Read here~

Hua Cheng adores it of course, but also jokingly asks that gege never make it for anyone else, because he wants to be the one to eat all of gege's cooking forever.

Most of the time this comes out in ways that most people don't care for.

Sometimes it means he comes across odd but good combinations accidentally.

He makes a soy sauce and pineapple sauce for a dish once that's absolutely stellar.

My take is that Xie Lian just experiments a lot when he cooks, not caring to follow convention for what tastes "good" or "balanced". (partly in his mother's memory, but also, ingredient limited cooking with his bad luck. He makes it fun by playing with combinations of whatever's on hand.)