He placed the croissant back into the bamboo box, his gaze indifferent. “Yun Feng, go and investigate whether Chef-Overseer Guo has left the estate in recent days. If he did, find out where he went, whom he met, and what time he returned. Report everything back to me.”
Yun Feng was taken-back. Seeing his master’s solemn expression, he did not dare to ask more. He bowed slightly and complied. “Yes, your subordinate will go and investigate immediately!”
Since receiving the order, Yun Feng had been keeping a close watch on Guo Lixiang’s movements every few days.
Who would have thought that this old Chef-Overseer of the Marquis’s estate, who usually appeared honest and simple, would actually have a few tricks up his sleeve when it came to acting sneakily?
For the sake of the Marquis’s safety, Yun Feng watched so intently that his eyes were bloodshot. Finally, on this day, he saw Guo Lixiang dismiss the kitchen assistants and slip out quietly through the back gate of the courtyard.
Yun Feng’s eyes lit up. He immediately leaped down from the tree and followed silently. As he tracked him, he prayed fervently in his heart that Chef-Overseer Guo was absolutely not some spy sent by the enemy!
Over the years, thanks to the Marquis, he had enjoyed Chef-Overseer Guo’s craftsmanship every day. Although he had grown a bit tired of the flavors long ago, Chef-Overseer Guo’s skills had suddenly improved significantly in recent days.
Just reminiscing about the dishes he had consumed over the past two days—Milk-Scented Box Crab, Bamboo Shoot Roasted Quail, Duck Blood Thin Noodles, Sea Salt Pickled Snake… cough, cough—he truly hoped from the bottom of his heart that Guo Lixiang could remain in the Marquis’s estate with a clean record.
Yun Feng shook his head to clear the thoughts of delicious delicacies. He saw Guo Lixiang stop at the back door of an eatery, looking around suspiciously like a thief to confirm no one was nearby before raising his hand to knock lightly on the door.
Before long, someone inside opened the door for him.
Yun Feng stared intently at the door, hoping to catch a glimpse of who the person was. He only saw a small gap open in the door, and a delicate little head peeked out from behind the wooden panel.
The young lady had gentle features. Her hair was tied in a low bun with two stray wisps hanging by her temples. She was dressed simply and elegantly, looking clean and refreshing.
His eyes widened, and he nearly cried out in surprise. Was this not the Miss Xue who had been selling Cloud Milk Buns near Xingguo Temple a while ago!
“Shopkeeper Xue, I have come to trouble you again,” Guo Lixiang greeted her politely with a hand-clasping salute.
Xue Li hurried to welcome him into the backyard. “Chef-Overseer, please don’t be so formal with me. The recipe for the ‘croissants’ I taught you yesterday—did you put it to use today? Did it suit the Marquis of Ningwu’s palate?”
“It did, it certainly did!” Guo Lixiang nodded repeatedly, a look of pride on his face. “You have no idea. Ever since I started learning cookery from you, the Marquis has regained his appetite for the food I make. This heart of mine, which was hanging in suspense, has finally settled. However, I am also quite ashamed. To think that I have spent over thirty years in the kitchen, yet my skills are not even equal to yours, a young lady. It is truly embarrassing.”
“The Chef-Overseer is being too hard on himself.” In Xue Li’s view, a seasoned chef like Guo Lixiang, who had been in the profession for over thirty years and could still humble himself to learn from a younger person, had already surpassed the vast majority of people.
Her teaching him culinary skills was, naturally, not out of pure kindness alone.
Guo Lixiang was the Chef-Overseer of the Marquis of Ningwu’s estate. In modern terms, he held a formal, established position with a stable job and a respectable status. She didn’t have to worry about him taking the recipes to start a business.
Furthermore, the food and dishes for the nobles in the estate were usually decided and overseen by him. These princes and nobles loved banquets. If she could build a good relationship with Chef-Overseer Guo, while she might not handle the main courses of future feasts, she could at least gain some benefits regarding the pastries and snacks.
Xue Li led him into the kitchen, picked up two round, purple-black eggplants, and shook them at him. “Today, we are going to make a dish that goes perfectly with rice!”
