Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 395: Chapter 247: Oops, Fell For It Again

Erica nodded, not quite understanding. The delicious fish dish, a flavor she had never experienced before, had completely captured her heart. Before the soup boiled away, she didn’t want to waste too much time on thinking.

Without waiting for Lin Chen’s instruction, she picked up some strips of stingray, bamboo shoots, and potato slices and dropped them into the soup. She devoured the fish fillets in her bamboo tube, then promptly dunked another portion into the broth.

Lin Chen wasn’t idle either. The coconut shell’s capacity was quite limited—only a little over three hundred milliliters. After leaving room for the ingredients, the actual amount of soup was just over two hundred milliliters.

If they didn’t hurry up and add the ingredients, it would boil dry in a little over ten minutes.

Under these circumstances, the best method was to keep adding ingredients. This would maintain the soup’s temperature at the critical point just below boiling, ensuring both the texture of the food and the speed of cooking while minimizing evaporation.

Especially after he added the fiery pickled Havana peppers, the entire flavor profile of the fish soup changed dramatically.

The soup’s original rich, savory flavor was perfectly preserved, but now it also had the subtle sourness and stimulating heat of the pickled peppers. This made the otherwise bland potatoes and bamboo shoots burst with flavor after being cooked in the broth.

The most satisfying part of all was the strips of meat from the stingray’s wings.

Once cooked, all you had to do was pop them in your mouth and chew without a care. Aside from the firm, crisp cartilage, the rest was nothing but rich, tender meat.

Each strip of meat soaked up the broth’s sour, spicy richness. Combined with the stingray’s own abundant collagen, the contrast between the soft, tender meat and the crisp, crunchy cartilage was incredibly satisfying to eat.

’Now this is what good fish is all about—no bones to spit out!’

After the two of them devoured the stingray wings and grouper fillets, the potato slices had been stewed until they were practically melting.

A gentle press with the tongue was all it took for their dense, creamy texture to melt away. The potatoes had long since soaked up the savory fish soup; for a potato-loving North American like Erica, they were even more delicious than the fish.

And the bamboo shoots were another story entirely. No matter how long they cooked, they remained perfectly crisp. Every fiber within was saturated with the scalding broth, causing them to burst with juice when bitten.

After all the food was eaten, the shallow bowl of intensely concentrated fish soup that remained was the true prize.

Without any prompting from Lin Chen, Erica, her little belly full and round, took the coconut shell and tilted her head back, drinking every last drop.

This last bit of soup was a concentration of all the essences—from the original broth, the fish, the potatoes, and the bamboo shoots. It was so thick it was almost a concentrate, viscous and rich with collagen.

Even after she had swallowed, her lips felt sticky, almost glued together.

Not to be outdone, Lin Chen was just about to pick up his coconut shell and finish off the last few mouthfuls when Erica called out to him.

"Wait!"

"?"

He looked over, confused.

"Let me try your spice level. I forgot to try it earlier."

"Are you sure?"

Lin Chen’s doubtful gaze fell upon her flushed face. From the heat of the soup, fine beads of sweat had appeared on her forehead, and her camouflage jacket had been tossed aside at some point.

"It’s been cooking for a while now. All the potency of the Havana pepper has been boiled into the soup. It’s even hotter now than it was at the beginning. What if it upsets your stomach?"

"Then I’ll just drop out of the competition. There are only a few days left, anyway."

Erica shrugged nonchalantly, her spoon already reaching into Lin Chen’s bowl to scoop up half a spoonful.

"It’s just a tiny bit. It should be fine, right?"

"Just taste it first. If you can’t handle it, spit it out. Don’t force yourself. Food this spicy can easily cause stomach cramps."

"Then how come you’re fine?"

"I’ve been eating chili peppers since I was a kid."

"I have a high pain tolerance. It’s just a little pain. Watch me handle this, no problem!"

Erica wrinkled her little nose and took the spoonful of soup into her mouth.

At first, there wasn’t much of a reaction. She just felt it was a little spicier than her own bowl.

Just as she was giving Lin Chen a look that said, ’Is that all?’, her tongue began to burn.

’Is the soup too hot?’

She tilted her head, letting the soup run off her tongue.

This action had no effect; instead, the insides of her cheeks and the area under her tongue also began to burn.

A few seconds later, a thin layer of mist clouded her glass-like eyes. Blood rushed to her head, and her face became beet red. Unable to sit still, she shot up and began pacing back and forth, fanning her mouth with her small hands.

"Just spit it out. Don’t torture yourself."

Lin Chen smiled faintly. He picked up his coconut shell, drained the remaining soup, and savored the stimulating spice that left a faint, aching burn in his mouth. There was a strange, cathartic pleasure in it.

[Enjoyed a delicious hot and sour fish soup hot pot by the sea in Panama. Happiness Points +4]

’Four Happiness Points... Hot pot really is the best.’

He wiped away the beads of sweat that had appeared on his forehead, a little impressed by the heat of the Havana pepper.

’And I even picked a small, pickled one. I can’t believe it’s still this hot. No wonder it’s one of the world’s spiciest peppers.’

Erica hesitated for a few seconds, feeling the burning on her tongue intensify into a searing pain. Finally, she gave in, spitting the mouthful of soup out with a "BLECH."

Then she stared at him as if he were some kind of monster.

"How can you handle that level of pain without even hissing? You’re a total freak!"

"Next time you eat it, maybe your spice tolerance will go up."

"Hmph, just you wait! I’ll definitely be able to swallow it next time!"