Chapter 11
[Title: Jian, You Bitch]
[Author: ㅇㅇ]
(Inryuki is a GIF)
Ah, just
J.O.A.T
Comments
ㅇㅇ: Go die somewhere.
ㅇㅇ: Keeping your mouth shut for five hours—legendary lol
ㄴ: There's a reason you're a nobody, yep.
[Title: Lay Off Mentioning the Nobody]
[Author: HaeunLoveDog]
Get lost. I'm not interested.
Comments
ㅇㅇ: Haeun, log out of your alt.
ㄴ HaeunLoveDog: Not me.
ㄴ: If you're the sort of LoveDog who crawls over here despite all odds, saying, “That bitch can't be allowed to get big,” and wanders around clicking refresh for 24 hours, give this a dog-upvote.
ㄴ HaeunLoveDog: Your mom.
ㅇㅇ: Wanted criminal, welcome lol
Hakkobak-i: Info: this is the Small-Streamer Gallery.
***
Yesterday, I got needlessly stubborn and gritted my teeth through an entire game.
By the time it ended, only the Five Red Guards remained.
That's harsh. It was so much fun.
Countless wonders and natural landscapes, along with all those countries and their unique characteristics.
If you use a map of real-world Earth for the terrain, you can whip up a bowl of alternate history just like that.
If this isn't a god-tier game, what is?
But when I replayed yesterday's stream, it was quiet as a monastery... Sorry.
My five brave comrades. I'll remember you!
I should make something and send it to my Red Guards who worked so hard lifting logs for me.
“Yaaawn. I'm exhausted. I'm hungry too. I'm getting old; I should just die. Oof.”
In my teens, I could stay up all night and play without a problem, but now that my age has rolled over to a new decade, I feel like my body has aged overnight.
My stomach rumbled, demanding food.
The clock said eleven.
I played one more game because something felt missing while I had the stock simmering, and ended up staying up all night. It really is a god-tier game!
Maybe because I'd stayed up all night, I was even hungrier.
Judging by my condition, I'd probably eat and go straight to bed. What would be something suitable?
As I looked around for a moment, a pot caught my eye.
“I really must be tired. It's sitting right out in the open.”
I'd worked so hard to make it; not eating it would be a loss in life. Thus, the menu was decided.
Since it'll take a while, I'd better get up and start. I'm tired enough to die.
Today's menu was onion soup.
The ingredients were butter, onions, one cup of white stock, and a little white wine.
I sliced the onions thinly.
I heated a pan over low heat and melted the butter.
As the heat melted it, the distinctive smell of butter tickled my nose.
I added the sliced onions and a little salt, keeping the heat low.
You don't sauté onions over high heat; you suer them, as the professionals call it.
In French, it means “to make them sweat,” and refers to cooking them over low heat so they don't take on any color.
I remembered a senior who had cursed me out when I was a novice because the onions had changed color slightly.
The funny thing was, he'd made the same mistake and gotten cursed out by the chef. What a bastard.
While mentally chewing him out, I sautéed the onions, stirring them now and then so they wouldn't burn. Before long, moisture seeped out of them with a sharp sizzle.
From here on, I had to keep stirring and sautéing to drive off all the moisture and cook the onions evenly.
Less moisture also meant a greater risk of burning.
It was an incredibly tedious and annoying job, but I had to make the sacrifice for the sake of flavor.
As the onions cooked, they gave off a sweet aroma mingled with butter.
I sautéed them mechanically, breathing in the aroma.
Before I knew it, all the moisture had evaporated, and the onions had shrunk considerably.
Now it was time to caramelize them.
It was easier than driving off the moisture, but it still required just as much attention.
As I started getting hungry, I turned up the heat. Normally, I'd cook them slowly over low heat, but let's use a shortcut.
I spread them out so they would cook evenly, then left them alone for two or three minutes.
Once a suitable amount had stuck to the bottom, I added a little water and deglazed the pan.
Adding water as they cooked meant they could cook evenly and quickly over high heat without burning.
I repeated the process until they reached the color I wanted.
When the caramelization was nearly finished, I added a little more butter.
If you were using store-bought chicken stock or stock that had only been simmered briefly, this was when you'd add a little flour and cook it.
You could leave it out if you liked thin soup, but if you wanted a little body, you shouldn't forget it.
But using store-bought stock would make all the work I'd put into the onions feel like such a waste. I'd spent nearly an hour sautéing nothing but onions.
Of course, it would still taste good with store-bought stock.
Once the extra butter and onions had mixed well, it was time for the final deglazing.
Instead of water, I used white wine to rein in the excessive sweetness.
The acidity of the white wine would balance the sweetness of the onions and keep the flavors in harmony.
As they say, too much of anything becomes poison. Acidity was the same: if it stood out too sharply, it would ruin the balance, so I reduced it enough to mellow it out.
