The Game of Life

The kitchen spices were simple: just the basic oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar. Jiang Feng glanced at the vegetables Tian Lin had washed earlier, which were just eggplants and Chinese cabbage, along with a purchased soy sauce duck and a few pieces of tofu.

Jiang Feng thought for a moment. Dishes that were too difficult could easily go wrong, so he decided to make minced meat with eggplant, stir-fried Chinese cabbage, sauteed tofu, and braised meat. For Sir’s sake, he’d make a special serving of steamed egg with shrimp. That should be about right for lunch.

The braised meat had been simmering in the pot for a while now, beyond saving. All Jiang Feng could do was to make sure the braised meat turned out well. Sir just liked to pick meat for the younger ones. If braised meat was meat, how could braised meat not be meat?

Tian Lin had previously taken out a piece of meat to thaw. It really was fatty-a handful of thick lard left oily residue on one’s hands, a cut of Wuhua pork from a four-hundred-pound New Year’s pig.

The best Wuhua pork was divided into thirty percent fat and seventy percent lean. The cut of Wuhua pork in front of Jiang Feng was almost sixty percent fat. This was partly due to Tian Lin’s subpar meat-cutting skills, but such fatty pork could turn extremely greasy if not cooked carefully.

Most people don’t like eating fatty meat, but if they meet a chef who knows how to cook it right, even those who are averse to fat might be willing to give it a try. The Wuhua pork used in many Dongpo pork dishes is nearly fifty percent fat, yet it still has countless fans.

Some people dislike fatty meat because it contains a lot of fat, and bile can’t break down all the fat, making it undigestable and unabsorbable in a timely manner. This leads to a greasy feeling and can cause nausea. Conversely, fat is a high-energy substance, and the energy released during its breakdown provides a feeling of fullness that sugar and protein can’t compare to.

Eating meat is a pleasure, and eating fatty meat is even more so.

Therefore, controlling the intake of fat is the key to making good braised meat.

(All of the above is just my nonsense.)

Jiang Feng carefully sliced the meat, trimming away the excess lard to render oil, which could then be used for frying eggplants, trying to keep the fat-to-lean ratio of the Wuhua pork within an appropriate range.

He marinated the meat, boiled it twice with ginger slices and green onions and garlic to remove scum, then stir-fried it on high heat for a few times. After adding various seasonings, he simmered it on low heat with the hd on.

The rest was left to time, to let the fat in the pork slowly break down through the simmering on low heat. The sauce and juices would gradually penetrate the Wuhua pork. When the meat darkened in color and the rich meaty aroma with a hint of sweetness wafted out, then a high heat was applied to thicken the sauce, and the braised pork would be done.

On a single stove with two pots, the fire area was interconnected. Jiang Feng pushed the firewood slightly to the side to avoid the flames getting too high and charring the meat before the fat could render. The rice cooked on this type of wood-burning stove inherently had a woody aroma, making both steamed rice and stir-fry tastier. However, it also meant that controlling the heat was more difficult. If you just wanted to cook something passable, you could either tend the fire yourself or find someone random to do it, but to cook a truly good dish, the person tending the fire had to be in sync with the chef.

In ancient times, imperial chefs had specific firewood for every dish. The assistants tending the fire were often apprentices of the imperial chefs themselves, and it was this understanding between master and apprentice that facilitated the cooking of exceptional dishes.

Nowadays, chefs don’t have this trouble; they use gas stoves where they can control the heat however they want, cooking as they please.

No one was there to manage the fire for Jiang Feng, so he just messed around a bit. With advanced knifework, fire control, and seasoning, his cooking had taken a qualitative leap. As long as he wasn’t distracted, the flavor of the dishes wouldn’t disappoint.

I started off by making minced meat with eggplant. First, I peeled the eggplant and cut it into thick slices about one and a half fingers wide, then into strips. I chopped the lean meat into mince, trying to get it as fine as possible, almost like a paste, and also minced the green onions, ginger, and garlic. First, I coated the eggplant slices with a light dusting of starch and deep-fried them in hot oil. I fried them until they were just starting to turn slightly yellow and then took them out of the pan.

