Alaska Gold Rush Diary

With the jaguar issue finally resolved, Zhou Xin's worries, which had been weighing on his mind, could finally be put to rest for the time being.

Just as Zhou Xin was about to leave, he suddenly had a thought and looked at the half-eaten wild boar still hanging on the tree.

This wild boar was quite large, probably weighing fifty or sixty pounds. Even though the jaguar had already eaten half of it, it still weighed twenty or thirty pounds.

The jaguar fled in panic, no longer able to attend to its prey in the tree.

Several hours had passed since the wild boar died, and given the hot rainforest climate, the carcass would begin to decompose in at most two more hours.

However, if processed in time, it can become a very good meat product.

Although the wild boar carcass looks a bit scary, with its flesh and blood splattered out and its internal organs crawling all over it, it can be eaten once it is cleaned.

Thinking of this, Zhou Xin went over and took the wild boar carcass down.

"I've snatched food from the jaws of a leopard," Zhou Xin said with self-deprecation.

They quickly cleaned the wild boar, wrapped it in the leaves of a nearby banana tree, and carried it on their backs.

Instead of returning to the camp immediately, he went to the stream he had been to and cleaned up the wild boar in the creek.

He dared not handle it by the river, for fear of attracting crocodiles.

He built a fire, put the wild boar on it to burn, and then used a knife to scrape off all the charred hair.

After removing the internal organs, the pork was cut into small pieces with a knife.

He originally wanted to keep some of the internal organs, but they were all torn into a mess and he didn't know where to start, so he only kept some fat.

In the end, he received two pig hind legs, half a spare rib, three pieces of pork, a pig's head, and some lard.

It weighs about 20 jin (10 catties) in total, enough for three people to eat for about a week.

They wrapped the meat up again, put it back on the blanket, and returned to the camp.

"Shin, did you catch a wild boar?" Edward asked curiously.

Zhou Xin shook his head and briefly recounted what had happened.

Alo, who was operating the sand suction machine, stood up and came over, his face full of shock and admiration.

"Mr. Zhou, is this the jaguar that approached us that night?"

He had experienced the fear of jaguars up close before, so he seemed more surprised than Edward.

"That's right, it should be the same one. I scared it away, and it probably won't dare to come near us again. We don't need to keep watch at night anymore," Zhou Xin said with a smile.

"That...that's great." Alo wanted to say something to express his admiration, but in the end, he could only squeeze out this sentence.

"Shin, you're incredibly brave! You actually dared to confront a jaguar head-on and even snatch food from its mouth. I've heard that jaguars are even capable of hunting crocodiles!"

Edward actually said what Alo was thinking.

Zhou Xin smiled and said, "I have no choice. This is its territory, and if we don't do something, it might show up here at any time."

"So, are you sure it won't happen again?" Edward asked.

"Probably not, it's smart and knows how to avoid danger."

He paused, then quoted a classic line from the movie *Breaking Bad*: "Now, to it, I am the danger!"

Edward watched him show off and thought there was absolutely nothing wrong with it; this was exactly the kind of guy who should be showing off!

Meanwhile, A Luo was thinking to himself, "Mr. Zhou is so cool."

"Alright, we'll have a simple lunch today, and I'll cook you a sumptuous wild boar feast tonight!"

Edward cheered, and Alo was also very happy. The two of them felt full of energy and continued working.

Zhou Xin didn't delay and immediately began processing the pork.

If not handled promptly, the pork will spoil quickly.

The solution is simple: smoke it.

Actually, wild boar meat has a gamey smell, so it doesn't taste good when cooked directly.

To eliminate the gamey smell, one option is to smoke and air-dry the pork before eating, or to make it into charred, dried pork.

As for using fresh meat to make soup, Zhou Xin wouldn't consider it, because it would make the soup extremely fishy and unpalatable.

Therefore, smoking can both prevent wild boar meat from spoiling and reduce its gamey smell, which is a win-win situation.

After placing the meat on the smoking rack, he put the piece of lard into the pot and rendered out the fat, obtaining a small jar of pork fat.

The cracklings left after rendering the oil, sprinkled with salt, became their snack.

After cooking a pot of noodles and finishing his lunch, he returned to the forest to collect other ingredients and supplies.

He became more and more familiar with the forest, and now it was more like a food storage and tool shed to him.

He searched in the woods for an hour or so and had a great harvest.

He obtained a lot of heart palm fruit and Paranana nuts.

The heartwood of the heart palm is also edible, and its fruit tastes similar to chestnuts, making it an excellent ingredient.

Parana nuts are rich in oil and have a crunchy flavor when roasted.

In addition, he also collected a lot of spices unique to this rainforest.

First are the most common wild ginger and wild herbs.

Then there's salissa pepper and Amazonian watercress.

Sarissa pepper is a type of Amazonian pepper with a spicy and aromatic flavor, making it ideal for marinating meats.

The flowers and leaves of Amazon watercress produce a unique numbing sensation in the mouth and a slight spiciness, somewhat similar to Sichuan peppercorns.

These ingredients and spices will be the perfect complement to our wild boar feast tonight.

Upon returning to camp, he immediately began preparing a large dinner for the evening.

To dry the wild boar meat he would eat that evening faster and remove its gamey smell, he first marinated a pig's hind leg and a piece of pork with salt, salissa pepper, and some seasonings he had brought. Then he tied them to wooden sticks and roasted them over a fire.

Before long, the pork started sizzling and oozing oil.

While washing and preparing other ingredients, Zhou Xin kept turning the pork and pork legs to ensure they were cooked to the right temperature.

He plans to cook three dishes tonight: a roasted pork leg, a dry-pot pork slice dish, and a braised pork belly dish.

The pork leg is simply left to roast over the fire, then sprinkled with seasoning powder.

After roasting the pork until it's half-charred, remove it and divide it into two portions. Slice one portion and cut the other into cubes.

To make dry-pot pork slices, you need to render out most of the fat from the pork slices. This process will almost completely remove the gamey smell of wild boar.

This dish requires a lot of spices, and Zhou Xin chose wild ginger and wild celery.

At the bottom of the dry pot is the versatile palm heart.

Cut the fruit of the heart palm into chunks and cook it together with chunks of pork to make a braised pork dish.

The fruit of the heart palm is powdery, sweet, and fragrant, which neutralizes the greasiness of the pork. The pork is a perfect balance of lean and fat, melting in your mouth.

In addition, he also fried Parana nuts in oil until they were crispy and fragrant, then sprinkled them with some salt to make a unique peanut dish.

By the time the other dishes were ready, the pork leg was also roasted to perfection.

The outer crust is crispy and the inside is soft and fragrant, constantly sizzling with oil, making it look very tempting.

After a busy day, the pork feast was finally completed as the sun set.