Whether Li Yuan did it intentionally or unintentionally, Wang Junshan got discouraged faster than anyone else, and his hands were injured, so the task of cooking the evening meal naturally fell on Wen Mingtang.

After half an hour, Wen Mingtang took Ah Bing and Tangyuan to see the ingredients for the evening meal.

Seeing the fresh pork ribs at a glance, Wen Mingtang couldn’t help but praise, “Good!”

“Of course, I personally selected them!” Ji Caimai’s tone carried a hint of pride. After all, he had been a procurement officer for so many years; how could the ingredients he picked be inferior? The reason the midday and evening meals tasted bad was simply due to that Sun and Wang’s poor culinary skills!

The meat dish for the evening meal was going to be pork ribs, and the vegetarian dishes included green peppers with potatoes, and some tofu and cucumbers.

Wen Mingtang looked at the dishes and had an idea in her mind. After moving the rack of ribs onto the chopping board on the counter, she picked up a bone-chopping knife and started chopping the ribs.

She cut the ribs into small pieces of similar size and washed them in water.

There were such steps in preparing ribs. Ji Caimai asked Wen Mingtang: “How are you going to prepare these ribs?”

Wen Mingtang glanced at half a bag of garlic and said, “I want to make garlic ribs.”

Garlic ribs? Never heard of it again. Ji Caimai nodded, carrying a bowl of bing fen that he made with his own choice of ingredients, walked to the food table closest to the countertop, and sat down: Obviously, he wanted to see how these garlic pork ribs were going to be made.

After the ribs were washed, Ah Bing and Tangyuan helped flatten and chop the peeled garlic.

Seeing Ah Bing slapping garlic with the back of the knife neatly and skillfully, even Ji Caimai couldn’t help but be surprised: “He is… quite skilled!”

Although Master Wen had only been here for a few days, these two half-grown children had learned a lot.

Well, this bowl of snack called Bing fen in his hand was made by the two children, Ah Bing and Tangyuan.

“Ah Bing is stronger; handling the wok, cooking, and practicing knife skills should make a difference,” Wen Mingtang said. “For delicate tasks like making dumplings, pastries, and intricate work, Tangyuan is a perfect fit.”

Ji Caimai, upon hearing this, glanced at the two who were busy working, then nodded and said, “That’s true, but it’s also because you are willing to teach!”

After all, this was a cooking skill, and not everyone was willing to teach it like this.

“I also learned it from others,” Wen Mingtang said with a smile when she heard this. “Others didn’t hide their secrets, so why should I?”

That was absolutely true. Everything she knew and had learned came from the future, not from her own abilities.

When the blood from the soaked pork ribs was almost washed out, Ah Bing and the Tangyuan were done with chopping garlic. Wen Mingtang poured most of it into the bowl of pork ribs, leaving only a little bit for other purposes.

Then she added sauce, wine, salt, pepper, eggs, and a little starch, mixed well, and left it to marinate.

While the ribs were marinating, she processed the vegetables for the vegetarian dishes. She shredded potatoes and green peppers to make green pepper and potato shreds. She also made fresh pickled cucumber. Then she cut the tofu into cubes and added egg droplets to make tofu and egg drop soup.

These vegetarian dishes are not uncommon, even Master Sun and Master Wang have made them, but the taste was really unflattering.

Liu Yuan and others knew about Li Yuan’s Cuju kick today. When they learned that Wen Mingtang was doing the evening meal today, they began to look forward to the evening meal for the first time since entering Dali Temple.

However, after looking at the files on the table, Liu Yuan shook his head, shook off the expectations for the evening meal from his mind, and continued to look down at the files.

The names in the row on the file in his hand were very hard to pronounce: they were not from the Central Plains!

At this point, he still didn’t know how these were related to the case itself, but since Lin Shaoqing asked him to investigate, he was going to investigate!

After he finished checking the file in his hand, he heard the bell ringing for Youshi¹. Liu Yuan hurriedly threw away the file in his hand and rushed to the public kitchen hall.

He originally thought that he had left early enough, but unexpectedly, there were already many people sitting in the public kitchen of Dali Temple.

They came really early! Liu Yuan secretly said something bitterly, walked to the front of the table, said hello to Wen Mingtang and others standing behind the counter, and then eagerly lowered his head to look at the dishes on the table.

The vegetarian dishes were green peppers with shredded potatoes and pickled cucumbers. Compared with the obviously burnt, fried, and rotten vegetarian dishes of Master Sun and Master Wang in the past, the two vegetarian dishes on this table looked much better in appearance. In the soup pot on the side, there was tofu and egg drop soup made of tender white tofu and beaten egg drop.

The dishes were still made in the same way, but they were green and white. The clean and refreshing appearance made people feel a little hungry at a glance.

What really made him unable to take his eyes away was the meat dish on the side.

The meat dish for dinner today was pork ribs, but the cooking method was completely different from what he had seen before. When fried, the ribs had turned into a golden color. It was also covered with what looked like fried peanut crumbs and something unknown. Just standing here, an indescribable aroma of garlic came over to his nose.

The name of this dish lived up to the indescribable aroma of garlic, it was called Garlic Spare Ribs.

During breakfast, Ji Caimai skewered thumb-thick pan-fried dumplings with a wooden stick and savored them, almost like a “live advertisement.” Now, he held the ends of the spare rib bones with two fingers, biting into the garlic-flavored spare ribs.

Liu Yuan only saw Ji Caimai bite off the pork meat near the bone. Because he was so close, he could hear the crispy sound of the ribs the moment he took a bite.

The outer skin was fried to a crisp, and one could easily imagine the tenderness of the pork inside. Though it was tender, removing the meat from the bone was extremely easy. Liu Yuan watched as Ji Caimai held the ends of the bone and gnawed on the spare ribs. In a matter of moments, he had cleaned the meat from the bone completely, leaving only a single bone. Even with only the bone remaining, Ji Caimai still licked the lingering flavors from it before reluctantly discarding the bone and reaching for the next piece.

Just looking at it like this was almost unbearable. He didn’t know if Ji Caimai did it on purpose or… Needless to say, this old and cunning man must have done it on purpose!

Liu Yuan gave Ji Caimai a sharp look, quickly took the bowl and plate from Ah Bing, and walked to the nearest food table.

As soon as he sat down, he immediately picked up a piece of garlic spare ribs with his chopsticks and put it into his mouth.

Just now when he watched Ji Caimai nibbling on the garlic pork ribs, he could smell the rich aroma of garlic, and he had already imagined the taste of the garlic pork ribs. But after actually entering, he realized that his imagination was still too shallow.

The pork ribs had crispy skin and the pork meat was tender. When you take a bite, a strong garlic aroma envelops the pork. Not only does it not overwhelm the dish, but it actually makes the pork even more fragrant. What he never expected was that the peanut-like particles wrapped around the pork were actually not peanuts, but garlic. The crispiness of the garlic added a more complex texture to the whole garlic ribs, which makes the whole ribs taste layer by layer, making people want to stop after one bite.

Liu Yuan couldn’t help but cheered repeatedly, and he hurriedly picked up the second spare rib after eating one piece. However, in the blink of an eye, he had eaten down to the last piece of the garlic spareribs in the bowl.

Then, Zhao You was seen leading the way, followed by Lin Fei and Li Yuan walking into the public kitchen.

(End of chapter)

---

Footnote

1. 5 to 7 PM