Chapter 122: First Visit to the Imperial Kitchen

When Eunuch Gao came to announce the decree, Concubine Mei was shocked and panicked.

This matter actually alarmed the emperor, and she was extremely embarrassed, but since the emperor had ordered it, she dared not disobey him.

"You all come to me to ask for people. Could it be that Li Yao has taken the reward and hasn't left yet? Madam Yang, go and take a look." Concubine Mei winked at Madam Yang.

Nanny Yang understood and went into the back hall.

Ye Jiayao still had her mouth covered, but she didn't struggle. It was useless to struggle, so she might as well save her energy.

"Today, for the sake of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Concubine Mei will temporarily forgive your rude remarks. But listen carefully, if you go out and talk nonsense, Concubine Mei can take your life at any time." Nanny Yang warned.

"Do you understand?"

Ye Jiayao nodded.

Nanny Yang signaled the two eunuchs to let go.

Ye Jiayao rubbed her wrist that was pinched and hurt, and said, "Please rest assured, Concubine Mei. I am just an ordinary citizen who just wants to live a peaceful life. If others don't offend me, I won't offend others."

Nanny Yang choked. This boy was too arrogant. She wanted to warn him again, but when she thought of the emperor, she held back.

"It's best if you understand. Remember, Concubine Mei asked you to leave a long time ago. It was the maid from Chaohua Palace who asked you for advice on how to make pastries, so you were delayed."

Ye Jiayao sneered in her heart, thinking that it must be the Crown Prince who came to ask for someone, and Concubine Mei had no way to explain, so she had to cooperate in lying.

No matter what, let’s get out of this trouble first.

Ye Jiayao never expected that it was the emperor who came to ask for someone, not the prince.

This is the most supreme figure in Huai Song Kingdom, yet he stood up for a commoner like her. Ye Jiayao felt like she was sleepwalking. It was too unreal.

"Yaoyao, are you okay? Are you hurt?" Helian Jing asked with concern when he saw her come out, and was about to check if she was injured.

"No, no, but if you had come a little later, it would have been hard to say." Ye Jiayao quickly dodged.

Eunuch Gao said, "Chef Li, the emperor has ordered you to prepare lunch today. Please go to the imperial kitchen with me!"

Ah? Ye Jiayao is about to faint again. Cooking a royal meal for the emperor?

Damn, it’s an honor.

Helian Jing also said: "Yaoyao, this is your chance, come on."

He once asked Yaoyao what "加油" meant. Yaoyao said that only when you add oil can the fire burn brighter, which means you have to work hard and get better and better. He thought these two words were very useful, so he learned them.

Ye Jiayao nodded vigorously. Is there any need to say more? Today, I am going to show off my special skills and use all my martial arts.

Without further ado, Ye Jiayao followed Eunuch Gao to the imperial kitchen.

As soon as she entered the imperial kitchen, Ye Jiayao felt dizzy. Oh my god, what a spacious kitchen, with so many cooks!
There were at least dozens of people coming in and out, inside and outside.

Eunuch Gao led her all the way inside to the innermost row of houses and said, "This is the kitchen that prepares meals for the emperor."

A royal chef saw Eunuch Gao coming and hurried over to greet him: "Eunuch Gao, what did the emperor order today?"

Eunuch Gao said, "Chef Lu, please take a rest today. The Emperor has appointed Chef Li to prepare lunch."

He then introduced: "This is Chef Lu who is responsible for the emperor's meals. This is Chef Li Yao from Tianshangju."

Lu Yiming looked at Ye Jiayao. It turned out that he was Li Yao, the head chef of Tianshangju. Recently, Li Yao was the most popular figure in the Jinling catering industry. Everyone was talking about him, such as ice drinks, snow skin ice cream mooncakes, vegetarian longevity noodles, self-created dishes, etc.

He originally thought that anyone with such cooking skills would be at least thirty years old, but now he saw that it was just a kid who hadn't even fully grown his hair, and he couldn't help but be shocked.

Heroes have always emerged from youth, and the young are to be feared! I just don't know whether he is worthy of the title or just in vain.

Ye Jiayao asked cautiously, "Excuse me, are you Chef Lu Yiming?"

"That's right." Lu Yiming said.

Ye Jiayao was overjoyed: "So it really is you, Chef Lu. I have long heard of your name and have always taken you as my role model. Today I get to meet my idol, and I am so happy that I don't know what to say."

Ye Jiayao's enthusiasm was exaggerated. As the saying goes, when you are famous, you are prone to gossip. She almost lost her life today. Now that she is appreciated by the emperor and given a chance to cook for the emperor, she will probably be suspected again. Lu Yiming is also a leading figure in the Huaisong catering industry and has a very high prestige. In front of her seniors, she should be humble, lower her posture, flatter him more, and smile more brightly. It is always right.

"Idol?" Lu Yiming didn't understand this new word.

"It means a role model, the person you admire most in your heart." Ye Jiayao explained.

Lu Yiming chuckled twice, thinking that this boy was a bit exaggerated, but still cute. Of course, Ye Jiayao's acting skills were perfected in the Black Wind Hill. Even if she was facing a pile of shit, as long as she wanted, she could use the most sincere and honest eyes and tone to praise the shit into a shit flower.

"So what are you going to do?" Lu Yiming asked.

Although Ye Jiayao had thought about the dishes she was going to make on the way, in order to succeed, she still needed to collect more information and understand the emperor's appetite, just like a doctor treating a patient and prescribing the right medicine.

Ye Jiayao looked at Eunuch Gao.

Eunuch Gao said in a low voice, "The Emperor said that you should just cook your specialty. Young Prince Jing recommended your grilled mushrooms to the Emperor."