“Egg… Eggplants?” Guo Lixiang looked at the items she was holding in her hands, a troubled look appearing on his face. “Miss Xue, you don’t know. My Marquis eats everything, but the one thing he doesn’t eat is eggplant. Even if this dish is appetizing, if it doesn’t open the Marquis’s appetite, it will be useless for me to learn it.”
Upon hearing this, Xue Li lowered the hands holding the two eggplants, feeling slightly annoyed.
The “Luo Su” of the Song Dynasty was indeed the eggplant.
She had pickled century eggs a month ago and originally intended to make a dish of Pounded Peppers and Century Eggs. Unfortunately, peppers had not yet been introduced to this era, so she could only settle for the next best thing: using eggplant and cornel berries to substitute for the soft, spicy, and fragrant texture of roasted peppers.
Who would have thought that the Marquis just happened to not eat eggplants!
Truly a picky eater!
And here she was, thinking of letting the people of Henan from a thousand years ago experience the charm of Xiang cuisine. She had really hit a brick wall.
Xue Li spent over half an hour trying to persuade Guo Lixiang, eventually convincing him to learn this “Pounded Eggplant with Century Eggs” under the pretext that “a good chef never has too many tricks.”
Even if it was made for others to eat, it would still be a good thing.
Guo Lixiang saw Xue Li take several dirty, egg-shaped objects out of a ceramic jar and couldn’t help but ask, “Miss Xue, what kind of pickled item is this?”
Xue Li took out four century eggs and held them up to his face to explain. “This item is called a ‘Songhua Egg.’ Don’t look at how it’s covered in mud right now; once it’s washed and peeled, you can see beautiful snowflake patterns on it.”
The century egg was right under Guo Lixiang’s nose. He smelled that indescribable, strange odor, and his expression changed slightly. He repeatedly took several steps back. “Can… can this thing really be put into a cooking pot?”
“This item is the soul of this dish. How could we do without it?” Xue Li proudly moved her homemade century egg closer to Guo Lixiang again, frightening him so much that he covered his mouth and nose as fast as lightning, leaving only a pair of small, mung-bean-sized eyes staring at her.
“I have been in this profession for many years, but I have never seen anyone ruin… cough, prepare duck eggs like this. How did you think of it?”
“That is a long story.”
Although the method for making century eggs was only discovered by accident during the Taichang era of the Ming Dynasty, she could still use the materials available around her to make them in the Great Song.
First, select about a dozen smooth, green-shelled duck eggs, wash them, and let them dry. Then, coat them in an alkaline slurry made from quicklime powder, wood ash, and strong tea water. Roll the outer layer in rice husks to prevent sticking, and finally, place them in a ceramic jar to be sealed and stored in a cool place.
After waiting for about a month, one could harvest crystal-clear century eggs.
While Xue Li explained the method of making century eggs to Guo Lixiang, she peeled one to show him.
On the dark-cyan egg white, there were scattered patterns floating, resembling white snowflakes blooming on the surface of a frozen lake, which was quite marvelous.
Guo Lixiang finally moved a bit closer, looking down at the round century egg in the palm of her hand, reversing his previous attitude of keeping a distance. “Hey! Strange, this egg is actually black, and it has grown flowers?”
“This pattern was created by the layer of mud on the shell that you were just disgusted by.”
Xue Li had once understood a bit of the principle behind it. The slurry coating the duck eggs was mixed with alkaline substances. These substances would penetrate through the microscopic pores on the eggshell and react with the amino acids in the egg white to form amino acid salts. When the latter precipitated in geometric crystals, they became patterns in the shape of snowflakes or pine needles.
But how could the people of this time know so much? It was enough that they found it extraordinary.
Xue Li split the dark, translucent century egg in two, revealing a runny, dark-green yolk inside. “Come, try one?”
She took a bite of one half herself and handed the other half to Guo Lixiang.
“No, no.” Guo Lixiang waved his hands hurriedly, staring warily at the dark duck egg and laughing awkwardly. “I have one thing I’d better confirm with you again—are you truly going to use this thing to make a dish?”
