kscans

Chapter 115 - Various Kinds of Steaming - 2. Salt Crust Baking

"Hosho-yaki and Shiogama-yaki…? No, I’m afraid I’ve never heard of them… What are they?"

"Hosho-yaki is a cooking method mainly used for fish. You salt the fish and wrap it in wet paper, or wrap it in paper and then generously spray it with a mist to wet it. After that, you bake it in the oven. When you tear the paper on the plate, a steam-baked fish emerges."

"Hoh… that sounds interesting as a form of presentation… but does it have to be fish? The fish available around here is mainly river fish, and sea fish is mostly dried."

"Ah… so river fish is not very popular."

"It tends to taste muddy. The sea fish I ate before was delicious, though."

"Since it’s a cooking method that involves wrapping in paper, flatter ingredients are more suitable. Also, in the case of fish, you can serve a whole one."

I see, Adon thought to himself.

It was true, as Yuri said, that serving a piece of meat wrapped up would not be very visually appealing. Fish was certainly more suitable. However, river fish would inevitably have a lingering smell, and in the first place, it would not be well-received. It had to be sea fish. But at this time of year…

"Ah… is the season too bad to send someone to a seaside town…?"

"It’s not impossible to get fresh sea fish if you ask a merchant with a Magic Bag."

In that case, it seemed he had no choice but to bring out the main event.

"Then, it will have to be Salt Crust Baking. Simply put, this is a method of covering something like meat with salt and steam-baking it. You crack open what looks like nothing more than a lump of salt, and out comes a perfectly steam-baked piece of meat."

"Hoho… that also sounds interesting as a form of presentation…"

For Adon, who seemed to be intrigued, they decided to teach the recipe to the head chef, Mand, and have him make it.



"Here you are, thanks for waiting."

Saying so, the head chef, Mand, who was grinning for some reason, brought over a lump of salt with a slightly browned surface. The rugged lump of salt sitting unceremoniously on a luxurious plate was somewhat strange.

"Yuri-kun… this is it?"

"Yes. It’s covered with a mixture of salt and egg white. I’ve heard there are recipes that don’t use egg white, but this time we mixed it with egg white."

"Are we… going to eat this… as it is…?"

Dona was slightly taken aback, but,

"Of course not. Well then, Mand-san, if you please."

"Aye."

What Mand cheerfully took out was a wooden mallet. It was not something that would normally be brought to the dinner table.

"This time we’re using a mallet we had on hand, but for a party, it might be good to decorate it to look like a special mallet."

"Hmm…"

Ignoring the two who were deep in conversation, Mand proceeded to crack the salt crust with the mallet. As he did, a wonderful aroma wafted up from within.

"My…"

"Hoho…"

"So this is it…"

With the sliced meat before them, a long explanation would be tactless, so Yuri decided to save it for later. The party decided to indulge their palates without reservation. Once they were fully satisfied, Adon turned his head towards Yuri.

"Yuri-kun, could you explain?"

Yuri exchanged a quick glance with Mand, but it seemed they had already discussed it beforehand, as Yuri immediately began his explanation.

"Understood. When you wrap the meat in the salt crust, there are several methods. You can wrap it as is, cover it with herbs or leafy vegetables before wrapping, or cover it with a thin sheet of paper before wrapping it in salt. If the meat comes into direct contact with the salt crust, it will inevitably become too salty. You could quickly wipe that part off after cracking the salt crust, but I think doing that in front of guests would be a bit of a mood killer, so this time we wrapped it in fragrant leafy vegetables. If you have some suitable paper, I think wrapping it in that would be good too."

There was no usable paper this time, Yuri explained to Adon, but the idea of using paper in cooking was new to him, and Adon seemed quite surprised. He had explained it during the Hosho-yaki demonstration, but he had apparently thought that was a special case.

"In that case, if the guests are merchants, it might be interesting to try using paper."

"Who would give away a business idea to a competitor? That kind of thing is for after we’ve had our turn."

Yuri was impressed by his shrewdness, but as he was vaguely looking at the table, he remembered something else.

"Adon-san, about the origami I showed you earlier…"

"Yes?"

"Did you know that you can do similar things using table napkins?"

Folding table napkins three-dimensionally to create shapes like roses, crowns, or rabbits is something one sometimes sees at fashionable parties. Yuri, who had spent a long time in the hospital, had shown off such folding techniques at birthday parties for long-term pediatric patients. In his previous life, Isarai Yuuri’s hospital had occasionally held them in the pediatric ward, and he had delighted the children with them. Because of that experience from his past life, he knew various ways to fold napkins. Since he was at it anyway, Yuri decided to teach Adon those folding methods as well. …The change in the color of Adon’s eyes was probably unavoidable.