With 2569 sent off, Du Xixi sighed with a bit of a headache, then picked up the already washed green peppers and removed all the stems and seeds inside.
The first dish she was going to make was Tiger Skin Green Peppers.
Tiger Skin Green Peppers was a dish Du Xixi used to practice cooking skills back then. The shape and charring of the tiger skin on the surface of the peppers were the criteria that her elders at home used to judge her. And the irregular shape formed by frying the skin was the tiger skin.
However, Du Xixi preferred to dry-fry the green peppers without oil, making the color of the Tiger Skin Green Peppers heavier and the aroma of the peppers more intense.
Du Xixi made several small cuts on the peppers, then dried the surface and placed them one by one in the preheated electric pot, waiting for the tiger skin to form while casually mixing the sauce needed.
The peppers' one side was already fried, and Du Xixi watched the color of the tiger skin in the pot, calmly flipping them over so that both sides would develop a tiger skin.
It's not a time-consuming process; the semi-finished Tiger Skin Green Peppers can be taken out of the pot quickly.
Du Xixi cleaned the pot, poured in the oil extracted by unknown means from the Star Era, and when it was six-tenths hot, added the finely chopped garlic to stir-fry, instantly releasing the garlic fragrance.
Then she added a sauce made from fragrant vinegar, cooking wine, salt, and brown sugar, quickly stir-frying. Because there was no white sugar, Du Xixi had to use brown sugar instead.
The pot had begun to bubble, and Du Xixi calmly added the fried Tiger Skin Green Peppers, mixing them evenly for flavor. When the sauce appeared to become thick, Du Xixi took the Tiger Skin Green Peppers out of the pot.
It's a pity, the Star Era doesn't have soy sauce, and the rare cooking wine and fragrant vinegar they have seem like diluted versions of Blue Star branded cooking wine and vinegar.
Du Xixi picked up a Tiger Skin Green Pepper and tasted it. The flavor was okay, just slightly milder than the Tiger Skin Green Peppers from her memory.
Sigh, it would be great if there were ready-made starch; then, she could add more sauce to enhance the texture and wouldn't have to worry about the sauce not thickening due to being too much.
Du Xixi shrugged, set the Tiger Skin Green Peppers aside, and just as she was about to pick up the next ingredient, she saw the electric rice cooker from the Star Era. Hmm, it looked a lot like Blue Star's rice cooker, except... it was too large.
Du Xixi thought this while looking at the rice cooker, which was nearly half the height of a person on the ground.
Du Xixi found some rice, examined it carefully—it wasn't much different from Blue Star's rice, just fuller and slightly larger. If Blue Star's rice grains were a third the size of a fingernail, then the Star Era's rice grains were half that size.
It's still within Du Xixi's range of acceptance.
Du Xixi took out the huge inner pot of the rice cooker, somewhat straining to pour in an appropriate amount of rice, and was just about to lift it to rinse when she lost strength, causing the inner pot to fall toward her foot.
Unexpectedly, a large hand caught the inner pot, allowing Du Xixi to breathe a sigh of relief as she looked at the owner of the hand: "Why are you here?"
"2569 seems to have short-circuited, muttering about ingredients and seasonings in the living room all the time, it got on my nerves, so I came to see you." Ke Lian helplessly placed the inner pot on the wash stand, indicating to Du Xixi that she could ask him for help.
Du Xixi hesitated for a moment but still said softly, "Just help me rinse this rice twice, and finally leave about...a hand's thickness above the rice surface."
Given Du Xixi's current lack of strength, her little arms and legs, it's likely the rice in the inner pot wouldn't be washed well and would end up being broken. To have some good rice tonight, Du Xixi decided to instruct this Marshal who supposedly is invincible on the battlefield.
"What delicious thing did you make?" Ke Lian asked while obediently rinsing the rice, suddenly sniffing an aromatic and strange smell nearby, and couldn't help but look over: "Is this dish that resembles Roar Beast skin food?"
Du Xixi raised an eyebrow, "Yeah, it's called Tiger Skin Green Peppers, something I found in a random book."
Du Xixi had already considered attributing all her culinary skills learned from Blue Star to random books since, according to her memory, the original owner stayed at home and often read books; occasionally, Du's father and Du's mother would bring some random books to amuse the original owner.
Anyway, since Du's father and Du's mother were no longer around, no one knew what books the original owner had read. If anyone asked about the whereabouts of these random books, Du Xixi could just say she forgot.
With Du Xixi herself, who "has read" the random books and is skilled in the culinary arts therein, who would bother to delve into the whereabouts of those random books?