I cooked the minced meat on high heat until it was done, then added various seasonings and a bowl of water. I brought it to a boil over high heat, and once I could smell the aroma, I added the eggplant. I thickened the sauce with starch water, tossing and stirring the pot to mix the eggplant evenly. Once the sauce was evenly distributed, I took it out of the pan and plated it.

Jiang Feng tasted it while it was still hot. The eggplant was flavorful, fried to the right degree with a slight crispness on the outside but remaining soft on the inside, and the sauce was well balanced, moderately salty.

There, this dish would definitely not earn me a scolding from Sir!

The earth stove was great for cooking, but cleaning the pot afterward was a hassle. Jiang Feng scooped up a ladle of water and gave the pot a quick rinse, pretending that it was clean. The minced meat with eggplant dish would be considered a luxury in a college cafeteria, and since the next two dishes I was going to make were both vegetarian, I had to be careful not to mix the flavors. The Chinese cabbage was very fresh; since both the minced meat with eggplant and braised meat were salty, I made a sour and spicy Chinese cabbage dish for a change. Cooking the cabbage only took a few minutes. After giving it a try, Jiang Feng realized the high quality of the cabbage really made the dish outstanding. It was fresh, tender, and fragrant, which made it seem as if his cooking skills were quite impressive.

The tofu was of average quality, not very tender, probably bought two days ago, which didn’t suit well for making silky tofu. However, Jiang Feng liked to make silky tofu, so he made it according to his own preference anyway.

After cutting the tofu into pieces and slicing the garlic, I knew adding some cilantro would have been better, but Jiang Jianshe and my two female cousins didn’t eat cilantro. Especially Jiang Junlian; she felt nauseous just smelling it. To quote her, the smell felt like cilantro was upsetting her stomach directly in her mouth. Because of this, cilantro was never added to any dish at a Jiang family gathering, even though some dishes were tasteless without it.

The steps for making silky tofu are actually quite simple: add hot oil to a heated pan, stir-fry over high heat, and lastly, thicken the sauce with starch water. As long as I tossed and stirred evenly, and the sauce soaked into the tofu, the flavor wouldn’t fail. It didn’t require much skill in fire control, and I could do it very well even when my fire control was only at an intermediate level.

Now, with advanced fire control skills, it was even easier. The tofu absorbed the broth and took on a light yellow hue. After tasting a piece, Jiang Feng thought it was flavorful-only the texture of the tofu wasn’t as soft as it could have been, but that was an issue with the tofu itself, and it was still decent.

The braised meat in the other pot wasn’t ready yet. I planned to steam the egg foo young once the braised meat was done—that dish was the easiest to prepare, as long as I strained the egg mixture several times. After steaming, I would sprinkle some sesame oil on top. If I had the means, I’d decorate the dish with some high-quality mushrooms; otherwise, I’d steam it like an ordinary steamed egg.

You might say that steamed egg is probably the easiest dish to make after boiled eggs, as long as you can get it cooked, you can eat it. Whether it comes out looking like a honeycomb or a small bowl of steamed egg with enough egg to make it seem like a cake, the taste isn’t compromised. At most, the texture will vary significantly, but altogether, it’s edible.

Looking at the three dishes in front of me, Jiang Feng felt today was the day he could hold his head high among his uncles and cousins!

After the debacle of frying fish on Lantern Festival last year, Jiang Feng’s image had taken a hit: ‘Feng used to be good at cooking when he was little, but not anymore; even frying a fish, he tends to burn it.’

I hadn’t cooked in almost five years when Sir caught me and made me fry fish, leading to an embarrassing flop.

Today, I, Jiang Feng, am going to show everyone that I wasn’t just good when was younger.

Now having leveled up, I’ve become even better!