Chapter 40: Providing for Herself (2)

While standing beside her, Xiyan saw that Third Young Madam was reaching out to cook herself, and quickly reached out to stop Chu Lian. “Third Young Madam, how could you do it yourself? What do you want to eat? Tell this servant, and this servant will cook it for you.”
Xiyan couldn’t help but get emotional as she said this. Although their Sixth Miss had not been favoured while in the Ying Estate, she was still a noble lady who had been raised and nurtured as one since she was young. She hadn’t done any menial duties like cooking before. However, now she had to actually cook a meal for herself, just so she could fill her stomach.
Although Eldest Young Madam, had ordered someone to send ingredients over, she hadn’t actually sent a cook over. Whatever Chu Lian wanted to eat right now, she would have to cook it herself.
Chu Lian saw that Xiyan was insistent on holding her back and understood that her current status meant that it wasn’t appropriate for her to do such chores. She didn’t care if she had to cook her meal herself, but she wouldn’t know what rumors would spread if this matter got out of the courtyard. And so, she let Xiyan do the work as she micromanaged from the side.
Xiyan couldn’t handle it by herself and Mingyan went over to help.
Chu Lian came to watch them from the side of the stove. She saw that all the common seasonings were there, however they lacked vegetable oil, chilli, and various other sauces. However it was enough to cook what Chu Lian wanted to eat.
When she saw that Xiyan was about to simply throw the cut up Chinese cabbage into the water, Chu Lian hurriedly stopped her.
Xiyan found it strange. “Third Young Madam, if we don’t cook the Chinese cabbage like this, how else should we do it? In both the Ying and Jing’an Estate, they prepared it exactly like this.”
Chu Lian didn’t know what to say. She had finally understood that most of the dishes in the Great Wu Dynasty were either boiled or roasted, if not steamed. Other than these three methods of cooking, there were no others. There weren’t even any of the more complex seasonings that would’ve enhanced the flavour of the food.
The sweet and sour fried Chinese cabbage required vegetable oil, but here, they didn’t even have the habit of saving up lard, let alone vegetable oil.
Chu Lian pointed at a slab of pork belly on the chopping board. “Mingyan, cut a chunk about half the size of your palm and slice them into strips as thin as chopsticks.”
These strips would be used to make oil.
Senior Servant Gui saw that Third Young Madam seemed to be giving out a secret recipe again and so she quickly ushered the woman watching the kitchen out.
Chu Lian was already used to their actions. She stood to one side and watched over Mingyan slice the meat, pretending that she didn’t notice anything.
She had only been intending to cook some simple dishes, and other than cooking the meat which required some effort, it would only take an hour inclusive of the time needed to cook the rice.
They wouldn’t let Chu Lian do anything herself, so Xiyan was the one who actually cooked. Although Xiyan was not a stranger to cooking, she didn’t cook often. Adding on the difficulty of cooking the braised pork until the meat turned brown, the braised pork didn’t turn out well as the colour wasn’t ideal.
Although the braised pork looked quite average, it turned out tasting decent.
Since Xiyan could produce something of this quality on her first try, she seemed to possess some talent in cooking.
As they brought the dishes out of the kitchen, the surprise on Xiyan and Senior Servant Gui’s faces took awhile to fade. They didn’t know that food could be cooked this way. Other than boiling, roasting, and steaming, you could actually pan-fry them in such a way. To think that it could turn out looking so tasty!
Chu Lian was long past caring about their reactions, her stomach was rumbling!
“Hurry, I’m hungry! Bring it to the parlour and set up the dishes.”
“Yes, madam.” The servants behind her replied.
The kitchen wasn’t far from the study, on this summer night, there was a cool eastward wind blowing. The kitchen just happened to be upwind of the study.
Laiyue had noticed the movements from the kitchen early on, he had even tiptoed and looked in the direction curiously. Who knew that an extremely enticing aroma would waft along with the breeze after a short moment?