Aunt Li was in charge of the cooking and cleaning in the Jin family. She has served this household ever since the brothers were kids. Technically, she was a servant, but the brothers treated her much like a real aunt.
Since the property was sizable, Aunt Li told Fu Mei Li that the brothers help her each day with the cleaning and other heavy chores around the house. The elderly woman did not forget to extol the good virtues of the brothers to this new wife of the Jin family.
Mei Li found her chattering funny as well as heartwarming. If Aunt Li was placed in the modern times, she would really make for a great spokesperson or PR manager. Mei Li thought with a smile.
When they arrived at the kitchen, the twins Shufen and Longwei were there. The former was tinkering with a pot that strongly smelled of boiling medicine, while the latter was washing vegetables.
"Shu-er, Long-er you're here." Aunt Li greeted the two.
"Oh, why is the little girl here?" Shufen looked at her with that customary smirk of his. Mei Li has had the most contact with this guy over the past few days as he was responsible for her medicine.
She has gotten used to that smirking face and his teasing attitude. For some reason, this guy likes to look at her as if she is some amusement. Sometimes she feels like a mouse being played with by a cat when she's with him, although she couldn't pinpoint why.
Shufen approached her and brought that stunning face of his really close to hers and asked her again why she was there. He has done this many times before and initially, she was flustered. But the more she acts embarrassed or nervous by his actions, the more he does it. So Mei Li has learned to not react when he gets extremely close.
"Of course, I came to cook. What else can you do in the kitchen?" She raised her eyebrows at him.
"Oh, does a noble lady from the capital know how to cook? That's a surprise."
"Hmph, just watch me then!"
Fu Mei Li then approached the shy Longwei who kept his head down all this time and focused on washing the vegetables. She noticed him low-key listening to their talk while pretending to be busy.
When Mei Li stood beside Longwei, a woman's faint fragrance assailed his nose. The man who has never been close to a woman before immediately got flustered and the cucumber he was washing fell to the floor. Embarrassed, his face flushed and even his ears were pink.
Mei Li was secretly amused and found this guy to be really cute. She just smiled at him and picked up the cucumber. "What were you planning with these cucumbers?" She asked him casually, not wanting to embarrass him further.
"Just washing it...leave it up to Aunt Li to cook." Longwei said in almost a whisper.
Seeing the fifth flustered, Aunt Li hastily interjected, "I'm just going to chop it up and serve it as a cold side dish."
"Then can you give this to me to prepare? Also, what ingredients are available for the main dish?" Fu Mei Li asked Aunt Li.
"Fish." A cold voice replied to her. Mei Li turned towards the kitchen door to find the second brother, Jin Haoran, holding three fishes as long as his forearms.
"Hao-er, did you catch these fishes?" Aunt Li excitedly asked.
"En." Haoran, as always, was a man of few words.
Mei Li was happy to see the fish. Finally, she can eat something other than porridge tonight. "Aunt Li, can you help me clean the fish?" She then proceeded to take a look at the cupboards and shelves to check out what condiments and spices were available.
Sadly, there wasn't anything much in there. Looks like the Jin family was really struggling. They're even having a hard time filling up their kitchen.
"Aunt Li, can we cook rice tonight?"
Aunt Li was embarrassed. "Mei-er, rice has been expensive the past few months due to last year's drought. We only have millet grains."
Mei Li's disappointed look didn't escape the people in the room and the three brothers present suddenly felt inexplicable in their hearts.
"That's okay, then we'll have millet and fish porridge then. Wait for me, I just need to get something." Mei Li ran out of the kitchen leaving the brothers and Aunt Li wondering what she was up to.
"What are you all doing here?" Jin Mingyu asked his brothers who he found loitering in the kitchen. He and the third brother came back from the village chief's house just now. They sent over two fishes that the second brother caught as thanks for the chief's help the other day.
"Wife is cooking," Longwei answered. He is always obedient and polite to his first brother.
