Chapter 74
The flavorless vegetables I'd set aside, and the vegetables with intense sweetness and bitterness.
Based on what I knew from Japan, I was hoping they might become seasonings.
One is potato starch, and the other is sugar.
For now, I only have salt and fish sauce, so I want to increase my selection of seasonings.
The flavorless vegetables had a texture most similar to Danshaku potatoes.
They had no flavor, which was disappointing, but then I remembered that potato starch was made from potatoes.
The method was simple, and I remembered how to do it.
For now, I peeled the flavorless vegetables and grated them.
I made a grater myself for this purpose.
Silver ore is incredibly convenient to use.
It grates things cleanly, though I have to be careful with my fingers.
I put the grated flavorless vegetables in a cloth and kneaded it in the water in a rock bowl.
I kneaded it endlessly.
The color was paler than I remembered, but the components were leaching into the water.
I squeezed and squeezed until I had wrung out all the components.
I left the rock bowl alone for about twenty minutes.
This was the nerve-racking part.
After twenty minutes, I quietly poured the water out of the rock bowl.
If something was left at the bottom, there was a good chance I'd succeeded. If not, I'd failed.
"There it is."
When I poured out the water, there was a white lump at the bottom.
I added water again, stirred it, and left it for twenty minutes.
I poured out the water and repeated the process once more.
After pouring out the water for the third time, I transferred what remained at the bottom to a plate and dried it.
I dried it with magic, crushed the lump, and completed the white powder.
I coated some meat with it and fried it in oil.
Since this was just a test, I made ten pieces of karaage.
I seasoned them with salt.
...It had been so long since I'd tasted something good that tears came to my eyes.
A baby spider dangled from the ceiling.
It's a secret. I don't have much potato starch yet.
I handed over a bribe.
I turned all the remaining flavorless vegetables into potato starch. After working all day, I somehow managed to finish.
Before bed, I remembered that magic existed. Why did I work so hard entirely by hand?
...
Today, I decided to finally try making sugar with magic.
In Japan, there was something called beet sugar.
I'd heard that beets were vegetables that were sweet but intensely bitter.
So I decided to try using a vegetable that was both sweet and bitter.
This vegetable looks a little creepy.
It's purple and bumpy all over. It should be okay, right?
Well, I have no choice but to try.
As for the method... I only vaguely remember it.
I'd only caught a glimpse of my mother making it, so I was worried.
Was it boiling?
Well, I'll try boiling it.
To draw out the sugar, I should cut it into small pieces.
I put them in an iron pot, added water, and started boiling them.
Scum rose to the surface.
I had to remove it thoroughly. This was probably the bitterness.
Nothing changed for about an hour.
Oh no, did I fail...? But I couldn't stop now.
Just a little longer.
Oh, the purple got darker.
Could this have worked?
For now, I turned off the heat... but it didn't solidify.
I put it back on the heat a little longer, and after thirty minutes, the color had become brighter.
I took it off the heat... It solidified.
I crushed it and tried a small piece... It was sweet.
The sweetness was stronger than any I knew, and it had umami.
I did it~.
I used magic on the rest... but using magic to reduce it resulted in failure.
Why?!
I worked hard at reducing it and obtained a large amount of sugar.
Does magic have things it's bad at too?
I somehow finished making it by evening. Good thing I'd made a large pot.
I tried making teriyaki with winged lizard meat.
It made me want white rice, but it was also delicious with the leafy vegetables that grew on trees.
Core and the others had scary looks in their eyes, so I made a lot.
I need more fish sauce.