Chapter 46 – Pasta, Pizza, and Risotto Part 3
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Translator: SFBaka
Editor: Thor’s Stone
After the rice grains turned a nice shade of white, I poured in the prawn-based dashi little by little and simmered everything in low heat. Alright. It should be done soon. After confirming the state of the rice, I added some cheese, salt, and black pepper for flavoring and finished up the dish. Nice. All done.
“It’s done. Go ahead and try it.”
I put in some risotto on separate plates and served it to Verse and Sara-chan.
The first thing you’ll taste is the deep and strong flavor of the prawns. But by adding the cheese, the flavor becomes milder on the palate, and the dish becomes easier to eat. It’s been a while since I ate some prawns, so I found it quite tasty. I basically winged this one, but the resulting dish was quite nice.
“Delicious! This is really delicious! It’s the first time I ate something so tasty! I definitely need to make mom try some too!”
“It really is good! It resembles a dish I had as an adventurer when I traveled to a city located near the sea. So the shells and heads of the prawns can also produce such a deep flavor just by boiling them in water! I really underestimated their use huh.”
“It looks like you’ve taken a liking to the dishes I taught you.”
“I didn’t just take a liking to them! All the dishes you’ve taught me today are really impressive dishes! I owe you more again.”
“Don’t mind it. We’re really indebted to you as well.”
“Really, thanks a lot, Alan. I mean it.”
“Let’s leave it with this for today. We need to prepare for dinner soon, right?”
“Right, it’s nearly dinnertime. But now, I kinda want to serve at least one of the dishes you taught me today. …How about this risotto dish. I wanna perfect this dish while you’re still here, Alan.”
“But we don’t have any more prawns.”
“Sara, can you go to the market and buy as many river prawns as you can?”
Verse handed some money to Sara-chan and made her go to the market. The stall I bought the prawns from did have a lot left in stock, so I’m pretty sure they haven’t sold out yet, but Verse telling her to buy as much as possible is kinda incredible.
After discussing with Verse, tonight’s menu items were decided to be hamburger steak, prawn and cheese risotto, and potato salad with plenty of soft-boiled eggs.
I proceeded with preparing the dishes along with Verse. I decided to lecture him on different kinds of food presentations while I’m at it.
After a while, orders from the guests and walk-in diners started coming in. Risotto isn’t really that difficult of a dish, so Verse got the hang of cooking it pretty quickly.
Alan-san, you have a guest.” Sara-chan announced.
I wondered who it was, and when I went outside, I found that it was Tarus-san’s employee, Willy.
“Yo, if it isn’t Willy. What’s up?”
“Sorry for dropping in suddenly like this, Alan-san. Actually, Tarus-san and his family are planning to come here for dinner later. Is a table available? Um, there will be five people all in all.
Half of the seats in the dining area were already filled.
“How about it, Verse? I’ve received plenty of help from Tarus-san, so I want to treat him if possible…”
“Oi, oi, Tarus-san is that really rich bigshot, right? I’m gonna open up some seats even if I have to chase out some customers. But, let’s see… I think there will be plenty more seats open in about an hour or so.”
“That’s what he says. Will that be fine, Willy?”
“Understood! Thank you very much!”
It seems Cleria and the girls will be back soon as well, so let’s have dinner an hour from now then. It would be nice to have dinner with Tarus-san and his family again. I went back to the kitchen to help out with the cooking again.
“But I can’t believe that Tarus-san actually wants to have dinner at this inn. This is really huge, Alan.”
“Is that so? Oh, right, Tarus-san also runs a restaurant huh.”
“It’s not just any restaurant you know! It’s a high-class establishment where you can dine only by reservation. There’s a great deal of difference between that place and ours.”
“Really? That’s quite amazing. But it seems that Tarus-san has a high opinion of you, Verse. It was Tarus-san who recommended that we stay at your inn you know.”
“…I see. If so, then I gotta do my very best for tonight’s dinner then.”