"What?! The wife is cooking? Can she cook?!" Weimin was surprised. Mingyu was suspicious too. He knew full well what the noble ladies in the capital were like. They were used to being served and the kitchen is not a place they frequent.
Mei Li came back with some vegetables in her hands. She plucked them from the rear courtyard. Most of the vegetable beds there were empty but there were still a few herbs and vegetables growing here and there.
"Mei-er, I know why you would pick some coriander, chiles, and cabbages, but why did you pick these decorative berries?" Aunt Li was confused?
Huh? Decorative berries? These were clearly cherry tomatoes ah. "Umm...do you not eat these? They're delicious!"
Then Mei Li noticed that there were two additional men in the kitchen. All five of the brothers were now looking at her inquisitively. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Wife, are you really cooking?" Weimin asked.
"Umm...yeah." She was used to cooking for herself in her apartment before and she really missed eating something other than plain porridge, so why not?
Mei Li didn't bother with them anymore. If they want to watch then go ahead. At least they'd know she's not too useless, right?
She then focused on filleting the fishes. Her movements were quick, confident, and sure. The brothers and Aunt Li marvelled at her knife skills. Mingyu furrowed his brow. Mei Li's knife work doesn't seem to be inferior to that of imperial chefs. If he didn't know better, he wouldn't believe she was a lady from an aristocratic family.
Mei Li planned to make three dishes for tonight - millet porridge with freshwater fish, spicy fish fillet in tomato sauce, and cherry tomato-topped cucumber bites.
She chopped one of the filleted fish into small even pieces and set aside. She also prepared the spices and condiments she needed, such as ginger, onion, coriander, salt, and pepper.
She dried the millet on a pan for a few minutes, then took them out, and then boiled some water in the pan. She added back the millet and then dropped the ginger and pepper. She left that to cook for a bit and then add the small chunks of fish.
In the meantime, she seasoned the remaining fish fillet and chopped all the cherry tomatoes she harvested. A bunch of them were chopped in half while the rest were reduced to smaller pieces. Since the Jin family was rich at one point, their kitchen was also large and had two stoves.
With Aunt Li's help in tending the fire, she took another pan and heated a few drops of oil. In there, she added garlic and some of the chopped chiles. When the mix became fragrant, she added the cherry tomatoes and other spices like coriander, turmeric, salt, and pepper. She brought everything to a simmer until she was able to mash the tomatoes and the whole mixture achieved a paste sauce consistency.
She then added the large fish fillets and let that simmer and cook until the fish becomes flaky. In the meantime, she got a few of the crude toothpicks she found on one of the shelves. These were from some type of palm plants.
She skewered the cucumber slices and half-sliced cherry tomatoes alternatively, which formed a delightful stack of green and red. She then mixed some vinegar, oil, minced garlic clove, a dash of brown sugar (she didn't use a lot as she knew sugar was expensive in the ancient times), salt, and pepper.
Afterwards, she arranged the cucumber-tomato bites prettily on a plate and sprinkled the vinaigrette sauce she just made. The dark sauce was spread in a stripe pattern just like the way expensive restaurants do it. The people who were watching at the side couldn't help but think how pretty that plated dish looked like. They never knew that food can ba made so beautiful like this!
The millet porridge with fish finally finished cooking and Mei Li ladled them into bowls for each person in the house. She garnished them with finely chopped fried peanuts and coriander. After a bit of time, the spicy fish fillet in tomato sauce was also ready and she poured them into two big bowls, not forgetting to garnish.
All this time, the delicious fragrance of the food wafted in the kitchen, making the brothers secretly drool. Haoran was particularly dizzy from wanting to eat so much. All his brothers knew that he loves eating delicious food the most. Looking at the food being plated, he never thought something could smell so delicious and look so appetizing like this!
"Time to eat!" Mei-Li's proclamation was like a saving hand from the Bodhisattva to the extremely hungry Jin brothers.