Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 244

Xixi’s Favorite Food

The moment Sun Miao asked, “Are we at the entrance to the residential community?” Su Ruixi secretly knew this was bad. She now had a good understanding of what kind of person Sun Miao was. Sun Miao’s little-citizen mentality of being content with small wealth¹ had been influencing her all along. Sun Miao probably knew that Su Ruixi was very rich, but she didn’t have a very intuitive understanding of exactly how rich Su Ruixi was.

It was like how everyone knows the richest person in the country is wealthy, and might really travel by helicopter, but when that person’s helicopter lands right in front of you, it’s a completely different feeling.

Sun Miao was in the same situation. She knew the Su family was extremely wealthy, and that even that industrial park belonged to them. She had even secretly searched it up; the internet said that Father Su was a strong contender for the title of the richest man in the city. The gold content² of this title was, one could say, exploding the meter³; it wouldn’t be out of place for him to compete with the richest in the entire country.

But after she read that, she felt it was still too distant from her own life, so she tossed it to the back of her mind.

As a result, at this moment, upon seeing a small mountain, a massive and ornate wrought-iron gate, and the cement road behind it that stretched out of sight, Sun Miao was truly in a dazed circle. That was why Sun Miao had asked that question.

Su Ruixi was hitting haha⁴: “You could say that, I guess.”

But in reality, it was a bit difficult for her to admit that from this wrought-iron gate onward, the entire small mountain behind it belonged to her family. Not only was the gate huge, but it was also equipped with high technology. The moment it detected Su Ruixi’s license plate, it opened automatically from a great distance without needing anyone’s control, allowing Su Ruixi to drive straight into her home without slowing down.

After driving a short distance, Su Ruixi’s car stopped at the main entrance. She got out with Sun Miao, and after they exited, a dedicated person was responsible for driving Su Ruixi’s car to the garage, to be brought back to the entrance whenever Su Ruixi needed it. Seeing this scene, and the fact that there was only this one main building along the entire road in, Sun Miao finally understood: What residential community! She had been foolish; there was no community at all. From start to finish, only Su Ruixi’s family lived here!

At that moment, Sun Miao felt a little awkward and also experienced what it meant to be truly rich. She had never dared to imagine that Su Ruixi’s family could be wealthy to this degree. Sun Miao couldn’t help but exclaim, “Susu-jie, your family is so incredibly rich.”

Su Ruixi was over on the side communicating with the household help, telling them there were still things in the trunk. She happened to turn back just then and shrugged. “It’s alright.” Only after everything was taken out did she and Sun Miao each start carrying two or three bags inside.

Just as they entered the main door, Shen Yiqiu came up to greet them, with Father Su standing behind her with a sullen face. Shen Yiqiu spoke first, “You’re already here, why bring food?” As she spoke, her eyes drifted toward Sun Miao and Su Ruixi’s hands. When she saw the several gift boxes, she couldn’t help but feel a little dispirited.

Father Su, of course, knew what Shen Yiqiu was thinking and said directly, “And they’re gift boxes, too. That’s so insincere.”

Su Ruixi glanced at Father Su but didn’t say anything to him. Instead, she looked at Shen Yiqiu. “Miaomiao was preparing these at home yesterday. She brought you zhe’ergen lajiang⁵, tuhuangyou⁶, and also prepared some sunding xianggu roubao⁷. They just need to be heated up to be eaten.”

Well now, Sun Miao had brought homemade things after all. This immediately made Shen Yiqiu beam with joy. Seeing Shen Yiqiu so easily bought over, Father Su was eating vinegar⁸ and could only say while stiffening his neck⁹, “We don’t even know if it tastes good yet, and you’re all so happy.”

The three of them were very enthusiastic and paid him no mind. Shen Yiqiu reached out, took Sun Miao’s hand, and led her inside. After they sat down on the sofa, she didn’t forget to ask Sun Miao, “How long do those sunding xianggu roubao need to be steamed? How much water should I use?”

Hearing Shen Yiqiu ask this, Sun Miao quickly offered, “Auntie, let me steam them. I’ll make a sample¹⁰, so it’ll be easier for you to steam them yourselves next time.”

This was exactly what Shen Yiqiu wanted to hear. She chuckled happily and, turning around, led Sun Miao into her family’s kitchen. From the two large boxes of buns she had prepared, which had already been unpacked, Sun Miao took out one box, found a steamer, added water, and began to heat them up.

After setting the timer, Sun Miao finally had time to observe the Su family’s kitchen. How to put it… as expected of a rich family. Su Ruixi’s own kitchen was already very large, and Sun Miao felt she could display her eighteen kinds of martial arts¹¹ in there, but she never expected the Su family’s kitchen to be even more impressive. What surprised Sun Miao the most was that there was even an earthen stove.

The earthen stove seemed a bit out of place in this kitchen, but an earthen stove could be said to be the dream of many cooks. Mainly because it was exceptionally large. It might not be necessary for stir-frying, but for making some guoba¹², steaming some dishes, or cooking for a large family, making a hodgepodge stew or something, it couldn’t be more suitable.

Sun Miao’s gaze landed on it and never left. Shen Yiqiu saw this and explained, “It was your Shushu who insisted on it. He loves earthen stoves, said they’re especially useful, so we had one specially built. He even wanted to put it outside at first, but in the end, we couldn’t win the argument against your Shushu, so he stubbornly had it placed inside.”

“Earthen stoves are great.”

