Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 263

Dapanji¹

Every time Sun Miao saw the stunning, cool beauty looking so sweet and docile, her heart would melt. She’d marvel at how she must have hit the jackpot to find a lover like Su Ruixi.

Beautiful, kind, and a great earner. Aloof with others but a little sassy with her, and on top of that, usually so well-behaved… Where else in the world could you find a lover like that?

Both of them felt like they’d won the lottery.

Because they had spent a long time fooling around in bed that morning—or rather, as it neared noon—they ended up eating a very late lunch. Sun Miao didn’t even go out for groceries. Instead, Su Ruixi had their tour guide buy the ingredients from a nearby market, and Sun Miao cooked them in the kitchen.

Sun Miao also took out the shazao² the aunties had given them yesterday. She’d been curious about them for a while, and now that she had the time, she pulled a few out to taste.

“Want one, Susu-jie?”

Su Ruixi shook her head. She’d had them before on a previous trip to the desert and had no interest in them. Seeing Sun Miao’s curiosity, Su Ruixi offered a word of caution: “Take a small bite. The shazao are really not that good.”

“Mm, I’ll give it a try.”

Sun Miao didn’t rush to taste it, choosing to smell it first. It had a faint, honey-like aroma, but it wasn’t strong. Sun Miao was far from a picky eater; as a child in the countryside, she could suck on a slightly sweet reed stalk for ages, so a shazao was nothing.

Sun Miao opened her mouth and took a small bite.

How to describe it? There was a hint of sweetness, but it wasn’t very noticeable. It was mostly a sour, astringent flavor. To put it simply: it really wasn’t good.

Still, it was edible. And since she’d already taken a bite, she couldn’t just spit it out. So, Sun Miao popped the rest of the fruit into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Su Ruixi leaned in, picked one up, and sniffed it. Having eaten them before, she had some experience and offered her assessment:

“The flavor is too faint. It doesn’t seem ripe. Is it very sour?”

“A little.”

“Is it good?”

“Nope.”

Hearing Sun Miao’s answer, Su Ruixi smiled, a knowing “I told you so” look on her face. She whispered, “They’re not good even when they’re ripe. Just sour with a tiny bit of sweetness.”

“But I read that shazao are good for digestion. That means they’re actually perfect for you, Susu-jie.”

That one sentence made Su Ruixi’s face fall. “I don’t want any. They taste bad.”

In the end, Su Ruixi tried one anyway, and the sourness made her face pucker. Sun Miao watched, finding it extremely amusing. Annoyed, Su Ruixi gave Sun Miao a playful swat. She took the opportunity to head back to the kitchen to continue cooking.

Sun Miao was making dapanji, and she’d even asked their local guide for the specific method. As a gold-star guide, she wasn’t much of a cook, but she was an expert eater and talker, describing the method and flavor profile in great detail. Sun Miao could tell she didn’t actually cook it much herself, but she got the key points about the taste. Combining that with videos from master chefs online, recreating the dish wasn’t too difficult.

Of course, “not too difficult” only applied to someone as skilled in the kitchen as Sun Miao.

The chicken didn’t need to be blanched. Blanching would make the texture tough, which would be counterproductive for a dish that prized tender chicken. You’d only need to blanch frozen chicken, since its texture was already compromised anyway.

But without blanching, it needed to be washed repeatedly and thoroughly, until the water ran almost completely clear of blood.

Next, she marinated it for a while with salt, liaojiu³, and other seasonings. While the chicken marinated, Sun Miao made a couple of cold side dishes. Since it was just the two of them, she didn’t need to make many—a simple cucumber salad and some enoki mushrooms with scallion oil would do.

The enoki mushrooms were incredibly easy to make. She just washed them and steamed them until cooked. Then she prepared the dressing: minced scallions and garlic, sugar, salt, and sesame seeds. She poured two spoonfuls of hot oil over the seasonings to release their fragrance, then tossed it all together. Just like that, a delicious side dish that went perfectly with rice was ready. This was Sun Miao’s go-to when she wanted to whip something up for Su Ruixi without much fuss.

When she wasn’t cutting corners, she would first fry some large scallion stalks in the oil to infuse it with flavor, then garnish with chopped scallions at the end.

She was taking the shortcut today because the main course was the dapanji; the other dishes could be simpler.

Once the chicken was done marinating, it was time to prepare the other components: potatoes, green and red bell peppers, and onions. And, of course, the soul of the dish: the kudaimian⁴. The noodles were also simple to make. You just stretched the dough a few times, then slapped it against the cutting board a couple of times to make it thinner.

Then came the actual cooking. She heated oil in the wok, added a generous amount of rock sugar, and started to caramelize it. Once the sugar had melted into a rich caramel, she added all the chicken to the wok. She stir-fried it until it was coated in a beautiful, glossy, reddish-brown sauce, glistening in the pot.

At this point, she added the aromatics—guipi⁵, bajiao⁶, garlic cloves—and then enough water to cover the chicken, letting it simmer slowly. This was the stage where she would normally add dried chilies for a bit of heat, but Su Ruixi’s throat really couldn’t handle it, so Sun Miao left them out. She could always add some chili sauce to her own bowl later; it would be just the same.

Anyone else looking at her dapanji would probably declare it inauthentic, but Sun Miao was perfectly happy with it.

