Su Chen saw the price list posted at the entrance but didn’t pay it much mind, walking straight into the kitchen.

"Brother Chen, you’re finally here!"

"Hurry up and start, I’ve got my phone ready~~"

Su Chen saw He Shuting pointing her phone at him. "What are you doing? I’m not doing a livestream!"

He used to be a streamer out of necessity, and pleasing fans was the same as pleasing customers. But the Su Chen of today was unwilling to suck up to anyone anymore.

"No, no, I’m going to record all your cooking steps so I can go home and study them!" He Shuting said with a smile.

Su Chen joked, "Just record my hands, don’t get my face in it!"

Everyone chuckled and gathered around, especially Aunt Fang, who watched with intense focus.

Su Chen opened the bags of blackfish fillets and put them into a large basin.

One downside of cooking in a cafeteria was that you had to make a meal for over a dozen people at once, which was a bit more difficult than cooking for just a few.

Su Chen had to chop a lot of scallions and ginger just to infuse a bowl of scallion-ginger water with enough flavor.

"Bai Xiaobo, give the fish a massage."

"Huh?" Bai Xiaobo was stunned. "How do I massage it?"

Su Chen first sprinkled a handful of salt and pepper into the basin with the fish, gave it a few simple shakes, then poured in the large bowl of scallion-ginger water and added a handful of cornstarch.

"Just work it with your hands. Keep going until you can’t see any of the ingredients and the fish has absorbed everything."

While he spoke, Su Chen wasn’t idle. He cracked three egg whites over the fish fillets.

"Alrighty!" Bai Xiaobo rolled up his sleeves, ready to get to work.

"Did you wash your hands? Wash your hands first!" He Shuting said quickly, watching through her phone’s screen.

"You’re so bossy!" Bai Xiaobo grumbled as he went to wash his hands. Then, he plunged both hands into the fish fillets. "Huh? This actually feels pretty good. No wonder Brother San..." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Under the watchful eyes of a group of girls, Bai Xiaobo forced himself to swallow the rest of his sentence.

With the first task assigned, Su Chen started heating oil in the woks!

And he fired up two of them at once!

In the first wok, he added minced garlic and Sichuan peppercorns to the hot oil. A simple flash-fry, and the fragrance immediately filled the air!

"Boss, why are you using rapeseed oil today?" Aunt Fang asked, a little confused.

Normally, peanut oil and corn germ oil were used more often for stir-frying. Rapeseed oil has a stronger flavor that can sometimes overpower the taste of the dish itself.

"Fish with Pickled Greens is a very flavorful dish on its own. The rapeseed oil is mainly to make the color look better."

As for the other wok, Su Chen poured in peanut oil. He waited until it began to smoke before CRACK, CRACK, CRACK-ing five eggs into it.

"You need fried eggs for Fish with Pickled Greens?" Liu Shengnan scratched her head. She just couldn’t connect fried eggs with that dish.

Fortunately, Su Chen was in a good mood. Gently swirling the wok, he explained patiently, "Normally, you’d use the fish bones to make the soup base. But since we’re using pre-packaged fillets, we have to use a little trick."

Seeing the lingering confusion in everyone’s eyes...

Su Chen decided to stop talking and just show them. He tossed the shredded pickled greens that He Shuting had cut into the first wok and stir-fried them a few times.

For some reason, as Su Chen stir-fried over high heat, his left hand almost subconsciously gripped the handle and flipped the wok twice. A WHOOSH of flaming oil and water ignited in the pan, though it was only for an instant.

Even so, the employees watched on, dumbfounded.

"Whoa! The boss is amazing, you even know a move like that?"

"Damn! Brother Chen, you lied to us and said you’d never learned! That move must take years of practice, right?"

"Badass! Brother Chen, don’t tell me you worked in a restaurant before starting the company?"

"With skills like that, why even open a company? It’d be so much better to open a restaurant. I’d be there every day to support you~"

Su Chen just smiled without a word.

’A restaurant?’

’If I opened a restaurant, I’d be the boss *and* the chef, and I’d have to flatter the customers. What’s the fun in that?’

’But I’ve really never learned this pan-flipping technique. How did I pick it up on my own...?’

Su Chen’s attention drifted to the Skills panel in his system.

[Skills: Stir-fry (Max Proficiency), Steam (Max Proficiency)]

’Could it be related to my skill proficiency?’

He decided not to dwell on it for now. Smelling the aroma of the pickled greens blooming in the wok, Su Chen turned down the heat. He then flipped the five eggs in the other wok, which were almost on the verge of burning!

Immediately, with a great SPLASH, he poured the boiling water he had waiting at his side into the wok with the fried eggs!

It was already boiling water, and over the fierce flame, it came to a rolling boil again in the blink of an eye. At that moment, everyone noticed something amazing.

The soup... had turned white!

A creamy, appetizing milky white!

"You’re supposed to use fish bones to make this soup base. Since we can’t, we have to use eggs. Now you get it?"

Liu Shengnan nodded, still looking dazed.

’This is too magical, isn’t it?’

’Boiling fried eggs can actually turn water milky white?’

’Heh heh, I’ll have to show this off to my boyfriend the next time he visits!’

Liu Shengnan silently committed this "nifty kitchen trick" to memory.

This time, after letting the milky-white broth boil for a moment, Su Chen poured the entire wok of soup into the other wok.

"Let it simmer for a bit to let the flavor of the pickled greens meld with the soup."

Su Chen put the lid on and clapped his hands together. The pickled green soup base was complete.

Before long, steam began to escape from the edges of the lid, and a savory, tangy aroma filled the kitchen. The onlookers all took deep sniffs.

"This smells amazing!"

"It has that real restaurant-quality vibe. The boss’s skills are no worse than a master chef’s."

"Selling this for 30 is a steal. We’re lucky we get the internal price."

Bai Xiaobo went right up to the wok to get a better smell. "If I had skills like this, I’d cook for my girlfriend every day!"

He Shuting paused her recording. "Do you have skills like this?"

"No."

"Then do you have a girlfriend?"

"No."

"Then you..."

Bai Xiaobo threw his hands up in frustration.

Su Chen quickly intervened. "Alright, stop messing around. Give me the fish."

After Bai Xiaobo brought the fish over, Su Chen added, "But I think Shuting has a point..."

Bai Xiaobo looked like he was about to explode.

After turning off the heat and waiting for the surface of the boiling soup to calm down, Su Chen sighed softly.

The limitations of the ingredients forced him to take all sorts of shortcuts when making this dish.

Authentic Fish with Pickled Greens, after all, involved the step of making a broth from fish bones. Even without adding the fish fillets, the soup itself would have a rich, savory fish flavor.

But now, the fillets were pre-packaged and frozen, and the fried egg broth had aroma but no umami. The difference in taste was something that even his culinary skills couldn’t fully bridge. All Su Chen could do was try to minimize that gap as much as possible.

He let the fish fillets soak in the still-hot soup for a while, waiting for a faint fish aroma to emerge before turning the heat back on high to bring it to a boil.

’When I have more money on hand, I’m definitely going to buy a freshly killed fish and cook a proper meal!’

Su Chen thought to himself.

Fortunately, the average person’s palate wasn’t that discerning. Even with the shortcuts, when steam started rising from the lid again...

Everyone’s eyes lit up!