Sun Miao said, “When I was at the orphanage, we were quite poor back then, and the orphanage used an earthen stove. When we were young, we loved to eat the guoba made from the earthen stove; it was especially crispy. It was so delicious.” Sun Miao’s words carried a hint of reminiscence, as if she was remembering scenes from her childhood, running around with two or three little friends, guoba in hand.

In fact, such scenes were not uncommon; both Shen Yiqiu and Father Su had similar memories.

“Ah, you’ve eaten from an earthen stove before. Xixi didn’t get to eat much of it when she was little. Although this earthen stove was built to satisfy her dad, it hasn’t actually been used much.”

As they spoke, Sun Miao moved closer to the earthen stove. The earthen stoves of her childhood were truly rustic and earthy, but the Su family’s was built with high-quality bricks. It was cool to the touch and had no dust, but just as Shen Yiqiu had said, it was basically never used.

“Because modern stoves are also very useful, but firewood rice¹³ is also delicious, and guoba is delicious too.”

If this were Su Ruixi’s own earthen stove, Sun Miao would probably have eagerly rolled up her sleeves to cook something herself. But since this was the Su family home, Sun Miao remained restrained. However, given time, she would surely be able to ascend the hall and enter the room¹⁴ of the Su family’s kitchen.

At this moment, the chef hired by the Su family arrived. They greeted, “Madam,” nodded at Sun Miao, and then began preparing today’s lunch. Sun Miao watched for a while, thinking to herself that a master chef was indeed a master chef; they really have two brushes¹⁵. But she had only watched for a moment before Shen Yiqiu pulled her away. She said to Sun Miao with great pride, “Come, I’ll make a few dishes for you to try. Especially this one, jiaoyan paigu¹⁶. It’s Xixi’s favorite.”

When she heard the four words “jiaoyan paigu,” Sun Miao almost couldn’t hold it together. Although she didn’t know how Shen Yiqiu’s jiaoyan paigu tasted, the latter half of the sentence, “It’s Xixi’s favorite,” was full of slot points¹⁷.

When it came to Su Ruixi’s tastes, there was probably no one in this world who had them more clearly grasped than Sun Miao. Su Ruixi simply didn’t like to eat things with strong flavors, let alone a flavor like “salt and pepper.” She loved many of the things Sun Miao made; she could even accept things like fried skewers. But if you were talking about her absolute favorite, it would definitely be various soups and stir-fried seasonal vegetables.

She had also grown very fond of buns like the sunding xianggu roubao recently, and tuhuangyou was also her heart’s favorite.

But her absolute favorite was definitely not jiaoyan paigu. She was only so-so on salt and pepper prawns, let alone pork ribs, which had an even stronger gamey taste.

But Shen Yiqiu’s confident appearance made Sun Miao fall into a bit of doubt: Could it be that Shen Yiqiu had some secret recipe, or was this where the greatness of a mother’s love lay, that even a dish Su Ruixi disliked became exceptionally beloved because it had the “taste of mom”?

Sun Miao could only stand by and watch.

However, the very first step Shen Yiqiu took made Sun Miao’s brow want to furrow tightly. She had to remember that this was Shen Yiqiu, Su Ruixi’s biological mother, to force herself to maintain a smile. Shen Yiqiu’s first step was to add liaojiu¹⁸ to marinate the ribs. This step itself wasn’t wrong, but Shen Yiqiu added way too much.

The heroic manner in which Shen Yiqiu poured the liaojiu couldn’t help but remind Sun Miao of a news story she had seen before. Traffic police on a highway pulled over a driver for a test. The test showed that the driver was driving under the influence. But faced with iron-clad facts, he insisted he hadn’t been drinking. In the end, it turned out to be because his mother had added an excessive amount of liaojiu to the chicken soup she had stewed.

Right now, Sun Miao was having that exact sense of déjà vu.

No… does this really remove the fishy and gamey smell? Okay, in a sense, it did. It was just replaced by the heavy smell of liaojiu.

While the pork ribs were marinating, Shen Yiqiu began the process of making the salt and pepper mix. She chopped up denglongjiao¹⁹, added a sufficient amount of salt, and then stir-fried them in a large wok. Up to this point, there were no problems; it was clear that Shen Yiqiu had the process for jiaoyan paigu rotten and cooked in her heart²⁰. It’s just… why did the pork ribs need so much liaojiu.

Sun Miao still held the previous step uneasily in her heart²¹.

After that, she ground the stir-fried ingredients into a powder, added MSG, and mixed it again.

Shen Yiqiu really had a knack for making the salt and pepper mix; you could tell she was very satisfied with her own from-scratch process. And there really wasn’t a problem, except that she used denglongjiao… it would be very spicy. How could her Susu-jie eat something so spicy? Shen Yiqiu was also quite heavy-handed; you could tell from the color of the salt and pepper mix.

If it were Sun Miao, she would be delighted to see it, but Su Ruixi was probably already thinking about escaping.

Next came the most important step—starting the actual cooking of the jiaoyan paigu.

First, adding wide oil²². The Su family’s kitchen was like a standard, large restaurant’s back kitchen. Shen Yiqiu directly took over a cooking station and poured in a lot of oil. When the oil was heated to about sixty percent, she began to add the marinated pork ribs.

Shen Yiqiu’s marination of the pork ribs really had a huge problem, so when she added them to the wok, the oil popped and banged loudly. Sixty-percent-hot oil wouldn’t actually create such a big splash, but when Shen Yiqiu put the ribs in, even Sun Miao couldn’t help but dodge to the side.

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