I and Verse continued to cook dishes one after another.
“Alan-san, Tarus-san and his family have come to dine. Ria-san and the others have already returned and have taken their seats as well.” Sara-chan announced.
“I see. Can I leave the rest to you, Verse?”
“Yeah, thanks for the help, Alan.”
When I came out to the dining area, I found that most of the other guests and diners had already left their tables earlier. Only about three tables were still filled. Tarus-san and his family were seated around a table right next to Cleria and the girls. There was Tarus-san, his wife, his daughter Tara-chan, his son Katolle, and finally, Jonas-san.
“Good evening, Tarus-san.”
“Good evening, Alan-san. I couldn’t wait any longer and brought my family over.”
“You came at a great time. We just came up with a new menu tonight.”
“So it looks like you also cooked in the kitchen tonight. Now I’m really looking forward to dinner.”
I took a seat together with Cleria and the girls. The dishes were brought out after a short while.
The main dishes were large servings of cheese-filled hamburger steaks. The hamburger steak had a simple demi glace sauce consisting of onions, mushrooms, ketchup, and Japanese style sauce poured on top of it. The accompanying side dish was a combination of veggies consisting of lightly glazed carrots, boiled broccoli, and mayonnaise.
And then there was the new item, prawn and cheese risotto. It had some raw parsley-looking herbs on top, and some black pepper sprinkled on.
And finally, there was potato salad. It wasn’t your usual potato salad, but something that had plenty of soft-boiled eggs mixed in. Of course, it also had plenty of mayonnaise.
“Hou, this doesn’t seem like the usual hamburger steak.” Cleria observed.
“As expected of Ria. We made quite a few changes to the sauce used. And also… Cut a portion of the hamburger and take a look.”
“Oh, it actually has some cheese inside!”
“Yeah. It really turned out well thankfully.”
“Alan-san! Just what is this dish!?” Tarus-san asked excitedly.
It looks like Tarus-san had a mouthful of the risotto for himself.
“Oh that’s a dish from my hometown called risotto. It has a strong flavor of prawns, so I hope you don’t have anything against that…”
“No, no, I do not hate the taste at all. Actually, it’s the first time I’ve eaten such a delicious dish.”
That’s a relief. This rich flavor isn’t all that appealing to those bad with things like shrimps or prawns after all.
“No, father. Please try this dish instead! This dish is definitely better!” Katolle claimed.
It looks like Katolle has set his heart on the hamburger steak instead.
“I actually like this salad better. It’s very tasty!”
Tara-chan ended up preferring the potato salad. Maybe she’s part of the mayo faction?
Everyone seemed to really like the dishes and kept saying they were delicious. Soon, Cleria asked for seconds.
I kept on taste-tasting the dishes earlier, so my tummy was already quite full. I’ll just chill and drink some wine then.
“Alan-san, I’ve heard good things about the new dishes served here, but I didn’t think they would be this good.”
We already finished our dinner and were now drinking our after-meal tea.
“I see. I’m glad you liked them. It isn’t just the recipes though. It’s because Verse is a really skilled chef as well.”
“That’s right. His passion for cooking shows through all of the dishes he made.”
Yeah. I haven’t met someone as passionate when it comes to cooking as Verse. If Verse wasn’t this passionate, I’m sure I wouldn’t have offered to teach him recipes.
Tarus-san and his family seemed really satisfied with dinner as they finally headed home.
I asked Cleria about their practice today and heard that the results were pretty good. It looks like they’ve decided to have some mock battles once we’ve retrieved Selena and Sharon’s armors from the shop tomorrow. They’re really fired up about it too.
I was pretty tired from cooking up a lot of dishes earlier, but I still wrote some detailed recipes for Verse’s use. After an hour or so, I wrote about ten recipes for Verse.
I’ll just leave drawing the magic circles for the chief tomorrow. I’ll go ahead and take a bath now so I can catch some sleep earlier.
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