Chapter 452: Chapter 450: Zhajiang (Happy 70th Birthday to the Motherland!)

Jiang Feng knew that the excuse he had just made up was pretty lame, so he quickly changed the subject, adhering to the principle that if he switched topics fast enough, no one would be able to point out how weak his excuse was, and started making awkward conversation with Zhang Guanghang.

“Hey Zhang, do you have any new dishes planned for the 23rd of this month? The taste-test day is coming up soon, and I haven’t seen you practicing any particular dish lately,” Jiang Feng said, turning to Zhang Guanghang.

Zhang Guanghang, who had been focused on his cell phone, put it down and showed a handsome man’s surprise: “Actually, I do practice from time to time, but I don’t have any inspiration or ideas, so there’s no specific direction for practice and nothing in particular I want to learn, so… not really.”

Zhang Guanghang looked back down at his phone, clearly unable to forget the comic he had been engrossed in just moments before, then glanced up at Jiang Feng again: “This is normal, you know. You’re the odd one, wanting to learn a new dish every few days. You make a bit of progress each time, but really…”

“It’s not normal.”

Jiang Feng: …

All right, I’m cheating here, so shut up.

Zhang Guanghang, in order to return to his comics, quickly ended the conversation.

Wu Minqi didn’t relentlessly pursue the poor lie Jiang Feng had just told either, instead she started playing with her phone. In today’s society, there’s nothing more captivating than a cell phone. Sometimes you even want to murder your boyfriend, but you’d never want to kill your phone, as it only ‘suicides.’

Today, since Ji Xia didn’t have to go to the Li Mansion to help out and could stay in the Taifeng Building the whole day, Jiang Feng was a bit worried about leaving her alone with the cooler. It was like letting a mouse into a grain storage, and he suspected that by now, Ji Xia had probably already drunk the second or third bottle of Coke.

Chen Suhua, as Da Hua’s actual caretaker, had already established a deep bond with Da Hua. But lately, Jiang Feng and Ji Xia had taken over the responsibility of cooking the staple food, resulting in Chen Suhua not having prepared Da Hua’s pig food by hand for a long time. This gave her a sense of crisis, feeling that her most intimate position with Da Hua was about to be usurped by Ji Xia.

Now, when Da Hua saw Ji Xia, she would grunt and call out twice, a privilege that used to be Chen Suhua’s alone, and one that even Jiang Feng didn’t have.

Da Hua never called out when she saw him.

So, Chen Suhua decided that from Monday to Friday, Jiang Feng and Ji Xia would take care of Da Hua’s meals, but she would prepare the weekend meals herself.

She was determined to reclaim her position as the primary caregiver.

Consequently, Ji Xia became unemployed.

Look, even cooking food for a pig has become a competitive job nowadays.

After telling Wu Minqi, Jiang Feng went downstairs, where Ji Xia was holding a can of grape Fanta. Jiang Feng glanced at the nearby trash bin, which already contained a cola can and a Sprite can.

“Xiaxia, didn’t I say you could only have one can of soda? Drinking too much carbonated drink is bad for your teeth, and getting a tooth filled is very expensive these days!” Jiang Feng tried to scare Ji Xia with money.

“Master, you said I could only have one can of Coke, and I did only have one can of Coke,” Ji Xia said with an unchanging expression, continuing to gulp down the grape Fanta as if she was racing against time.

Jiang Feng: …

If you used that brilliant little brain of yours for studying, you wouldn’t just finish high school; you could even attend Wharton.

Jiang Feng snatched the can of Coke from Ji Xia’s hand and shook it, estimating there were only about two or three sips left: “No more carbonated drinks for you tomorrow, okay? Look how much you’ve already drunk these past few days. You can only have freshly squeezed juice, and if you want it, you’ll have to make it yourself.”

“Oh,” replied Ji Xia. “Master, can I have orange juice?”

“Make it yourself,” said Jiang Feng with an expressionless face, as cold as a parent supervising a child’s homework.

