Oil-Braised Prawns

"Su Tingbai? Su Tingbai!" Shen Rui'an waved a hand. "Why are you spacing out?"

"Huh? Oh, I got distracted. Bring me the flowers. I'll trim them and put them in a vase for you."

Shen Rui'an obediently handed him all the flowers he was holding. Su Tingbai picked up a pair of scissors and trimmed them before carefully arranging them. Pinkish white and violet blue complemented each other, but Su Tingbai still felt that something was missing. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly understood. He snipped a few stalks of Little Pan Grass from outside and added them, then nodded in satisfaction, somewhat smug. "Look. What do you think?"

Su Tingbai had arranged the flowers with considerable artistic flair, and they suited the interior decor of the entire manor.

Judging solely from his cool, handsome appearance, he seemed like the sort of CEO who lived only in a modern minimalist space of black, white, and gray. In reality, that was not the case.

What he liked was a natural style. The entire manor villa had been decorated in that style, including the bedroom he currently occupied. Greenery was the one thing the villa never lacked.

Even Shen Rui'an's room had plants, and the lighting was especially good. A huge floor-to-ceiling window faced the bed. As long as the curtains were drawn, sunlight could spill across half the bed. Trees had been planted outside, and whenever the wind blew, he could see the leaves swaying and hear their soft rustling. There was a small bookshelf beside the head of the bed, while several vases in the bedroom held Bird of Paradise and other greenery. Once sunlight flooded into the room, it became full of life, soothing to the very sight.

The vase looked quite nice on the bookshelf now as well. Su Tingbai could imagine how beautiful that pale green glass vase would look once sunlight streamed into the room.

"It looks great!" Shen Rui'an never forced himself to say anything he did not mean. If something looked good, then it looked good; if it looked bad, then it looked bad. Though he did not know much about flower arranging, his sense of aesthetics told him that the bouquet before him was exceptionally beautiful.

"I'm glad you like it. Do you need me to carry it upstairs for you? Put it on the bookshelf?" Before he had even finished speaking, Su Tingbai picked up the vase and prepared to head upstairs.

"Okay!" Shen Rui'an nodded and followed him up. When he saw the flowers settled into their new home on the bookshelf, he could not help smiling contentedly.

Su Tingbai lowered his head to look at him. After a while, noticing a trace of weariness between his brows, he suggested, "Tired? Then take a nap. I'll call you when the food's ready."

Shen Rui'an nodded heavily. After seeing Su Tingbai out, he grabbed a small blanket, covered his navel, and lay down for a nap on a little sofa in the bedroom.

Baisui kept him company for a while. Once it sensed that Shen Rui'an had fallen asleep, it followed Su Tingbai's scent downstairs and circled around his feet.

In an excellent mood, Su Tingbai rubbed Baisui's little head. He then washed his hands and began preparing the ingredients.

While Shen Rui'an was enjoying his nap, Su Tingbai and his team got busy.

When he and Shen Rui'an had gone into the mountains to pick wild vegetables and gather mushrooms, they had also filmed some footage along the way.

Now, Little Zhu and A-Ming worked together, dividing up the filming tasks.

Ya-ya and the others had already divided up the work of picking the wild vegetables. Su Tingbai only needed to film a few extra shots, which counted as his participation.

Back when he did not have a team, he rarely filmed so much. He simply went with the flow.

With a professional team, there were more shots to capture.

He had originally done everything himself. Later, after most team members began appearing on camera, things became much easier for him.

For things like washing and sorting vegetables, unless an ingredient required special preparation, the team would usually wash everything together before filming a few shots. The focus was still on Su Tingbai cooking. The main draw of his account's current traffic was him, combined with cooking.

He stood over six feet three, with a figure comparable to a supermodel's. Even if he wore clothes and an apron without showing off his abs, he still gave off an intensely masculine visual impression, making him even more suited to the tastes of today's thirsty online viewers.

