Chapter 880: Extra Story 3: The Rise of Jiang Feng (Part 5) Chapter 880: Extra Story 3: The Rise of Jiang Feng (Part 5) Jiang Feng prepared eighteen dishes for the New Year’s Eve dinner, including six cold dishes and twelve hot dishes. Among the six cold dishes, besides cucumber salad and five-spice chicken, the other four, including a mixed platter of simmered meats, were all purchased by Jiang Jiankang from the town on the 30th.

Don’t ask why there is cucumber salad among the cold dishes, if asked, it’s all about staying true to the original intention.

Cold dishes have always been light appetizers on the Jiang family’s dining table for chatting and entertaining while waiting for the meal. They are rarely eaten and usually left over for breakfast on the first and second day of the New Year, while the hot dishes are the main event.

This time, the twelve hot dishes Jiang Feng prepared could definitely be called the best New Year’s Eve dinner in the Jiang family’s recent decades. Whether it was the grade of the ingredients, the difficulty of the dishes, or the quality of the dishes themselves, all were far superior to those previously prepared by the old man. If the old man hadn’t voluntarily stepped down this year, some might have suspected that Jiang Feng’s excellent cooking was meant to challenge the old man’s authority and show everyone who the new king of the Jiang family was.

In fact, Jiang Feng cooked so many complex dishes simply because he was nervous.

It was his first time cooking the New Year’s Eve dinner, and he was nervous, scared, and excited. Not knowing which dishes to pick as the main ones, he made every dish a highlight, practicing a philosophy similar to that of a Swallow-wing Feast. Any single hot dish from a Swallow-wing Feast could dominate the table, and together, they were like gods battling. Fortunately, the dishes in a Swallow-wing Feast are served one by one; otherwise, diners might wish they had more mouths, as one simply wouldn’t be enough.

The twelve dishes Jiang Feng prepared for the New Year’s Eve dinner couldn’t match the extravagant ingredients of a Swallow-wing Feast, but in terms of quality and taste of the dishes, they could surpass it.

Who said Jiang Feng’s dishes had a buff.

A good buff might not be decisive, but it could add a final flourish, lifting a dish to the next level.

The twelve dishes Jiang Feng prepared were sweet and sour yam, Jiang’s sea cucumber soup, chopped pepper fish head, braised beef with carrots, phoenix egg, eight-treasure tofu, lobster baked with superior soup, preserved vegetable pork belly, crab roe lion’s head, bi-color prawns, apple roasted pancakes, and the grand finale, jade white cabbage.

Initially, Jiang Feng had planned to cook following the idea of balancing chicken, duck, fish, and meat, but then he thought about how the Jiang family’s dining table never cared about all that; having fish to ensure surplus and auspiciousness for the new year was enough.

Then, Jiang Feng’s thought shifted to cooking what he was good at and choosing either dishes that had a good buff or were favored by the elders at home.

Braised beef with carrots symbolized the best of luck for the year. Although using it for New Year’s felt like not putting good steel to its best use, it was nice to seek some auspicious fortune during the festival.

Eight-treasure tofu made an unexpected entrance simply because Jiang Feng felt it was essential to have some vegetables in the New Year’s Eve dinner for a semblance of healthiness.

As for why there were sweet and sour yam and apple roasted pancakes–two sweet dishes–the reason was even simpler, as Mrs. Jiang liked them–if she could bite into them.

Jiang Feng knew that if he made sweet lotus root with sticky rice, Mrs. Jiang would like it even more, but others might not, and he himself couldn’t stand the sweetness of that dish. Who could handle that?

Only three dishes among the twelve required broth, Jiang’s sea cucumber soup, lobster baked with superior soup, and jade white cabbage, the broth for the latter being prepared that morning by the old man and Jiang Weiming taking turns watching it. It seemed like not many dishes used the broth, but the quantity used was substantial, mainly because Jiang Feng made the Jiang’s sea cucumber soup based on the number of people, doubling the portion size to cater to the family’s taste.

