The President is Being Shameless Again

She washed the parts of the duck with water and quickly cooked them in boiled water before scooping them out. Then, she washed them again with water. After this, she fried dried chili, ginger slices, and onions until fragrant before adding water, cooking wine, dark soy sauce, and soy sauce. She cooked them until a wonderful smell came from the broth before adding licorice, nutmeg, orange peel, bay leaves, star anise, and cinnamon.

Xu Moyan gave some consideration to Zhezi’s voice and did not add in too much chili, unlike certain food deliveries that made it so spicy that it was hard to enjoy the food. She made it just nice enough that it tasted good but was not too spicy.

When the fragrance of the food got pungent, she added the duck neck and duck wings to the broth and covered the pot. After this, she turned to work on frying the beancurd.

The duck intestines were added into the pot only after the duck neck and duck wings were fully cooked. This was because the duck intestines would turn hard if cooked for too long. She later turned off the fire and left the ingredients inside to soak up the broth.

Xu Moyan soaked the seaweed to make sure they were cleaned and later washed the sea cucumber numerous times.

She sliced onions, garlic, and ginger to be fried in hot oil before adding pepper and dried chili. Even though the ventilator fan was turned on to full power, it still could not get rid of the spicy smell permeating through the kitchen. Once everything was fried until fragrant, she added some Shi County bean paste and Thirteen Spice. Xu Moyan continued frying everything together until it smelled good. Then, she added some water and put in the sea cucumber before allowing it to simmer until it absorbed the flavors. After this, she scooped the sea cucumber out and placed it aside before continuing to boil the broth until it reduced. This would eventually become the stock.

She would add the baby lobsters into it later when she started to cook them. Since the stock had the flavor of the sea cucumber in it, it would make the baby lobsters taste even better.

As Nan Jingheng and Zhezi had not yet arrived, Xu Moyan was not too anxious about preparing the baby lobsters. The sea cucumber and various duck portions were suitable to be eaten cool, so she had prepared those first.

She took out the seaweed strips from the water and added vinegar, cooking wine, sugar, salt, chicken stock powder, and white sesame. Then, she mixed them up and soaked them in the stock for flavoring.

As for the dried chili and pepper that had been fried in hot oil, they had done the job of creating a spicy oil base. Xu Moyan added vinegar, pickled pepper juice, sugar, salt, hot peppers, and red chili into it and turned it into a salad dressing. She cooked the cockles and soaked them in the stock as well, before later placing it into the fridge together with the seaweed to serve as a cold appetizer.

She scooped out the duck portions that were to be cooled down and later placed them into the fridge as well before going on to clean up the baby lobsters with the help of Aunt Liu. They used water to continuously wash and soak the baby lobsters, which were all at their last gasp. Both she and Aunt Liu had put on plastic gloves and were brushing down the baby lobsters in detail. They washed them again in water, as the water that was used to soak the baby lobsters now appeared cleaner than during the previous soak. This time, there were just some vague dirty substances left in the water.

When they did this a third time, the water used to soak the baby lobsters was now completely clean.

It took a tremendous amount of effort. After working so hard on the baby lobsters, they did not even notice that it was now close to 6 pm. Both Xu Moyan and Aunt Liu were aching slightly at the waist from all the tedious work.

Since Aunt Liu had finished most of her work, she left first.

When she got to the door, Aunt Liu saw Nan Jingheng and Zhezi arriving together.

Nan Jingheng shouted out excitedly the moment he walked through the door and took off his shoes.

He was still in the living when he craned his neck toward the kitchen and called out loudly, “Sis-in-law, I can smell them! They smell really good!”