On top of that, he had a solid family fortune and could cook relatively expensive ingredients. Some ingredients were rare and costly, and whenever the mood struck, he would even take his team to their places of origin to gather or catch them. That was another selling point. It satisfied some people's fantasies about the rich while broadening others' horizons. People curious about such things especially liked this.

Lastly, Su Tingbai genuinely knew how to cook. His years in the military kitchen had not been for nothing; he knew cuisines from all over the country. After leaving the military, he had also kept up with trends and learned how to make popular online foods, such as the currently trending Snail Rice Noodles, Spicy Hot Pot, Xinjiang Fried Rice Noodles, and so on.

These were common foods in eating broadcasts, and Su Tingbai would make them out of curiosity as well. To avoid making mistakes, he would go to their places of origin to learn.

Fortunately, perhaps he had been born with a Food Spirit Root. After watching a few times and trying his hand at it a few times, whatever he made came out looking quite convincing.

Today, having promised Shen Rui'an that he would make Oil-Braised Prawns, he picked up the still lively Giant River Prawns and began cleaning them.

Oil-Braised Prawns was a classic Shandong Cuisine dish. Traditionally, local prawns were the best choice, but times had changed. The economy had developed, and Hua Nation had recovered from the difficult era when people struggled merely to feed themselves, advancing to a time when they pursued nutrition.

The grains people had been least willing to eat in the seventies and eighties were now more expensive than refined rice. Even the fatty pork everyone had once loved had become tiresome. Ingredients found online nowadays came in an endless variety. Classic cuisines were all well and good, but the ingredients used in them had begun to be updated and replaced.

Many classic dishes among Hua Nation's eight great cuisines had now been developed into countless variations by the people of Hua Nation.

Food bloggers online were the group that loved exercising creativity the most.

Su Tingbai was no exception, but he was still fairly "traditional." He would not throw everything into one pot and call it innovation.

He mainly felt that regular prawns were a little too small and did not look as striking when plated, so he chose the larger Giant River Prawns.

He could have chosen Black Tiger Prawns as well, but Su Tingbai felt that with seafood, bigger did not necessarily mean better texture. Take Black Tiger Prawns, for instance. If used for White-Boiled Prawns, their texture was not as good as Kuruma Prawns because their thick flesh was too firm. They were somewhat chewy to eat—commonly known as hard to chew.

White-Boiled Prawns were a Cantonese Cuisine dish. Cantonese people placed great importance on the natural freshness of ingredients, and White-Boiled Prawns were naturally no exception. The method was also very simple: one only needed to cook the Kuruma Prawns and prepare a dipping sauce. The only thing to note was not to cook the prawns for too long, as that would affect their texture. White-Boiled Prawns had a fresh, sweet flavor.

It was not impossible to make this dish with Black Tiger Prawns, but their texture was inferior to Kuruma Prawns or Chinese White Prawns.

Personally, Su Tingbai liked White-Boiled Prawns made with Chinese White Prawns best. The flavor was truly incredible. Chinese White Prawns had once had far stricter living conditions than Kuruma Prawns, so they were more expensive on the market, but that was not a problem for Su Tingbai.

As his thoughts wandered, he cleaned the prawns and braised the Giant River Prawns in oil according to the Shandong Cuisine method for Oil-Braised Prawns.

After finishing one dish, he stood in front of a fan for quite a while. Once he felt that the smell of cooking fumes had faded somewhat, he went upstairs to check on Shen Rui'an.

He was afraid Shen Rui'an would sleep too deeply. The Shen family had specifically instructed him to watch Shen Rui'an's sleep duration. If Shen Rui'an slept at night, he would sleep several hours longer than most people, but for a noon nap or something similar, under two hours was best.

He quietly went upstairs. Shen Rui'an was sleeping soundly, the sunlight outside falling across his hand and making his pale skin gleam. Su Tingbai stepped forward to tuck the small blanket around him, then checked the air conditioner's temperature. Only after confirming it was not too cold did he creep downstairs again to continue making the second dish.