After Winston finished pounding all the fish meat, Bai Qingqing asked them to place the paste into a large stone bucket. The fish paste filled up half of the stone bucket the size of a bathtub.
After adding ginger, garlic, and the appropriate amount of salt, they started stirring the mixture vigorously.
As the fish meat was still raw, its smell alongside with the various condiments could be detected. Bai Qingqing actually felt that it would be delicious this way.
Wasn’t there such a thing as sashimi? There oughtn’t to be a problem eating it raw, right?
As the scent was too tantalizing, Bai Qingqing wanted to secretly eat a little. Who knew, when she looked left and right, she saw Parker swallowing his saliva, and Winston—although his expression was stern—had his lips tightly pursed, his countenance looking abnormal.
Roar!
The three leopard cubs ran over to surround the bucket. They stood on their hind limbs wanting to peer into it, but too bad they couldn’t as they weren’t tall enough.
Bai Qingqing licked her lips and said, “Why don’t we give it a try? In our world, there’s this thing called sashimi. It’s something like this.”
“Okay!” Before she even finished speaking, Parker had already voiced his agreement. Scooping up a handful, he shared half of the paste with Bai Qingqing.
She licked a little off his hand. Turns out, it tasted marvelous and completely devoid of the fishy smell, with a fresh and tender texture. It melted in one’s mouth instantly and was actually a bit like eating milk powder.
“Yummy!” Parker exclaimed in delight.
Winston, too, grabbed a handful. He said nothing, but he finished the fish paste in his hands very quickly, and immediately after, he grabbed another handful.
Roar! Roar!
The leopard cubs anxiously dug their claws against the stone bucket, their fingernails making screechy noises as they did so, causing goosebumps to rise all over Bai Qingqing’s body.
“Alright, you three have a taste of it too.” She reached out to scoop a handful, but due to her short arms, she failed to reach the mixture.
Parker burst out laughing, before cupping the fish paste and placing it on a tree leaf.
The cubs rushed up to him and formed a triangle as they nibbled maniacally.
“Too bad Curtis isn’t around. I think he’d like it, too. When he comes back, let’s make it again.” Bai Qingqing licked her lips to savor the lingering fragrance.
Parker scooped another handful and spoke as he ate. “If you’d like, we can eat it every day. But it’s a tad too mushy and wastes salt. Thankfully, we have plenty of salt now.”
“No, eating too much salt is not good for your health. You guys can regard this as your main source of food.” Bai Qingqing smiled and glanced at him as she said, “We’ll make sashimi next time using this type of fish. I think it’ll taste even better.”
“Okay.”
Now that Bai Qingqing suggested a better way of eating this fish, Parker and Winston stopped feeling so greedy.
The largest stone pot was laid over the fire, and water was added to it. Using his experience of cooking meat, Parker added the fishballs into the pot before the cold water started heating up. Due to a lack of experience in making fishballs, the balls he shaped looked mushy, as though they had an additional layer of fur over them.
Winston was in charge of adding the firewood. Bai Qingqing, too, came over to help. With her deft hands, she very quickly mastered the technique of shaping the fishballs into round, smooth shapes.
Parker watched her for a while, then mastered it as well.
As the water temperature gradually rose, by the time the water boiled, the pot was nicely filled with fishballs.
Fragrance soon emanated from the pot. The snow-white fishballs tossed and turned in the boiling water and floated to the surface, like a pond full of water hyacinth in full bloom.
Bai Qingqing rubbed the fish paste off her hands and scooped up a swelled fishball using a spoon. She blew upon the fishball, took a bite, and was instantly scalded to the point of her teeth aching.
“Yummy!” Despite not being able to taste anything with her scalded tongue, Bai Qingqing flashed them a thumbs-up. “It’s delicious, you guys should give it a try.”
Parker’s and Winston’s expressions relaxed. After casting one glance at each other, they turned their heads away at the same time.
As males didn’t fear being scalded by hot foods, Parker and Winston scooped out a fishball each and casually blew upon it before tossing into their mouths. Delighted expressions bloomed on their faces at the same time.
“This type of food is indeed not bad.” Winston fell into deep thought as he gazed at the fishballs churning vigorously in the pot.