HUN Chapter 65: The Troubles of Having Too Much Food

He rested for a moment to recover some strength, then began thinking about how to handle this giant northern pike.

"Having too much food, how to eat it all has actually become a problem. Who would believe this is wilderness survival!"

"Although northern pike has delicious meat, it has particularly many Y-shaped small bones in its muscle, making it very troublesome to eat directly."

"When I made smoked fish from northern pike before, this problem consistently bothered me."

After thinking for a while, Lin Yu'an's eyes flashed with an excellent solution!

"But now conditions have improved! I can have plenty of time to process it."

"I've decided to make it into fish balls! This way I can perfectly avoid all those annoying small bones and keep only the purest fish meat."

"This way it can not only be preserved longer, but its freshness won't be lost so quickly!"

On the fishing platform, he performed initial processing on the northern pike, bleeding it, descaling it, and removing the internal organs.

Then he completely filleted the large chunks of fish meat from both sides of the northern pike's body, along with the skin.

As for the huge fish head and skeleton, thinking of that inedible lake trout head soup in his shelter, he decided not to force himself to eat it.

He threw all the inedible organs, fish head, and bones into the fishing spot.

Returning to the stone house, Lin Yu'an immediately threw himself into the project of making fish balls.

He spread a huge piece of northern pike fillet with skin flat on a clean large stone slab, skin side down.

This time he didn't use a knife to cut, but took a smooth mussel shell he had found by the lake earlier, which served as his homemade "fish meat scraper."

Using the edge of the mussel shell, following the grain of the fish meat at a slightly angled position, he scraped forward forcefully.

Lin Yu'an pointed at the pile of fine, pinkish-white fish paste that had been scraped off and said to the camera.

"Using the scraping method, we can separate most of the fish meat from those tiny intermuscular bones."

"Most of those Y-shaped bones will remain on the skin and fascia, so what we get is the purest fish meat."

When the scraping was almost done, Lin Yu'an pointed to the fish skin that had been scraped down to just a thin layer of red meat and white fascia.

"See these dense, white fork-like things? These are the northern pike's intermuscular bones, the Y-shaped bones."

"They grow on the fascia between muscles. Using the scraping method, we peel the soft fish meat away from these hard bones."

"This way all the Y-shaped bones remain on the skin and fascia, and the fish paste we get is very clean."

After scraping all the meat from both fillets, he obtained a full large clay jar of fish paste, estimated to weigh at least eight or nine pounds.

Next came seasoning and removing the fishy smell. He was grateful that he had obtained plenty of wild onions, giving him materials to remove the fishy odor.

He chopped the white parts and bulb portions of these onions extremely fine, forming onion paste, and added them along with an appropriate amount of salt to the fish paste.

Then came the most arm-strength-testing phase of "stirring to develop elasticity."

He used a thick, smooth wooden stick and began vigorously stirring the fish paste in the clay basin in one fixed direction.

"The purpose of stirring is to rearrange and recombine the protein fibers in the fish meat to create stickiness, what's commonly called 'developing elasticity.'"

"Only when it develops elasticity will the fish balls have a bouncy, smooth texture instead of being loose."

He stirred continuously, and the fish paste in the clay basin gradually became stickier and more elastic from its initially loose state.

When he felt the fish paste had become sticky enough to be easily lifted from the jar walls in one piece and was full of elasticity, the fish paste was ready.

He put the stainless steel pot on the stove to boil wild onion water, then prepared a clay jar of cool water beside it.

After carefully washing his hands with soap, he grabbed a large handful of the elastic fish paste with his left hand, squeezed hard at the tiger's mouth, and a round fish ball emerged.

With his right hand holding a water-dampened wooden spoon, he gently scraped the fish ball into the bowl of cool water beside him.

"Putting them in cool water first helps the fish balls set their initial shape."

His movements became faster and increasingly skilled as he repeated the squeezing and scraping motions.

Round, uniform, snow-white fish balls quickly filled the cool water clay jar.

Then he added these shaped raw fish balls in batches to the onion water that had been brought to a gentle simmer.

The fish balls slowly rolled in the hot water. As the temperature rose, they gradually floated from the bottom to the surface, and their volume expanded slightly.

When all the fish balls were floating on the surface and had become white and appeared elastic, it meant they were cooked.

He scooped out the cooked fish balls and placed them in a clean fine willow basket to drain and cool quickly.

He repeated this making and blanching process several times until all the fish paste had been made into fish balls.

"Guys, look at my results!"

He pointed at the willow basket filled with what could be described as a mountain of snow-white fish balls, his face full of pride.

"Now this record-breaking big fish will provide enough food for several days."

"With the cold weather now, especially nighttime temperatures below freezing, these cooked fish balls stored in clay jars with tight lids can be preserved for several days or even over a week without problem."

He took out a small clay pot, poured in some deer fat he had rendered earlier, heated it up, then put some cooked fish balls in the pot, using a half-frying, half-deep-frying method to fry them until both sides were golden and crispy.

"Sizzle——"

The moisture on the fish balls' surface contacted the hot oil, making an appetizing sound.

Soon he scooped out the fried golden fish balls. With their crispy golden exterior and still snow-white, bouncy interior, the fish balls looked very appetizing.

He speared one with a sharpened wooden skewer, blew on it to cool it, and eagerly put it in his mouth.

"Crispy exterior, incredibly bouncy interior, full of fish meat's deliciousness and onion's fresh fragrance! The taste is absolutely perfect!"

After enjoying the delicious golden fish balls, Lin Yu'an carefully stored the remaining fish balls.

He didn't rest but walked toward the tanning pool where the huge deer hide was soaking.

"Guys, let's see how this deer hide is doing."

He lifted up a corner of the hide. After several days of soaking, the deer hide had been completely penetrated by the tanning solution and showed a uniform dark brown color.

"The tannins have been absorbed well enough. We can begin the most physically demanding phase of 'breaking' and softening."

He pulled the wet deer hide from the tanning pool and hung it on a wooden frame to drain excess tanning solution.

Then he folded the hide and like wringing a towel, grabbed both ends with his hands and twisted forcefully in opposite directions, squeezing out large amounts of water.

Next, he unfolded the slightly wrung deer hide, meat side down, draped it over an upright post, and beat it with a wooden stick, "thump, thump, thump."

"This process needs to break up the hide's fibers to make the leather soft."

He constantly changed the hide's position and the direction of pulling. He worked intermittently for several hours until his arms were somewhat sore.

By the time the sun came out the next morning, that huge deer hide had become light and soft.

To make the tanned deer hide more durable and prevent decay, one final process was needed, smoking.

He utilized the smokehouse built for deer meat again, hanging the tanned deer hide from the central beam.

Then he lit a fire pile mainly composed of "smoldering wood" that produced large amounts of dense smoke.

The smoking process lasted most of the day. When this huge deer hide that had gone through multiple complex processes was finally removed from the smokehouse.

It had transformed from a stiff raw material into a soft yet tough good piece of leather!

He completely unfolded the huge deer hide in front of the camera. It could almost wrap his entire body.

"Handmade, naturally plant-tanned mule deer hide! I guarantee it will definitely become my mattress tonight!"

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