Theoretically, Jiang’s sea cucumber soup should be slow-cooked in a small pot, but that day Jiang Feng used a clay pot.

The same kind of pot used for cooking porridge.

After delivering the chicken tofu next door, Jiang Feng went back to the kitchen to focus on cooking.

With Jiang’s sea cucumber soup simmering on the stove, the rich aroma of the broth mixed with seafood never ceased in the air. During the previous finals, the Jiang family members sitting in the front row didn’t feel much, but this time, whether they were revising proposals in the room, doing homework, cleaning, or watching dramas on their phones, they all drooled from the smells.

The significant difference was because the venue during the final was large and the quantity small, so the scent of Jiang’s sea cucumber soup couldn’t escape much before the lid was opened. This time was different; the space was small, the quantity was huge, and everyone knew Jiang Feng was cooking delicious food in the kitchen, thinking and yearning for what would be eaten tonight, involuntarily smelling intensely.

The Jiang family members were dying for a taste, and so were the neighbors at the Zhao family.

Zhao Liang sat next to the stove with a small stool, watching over the chicken soup.

Although Li Cuihua’s cooking skills couldn’t compare to the neighboring Jiang family, her ability to raise chickens was among the best in the village. The chickens were big and fat, with delicate yet robust meat. Every year during the New Year, she would stew a two-year-old hen, thick with fat and rich in savory broth, allowing Zhao Liang to enjoy two big bowls every year without fail.

This year was an exception.

After finishing the chicken tofu, Zhao Liang found the rich chicken broth tasteless.

Li Cuihua, too, looked utterly uninterested as she chopped vegetables in the kitchen.

“Grandma, what exactly was that tofu made of this morning? It looked just like tofu, yet it tasted like chicken, even better than stewed chicken.” Zhao Liang was baffled, “I searched it online and it should be called chicken tofu, but the pictures online and what we had this morning don’t quite match. The online version didn’t look like tofu, but what we had this morning looked exactly like real tofu.”

“If you ask me, who am I supposed to ask?” Li Cuihua, while chopping pork belly, pondered the same question as Zhao Liang.

Li Cuihua was puzzled; they always say that academically gifted kids are reincarnations of the god of literature, but what about kids with good cooking skills–reincarnations of the Kitchen God? Does the Kitchen God even manage the taste of dishes?

“By the way, didn’t Feng ask you to bring some plates over? It’s past ten already; they probably need them by now. Hurry and take the plates over,” urged Li Cuihua.

Zhao Liang got up to fetch the dishes and bowls, gathering all the unused ones from the cupboard, a large stack, and headed toward the Jiang Family’s home.

When he reached the living room, Zhao Liang was stopped by his father.

“Liangliang, why are you carrying so many plates?”

“The neighbors are short of plates, so I’m taking these over to them,” Zhao Liang replied.

“How do you know? No one from next door came to borrow any.”

“Jiang Feng mentioned it when he delivered something early this morning; you and Mom were still asleep, and Grandpa was out for a walk,” Zhao Liang replied.

“Delivered something, what did he deliver?”

“Tofu.”

Zhao Liang’s dad suddenly laughed, “The Jiang Family really is something, eating tofu early in the morning.”

Zhao Liang didn’t respond but gave his dad a meaningful look and ran off with the plates.

When Zhao Liang arrived at the Jiang Family’s home, Jiang Feng was just making apple pancakes.

Given that there was no oven in the kitchen, Jiang Feng making a bonfire in the yard to bake the pancakes didn’t seem too odd, just unnecessarily complicated. Sir even briefly reflected whether his own outdated thinking and unwillingness to buy an oven had forced his grandson into this situation.

Even though baking pancakes in the courtyard during the harsh winter winds seemed strange, Jiang Feng was quite enjoying it.

