Chapter 12: Cooking

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Yun Dou felt as if she was seeing stars from that slap. She held her tears back and replied, “I will cook it again right now…”

The two maids had icy expressions on their faces as they said they’d be back in a while to collect the food and walked off.

Yun Dou’s tears started to fall down her cheeks.

Everyone else looked at each other.

Mo Chun looked at the food on the floor, then started thinking about what to do. She said, “Yun Dou, clean up this place. Yun, you come over and cook another meat dish for His Highness.”

Yun Dou’s heart sank as she looked up at Mo Chun. “Auntie Chun, I’ve always been in charge of the meat…”

“But His Highness wasn’t happy with it,” said Mo Chun flatly. “Have you forgotten why His Highness wanted Yun to work here? If His Highness becomes unhappy a second time, you’re going to get sentenced to a beating.”

Yun Dou didn’t say anymore. She bit her lip, and tears filled her eyes.

Yun Dai got down to cooking the meat.

She wasn’t competitive, but she did the work allocated to her well.

She washed her hands, rolled up her sleeves, then picked out the best piece of pork belly meat, chopped it into cubes, and washed some green onions and ginger.

It was easy to decide how to cook the meat. Yun Dai figured that the Crown Prince had been unable to forget the taste after just eating it once probably because it wasn’t trendy to eat braised meat in this dynasty.

She blanched the belly meat in boiling water for a while, then removed it from the water.

She poured a little oil into a clay pot, lay a layer of green onions at the bottom, and placed the thick cubes of belly meat on top of that. After that, she put ginger and more green onions on top of the meat, then poured in some soy sauce, rock sugar, Shaoxing wine, and some other condiments.

Then she let it slowly simmer inside the pot.

During this time, the two maids came to hurry the kitchen twice, but Yun Dai said that if they rushed her too much and the meat wasn’t to the Crown Prince’s liking, she wasn’t going to be responsible for that.

The maids couldn’t do anything about that.

After the meat had been simmering inside the pot for more than an hour, she finally took the pork out of the pot and the fragrance filled the entire kitchen.

The reddish-brown meat was glistening with oil. It looked so tempting.

Even the two maids started to swallow their saliva when they saw the meat.

But that wasn’t all.

Yun Dai poured the sauce onto the meat, sprinkled on some spring onions, and let the whole thing steam in the steamer for 15 minutes.

This one dish had been simmering over a low fire for two whole hours.

Mo Chun had been watching Yun Dai all this time, and she noticed that no matter how hard the maids hurried her, she remained calm and unhurried, confident and in control of the situation, so Mo Chun began to think extremely highly of her.

Mi Dou sniffed hard and couldn’t stop drooling. “It smells so good, so it must be really tasty! I haven’t eaten meat in at least six months now. I miss it so much.”

Yun Dou stood at one corner and clutched her handkerchief tightly as her eyes spewed fire.

The maids hurriedly ran out with the freshly cooked meat. They came back soon with a pleased look on their faces and even a handful of coins in their hands. They said, “His Highness was very happy when he ate that food, and this is the reward for cooking this dish. Yun, you can have this reward. His Highness says that you shall be in charge of his food in the future, and he wants something different every day.”

Yun Dai had received a large handful of copper coins.

She gave a quick count. It was enough to form an entire string of coins.

She began to split the coins among everyone in the kitchen.

Even though this was her reward, she knew that she couldn’t take it all for herself. Besides, she was new here and had gotten a reward on her first day. If she didn’t share, then it was only a matter of time before the others became jealous of her or hated her.

Everyone was beaming from ear to ear when they received the coins.

Only Yun Dou’s expression remained dark as she flung the copper coins to the floor and sneered to herself, “You’ve just received a little reward. Who do you think you’re showing off to? I used to get so much but I’ve never behaved like her. Who cares about her money?”

Mi Dou quickly picked up the copper coins and said, “Sister Yun is just trying to be nice. Oh, by the way, Sister Yun has also made us a dish that tastes like meat, and it’s delicious. Why don’t you try some?”

“Eat, eat, eat! You only know how to eat!” Yun Dou threw down her handkerchief fiercely and muttered quietly, “Wait till I become Consort Chen’s favored cook. I’m going to see how long she can remain so arrogant.”

But unfortunately for her, even though Consort Chen had always liked Yun Dou’s cooking before this, once she found out about what had happened, she also wanted Yun Dai to cook her meat dishes after that.