“Your sister has a friend coming over to eat later, and they might arrive early before the greeters are on duty. After your sister gets here, just stand at the entrance. They’re surnamed Tan, table 37, just take them over,” Jiang Feng assigned Ji Xia her task.

“Okay,” nodded Ji Xia.

Seeing Ji Xia like this, Jiang Feng thought she might actually not know Tan Wenwen or might know but not remember her. People tend to forget childhood memories very quickly; Jiang Feng himself couldn’t remember many of his elementary school classmates, and he had forgotten many middle school classmates as well.

He remembered that during those few days in his memory, all the meals Ji Xue brought home every night were packed by Tan Wenwen. Had it not been for Tan Wenwen pressing the food so tightly and arranging the dishes so neatly, that small lunchbox definitely wouldn’t have been able to contain enough food for two kids to feel full.

Regardless of whether Ji Xia knew or not, and whether Tan Wenwen did it intentionally or not, since Tan Wenwen had come to Beijing to see Ji Xue, it was only proper to say thank you.

Ji Xia was not aware of this, so it was natural for Jiang Feng, as her master, to lend a helping hand.

“Xiaxia, would you like to learn how to make zhajiangmian?” Jiang Feng asked.

“Zhajiangmian? What’s that?” Ji Xia had no idea what zhajiangmian was; her hometown’s small town didn’t sell it, Taifeng Building didn’t have it, and no one had taken her to try it since arriving in Beiping.

“It’s a type of noodle dish, except it comes with vegetable pieces and fried sauce that contains meat,” explained Jiang Feng.

“I do,” Ji Xia replied with invigorating enthusiasm. “I learn noodles very fast, Master Liang has praised me before, saying that I learn noodle-making quickly!”

Jiang Feng: …

You might not believe this, but what I want to teach you is how to make fried bean sauce.

Preparing fried bean sauce takes a certain amount of time. Jiang Feng glanced at his phone and saw it was just a little past 3 PM. If everything went smoothly, he could finish making a small bowl of fried bean sauce around 4 PM.

When Jiang Feng was practicing noodle pulling, he would occasionally make some fried bean sauce as well. Making the sauce wasn’t difficult, but he hadn’t done it many times, mainly because he wasn’t very good at pulling noodles.

Every time he made fried bean sauce noodles, the rating was always unimpressive, either a D or an E, which was hard for Jiang Feng to accept since he was accustomed to seeing B or A grades. It was a significant blow to his self-esteem.

So he chose to avoid it.

As long as I don’t make fried bean sauce noodles, there won’t be any D grades.

Ji Xia followed Jiang Feng into the kitchen, washed his hands thoroughly with him, then stood by with a small spoon, watching intently how Jiang Feng made the sauce.

“For fried bean sauce noodles, the noodles don’t need to be pulled too finely. You can have both thin and thick noodles, but most people prefer the thicker ones. Xiaxia, your noodle pulling skills are more than sufficient, so there isn’t much for me to teach in that regard. Today, the main goal is for you to watch how the sauce is fried,” announced Jiang Feng as his mini lecture began.

Ji Xia listened with focused attention, spoon in hand.

“First off, we need to use pork belly for frying the sauce. I’ve taught you about pork belly before, what’s the best type of pork belly to choose under normal circumstances?” Jiang Feng started with a question.

When it came to meat, Ji Xia was never at a loss: “Three parts fat to seven parts lean.”

“Right, that’s correct. But it’s also okay if you prefer to use slightly fattier meat,” Jiang Feng said as he picked a moderately-sized piece of pork belly, quickly skinned it with a knife, separated the fat from the lean, and chopped them into evenly sized cubes.

“When chopping the pork into cubes, it’s best to separate the fat and the lean. This way, the finished sauce will have fat that’s rich without being greasy and lean that’s both lean and fragrantly crisp,” Jiang Feng said. Lately, he’d seen plenty of essays written by Jiang Junlian posted by Aunt in the family group chat, and he had unconsciously adopted Junlian’s habitual descriptive style in his speech—using numerous idioms.

