Let's Eat Chawanmushi from Another World

――The next day.

Since we'd finished mining the crystals in the cave, I thought I'd try taking the spider to the guild...

But if I brought in something that huge, people would start asking all sorts of questions. Even when I brought in the Fang Bear, the guild staff asked me one question after another.

For now, I wasn't short on money, and I couldn't imagine its meat being edible. Besides, I'd already doused it with insecticide...

I might as well leave it as dead weight in my Item Box for the time being.

After eating breakfast as usual, Anemone seemed to be heading up onto the cliff with the beastfolk to gather medicinal herbs and ingredients.

Primula's shop was closed for the time being, so she said she'd organize the books in her room.

I also needed to come up with a way to deal with the people harassing her shop, but I couldn't think of any good ideas.

I wanted to avoid the violence route as much as possible. This was a good place to live, so I wanted to avoid causing a commotion and having to leave.

――Even though I'd already gone on a rampage to save the Crotton family.

Even though I couldn't think of a good solution, there was no point dwelling on it... Maybe I should try making chawanmushi with spider eggs.

Primula was setting up a desk in her room and organizing the books, so I decided to cook outside.

"Hey, Blackie. The boss is making another weird dish."

"Just leave him be, nya."

"That's a pretty harsh thing to say. It's definitely delicious... Anemone, the seasoning made with spider eggs was tasty, wasn't it?"

"Yeah! It was delicious."

The two beastfolk exchanged glances and made faces that said, "Ughhh"... They were such picky eaters.

They should take a page from us Japanese and try everything at least once.

Well, I'd go my own way.

Anemone and the beastfolk climbed the platform in front of the cliff and headed up to the top. Bell seemed to be tagging along too.

First, I took the spider eggs remaining in the bowl out of my Item Box.

I brought out another bowl and made the dashi. I mixed the usual dashi seasoning with the liquid from boiling nobi mushrooms, and the dashi was ready.

I added an appropriate amount of spider egg. With ordinary eggs, you need to beat them, but this stuff had no yolk or white, so I could use it as-is.

At first glance, it was a thick white liquid, almost like heavy cream. Then I added sugar.

Chawanmushi from my hometown is sweet. It's normally made with sugar by default.

Next came the fillings. I pictured the chawanmushi from back home and tried to remember what went into it.

"Hmm――chicken, chestnuts, and kamaboko. What about mitsuba――it's a somewhat strong-tasting vegetable, so maybe I'll leave it out this time."

I hated mitsuba when I was a kid, but as you get older, you start liking things with flavors like that.

Bell peppers and carrots are vegetables children dislike too, but once they grow up, they understand how delicious they are. Carrots sometimes have a nasty smell, though, so I can't blame people for disliking those.

Sweet, delicious carrots really are incredible, though...

Ordinary chawanmushi seems to contain ginkgo nuts, but the chawanmushi from my hometown had chestnuts.

Maybe chestnuts were used as a substitute because there were no ginkgo trees nearby――but the real reason remained a mystery.

I'd never asked why, or even wondered about it. That probably made the sweet chawanmushi even sweeter.

Well, it would be cruel to force the people who couldn't eat spider eggs to eat them, or to exclude them――so I decided to make a regular-egg version too.

I took ordinary eggs out of my Item Box and made the chawanmushi dashi the same way.

And when you think of chawanmushi, you have to think of those lidded bowls.

When I searched Shangri-La, I found bowls with a wave pattern for sale――1,000 yen each. They looked like W○fi symbols.

There were cheaper ones, but I liked this pattern, so I decided to buy them.

I bought the fillings from Shangri-La too and cut them into appropriately sized pieces. I used candied chestnuts――1,000 yen per jar.

The bird meat Myaree and Nyamena had brought back was in my Item Box.

I arranged the chestnuts and the other fillings in the bowls, then poured in the dashi mixed with beaten egg. The chawanmushi was ready to steam.

It was called chawanmushi, after all, so it had to be steamed. For that, I needed a steamer.

There were stainless-steel and anodized-aluminum models, but aluminum was dangerous in this world, so I decided on stainless steel... 2,500 yen.

