Iris ate one of the successful batches of fried rice as they sat taking a break. The rice itself had taken quite a bit of work to process, so it was a bit disappointing how much work it takes to learn how to cook dishes with rice properly.
Iris likely wouldn't have had any idea how to process rice at all had it not been for a faint memory of a YouTube video she had watched out of curiosity not long before transmigrating. It had been of someone beating the rice plant against the ground to knock the individual grains of rice off. The plant then had to be further processed before it could be used. There were machines that could easily and quickly do all of it in modern times. However, that didn't stop some small groups of individuals from keeping the traditions alive, much like historical reenactors did with things like medieval cooking and blacksmithing.
It still took a good bit of work for the people of the Beastworld to figure out how to process the various new plants they had access to. The end result was nothing like the modern equivalent. However, even Iris couldn't complain too much about it when she knew just how much work it took to even make this much possible.
Moving on, Iris taught her mates how to make a few other dishes.
"Alright, let's try a simple one this time. I know Fern has made pancakes with cattail pollen and bark flour before. Today, though, we'll be making them using wheat flour and mixing finely shredded green cabbage, boar bacon, and wild onion grass into the batter. They cook up just like pancakes do, but they might be more delicate while the batter is still wet. Then we should top them with okonomiyaki sauce, mayo, and dried fish flakes."
Fern tilted his head in confusion. He understood most of what Iris was saying, but he couldn't help but ask
"What's okonomiyaki?"
Iris laughed as she explained
"That's actually just another name for the cabbage pancakes. I'm guessing you meant the sauce, though. That's usually made from a mixture of ketchup, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, and oyster sauce. Of course, that also means we have to make our own version of the sauce since we don't have the last two ingredients."
Basil couldn't help but find himself fascinated every time Iris was willing to talk about her previous world. Whenever she talked about the various foods and medicines in her old world, it really painted a picture for him of what sort of place she had grown up in. He could only imagine a world of abundance that made the most of the resources it had. Where everyone was skilled in a number of subjects.
As much as Basil loved Iris and thought she was amazing, he didn't exactly have the misconception that she was even unique among the others in her world. The way she talked about things suggested that there was a large number of individuals just like her who knew about all manner of things. Perhaps some even knew of the things that she did not. It almost made Basil yearn to live among such a people. Oh, the things he could learn!
Oyster sauce wasn't something that Iris had ever attempted to make from scratch before. However, she did her best to make something usable. Luckily, she had access to actual oysters since the Mermaid Tribe was incredibly close by, especially when one had flying beastmen to depend upon. They had to use portable ice boxes, basically a cooler, to transport the fresh oysters, so she couldn't get ahold of much, but she did have them.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
The oysters were boiled in lots of water until the liquid was reduced by half. Then the oysters were removed and set aside for use in something else at a later date. Then a roux, sugar and salt were cooked down until the sauce thickened. Just like that, the oyster sauce was declared done. It didn't quite taste the same as the oyster sauce she remembered, but it wouldn't work well enough.
The Worcestershire sauce was made in a similar manner. Seasonings, vinegar, sugar, water, and a small fish that reminded Iris of anchovies were cooked down into a sauce until the flavor was strong enough. Worcestershire sauce wasn't really a thickened sauce, like the oyster sauce, so it was still fine to be in a liquid state.
Once both were made, it was easy enough to combine it with the ketchup and sugar to make the okonomiyaki sauce. This was certainly not something Iris had the intention of making to order, so they would need to make all they would use in the next two days ahead of time. Still, Iris was happy to see the dishes turned out fairly well. The cabbage pancakes were cooked quite well with the boar bacon giving it a nice smoky flavor and the various sauces and garnish giving it a good bit of moisture, much as maple syrup and butter would for normal pancakes.
Next up, they made pork tonkatsu with rice, fried eggs, and thinly sliced raw green cabbage. That dish was much simpler to make as they had made something similar enough previously. Breadcrumbs, flour, and eggs covered thin boar cutlets and then they were fried until golden brown in oil. With a side of plain rice, a fried egg, and green cabbage as well as a tonkatsu sauce on top, the dish was quite flavorful. The okonomiyaki and tonkatsu sauce were fairly similar as well, so it was super simple to throw together.
Iris didn't want to overcomplicate things too much, so she kept the number of dishes available this time around to only a small handful. However, there was no way she was going to open the restaurant without a suitable drink and dessert option to pair with the food. Oolong and green tea would be served hot or cold as a milk tea. Both were simple enough to get ahold of thanks to her friends' businesses being related to them.
For the dessert, Iris taught her mates how to make mandu. At the same time, she taught them how to make bao, which could be served as a side option. Both were fairly similar with the bao being, essentially, just a white bread roll that was slightly sweet and steamed. It was hard to make bamboo steamers without bamboo, but Hazel had managed to make something usable from stone. That paired with a fine grass mat from Fern to keep the bread from sticking to the steamers made sure everything went smoothly.
Mandu was steamed much as the bao was, but required a slight difference in ingredients. Brown sugar, among other things, made the color more brown and the taste more sweet. Then it was filled with sweet fillings. Bao could, technically, also be filled with meats and veggies, but Iris didn't want to go through the effort for those. Instead, she focused on making a custard filling with eggs and dairy.
Red bean filling was customary in Japanese desserts, but that wasn't really an option in the Beastworld. Brown sugar fillings were also good, but Iris wasn't confident that a simple brown sugar syrup would suffice. As for something like chocolate, even despite having cocoa bean trees, they were still working on figuring out how to process them.
The coffee beans were much simpler to figure out. The cherries would be harvested, the beans would be removed and dried, the skin removed from the bean, etc. It had been a bit confusing for Iris at first as she had never liked coffee, much less learned about it. However, the others in her city had figured it out soon enough.
Thus, the second dessert they ended up deciding on serving was going to be a coffee jelly. The coffee would be ground finely with a mortar and pestle, brewed with hot water, strained, mixed with gelatin powder from the system, chilled, and then served with whipped cream. It was a much simpler process than the recipe made it sound like, which Iris was quite thankful for.
Finally, with the menu decided, all they had to do was finish preparing for the next day. That part was a bit time-consuming, but none of them minded. It was nice to be able to talk amongst themselves. Ash and Basil certainly enjoyed asking questions about Iris's old world and Fern was just content to be in her presence.