This was his first time baking pancakes, so it was a novel experience for him. As he baked, he found Xia Mushi’s pancake-baking method quite interesting–it was completely different from using an oven, and it uniquely combined the concepts of baking and making pies.

Seeing Zhao Liang arrive, Jiang Feng asked him to take the plates to the kitchen and wait a while before leaving, as Zhao Liang could try the pancakes while they were still hot once they were done.

Thus, Zhao Liang successfully scored a pancake and finished it off in the Jiang Family’s courtyard while chatting with Jiang Feng. He inquired about the menu prices and availability at the Taifeng Building before heading back.

Baking a pancake took quite some time, and Jiang Feng only baked two in total–one for Zhao Liang, and the other for Jiang Junlian, who had been sneakily watching through a small window in the room, closely monitoring the yard activities and managed to write an English cloze test in one hour.

Jiang Junlian’s pancake was first divided in half by her dad and mom, and then a half of that half was further shared with Jiang Junqing, a typical Jiang Family style of dividing pancakes.

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The half hour before the Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner is always the hardest to endure.

All the dishes are basically ready, and many that could be warmed later had already been taken out of the pot; the mixed aromas of various dishes filled the air, spreading everywhere with just a slight breeze.

But just then, no one could eat, they could only gather around the table, eyes locked on the six plates of cold dishes, bouncing back and forth between the smashed cucumber and the five-spice chicken, making tough decisions between grabbing a longer noodle to fill their stomachs and starving a little longer until they could gorge themselves.

In previous years, Jiang Feng was always the one who suffered.

This year, he was the one causing the suffering.

Jiang Junlian had a quarter of a roasted pancake for lunch, and her expectations for the New Year’s Eve dinner had already skyrocketed. From the moment the dishes hit the table, her eyes never strayed; she kept her neck craned like the goose still alive in the courtyard, staring fixedly at the kitchen.

The older Jiang family members guessed, as usual, what dishes Jiang Feng had cooked this year, exceptional guessers in this respect. Although everyone had lived in the same building for the past two years, they rarely had the chance to eat together, each busy with their tasks.

Jiang Jiankang was different, as he worked with Jiang Feng every day, cooked beside him across the stove, sharing work meals. He knew Jiang Feng’s specialties like the back of his hand, and he could guess most of them even if he couldn’t smell them.

“Definitely Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup. I can smell it already,” Jiang Jianshe declared confidently.

“No need to smell–it’s obvious. That dish is too easy to guess,” Jiang Jiandang dismissed outright, “I could even guess that there’s Jade and Gold Cabbage.”

Everyone had watched “Taste”; who didn’t know the origin of those two dishes?

Jiang Jianguo had been silent the whole time, inhaling deeply with his eyes closed: “I seem to smell stewed beef. Carrot stewed beef! Yes, it must be carrot stewed beef.”

Jiang Jiankang inhaled deeply too but found the mixture of scents too overwhelming to detect any hint of beef, wondering how his older brother could have identified the dish, which wasn’t even on his radar.

Jiang Jiankang could only imitate Jiang Jianguo’s earlier action, taking in a deep breath and exclaiming, “Phoenix Egg!”

Jiang Jianguo sniffed vigorously, perplexed, “There’s no smell of Phoenix Egg, and there are still about twenty minutes until dinner. How could Phoenix Egg be cooking now?”

“There’s definitely the smell of Phoenix Egg. I’m in the back kitchen with Jiang Feng every day, just across one stove. I always smell this scent; I can’t be wrong. Besides, why couldn’t Phoenix Egg be cooking now? What if Feng has other dishes lined up that can’t be delayed? Phoenix Egg wouldn’t change its flavor if left for about ten minutes,” Jiang Jiankang began to argue forcefully.

Although he was blustering–Jiang Feng was still boiling fish balls, so no scent of Phoenix Egg could possibly waft from the kitchen–he was right about one thing: there was a dish after Phoenix Egg.