"Click."

With a clatter, a two-tiered lidded pot dropped down.

I took a cassette stove out, filled the bottom tier of the steamer with water, and arranged five bowls of dashi in the second tier.

I stuck pine needles I had gathered in the forest into them; when they turned brown, the chawanmushi would be steamed.

White steam rose from the steamer.

While I was cooking, Primula came out from the house.

"What are you cooking?"

"A dish made with spider eggs――the kind you and the others have been frowning at."

"...Ugh."

Primula made an obviously disgusted face.

"Well, I expected you to make that face, so I used ordinary eggs for your portions."

"Oh, you're so mean."

"Haha――I wasn't planning to force you to eat it."

"Kenichi, your Item Box is full of delicious food, so why would you use spider eggs...?"

"When you ask why――I can only say it's because they're delicious."

As I was talking with her, the pine needles stuck into the chawanmushi turned brown――it was done steaming.

"Ow, hot!"

The lid was so hot that I reflexively tossed it away and grabbed my earlobe.

Since the water was already boiling, maybe I should make another steamed dish... What would be good?

Hmm, steamed food... meat buns? Right, how about meat buns?

I immediately searched Shangri-La for meat buns. A set of twelve meat buns and pizza buns from a famous maker was on sale for 2,300 yen.

This should do.

"Click."

I picked up the Chinese bun set, which had dropped down wrapped in a clear bag, then bought oven mitts from Shangri-La.

They were like cotton-filled gloves.

"Kenichi, those are oven mitts, right?"

"They had something similar in Dalia, didn't they?"

"They did, but nothing so well-made..."

On Shangri-La, these were the cheapest kind, but making something similar in the city would cost tens of thousands of yen.

In other words, ordinary households couldn't afford to use something so expensive.

"You can use them as winter gloves too."

If they could keep out heat, they could keep out cold too. In fact, people in my hometown used to have cotton-padded winter wear like oven mitts.

They had already fallen out of use, pushed aside by commercially made gloves, but I remembered my late grandmother often making them for me.

I put on the oven mitts, took the finished chawanmushi outside, and arranged the Chinese buns in the steamer.

It was a little early for lunch, but if I put them in my Item Box once they were steamed, I could eat them piping hot whenever I wanted.

Two each should be enough for five people.

"Is this dish okay to eat cold?"

"Yeah, it's fine."

Chawanmushi is normally served cold, isn't it? Surely it isn't usually eaten hot.

"This bowl is unusual too, but the pattern is wonderful. It seems to be drawn so precisely that it connects all the way around, which is remarkable."

"It represents waves on the sea."

"Oh my."

Primula held up the bowl containing chawanmushi and examined every inch of it.

It wasn't hand-drawn but printed――but there was no point telling her that; she wouldn't understand.

The Chinese buns were done after about fifteen minutes of steaming. I sent them straight into my Item Box.

But if five people got two each, ten buns would leave two over. Primula and I decided to snack on the remaining two.

I cut them in half with a kitchen knife and ate half a meat bun and half a pizza bun.

"Hot, hot! It's so soft, and there's a meat dish inside――"

"Well, I guess that's what you'd expect from a ready-made product."

It was the same taste as those sold at convenience stores.

"Um, this one... Is it cheese, perhaps?"

"They had cheese in Dalia?"

"Yes, but it's extremely expensive... Since no one knows how it's made, only a few people produce it."

"If it's cheese――"

I bought some snack cheese for about 400 yen from Shangri-La and had Primula try it.

"Huh? I'm allowed to eat it?"

"Of course."

"Oh..."

Primula ate the pizza bun and cheese together, her face blissful.

I didn't think it was that delicious, though...

Could Shangri-La even sell rennet, the stuff used to coagulate cheese?

I searched immediately――and there it was! They really did sell everything. Apparently, 3 grams cost about 1,500 yen.

According to the description, 1 gram could coagulate 50 liters of milk. Amazing! I bought it immediately.

"Primula, you can use this medicine to make cheese."

"Huh?"

"The method of making the medicine is a secret."

"Um! I'd really like to try making it. Is that okay?"

"Sure."

