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Chapter 32: Tempura and Tonkatsu (Part 1)

 

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Translator: SFBaka

Editor: Thor’s Stone

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We returned to the inn. I called out to Verse at two in the afternoon, and he immediately came out from the kitchen.

“Hey there. Shall we go then? …Are those two young misses also coming with us?”

Cleria and Elna insisted on coming as well.

“Huh? Are you two really coming with us?”

“We didn’t have anything else to do in particular, so we decided to come along, but…”

“I see. But we’re just gonna shop around in the local market. I don’t think it’ll be that interesting.”

“I would like to experience coming to the market at least once in my life. Elna also hasn’t experienced it, right?”

“No, I haven’t. I would like to partake as well.”

“Is it okay, Verse?”

“I don’t really mind, but it might not be that interesting as Alan said.”

In the end, all four of us headed for the market. It was a twenty-minute walk from the inn, I think.

“Do you have any particular cuisine in mind, Verse? I know a lot of different recipes, but I’d like to prioritize teaching you dishes you’re interested in. But we’ll have to see if we can make them properly first. That’ll depend on the availability of ingredients and seasonings.”

“Oh! Hearing that sure makes me happy. Let’s see. I’d like to learn how to cook deep-fried food first, I think? You know; the cooking method which uses plenty of oil. I want to know all the tricks to it. Next would be how to make that egg and vinegar sauce. That was amazing.”

“I see. Yeah, deep-fried food is pretty tasty. But, well, I think people would quickly get tired of them if you just serve fried food every day, so I’ll teach you some other recipes as well while we’re at it. And as for that sauce; I think only I would be able to pull off the method I used yesterday to make it, so I’ll teach you a different method instead.”

“Only you can pull it off? What do you mean by that, Alan?”

“You need to stir the mixture at really fast speeds for a long period of time.”

“Oh yeah. That mixing speed sure wasn’t ordinary. I’ll leave it to you then, Alan.”

“I don’t really mind eating deep-fried food every day, Alan.”

“No. I did end up eating nothing but fried food when I was in the middle of food research. But I’m sure you’ll get tired of it eventually if you copied me.”

“Really? But I think the dishes I had yesterday were the most delicious dishes I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Well, there are a lot more tasty dishes aside from those you know. You can look forward to them.”

“Really? Alright, I understand!”

We continued talking along the way and arrived at the market before we knew it. It was located near the city’s gates. Lots of stalls were placed inside a large open space akin to a public square. It really did look like an authentic town market.

Lots of different kinds of vegetables and meat were lined up on the various stalls run by different individuals. This rustic feeling isn’t bad at all.

“Well then, Alan, what’ll we get first?”

“Let’s go around the place first. I want to check up on all the available goods.”

“Of course. Over here then.”

We went around the market with Verse in the lead. The hawkers manning the various stalls called out to potential buyers in a loud voice. It was an atmosphere unique to public town markets.

Whoah! Those are cabbages! And are those daikons I see over there? There’s also some sweet potatoes. A lot of familiar vegetables entered my sight.

If you think about it, this planet is also inhabited by folks【connected to humanity】. It was kind of expected that the local produce was somewhat similar to the ones I’m used to. All I saw were unfamiliar plants and vegetables when I first landed here and started exploring. But most of them were wild vegetables. Other human-inhabited planets might also have variations of them, I think.
Maybe they just weren’t being sold in the markets back home, so I was unfamiliar with them.

There were also fish resembling trout, freshwater prawns, and crabs being sold. I also saw some unfamiliar creatures in the mix.

After going around for a while, we stopped over on a spot a bit removed from the market’s hustle and bustle.

“How about it, Alan?”

Because of the talk we had about fried food earlier, my thinking has completely switched to ‘fried food mode’ already, and two dishes came to mind. These were tonkatsu and tempura.

I’ve managed to find cabbage after all. When I thought about having stir-fried cabbage, tonkatsu inevitably came to mind as well. When I saw the freshwater prawns, I immediately thought about tempura.

“Two dishes popped up in my head just now, but I’m not sure which to choose from the two of them. What should I do?”

“How about cooking both dishes, Alan?” Cleria suggested.

“You sure made a good suggestion, missy! Let’s make both, Alan!”

“The dishes are a bit different in cooking style though. Let me think about it first.”

The dipping sauce for tempura requires mirin. But can I even find mirin here? Even if I manage to find something similar, we still don’t have Japanese sake available. Are there rice wines being sold on the market here? In the case there’s really none available, should I just go with dashi flavored with soy sauce and salt instead?

Tonkatsu sauce is impossible to reproduce at present. But using a basic soy sauce and grated daikon dip can be quite tasty as well. I’ll go with that then.

Well, both dips use grated daikon and soy sauce as a base anyway, so I’ll just make something that’ll suit the two dishes using them.

“Fine, let’s make the two of them.”

“That’s the way to go! So, what do we need?”

“Are you familiar with rice wine, Verse?”

“I haven’t heard of such a thing. Well, if you’re lookin’ for alcohol though, they’re over there.”

Verse led us to a shop that exclusively sold different types of alcohol.

