s almost no subcutaneous fat, so utmost caution is needed.
Soon, Lin Xu had removed the spine, as well as the duck’s ribs, leaving only the two legs and the area around the anus.
He used the same technique as with the wing roots to debone the duck legs, then began to handle the duck’s anus.
This step was rather tricky because the duck’s intestines and other internal organs were still in the abdominal cavity, and there was a risk of cutting the duck intestine.
If the feces inside the intestines were to spill out, the whole duck would be ruined.
Lin Xu turned all the duck’s skin inside out, first cutting away the duck intestine along with the anus, then extracting a piece of soft bone and the oil gland from near the duck’s tail.
The so-called oil gland is the protruding part above the duck’s anus, which has a strong foul smell, so it needs to be removed from inside to ensure the duck meat doesn’t have an off taste.
After removal, Lin Xu took out the whole duck frame and the entire set of internal organs.
The deboning task was done.
Xie Baomin stopped chatting as well, saying:
"In Huaiyang cuisine, the duck frame is used to make broth, and the duck broth is used to stew the Gourd Duck. The duck gizzard is cleaned and added to the Eight Treasure Filling, and the cleaned duck intestine is used as a string; nothing goes to waste... Apprentice brother, are you planning to do it this way?"
"No, today I’m using the Shandong cuisine method, not using internal organs or the duck frame but using chicken soup instead."
Upon hearing this, Xie Baomin looked at Qi Zhentao and asked:
"How about we have stir-fried duck offal in a bit?"
"No problem."
Qi Zhentao promptly went to clean the duck offal upon hearing this.
Xie Baomin, meanwhile, soaked the removed bones in clean water, intending to make duck soup after Lin Xu finished the Eight Treasure Gourd Duck.
Since they were here to film a cooking show, recording just one dish would be too inefficient. At least three dishes should be made today, which would allow for more updates during the initial phase and attract more followers.