Wow, Primula was really enthusiastic about cheese. Did she like it that much?

The rennet I bought included cheese-making instructions, so Primula and I decided to make some together.

Anemone and the beastfolk still hadn't returned, and we had plenty of time.

First, I bought tools and milk from Shangri-La. I needed a precision scale to weigh the rennet first.

Digital scales were cheap, but I found an old-fashioned balance scale with a pan and decided to buy it――2,000 yen.

I used to use one in elementary-school science experiments. It didn't seem to come with weights, so I bought a set of weights separately――1,800 yen.

If 1 gram could coagulate 50 liters, then 0.1 grams could coagulate 5 liters. I measured out 0.1 grams of rennet with the balance scale.

"Let's see... First, heat the milk to sterilize it, then cool it――huh?"

Then I added the rennet to make it coagulate, tore it into small pieces while heating it in a water bath, and removed the whey... What a lot of work.

Finally, I gathered it together, soaked it in salt water for an hour, then let it rest overnight, and it would be done.

"It's quite a laborious process!"

"There are many different ways to make cheese, so this isn't necessarily the right one."

"As I thought, you really are a sage, Kenichi-sama!"

Primula gazed at me with sparkling eyes, and it was dazzling. Her eyes were shining even more brightly than when I'd sold her gemstones and the like.

Had cheese really hit her that hard?

"If you like cheese that much, there's an easier way to make it."

"Huh?!"

I poured about two liters of milk into a bowl and added apple vinegar. Apple vinegar wasn't sold in the city market, but linker vinegar was available for purchase.

It should work the same way. When I stirred it, curds formed immediately.

I gathered them up, strained them through gauze, squeezed out some of the moisture, and sprinkled them with salt. Done.

So-called cottage cheese.

"Ahhh... This is delicious too. And so fresh..."

Primula behaved badly, scooping up cottage cheese with her finger and licking it. She looked just like a child.

"Of course it is. It was just made."

As the two of us sampled the cottage cheese, Anemone and the beastfolk returned from the hunt.

"What are you eating, nya?"

"Isn't that the smell of cheese?"

"Yeah. I decided to try making some."

"Wait, Boss! You know how to make cheese?"

"Well, yeah."

"...Boss, are you perhaps some kind of god?"

A level-up from sage to god, huh? Cheese must be an incredibly luxurious item in this world. Well, it was food for nobles.

"I thought Kenichi was a god from the moment I first met him."

Anemone said that while licking cottage cheese from her finger.

"Why am I a god?"

"I prayed to God every day! I prayed that I'd be able to eat my fill of delicious food."

"Ah――so because I feed you delicious food every day, you think I'm God?"

"Yeah!"

Could that be why Anemone had followed me?

"Listen――God treats every single person equally. If I fed you delicious food just because you're my family, wouldn't that be favoritism?"

"But the people who worship God think he'll save them if they pray every day."

"The rich and poor are equal before God. If he helped them just because they prayed every day, wouldn't that also be favoritism?"

"Hmm..."

Was that a little too difficult for beastfolk? Myaree and Nyamena stood with their arms folded.

"So, I'm not God, haha."

Cheese alone wasn't enough for a meal, so I took out the chawanmushi and meat and pizza buns I'd made earlier from my Item Box too.

"Whoa! This bread-like thing is soft and delicious!"

"There's meat inside, nya! I smelled meat, so this must be it, nya."

Anemone was eating the chawanmushi with a spoon, but she had frozen with her mouth open.

"Anemone, is it not very tasty? I made it with spider eggs..."

"No! It's sweet and really delicious! It's jiggly and soft, and I've never eaten anything like it! There are all sorts of things inside too, and is this sweet thing a nut?"

"That's right, it's a nut stewed in sugar. The white stuff is fish that's been minced and steamed."

"I knew it... Kenichi really is a god..."

"How does that follow?"

"Because it has meat, fish, nuts, and eggs... Everything from this world is in here."

"Is that why? Primula, you try some too. Yours was made with ordinary eggs, so it's safe."

Spider eggs didn't separate into yolk and white, so they lacked the richness of egg yolk, but had an incredibly creamy flavor.