“Hey there, kid. What’re you gettin today?”

“So it’s Verse. You buying the usual grape wine?”

“No, I still have some grape wine in stock. Anyway, do you have a wine that’s made of rice here?”

“We do. As expected of you, Verse. You managed to sniff out how delicious this type of alcohol is. One bottle’s a hundred Guineas.”

“That’s expensive. How about selling it to me for eighty?”

“You’re incorrigible. Buy some grape wine the next time you come here, alright.”

“Gotcha. Later then.”

Verse managed to buy some rice wine in the end. I tried some. The flavor was a bit different from Japanese sake, but it still resembled it a great deal more. I can definitely use this for today’s dishes.

“Next would be vegetables, right? Come with me.”

Verse bought the required vegetables one after the other.
The vegetables we got were cabbage, daikon, sweet potatoes, something similar to eggplants, something resembling pumpkins, lotus root, mushrooms which looked like shiitakes, and perilla leaves.

Everything else was ingredients for making tempura apart from the daikon and cabbage. I wanted to try a different dish variation at first but didn’t go through with it in the end. It would be better for Verse to get familiar with the basic recipe first after all.

The size of the freshwater prawns was a bit larger than the ones I’m familiar with and are definitely suited for making tempura. I wonder what they taste like?

As for tonkatsu, we bought sirloin and tenderloin slices of Big Boar meat. I want Verse to learn about the difference between using sirloin and tenderloin for tonkatsu as well.

“These are enough, I think?”

“That so? I can’t imagine what kind of dishes they would turn out just by looking at these ingredients. I’m really looking forward to it.”

I asked Cleria and Elna about their impressions on going to the market and was told everything was a fresh experience for them, so they really enjoyed it. I’m just glad they didn’t find it boring.

Verse and I immediately started preparations for cooking the moment we got back to the inn. It was a bit early to be cooking dinner, but it was the perfect timing since I’ll be teaching Verse the recipes as we go along.

“The dishes we’re going to make today are called tempura and tonkatsu. Both are fried dishes.”

“Oo! Fried food huh! It’s great that I’ll be able to learn two recipes.”

“Fried food tastes the best fresh out of the frying pan. We’ll just prepare them for frying since it’s still a bit early and fry them all at once when evening comes. I’ll be making some samples though, so you can give them a taste. If we have the time, you’ll get some practice in as well, Verse. How about I let you do the cooking for today’s dinner while I supervise from the side?”

“That sounds great. It feels like I can learn them even faster.”

“Let’s go with tempura first. This dish emphasizes bringing out the natural flavor of the ingredients as well as adding a nice crispy texture to them. It’s quite a simple dish.

First, we’ll set aside some flour and water in the refrigerating magic tool. We’ll use them both later.

Let’s do the preliminary prep-work now. We’re going to use prawns for this dish. You bend the prawns like this, pull on it like so, and… there we go. See, we’ve separated the innards from the prawn’s flesh. Make sure to do this thoroughly.”

“Hm. That didn’t seem too difficult.”

“It does look simple, but it’ll leave a slightly different aftertaste if you mess up. Be sure to remove the unneeded parts as cleanly as possible. Next, you can peel off the shell from the prawn’s body by rolling it like so. Be sure to leave this tail part here.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m not too sure about the exact reason, but this tail part would turn a nice shade of red once the prawns are fried. It contributes to the overall presentation of the dish. This dish also places importance on appearance after all.”

“I see, presentation huh?”

I had Verse try preparing the prawns with me. The shell of these freshwater prawns was quite soft, so I’ll refrain from frying the head portions I took off earlier.

“Next, you need to place cuts on the prawn’s flesh like so. This is done so the flesh would unroll itself and straighten out once you start frying it.”

I then processed the vegetables into cuts suitable to go with tempura. I didn’t forget to prepare grated daikon as well.

“Next is the tempura sauce or tentsuyu. You should dip this dish in the sauce first before eating it. You’ll get it better once we’ve made it.”

“We’ll mix the rice wine we bought earlier with some sugar. We also need some katsuobushi for this. ……This much should be fine. You mix soy, this wine, water, and the katsuobushi flakes inside a pot and let it simmer for a while. ……Right, that should do it. With this, the tentsuyu is done. Go ahead and try some.”

I tried some of the sauce with Verse.

“This is tasty. So you dip the fried prawns in this and then eat them?”

“Yep. We’ll also put in the stuff I grated earlier, as well as the vegetables I cut.

Next, we’ll prepare the coating. Well use it to cover the flesh of the prawns and then fry them in oil. First, take some eggs and mix them in with the water we chilled earlier.

You would be able to get a nice and crispy coating if you use cold water. Next, put in the chilled flour as well and mix them all up.

You need to pay attention to how much you mix them though. This much should be just right.

The next thing you need to pay attention to is the temperature of the oil you’re gonna use for frying. The required temperature changes depending on the ingredients. Pay attention to what happens to the coating once you drop the tempura into the oil.”

I taught Verse about how to correctly estimate the oil temperature, and the basic temperature needed for each ingredient.

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