After Granny Liu arrived, the task of chopping vegetables was handed over to her and Liu Yuanyuan, allowing Pei Yuezhi to focus on preparing the dishes.

First, stew the chicken; this will take a while.

First, blanch the chicken. Then, heat oil and stir-fry the chicken until it changes color. Add some peppercorns, scallions, ginger, star anise, bay leaves, and dried chili peppers. Stir-fry again until fragrant and the moisture in the chicken is released.

Then add some light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, a little sugar to enhance the flavor, and appropriate amounts of salt and chicken bouillon. Cover and simmer for twenty minutes.

During this time, the three of them shredded the cabbage, sliced ​​the tomatoes, and shredded the chili peppers.

Heat oil in a pan, add sliced ​​garlic and sauté until fragrant. Then add tomatoes and a little sugar to help the tomatoes release their juices quickly.

After the tomatoes have released their juices, add the shredded cabbage and stir-fry evenly. Add oyster sauce and light soy sauce, and continue to stir-fry until the cabbage softens. Then add the shredded chili peppers.

Once the chili peppers have softened, add salt and MSG to taste, then it's ready to serve.

Next, Pei Yuezhi prepared to make stir-fried mutton with scallions.

Every family makes their stir-fried mutton with scallions differently. In the traditional way, the mutton is not marinated. Pei Yuezhi wanted to cook a large pot of food, which was more troublesome to stir-fry, so she adopted a new method: marinating the meat first.

Yesterday's chopped lamb was mixed with light soy sauce, pepper, and some scallion and ginger water. The mixture was then stirred until it became sticky, and finally sesame oil was added and stirred again.

Set aside to marinate for a while.

"Yuanyuan, keep an eye on the pot with the chicken, and remember to add potatoes. I'm going to cook other dishes now."

Grandma Liu isn't in the kitchen either. Usually, once the cooking starts, she's not needed anymore. Before, she would just wipe the table and sweep the floor. Now that she's done with her chores, she can spend some time with Fan Mu.

Next, make the stir-fried tofu with green peppers.

Dried tofu is just tofu skin. Ancient tofu workshops were quite impressive, and they had a fairly complete range of soy products.

Cut the dried tofu into strips, then diagonally cut them into diamond-shaped pieces.

Boil water in a pot and add a tiny bit of baking soda. This will make the dried tofu softer.

Blanch the food in boiling water for one minute, then immediately take it out, rinse it with cold water, and drain it.

While the water was boiling, Pei Yuezhi sliced ​​the green peppers and prepared a bowl of cornstarch slurry.

Heat oil, add scallions, ginger, and garlic, along with a little thirteen-spice powder, and sauté until fragrant. Then add light soy sauce and sauté until the sauce is fragrant. Finally, add water.

Add dried tofu, then start with simple seasoning: salt and MSG. This dish uses fewer seasonings to bring out the original flavor of the food.

Once the water has reduced a bit, you can add the bell peppers, and then you can add the cornstarch slurry.

However, you need to be a little careful with this cornstarch slurry. Add it in three batches, and stir-fry it evenly after each addition to coat the ingredients. Finally, sprinkle on a generous amount of freshly cooked garlic – that's the key.

By this time, the chicken was almost cooked, and the two vegetable dishes were stir-fried. It was time for the last dish, stir-fried lamb with scallions.

For stir-fried lamb with scallions, choose the white part of the scallions, cut them into chunks, and prepare some ginger slices and garlic slices as well.

This dish requires high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the lamb and stir-fry quickly to separate the pieces. It's crucial to stir-fry quickly to prevent the lamb from releasing water. Once it changes color and is just cooked through, remove it from the heat immediately.

Pei Yuezhi heated the oil again, added some scallions, and first stir-fried some scallion oil to enhance the aroma of the scallions.

Once the scallions have turned golden brown and wilted, remove them from the water. Then add ginger and garlic and stir-fry until fragrant. Finally, add the scallions and stir-fry briefly.

After frying the scallions until they smelled fragrant, Pei Yuezhi quickly added the mutton, along with some wine, light soy sauce, a little salt, and pepper.

Stir-fry quickly until the scallions wilt, then drizzle a little vinegar along the edge of the pan, add some sesame oil, stir-fry evenly, and it's ready to serve.

"It smells so good! I want to eat it right now."

Liu Yuanyuan looked at the fragrant mutton in the pot and couldn't wait to eat it.

Pei Yuezhi patted her head: "I saved some for you. You can't eat now, the guests have already sat down."

"Then hurry up and store it in your space as soon as it's cooked! I'm going to eat two bowls of rice today!"

"Don't worry, I save them as soon as they come out of the pot, so they're safe to eat."

They called over Granny Liu, and the three of them worked together to carry all the food out.

There were already quite a few people queuing up, and when they saw Pei Yuezhi come out, they all looked at the dish with anticipation.

Pei Yuezhi introduced the dishes as usual, and the guests lined up in an orderly fashion.

"Boss lady, this is mutton! It's not so gamey anymore, it smells amazing!"

"This stir-fried cabbage is so refreshing and delicious!"

The guests praised him every day during the meal, and over time, they became less embarrassed than at the beginning.

However, there seem to be far fewer customers today, maybe half as many.

"There aren't many people today. Usually, when I come here at this time, I have to wait in line for ages."

Finally, someone asked the question: Where are you today?

One of the men answered the question: "You guys don't know? There's a boxed lunch shop that opened in the middle of the street, and there's another one at the end of the street, near where we work. They're all newly opened."

"Yes, I saw it too. It's two meat dishes and two vegetable dishes. The meat dishes cost five coins, and the vegetable dishes cost three coins. The rice is free."

"That shop on the street isn't it. That shop charges five coins for meat dishes and two coins for vegetable dishes."

"It's cheap, but we don't know if it tastes good or not. You can't smell the aroma when you walk by. Unlike the owner, you can smell the aroma of the dishes right at the door."

Upon hearing this, Pei Yuezhi realized that another imitator had appeared. There were many imitators when she was selling pancakes, and now that she was selling boxed lunches, imitators were starting to appear as well.

However, this is normal. Only after customers have tried other restaurants can they compare and find that their own restaurant is better.

"I actually think it's good that they didn't come."

"What can we do then? The proprietress's business will be stolen!"

"Hehe, the proprietress has been open for seven days, and I've only eaten there for two days. Today, I was able to eat as soon as I walked in. Those people are too unlucky."

"Hahahaha, you little rascal."

Pei Yuezhi wasn't worried at all; she was very confident in her skills.

Surprisingly, Granny Liu remained calm. She knew that Liu Yuanyuan was not flustered because she was aware of her chain of restaurants.

"Auntie, aren't you worried that someone will steal my business?"

Grandma Liu said confidently, "Impossible. Yuezhi, the dishes you make are one of a kind."

"Auntie is right, I've never seen food like this before."

There weren't many people when the doors first opened, but later, people gradually started coming in.

They said they heard that the food at those two restaurants wasn't good; the taste was mediocre, and the portions were small.

They were just ordinary stews made at home, so they didn't have much flavor.

However, because of this incident, we closed much later than usual today.

Grandma Liu was in a hurry to go home, but Pei Yuezhi couldn't let her go without eating, so she quickly went to the kitchen to pack some food for her to take home.

Little did I know that just after I finished serving the first dish, it started raining heavily outside.