She Became A Downfall Noble Lady
Chapter 337 - 336: The Dish Is Not the Problem

Chapter 337: Chapter 336: The Dish Is Not the Problem

Lady Zhang must have repeated this countless times, and the family’s grandparents also constantly complained, complaining that they didn’t know how to flock to where benefits lay. Qi Congming knew this well and had explained that he wasn’t unwilling to join in the fun, but rather that he couldn’t break into that circle with his younger brother following him. However, every time he said this, the adults at home seemed not to hear him, and they would still use the same words to blame him next time.

He silently followed his mother back, listening to his younger brother Congwu curse Qi Sanshun along with their mother. "Mom, you don’t know, Brother Sanshun is just a bad egg, even though he’s our own brother. When he gets good stuff, he never gives us a little more. When I tried to take some myself, he scolded me and wouldn’t include me in his games."

Lady Zhang had heard this type of complaint from Qi Congwu many times before. She agreed with her son. Qi Sanshun, Congwen, and Congwu were brothers from the same family. When there were good things, of course they should first be given to one’s own brothers before sharing with others. Wasn’t that natural?

"Mom knows, Qi Sanshun just can’t distinguish between kin and others. Let’s ignore him; tomorrow we’ll complain to Great Uncle," Lady Zhang said as she led her two children back to their own courtyard in the Qi Family Residence.

...

Jinrong said that the dinner for the twenty-ninth day of the Chinese New Year should just be a simple meal, but no one dared to serve him just that.

After having a simple lunch on the twenty-ninth, Nanny Li, Nanny Jin, and Anshun’s Household started to bustle about preparing dinner.

Although the dinner was not as grand as the one on the evening of the thirtieth, it still consisted of six hot dishes, four cold platters, and a soup.

The Qi family’s days were now comfortable, with plenty of meat, eggs, and poultry, and many rare food ingredients sent by Jinrong, so preparing New Year dishes commonly seen on the festival, such as braised pork, Four Happiness Meatballs, braised ribs, and the like wasn’t a problem.

Beyond meat dishes, they also needed to pair with some vegetable dishes. In this era, there were not many off-season vegetables; apart from cabbage, radish, potatoes stored for the winter, there were dried beans, dried vegetables, mushrooms, and such from the villagers’ summer stocks.

Fortunately, Ye Xinyan had long been worried about not having vegetables to eat in winter. During the summer and fall, she and a few nannies had dried a good amount of lettuce slices, cucumber slices, and the like, which were somewhat fresh options during this severe winter. Lettuce and cucumbers were not commonly dried by villagers, who probably felt that these vegetables were too expensive and not very filling.

Although it was a rural village in winter with scarce resources, Nanny Liu and the old woman servants in the kitchen did not find it troublesome. There were plenty of ready-made dishes in the house, and they just had to choose a few to pair up nicely. All this was thanks to the Young Lady, who loved to fuss over things when she was free.

In an era with little entertainment, Ye Xinyan’s greatest hobby in her spare time was to come up with ideas for the kitchen servants, suggesting various cooking methods based on what was available in the kitchen.

For example, if a large rack of ribs was bought and caught the eye of the Young Lady, she would tell the old woman servants ideas, like trying to make a sweet and sour flavor?

Don’t know how to do it? Why not give it a try? Our house has plenty of vinegar and sugar, so trying should do it.

And then there was a serving of sweet and sour ribs.

The Young Lady would say, how about frying it to see how it tastes? After frying, sprinkle some spices on it, things like chili, black pepper, Sichuan pepper...

The ribs then had many ways to be enjoyed: spicy, steamed with glutinous rice, in a stew, to name just a few.

The old woman servants didn’t mind the fuss, as cooking was cooking no matter what, and trying out new soups and dishes added some interest to the task.

These new-fangled dishes were certainly enjoyable for everyday eating, and even more so provided ample options for entertaining His Highness Prince Yu. Making the prince happy was better than anything else.

Jinrong and Jiang Yifan planned to stay at the Qi Family Residence for a few days. Although the Qi Family Courtyard had recently added rows of east and west wing rooms and the old courtyard’s houses had been pulled down to rebuild, the residents of the Qi family were continually increasing. Therefore, currently, the accommodations at the Qi Family Residence were not very spacious.

Jinrong and Jiang Yifan were naturally aware of the Qi family’s accommodation situation, so they didn’t bring many people with them, just two manservants each, and not even a guard, making the party six people in total when they arrived at the Qi family.

In Jinrong’s own words, the Qi family had Guan He and seven bodyguards, which was enough for security.