I thought spider eggs tasted better in chawanmushi.

"Oh my, it's sweet and smooth――I've never had a texture like this. This dish is sure to become wildly popular among the nobles."

"But it's steamed, so it takes a lot of work. Boiling or grilling would be easier."

"Nobles spare no time or effort when it comes to fine food. There's no need to worry."

The meat buns, pizza buns, and cheese, as well as the chawanmushi, were all very well received.

Well, we'd eaten lunch. What should I do this afternoon?

Since I'd gone to the trouble of buying Ko○tsu-san, maybe I should dig out the rhodonite remaining in the cliff.

With that kind of power, I should be able to excavate places an electric hammer couldn't reach.

Near the cliff, I summoned Ko○tsu-san and extended its arm. It was a little too short. Besides, I wanted some room to work.

――Which meant I'd need to build up the ground by about two meters to excavate with the heavy machinery.

To do that, the platform would be in the way, so I had to move it.

I stored the platform in my Item Box for the moment, shifted its position, and set it up again. Things like this were easy with an Item Box.

After that, I used Ko○tsu-san to build up the ground.

"Boss! What are you doing this time?"

"I'm planning to use this summoned beast to dig out the ore remaining in the cliff. Then I should be able to mine a lot more."

"Sure, sure, do whatever you want. We're going hunting again."

"Be careful."

I left the hunting to them and operated the heavy machinery. Using Ko○tsu-san's turning radius, I dug up earth and transported it from a spot a little farther away.

If I dug a hole too close, the ground might collapse and the heavy machine could fall in.

"All right, I'll summon Yu○bo too."

I piled up the earth, leveled it with Yu○bo's dozer blade, and compacted it under Ko○tsu-san's weight.

Then I raised the arm again and extended it toward the ore vein atop the cliff.

"Yeah, it reaches easily."

Primula stood silently, gazing up at my one-man civil-engineering project.

She seemed to be thinking about something.

But this bucket couldn't dig out the ore. To do that, I needed a new attachment.

That was――a hydraulic breaker.

It used hydraulic power to drive a chisel into the target and crush it. I'd seen them breaking concrete during demolition work, so it should be able to break up rock this size.

When I searched Shangri-La, I found replacement attachments for this heavy machine too. Of course, they were all used.

A large replacement hydraulic breaker cost two million yen. That alone was enough to buy a small Yu○bo.

"All right, purchase!"

With a ground-shaking rumble, the replacement hydraulic breaker dropped down. But this thing weighed several hundred kilograms. Could I replace it by myself...?

But the attachment was connected only by a thick metal pin. If I aligned the holes precisely, I shouldn't need much force...

First, I hammered out the pin connecting Ko○tsu-san's bucket. Once I aligned the holes properly, the enormous pin slid out surprisingly easily.

Next, I aligned the hydraulic breaker... But this thing was heavy!

I couldn't manage it with my own strength, so I used Yu○bo to push and pull it, but I couldn't see the pin holes, making fine adjustments difficult.

Maybe I should ask the beastfolk, who were proud of their strength, to help.

------◇◇◇------

Before dinner, the beastfolk returned, so I had them help me replace Ko○tsu-san's attachment.

We used their strength to align it and insert the metal pin.

Finally, I connected the hydraulic lines, completing the replacement.

"Let's give it a test run."

I started Ko○tsu-san's engine and selected breaker mode from the console on the right.

Then I went to a nearby cliff and placed the breaker's chisel against the rock.

"All right!"

The sound of metal striking rock rang out, and large chunks came tumbling from the rock face one after another.

"What the heck is this?! Amazing! That steel chisel can break rock too?!"

"Nyaa!"

The beastfolk watched the rock being smashed with their ears flattened by the loud noise, apparently astonished by its power.

"All right, it works. It's more than capable. Starting tomorrow, I'll really dig into it!"

At the very least, I had to recoup the two million yen the hydraulic breaker cost, but there was still plenty of stone left, so that should be easy enough.

But there was a concern too. Its fuel tank held 400 liters, and running it for a full day would empty the tank exactly.

In other words, I had to mine enough stone to cover the fuel costs.