Sometimes Jiang Feng wondered if Junlian was writing essays while flipping through an idiom dictionary, all that effort just to fill up 800 words.

“Chop the white part of the green onions into chunks–not too small, or they’ll burn easily.” This lesson was learned from Jiang Feng’s bitter experience with E-grade fried bean sauce noodles, “Then mince some ginger and that’s all the ingredients you’ll need aside from the sauce itself.”

“As for the sauce, we’ll mix soybean paste with sweet bean sauce. Here, you should taste these two sauces to get a sense of their flavors,” Jiang Feng said as he pushed the soybean paste and sweet bean sauce towards Ji Xia. Ji Xia tasted their flavors in turn.

“Xiaxia, remember this, cooking and tasting are inseparable. A good chef must have a discerning palate, but that doesn’t mean you can’t become a good chef without one; it’ll just be more challenging. When you start learning, you’ll inevitably face many problems. You haven’t even begun to cook by yourself yet. Once you do, you’ll find that the results may not be what you imagined they’d be. But how will you identify the problems? You have to taste it—the flavor of the ingredients, the flavor of the sauces, the taste of the seasonings. You have to taste and smell. But the crucial part is to use your tongue to sense the flavors. Without employing your tongue to differentiate, it’s hard to discover what the truly delicious taste is like,” Jiang Feng explained enthusiastically when Ji Xue suddenly walked in.

Ji Xue didn’t come in empty-handed; she was carrying a large clay pot. The pot looked familiar to Jiang Feng, roughly the same shape and diameter as the ones she used to cook jar-cooked chicken. It even looked a bit like the pots Tan Weizhou used at Tan Family Small Restaurant for jar-cooked chicken.

The pots Tan Weizhou used for jar-cooked chicken were limited edition, left over from decades ago, impossible to find on the market now.

“Sister, what pot is that you’re carrying?” Ji Xia’s attention was drawn by the clay pot in Ji Xue’s hands.

“It’s the pot for cooking jar-cooked chicken,” replied Ji Xue. Realizing that Jiang Feng seemed to be instructing Ji Xia on cooking, she asked an additional question, “What are you learning today, Xiaxia?”

“How to make the fried bean sauce for fried bean sauce noodles!” answered Ji Xia eagerly.

“Xiaxia can already learn to make fried bean sauce noodles? That’s really impressive. Learn well from your master,” Ji Xue said with a smile, approaching the stove with the clay pot.

Ji Yue had previously given her a specialized lecture on how to educate her younger siblings: when severity was required, don’t be soft-hearted with the stick; but when it was time for leniency and praise, don’t be stingy.

Otherwise, all stick and no carrot could lead to estrangement between siblings.

Ji Xue took Ji Yue’s teachings to heart and put them into practice after their relationship thawed on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Since then, the sisters’ relationship had developed rapidly, returning to the closeness they shared as children when they split chocolates equally.

“With fried bean sauce, you need lots of oil and a generous amount of sauce. You have to simmer it over low heat until the sauce dries up completely; you can’t add water. The sauce needs to be fried thoroughly, deeply and fragrantly. At that time, you can’t rely on sight, you must use your nose to smell, and also…” Jiang Feng was about to continue but suddenly remembered he hadn’t asked Ji Xue when Tan Wenwen would arrive.

After all, he had just told Ji Xue not too long ago to go and greet Tan Wenwen at the entrance and lead her to her seat, though the next second he changed his mind, saying he was going to teach Ji Xia how to make fried bean sauce noodles.

Changing one’s mind by the evening is something every master should do.

“Xiaxia, hold on for a moment, I need to ask your sister a question. Stay here and taste the soybean paste and sweet bean sauce,” Jiang Feng said as he walked towards Ji Xue.

Ji Xia obediently began tasting the soybean paste and sweet bean sauce, delightfully enjoying the taste of the latter.