"Your Northeastern cuisine is rich in flavor, with abundant and affordable dishes, and a strong aroma. Today, I will teach your restaurant how to make a Manchu-style char siu pork. The ingredients are easy to obtain, and it is a specialty dish that ordinary people can afford. This dish has been served at the Manchu Han Imperial Feast. From now on, your restaurant should make this dish its signature dish."

"Thank you! Thank you!" The couple at Lao Mei Restaurant almost bowed to Su Xiaonuan. Just hearing the name of the dish made it sound high-class; it had even been served at the Manchu Han Imperial Feast. Such a dish would definitely bring many repeat customers to the restaurant.

Su Xiaonuan asked them to prepare three pots and three portions of ingredients. She had two chefs cook with her. These chefs were not novices, so she didn't need to teach them step by step. They just needed to learn from her step by step.

If it were someone else with such culinary skills, they certainly wouldn't pass it on to their competitors; they'd rather keep it to themselves and make a fortune.

Xiao Nuan couldn't bear to see these businesses without any business, because she knew that behind each restaurant was the livelihood of a large family. Everyone had elderly parents to support and young children to raise. If the restaurant didn't have business, not only would it have to close down, but the whole family would also go hungry.

Money is only meaningful when everyone earns it together.

That's why she wants to revive all the restaurants on the food street and make a profit for each one.

Since Wangwang Food Street has been featured in the provincial gazetteer, she is determined to revitalize the street's atmosphere. The more people come by, the better the restaurants' business will be, and every establishment will be bustling with customers.

She washed a piece of lean pork weighing about 400 grams and placed it on the cutting board. "Look carefully, this meat should be cut into pieces about 8 centimeters long, 5 centimeters wide, and 3 centimeters thick. Use a knife to make cross-shaped cuts on both sides of the cut pork pieces. Making these cuts is to help it absorb the flavor better. Put the cut meat into a bowl, add scallion segments, ginger segments, rice wine, and salt, and marinate for about an hour."

In those days, rice wine was readily available, so she used it instead of cooking wine.

During the hour they waited for the meat to marinate, Su Xiaonuan explained some of the recipes for Northeastern Chinese dishes to them, but only verbally. It was up to their memory to remember them; if they could, that would be their good fortune.

After marinating the pork, she poured oil into a pot and heated it to 70% of its maximum temperature. She then fried the pork pieces briefly and drained off the excess oil.

"Be careful not to fry it for too long; you need to control the heat to make it crispy on the outside and tender on the inside," she reminded everyone.

The two instructors and she operated almost simultaneously.

"Leave a little oil in the pot, heat it to about 50% of its maximum temperature, then add star anise, cinnamon, ginger slices, and scallion segments and stir-fry until fragrant. Add water, rice wine, salt, soy sauce, and the fried pork. Bring the water to a boil and cook until the pork is about 60% tender, then remove all the pork from the pot." Su Xiaonuan explained each step to them in detail.

The restaurant owner was taking notes of the cooking process step by step. He was a bit clever; although the chef was his relative, he was worried that the chef might learn the cooking skills and then leave. So he wrote it down himself so that he could cook the restaurant's signature dishes when there was no chef.

The two chefs were so focused on cooking that they didn't notice the boss's underhanded tactics.

But Su Xiaonuan saw it, so she spoke slowly when explaining, so that the boss could record all her operating steps.

"Take a clean pot, put a bowl of water and red yeast rice in it, cook for about 10 minutes, filter it once, pour it back into the pot, add white sugar and cooked pork, simmer over low heat until the sauce thickens, drizzle with sesame oil, and slice the pork into thin slices after it cools down."

While waiting for the pork to cool, she taught the two chefs to cut cucumbers into small flowers and arrange them in a half-circle on a plate.

"Wow, this looks really good when it's displayed!" everyone exclaimed in unison.

"Not only does it look good, it's also edible. After eating the char siu pork, you can eat two slices of cucumber to refresh and cut through the greasiness."

The two chefs were learning to cut flower petals from cucumbers. At first, they wasted half a cucumber, but they finally succeeded with the last half.

After slicing the petals, the meat had cooled down. This didn't need to be taught; they just followed Su Xiaonuan's instructions and only needed to slice it thinly.

In an instant, three identical plates of Manchu-style char siu pork were placed on the stove.

The five people took their chopsticks and tasted all three plates of char siu pork.

Even though they followed the steps to make the dishes, the taste was still somewhat different. After tasting them, they all felt that Su Xiaonuan's dishes were the best, and the two chefs' dishes were far inferior.

After Su Xiaonuan tasted it, she would then address the specific problems, point out the issues, and ask them to continue improving. She would then ask them to taste it again once it was done well.

It takes about an hour to marinate the meat. During this time, she quickly went to the Langxian Food Shop across the street for technical guidance, as the method was similar.

The characteristics of Chaozhou cuisine—light yet flavorful, fresh yet not fishy, ​​tender yet not raw, and rich yet not greasy—are completely absent at Langxian Restaurant. It ends up looking like a hodgepodge, offering dishes from all over the place, thus losing its own unique characteristics.

They all wanted to retain more customers, but by doing so, they went against their original intention of opening the store, and their business plummeted.

The signature dishes that Su Xiaonuan taught them were made with readily available ingredients and were affordable for ordinary people.

She taught this family how to make a dish of fresh grass carp, which is a very special dish. The live grass carp is scaled, gills removed, gutted and cleaned, then drained. Two straight cuts are made on the back of the fish with a knife. The fish is placed on bamboo strips with bamboo chopsticks underneath, and then put into a wooden bucket.

This dish is quite interesting to make.

In addition, boil some water and pour it into the wooden bucket containing the fish from the edge. Do not pour the boiling water directly onto the fish to avoid breaking the skin. The boiling water should be about 6 centimeters above the fish.

After pouring in boiling water, quickly close the wooden bucket lid tightly. This process of pouring boiling water in and simmering the fish takes about 25 minutes.

At this point, she washed and chopped the shiitake mushrooms, celery, pork belly, ginger, and red chili peppers, stir-fried them in a wok, brought them to a boil with stock, added soy sauce, MSG, and cornstarch to thicken the sauce, poured it into a bowl, added vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, and sesame oil, and mixed it well. A bowl of flavorful dipping sauce was ready.

Once the fish has been simmered in the wooden bucket, it is taken out and placed on a plate, served with a bowl of dipping sauce. Pick up a piece of fish with your chopsticks, dip it in the sauce, and eat it. The fish is tender and smooth, with a fresh and delicious flavor that makes it hard to stop eating.

The fish that Su Xiaonuan and her master cooked were all devoured by them.

The master has already mastered the skill and there is no need to redo it.

This dish looks a bit complicated, but it's not difficult to make. It tastes really good, with tender and delicious fish. The chef in the restaurant learned it in no time.

The dishes Su Xiaonuan taught were all simplified versions because many seasonings were not readily available in those days. The modern dishes she improved were considered top-notch delicacies at that time.

The owner quickly wrote the restaurant's signature dish on a small blackboard and hung it at the entrance to attract customers. If any customers entered the restaurant, they would strongly recommend this dish.

"Add a sentence at the end: 'For every customer who orders this signature dish, they will receive a free vegetarian dish, valid for three days only,'" Su Xiaonuan said directly to the owner after seeing the sign at the shop entrance. "That way, people will only need to order one fish dish, with both fish and vegetables. If they like it, they'll come back, and it'll be free advertising for you."