After bringing it to a boil, she added a splash of shengchou⁷, a dash of pepper, and other seasonings to build the flavor. Then she added the vegetables she’d prepared—the potatoes, peppers, and onions. By now, the chicken was about seventy or eighty percent cooked. She let it all stew for a little while longer before uncovering the pot to let the sauce reduce. She didn’t reduce it completely, of course; she needed to leave enough sauce for the kudaimian.

She cooked the kudaimian in a separate pot of boiling water. Once cooked, the single, long noodle was fished out and placed in the bottom of a large platter to serve as a bed. Then, she artfully arranged the finished chicken and vegetables on top. The dish was ready for the table.

The aroma of the dapanji was rich and tantalizing. By now, Su Ruixi was starving. She couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose, sniffing the air.

Her stomach rumbled twice, as if protesting that its owner hadn’t fed it in far too long.

“Susu-jie, time to eat!”

To Su Ruixi’s stomach, that call was the sound of heaven. She emerged from the bedroom and walked to the dining room, sitting down at the table. Her eyes immediately landed on the enormous platter of dapanji in the center.

But then… she noticed the green and red peppers on top.

“Miaomiao⁸, I can’t eat spicy food.”

Last night with the lamb skewers, Su Ruixi had made her stance on spice very clear. Sun Miao hadn’t let her have any then, and Su Ruixi had actually felt a little disappointed she couldn’t try the other flavor.

Su Ruixi was clearly a person who forgot the pain once the scar healed. She didn’t seem to remember how miserable she’d been the last couple of times she’d eaten something spicy. In fact, her tone held a hint of eagerness. Sun Miao saw right through her little act. “I didn’t use any dried chilies,” she said directly. “These green and red ones are bell peppers. They aren’t spicy. Go on, Susu-jie, give it a try.”

Satisfied, Su Ruixi’s voice lifted. “Okay~”

Sun Miao handed her a bowl, and she picked up her chopsticks, launching an assault on the dapanji. The cucumber salad and enoki mushrooms, her beloved favorites of yesterday, were completely forgotten. Pfft, with a brand-new dish in front of her, who wanted to eat the same old sides she had all the time?

But as a lover of vegetables, Su Ruixi’s first choice was a piece of potato.

She adored potatoes. She loved them in stews with chicken, ribs, or beef brisket. She especially loved the ones in the stewed ribs Sun Miao made—Sun Miao was a master at that dish, and Su Ruixi couldn’t get enough of the potatoes in it. Beyond that, from shredded potatoes to mashed potatoes to french fries, there wasn’t a potato dish Su Ruixi didn’t love.

She was simply a potato head.⁹

And this potato… it was stewed to perfection. It had a golden hue, but you could tell it had soaked up the rich, reddish-brown sauce from the dapanji, making it darker than the potatoes in a typical rib stew. The potato was clearly fork-tender—you could tell just by touching it with your chopsticks—yet it held its shape, allowing her to lift it easily.

With a gentle pinch of her chopsticks, a piece broke away, revealing the fluffy, starchy texture inside. Su Ruixi lifted the smaller piece to her mouth.

The natural taste of the potato intertwined with the rich sauce on her tongue. The flavor was far more complex than that of a normal stewed potato, and Su Ruixi couldn’t help but close her eyes in pleasure. More importantly, the potato, saturated with the sauce, carried the unique essence of the dapanji straight to her soul. She immediately reached out with her chopsticks again and ate the larger remaining piece in her bowl.

After finishing the potato, Su Ruixi eagerly picked up a piece of chicken. It still had a bit of skin on it. After only a moment’s hesitation, she went for it.

She used to hate chicken skin; she couldn’t understand how anyone in the world could enjoy it. What was there to like? If it wasn’t cleaned properly, there could be leftover pinfeathers. If it wasn’t cooked well, it was tough and chewy with no flavor.

Most of the time, Su Ruixi would just peel the skin off and throw it away, deliberately looking for pieces without any. But since getting together with Sun Miao, she had learned to face chicken skin with an open mind——in this world, there are no unpalatable ingredients, only chefs who don’t know how to bring out their best.

She even opened her mouth and took her first bite right from the skin. Just as she expected, even the chicken skin made by Sun Miao was delicious!

The chicken had been stir-fried over high heat right after being coated in the caramel. The intense heat had instantly seared the skin, making it delightfully chewy and giving it a texture similar to the skin of a roast chicken. And because it had also been stewed until tender, a single bite was enough to tear the skin from the meat. After a few chews to release its flavor, it was easy to swallow.

With the delicious skin as an appetizer, her curiosity about the meat itself grew even stronger. No one could remain composed in the face of Sun Miao’s cooking, least of all Su Ruixi. Holding the piece with her chopsticks, she took a large bite of the chicken meat.

In that instant, an explosion of ultimate tenderness filled her mouth.

Su Ruixi found it hard to describe the sensation. It was just… tender. So incredibly tender. It was so tender that Su Ruixi half-wondered if Sun Miao had secretly used a ton of meat tenderizer—how else could it be this soft?

As she ate, an image of a little, fluffy yellow chick popped into her head and started to dance.

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The author has something to say:

Su Ruixi: I love “traveling”¹⁰ so much!

Sun Miao: Me too!

The old customers¹¹: ……

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