Sweet and Sour Yam and Jade and Gold Cabbage.

Sweet and Sour Yam was to follow Phoenix Egg because it needed to be eaten hot; once cooled, the threads would fail to pull properly.

As for the Jade and Gold Cabbage, it was the real show-stopper, also the dish most deserving on the Jiang family’s New Year’s Eve dinner table.

This dish had to be cooked last, served first, and only then would the Jiang family’s New Year’s Eve dinner be complete.

As dish after dish was completed, covered, and kept warm, and the sea cucumber and abalone soup was also taken off the stove, Jiang Feng began making Jade and Gold Cabbage under the watchful eyes of the two old gentlemen.

In fact, from the day of the final competition, Jiang Feng had been waiting for the two old gentlemen to ask him how he had learned to cook Jade and Gold Cabbage. He had a whole story ready, but they never came to ask.

Even after he told Xu Cheng, who finished writing the article in “Taste,” and “Taste” was published, the two old gentlemen didn’t ask.

They seemed to easily accept and acknowledge that Jiang Feng could make Jade and Gold Cabbage, even though they had only seen it, never tasted it, and never asked Jiang Feng to cook it again in their presence.

But Jiang Feng knew that they were far from as calm as they appeared.

From the moment the cabbage hit the pot, their gazes fixed on the pot, watching his hands, their looks intense, impossible to ignore.

He didn’t even have to look back to imagine the old gentlemen watching intently, somewhat nervously, and even expectantly.

The old gentlemen were indeed like that.

Jiang Weiguo had a very limited memory of Jade and Gold Cabbage. He remembered a dish with an extremely complex preparation and a fresh herb taste but the specific cooking process and even the flavor were unclear to him.

Jiang Weiming, however, remembered.

He had eaten Jade and Gold Cabbage for over a decade longer than Jiang Weiguo. Memories once faint became vivid the moment Jiang Feng served it during the finals; so vivid, in fact, that he knew the process Jiang Feng used to prepare Jade and Gold Cabbage was almost exactly the same as the one Jiang Chengde and Jiang Huiqin used years ago, down to the last detail–at least, it appeared that way.

He had thought he would never taste this dish again, even almost forgotten it like Jiang Weiguo.

Yet Jiang Feng, who probably had never heard of the dish and definitely shouldn’t have known how to prepare it, recreated it before him.

He didn’t ask Jiang Feng how he knew about the dish, where he learned the steps. No amount of verbal instruction could have resulted in such a perfect replication and presentation.

Because he thought it unnecessary.

It was enough that Jiang Feng could make it; closer in taste to the original or very nearly would be even better.

Long ago, Jiang Weiming saw Jiang Feng, his grand-nephew, as a gift from heaven. His sudden presence fulfilled one dream after another, mended one regret after another, and even achieved some desires Weiming dared not even hope for; all were realized after meeting Jiang Feng.

Too many miraculous events had happened to Jiang Feng–so many that Weiming could accept anything unreasonable occurring around him, including Jade and Gold Cabbage.

It would surprise him if anyone made Jade and Gold Cabbage, but not if Jiang Feng did.

Because Jiang Feng himself, at least to him, was a miracle.

A miracle from heaven.

Jiang Weiming watched the pot.

Spreading pork lard.

Stir-frying.

Adding sea cucumber and abalone soup.

Continuing to stir-fry.

Reducing the liquid.

Exactly the same, down to the last detail, as in his memory.

“Grandpa, Granduncle, the dishes are ready, we can prepare to start eating,” Jiang Feng said.

Jiang Weiming smiled and nodded his head.

“You decide, it’s fine,” the old gentleman kept his gaze on the Jade and Gold Cabbage.

Jiang Feng, holding two plates of Jade and Gold Cabbage, poked his head out from the kitchen and shouted into the hall, “Dad, De, Cheng, Ran, come help with the dishes!”

“Alright!”