Chapter 233: Chapter 177: Refining Sea Salt, The Secret of the Tobacco Field (Part 2)

The abalone cooked quickly, its fresh meat tender and springy with a hint of crispness. Each bite released the distinct, sweet flavor unique to seafood.

Even though it had only simmered in coconut water for a few minutes, he could already taste a faint coconut aroma.

Once he confirmed it tasted good, he quickly tossed in five more abalone.

He wasn’t sure if it was from cooking the abalone or from the coconut flesh melting into the broth, but the liquid inside the shell was slowly turning white.

Instead of tasting the broth, he sampled the special dipping sauce he held in his hands.

The dipping sauce wasn’t a success, as he was missing many key ingredients.

But as a broth, it was surprisingly good.

He stared at the bamboo tube for a moment, then, on an impulse, poured its contents into the abalone broth.

The emerald green basil leaves tumbled in the milky-white broth, their exotic fragrance growing even more intense.

Once two minutes were up, he immediately removed the coconut shell from the fire.

"This abalone and coconut soup I’m making right now isn’t a Great Xia recipe. It’s more of an original creation I came up with, something to get by on. It doesn’t even qualify as a proper dish."

"If I had to describe it, the flavor is sort of like a bolognese sauce without the canned tomatoes, but with abalone."

"Or let me try another comparison. Everyone’s had clam chowder, right? Imagine that, but with the fragrance of basil leaves and a hint of crushed black pepper and cinnamon."

The light, savory flavor of a seafood broth becomes even more delicious with the added sweetness of coconut milk, but it can quickly become overwhelming. The fresh aroma of basil leaves, along with the slightly spicy allspice powder, perfectly cuts through that richness.

However, since they were only blanched for a moment, the abalone hadn’t really absorbed the flavors. They only had a hint of coconut sweetness. Fortunately, they were naturally salty enough to be delicious on their own.

After he finished the abalone and drank the hot broth, Lin Chen’s face was flushed as if he’d just exercised, his forehead beaded with sweat.

"I recommend that anyone who hasn’t tried this combination give it a shot, especially if you like trying new things. Making seafood or meat broths with coconut water is a really fantastic experience."

"Of course, if you get the chance, I’d still recommend enjoying the finished dish at the White Whale Restaurant. A professional chef’s version will definitely be better than anything you make at home, right?"

[Cooking abalone with coconut water?]

[Sounds pretty good. A very healthy combination. How come I never thought of doing it this way before?]

[Just checked on a map. White Whale is too far from my house—at least 2,000 kilometers, and I’d need a connecting flight. It’s not worth making a special trip just for a meal. I’ll just wait until I’m traveling there.]

[Lin, if you keep adding new dishes like this, the head chef at the White Whale Restaurant might collapse from exhaustion in the kitchen.]

[Setting aside all the other dishes Lin has made, this one today feels really simple. It’s just coconut water and abalone, maybe with a few common spices. I could totally make this at home.]

[I’m going to try the dipping sauce recipe Lin mentioned earlier. The supermarket probably won’t have fresh abalone, though. Is it okay to use chicken breast or beef instead?]

"Of course it is!"

Lin Chen pointed to the comment that flashed across his wristband. "In Great Xia, there’s a very popular hot pot dish called coconut chicken, which comes from Hainan. Hainan is a tropical province in Great Xia."

"If you’re going to make it, I suggest searching online for a coconut chicken hot pot tutorial. Besides being particular about the chicken, the other key is its special secret dipping sauce."

"The dipping sauce for coconut chicken uses sand ginger and calamansi. Most of you probably can’t get sand ginger, so you can substitute it with regular ginger, but their flavors are completely different."

"I can’t describe how delicious it is with just words. You’ll just have to find a way to try it for yourselves, haha."

Lin Chen let out a mischievous chuckle. He shucked the remaining abalone, cleaned them, and threaded them onto bamboo skewers. Then he planted the skewers by the fire to roast slowly. As for the razor clams, he wrapped them in a banana leaf to steam, just like last time.

He also tossed the remaining half of the coconut crab on to heat up a bit. The taste is completely different when you eat it hot versus cold.

He took the same bamboo tube he’d used for the broth earlier. He shelled the steamed razor clams, sliced the abalone thinly, and picked the crab meat, shredding it into fine strips.

He grabbed a handful of basil leaves, rolled them up, and sliced them into ribbons. He crushed a small amount of allspice, added some diced mango and a sprinkle of sea salt, then mixed all the ingredients together.

He’d had a feeling while drinking the broth earlier: these ingredients would be better mixed into a salad than put in a soup.

He took a bite and decided to crush in some more allspice.

A cold dish like this should highlight the ingredients’ natural flavors. But with the savory-sweet seafood and the sweet mango, the overall taste was a bit one-note. He needed to add a generous amount of spice to cut through some of that sweetness and alter the dish’s entire flavor profile.

A long window was cut into the center of the vibrant green bamboo tube, revealing a small mountain of seafood piled inside.

Tender white slices of abalone were mixed with shreds of red-and-white crab meat. The mixture was coated in grayish-brown specks, resembling crushed black pepper, and garnished with irregular ribbons of basil, making the dish’s overall appearance incredibly eye-catching.

Taste aside, the presentation alone was good enough to qualify as a proper appetizer.

’If I could just drizzle on some Sichuan peppercorn oil, or maybe some pesto or basil oil, and then add some Thai chilies and minced garlic, the flavor would be absolutely incredible!’

’The Sichuan peppercorn oil would give it a Chinese flavor profile, while the pesto or basil oil would make it Western. That should give Gray two different directions to think about.’

’As for whether Gray had the extra time and energy to replicate it, well, that wasn’t his problem.’