Xue Li helplessly stuffed the half century egg into her mouth and said indignantly, “Not only am I going to use it for a dish, but I also want you to taste it personally!”
Xue Li picked up the two eggplants, and without peeling them, buried them directly in the embers of the stove to roast. When the skin was charred black, she poked them with a bamboo skewer. If it went in easily, the flesh inside was soft and could be taken out.
She used fire tongs to pull the eggplants out, let them cool, peeled off the charred skin, and tore them into thin strips for later use.
Next, she put minced garlic, minced ginger, mustard seeds, and cornel berries into a stone mortar, pounding them with a pestle until the spicy fragrance was pungent. Then, she added the eggplant strips and century eggs, followed by soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sesame oil. She pounded everything together until the eggplant and eggs were inextricably tangled, finally sprinkling a handful of roasted sesame seeds on top.
The familiar spicy fragrance wafted over, making one’s mouth water.
Since it was a pounded dish, it tasted best when eaten straight from the mortar.
Xue Li was too lazy to re-plate it and couldn’t wait to get bowls and plates. Using the stone mortar, she picked up a portion with her chopsticks. As she brought it to her lips, she suddenly remembered something. With a turn of her wrist, she offered it to Guo Lixiang. “Do you want the first bite?”
“No, no, no, Miss Xue please go first.” Guo Lixiang quickly stepped back, his head shaking like a rattle, looking as if he were terrified of being force-fed.
“It really is delicious. Why don’t you believe me?”
Xue Li sighed helplessly and put the pounded food on the tip of her chopsticks into her mouth. The moment her lips and tongue touched the eggplant, which was soaked in sauce and clinging to bits of century egg, it felt as if a fire had been ignited on the tip of her tongue. A pungent and stimulating spicy flavor burned through her entire mouth.
Her cheeks suddenly flushed red. She lowered her head, unable to say a word for a moment.
Seeing her like this, Guo Lixiang thought the taste of the dish was like chewing bitter herbs or swallowing needles and that she was overwhelmed by how bad it was. He hurriedly handed her a waste basin. “Didn’t I warn you earlier? How can something that looks like a dark monster be edible? But you, little girl, wouldn’t believe in the evil of it and insisted on testing the poison yourself. Now you’ve failed, haven’t you?”
Xue Li shook her head and pushed the waste basin away. She leaned on the edge of the table with her head down, silently facing the bowl. After a long while, she suddenly let out a low laugh. “Who says it’s not edible?”
Guo Lixiang looked at her strangely. “Then why is your face as red as a monkey’s butt?”
He thought she found it unpalatable but was too embarrassed to say so, which was why her face was flushed from holding it in.
“A red face means this dish is spicy enough. Spicy is good!”
Since traveling to this Great Song Dynasty, it had been too long since she had tasted a spiciness that went straight to her heart and lungs.
Today’s bite of Pounded Eggplant with Century Eggs had vividly summoned her long-buried soul of Xiang cuisine, making her almost moved to tears.
Xue Li’s eyes grew warm, but her mouth did not stop. She picked up another chopstick-full of dark-cyan century egg fragments and chewed them while facing Guo Lixiang’s tightly furrowed brows, appearing to enjoy it immensely. “It would be even more wonderful if there were green peppers…”
“Green what?” Guo Lixiang didn’t hear clearly and frowned in confusion.
“No—nothing.” Xue Li was startled and hurriedly played it off, grabbing him again. “I’m saying, if I can win the favor of a senior gourmet like you, perhaps my little snack shop can become famous instantly!”
As she spoke, Xue Li reached into the stone mortar with her chopsticks and picked up a clump of dark, sticky, unidentified substance, intending to stuff it into his mouth.
Guo Lixiang was horrified. His eyebrows shot up, his old face wrinkled, and he flicked his sleeves to flee.
“Hey! Chef-Overseer, why are you running! This one bite is guaranteed to be unforgettable for the rest of your life!”
“That pitch-black thing—I’m afraid if I eat it, my life will be over!”