Ye Jiayao asked quickly: "Does the emperor have any dietary restrictions? Does he prefer heavy or light flavors?"

Eunuch Gao smiled and said, "You can ask Chef Lu about this."

With Eunuch Gao around, Lu Yiming naturally told him everything without leaving out anything.

Ye Jiayao had an idea. The emperor liked to drink soup. OK, then she would give him a dish of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. Even Buddha would jump over the wall to eat it, let alone mortals.

After all, it is the imperial kitchen, and there are all kinds of ingredients, including those flying in the sky, swimming in the water, and running on the ground.

Ye Jiayao carefully selected the ingredients and started cooking.

Lu Yiming pointed to the imperial chefs in the imperial kitchen and said, "If anyone needs help, just tell them."

Ye Jiayao smiled and said, "Just help me wash the vegetables."

The time she had spent in Tianshangju was not wasted. It was no problem for her to prepare more than a dozen tables of dishes by herself, but today she was preparing a royal meal for the emperor, so she had to be extra attentive.

The first thing to deal with is the various ingredients of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. This dish uses as many as eighteen kinds of ingredients. The cooking process is very complicated and requires extremely high control of the heat.

She had already found out that this method of cooking did not exist in this era. She had originally wanted to save this dish for when she opened a restaurant, but now she wanted to let the emperor enjoy it first.

Lu Yiming watched Ye Jiayao cooking with a wait-and-see attitude. He was a little skeptical about how skilled such a young cook could be.

Ye Jiayao was seen processing the shark fins in an orderly manner. After washing and removing the sand from the soaked shark fins, she neatly arranged them on a bamboo sieve, added Shaoxing rice wine, scallion segments and ginger to the boiling water, then put the shark fins into the boiling water to cook, remove the fishy smell, and then put pork fat on the shark fins, add Shaoxing rice wine, and then put them into the steamer and steam them over high heat.

Next, she cut the fish lips into even pieces and used boiling water to remove the fishy smell.

Then there are the abalone, chicken, duck, pig's trotter, pork tripe, lamb elbow, tendon, duck gizzard, fish maw, sea cucumber, scallops, turtle skirt, pigeon eggs, bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms and many other ingredients which are all processed one by one, which is very complicated.

Lu Yiming watched for a long time but had no idea what dish she was going to cook. She boiled it, steamed it, fried it, and stir-fried it, but all that came out were semi-finished products.

While the ingredients for Buddha Jumps Over the Wall were still being steamed, Ye Jiayao prepared other dishes.

Cut the soaked mushrooms into cross shapes, chop the pork belly, use cornstarch and various seasonings to make meat patties and stick them to the bottom of the mushrooms. Put them in a frying pan and fry them later.

Cut the eggplant into sections, hollow them out, fill them with the prepared minced meat, and place them in the steamer.

Remove the heads, shells and tendons of the prawns, leaving the tails. Take another plate of shrimps, mash them into a paste, and mix with the minced meat for later use.

Cut the potatoes into thin strips and fry them in boiling oil until golden brown. Cut the cowpeas and eggplants into the same length and fry them in oil as well.

After all these were done, she picked up a radish and started carving it. The knife quickly peeled, dug, and rotated, and beautiful radish flowers of different shapes and as real as life came out.

Finally, Ye Jiayao picked up a big carrot, made some gestures, and started carving a flying dragon.

There was complete silence in the imperial kitchen, as everyone's attention was drawn to the carving knife and radish in Ye Jiayao's hands.

Her previous orderliness did not attract anyone's attention. As the royal chef, everyone here could do this. However, as the lifelike radish flowers and radish pigeons appeared, the exquisite carving craftsmanship was truly breathtaking.

Lu Yiming's expression became serious. He was an expert among experts. Although some chefs could carve patterns, most of them were simple and common, not difficult to learn. He had never seen such complex patterns as Li Yao's. What was amazing was Li Yao's smooth carving skills, the shape, and the control of strength, as if he had everything in mind and cut with a god.
This kid really has some skills. Just based on this point, he can look down on other chefs.

At the same time, Lu Yiming felt a lot of pressure. This kid had played his tricks to the extreme today. What should they do in the future?
Eunuch Gao stared at the flying dragon that was gradually taking shape, his eyes wide open in shock.

Is this Li Yao studying sculpture or cooking? This is too amazing.

After Ye Jiayao carved two flying dragons, she also carved a piece of auspicious cloud. She fixed the two dragons on the auspicious cloud with bamboo sticks. Finally, she used a spoon to scoop out a shiny white radish bead and inlaid it in the dragon's mouth, forming a pattern of two dragons playing with a pearl.

Then, Ye Jiayao cut the cucumber slices, tomato shreds and other ingredients into patterns, and started to make mosaics with the plates.

He already knew by heart what dishes should be put on each plate and how to arrange them. Eighteen plates were lined up in a row, with scenes of sunrise over the sea of ​​clouds, surging spring tides, rich peonies, and twin lotus flowers in bloom...all were ready in a short while.

The ingredients in the steamer over there were almost ready. Ye Jiayao processed the various materials in order and put them into a jar that had been used to hold Shaoxing wine. She poured in chicken, duck and other soup ingredients, sealed the jar with lotus leaves, placed a bowl upside down on it, and placed it on a charcoal stove to simmer over low heat.

Lu Yiming realized that all those ingredients he had prepared before were just one dish. He was dumbfounded. He had never seen such a complicated dish. It looked like a mess, but in fact, each ingredient was processed very delicately. The sense of urgency and pressure in his heart became even stronger. He felt like he was going to be eliminated.

(End of this chapter)