The light, distinctive aroma of white wine wrapped around my nose.
And then came the white stock.
Chicken stock, I suppose—but anyway, I poured in one cup, enough for a single serving, covered the pot, and brought it to a brief boil.
As the chicken stock boiled, it added even more flavor. An overpowering aroma seeped out despite the lid being closed.
My mouth watered.
“Since that needs a little longer, shall I make some croutons?”
Did I have any sandwich bread in the freezer?
I rummaged around and, fortunately, found some bread forlornly wedged into a corner.
“Soup without croutons is a crime.”
The question wasn't whether to eat them, but whether to put them in the soup or eat them separately. Each option had its own appeal, so it was always a difficult choice.
Still, today felt like a day when I wanted to casually scoop everything up with a spoon.
I diced the bread into pieces smaller than the radish served with fried chicken.
I put butter in a pan and kept the heat low.
If I turned up the heat, the bread might burn before the outside had a chance to turn golden brown.
As soon as the butter melted, I added all the chopped bread and sautéed it.
The sizzling sound launched its first bombardment.
Then the smell of toasted bread mingled with the soup's aroma and tormented me in a second assault.
But knowing that one more step remained made me sad.
I set the finished croutons on a sheet of kitchen towel to drain off the excess oil.
I opened the lid to check, and the soup was finished too.
I adjusted the final seasoning with salt and pepper.
I took out a soup bowl and poured all the onion soup from the pot into it.
My stomach told me to eat it right now.
Wait, Tummy-Bbippi. One step left.
I placed the croutons I'd toasted earlier on top.
And now for the finishing touch, I suppose? I grated a mound of Parmigiano-Reggiano over it with a grater.
As I grated the cheese and looked at the bowl, I saw yellow snow piling up over the croutons.
It felt like wantonly defiling white milk bingsu with yellow condensed milk.
Hunger really did make me think of all sorts of things.
Once I'd grated enough cheese to hide everything beneath it, I sent the bowl straight into the oven.
I baked it only until the cheese had taken on some color.
I shook my leg without realizing it. It was the peak of lunchtime.
The growling of my stomach and the sound of the oven running formed a duet.
Seeing the soup inside the oven was driving me even crazier.
I turned on YouTube to forget my hunger for a moment.
Should I look up Ms. Haeun's videos?
I suddenly thought of the saying that even a brush of the sleeve creates a connection, so I searched for her videos.
Most of them were gaming videos. She played a wide variety of games without discriminating between genres.
The only unusual ones were perhaps her mukbang videos.
It felt unusual seeing mukbang videos mixed in among all those gaming videos.
Curious, I clicked on one.
She wasn't the type to eat truly enormous amounts. It was more of a vlog-style video, where she simply enjoyed eating something delicious.
In the videos, she seemed to like eating much more than most people did.
Watching Ms. Haeun eat absentmindedly only made me hungrier.
Strangely, mukbang videos were even more tempting when I was hungry.
I was starving to death.
Ding.
“It's done!”
Like a dog that sees its owner come home at the sound of the bell, I scrambled over to the oven.
I took out the bowl, set it back on a plate, sprinkled on some parsley, and finished the presentation.
A violent visual.
The cheese was a deep yellow, with patches of brown here and there.
The edges had browned nicely, so I could practically predict their texture just by looking.
I tapped it a few times with my spoon. It was firm.
Just imagining how it would feel in my mouth already sent me into ecstasy.
“Then, let's eat.”
Just as I was about to stir the soup with my spoon—
Jingle.
I turned at the sound of the bell and saw a young woman standing there.
‘Who is she? No one was supposed to come today. But she looks strangely familiar...’
“Hello. Is this Ms. Jian's shop?”
“Yes, hello. It is, but how did you...?”
There was a fairly tall woman standing by the door. She was almost as tall as me and had a bob haircut.
More than anything, her pretty appearance stood out. Her face looked gentle and innocent—the perfect puppy type.
But why did she seem so familiar?
While I was wondering who she was, she answered my question.
“You told me to come yesterday, but I suppose you didn't mean it. Shall I leave again?”
You told her to come yesterday? I did?
After a brief moment of thought, I remembered.
“Ms. Haeun?”
“That's right. You got it right away?”
Well, the only person who had recently shown me where the shop was was her, and I'd been watching her YouTube until just now.
I watched Ms. Haeun cover her mouth with one hand and laugh.
It was completely different from the image I'd had of her.
Of course, it was the same face, but on her stream she'd given off the easygoing air of an older sister. Yet from the way she spoke now, she seemed like a sheltered young lady from a wealthy household.
So the fact that she was here meant that her saying she'd think about it yesterday hadn't been one of those Korean promises after all?
Coming to the shop in a single day—what incredible initiative.
I was the one who had told her to come, so there was no point making a fuss now.
I'm hungry, so come on in already.
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Here's an illustration of onion soup! (Made using GPT!)