I'm the Culinary God

"Hahahaha, my luck is off the charts today!"

In the evening, Chen Yan returned to the shop. She had just stepped through the door when she started telling Shu Yun, face full of excitement, about how lucky she’d been today.

Every scratch-off lottery ticket she bought had a prize. She spent five hundred yuan on scratch-offs and scratched out twenty to thirty thousand. After that, she went to claw machines, raffles, the basketball-shooting game—she swept them all.

"You didn’t see it— I emptied three claw machines. Those little kids were so jealous their snot was bubbling, kept praising how awesome this auntie was. I got so happy I gave all the dolls I grabbed to them, and they immediately changed how they called me and started shouting ’big sister’... Kids these days have seriously high emotional intelligence."

After she finished, she scooped up Dundun in her arms:

"Little baby, is Auntie’s good luck today thanks to that little pat from you? Thank you, Auntie is very happy."

Dundun: "..."

This cat just wants to die now!

Stupid woman, do you have any idea what you just missed out on?

It struggled free from Chen Yan’s arms, then stormed into its little room and refused to come out, even deliberately using a small cushion to block the entrance tight.

"Uh... what’s up with it?"

Shu Yun said with a smile:

"You grabbed all those dolls and gave them to other kids, but forgot your own little kid. Anyone would be upset."

Chen Yan lightly patted her own head when she heard that, then pulled out a so-ugly-it’s-cute Grey Wolf plush from her bag and said:

"I did, I did. I thought this Grey Wolf’s color looks a lot like Dundun, so I specially put it in my bag to bring back. Little Dundun, wanna come out and check out your toy?"

As soon as it heard there was a toy, Dundun poked its head out, then wriggled out of the little room.

When it saw Grey Wolf, it lifted its paw to grab it in its claws, then went back into its little room, continuing to keep its distance from Chen Yan.

Upstairs, Lin Xu looked at the Grouper Old Huang had just delivered and thought that his father-in-law must not have gotten his fill at lunch, buying this much all at once.

A roughly six-jin Mouse Grouper, a five-jin Red Spot Grouper, two almost five-jin Eastern Star Groupers, and a four-and-a-half-jin wild Gu fish.

With this much fish, if he turned all of it into Vinegar Fried Crucian Carp, everyone would get tired of it. Better to make several different dishes and experiment a bit.

Cooking shouldn’t be limited to one set of moves. You have to break through yourself and innovate.

The fish were still alive. Old Huang had specially brought some seawater when he bought them, and that Gu fish was still being kept in the aquarium.

Lin Xu planned to make that one last, to preserve the fish’s freshness as much as possible.

Taking advantage of the free time before dinner, he grabbed some shepherd’s purse, Spinach, leaf lettuce and other greens, and started experimenting with making Jade Shumai.

Since it was just a test run, he didn’t make much, only one steamer basket of each kind.

When they came out of the steamer, he found the shepherd’s purse version pretty good. It tasted a bit like shepherd’s purse dumplings, especially the mix of shepherd’s purse and lard— that aroma was exactly the same as the wild shepherd’s purse dumplings he’d had as a kid.

The Spinach filling was also quite good: soft, silky, with Spinach’s unique fresh green aroma. Eating it didn’t lose at all to the original version with rapeseed greens.

The only problem was that they had to remove the Spinach stems. Otherwise, if they got mixed in with the leaves, they’d be crunchy when you bit into them, which clashed obviously with the leaves’ tenderness.

As for the leaf lettuce, that didn’t work. The flavor was too strong, and the leaves weren’t soft but crisp. Made into a filling, it gave a weird sensation in the mouth.

For those who could get used to it, this taste would be very appealing; but for those who couldn’t, it’d be uncomfortable.

For example, Zhu Yong was really into the leaf lettuce Jade Shumai. In his opinion, it even beat the original rapeseed version.

But Wei Qian found it hard to swallow and thought it was a waste of that lard and minced Ham.

From this experiment, Lin Xu realized that the vegetables suitable for making Jade Shumai needed to be greens with a soft, delicate, fresh taste; those with a crunchy texture weren’t suitable.

As for ingredients beyond leafy greens, he did make a new discovery.

Yellow cabbage, meaning yellow-leafed Chinese cabbage, came out with a soft, delicate, fresh texture. The pairing of lard and cabbage was perfect, and the addition of minced Ham made the flavor even more savory and fragrant.

But even with yellow cabbage, you still had to use the leaves, not the stalks.

And when using the leaves, you even had to strip out the ribs. That way, the Jade Shumai that came out, both in texture and flavor, gave people a surprisingly delightful feeling.

And that warm yellow filling, although it didn’t look like cabbage, gave off a gentle, jade-like impression.

"This yellow-leaf cabbage is really nice— fresh, fragrant, with a faint lingering sweetness that’s clearly different from sugar. Let’s use this later."

The head chefs in the back kitchen all felt the yellow cabbage was quite a surprise and kept suggesting they make more.

Lin Xu naturally had no objections:

"Okay, let’s get started. We’ll turn the leftover cabbage cores into Vinegar Fried Cabbage—sour, refreshing, and perfect with rice."

Many places in the Northern region have Vinegar Fried Cabbage, but that recipe is completely different from Vinegar Fried Crucian Carp. Vinegar Fried Cabbage is purely a homestyle stir-fry, a taste from the childhood of many Northerners.

Cut the cabbage cores into strips, stir-fry them in a wok after searing the pan with dried chili, then drizzle in some Chen Vinegar while cooking. The finished dish is sour, spicy, and crisp, even more addictive than spicy and sour Potato Strips.

When everyone started cooking, Lin Xu brought the leftover shumai out of the kitchen. Shen Jiayue, who was editing videos outside, caught a whiff of the aroma and, surprised, took off her headphones:

"Is it mealtime, Xu-bao?"

"Not yet. I just made some Jade Shumai for testing. Try them and see which one you like; we’ll make that later."

Shen Jiayue froze for a second, not expecting this kind of perk.