SC1 9.3 – Oyster Sauce and Instant Noodles

As Yunno and Yui watched me with curious eyes, I soak 500 gr dried oyster in 500 ml warm boiled water. If I used fresh oyster, I had to add some salt to draw out oyster’s rich flavor in this step. However, I used dried oyster with high salt content, so I didn’t need to salt it anymore.

Once the oyster reconstituted its original form, I transferred it to a pot and added a cup of water. Then, I brought the pot into a boil before let it simmered on low heat for five minutes. After that, I took the pot from the fire.

The next step was moved the blenched oyster into mortar one by one, added a finger nail ginger, two cloves of garlic, one stalk of scallion, one bulb of shallot, and then grinned it until it become smooth puree.

After putting back the puree into the pot and mixing it with the poaching water, I brought it into boiling before simmering it in low heat for five minutes. Then, let it slightly cooling down before manually squeezing it using tofu clothes. After the first squeezing, the oyster puree still had lot of rich flavor so I rinsed it with a cup of warm boiled water and squeezing it again.

After repeating the rinse and squeeze steps for four times, I got a big pot of rich flavor liquid oyster, and Yunno and Yui looked at it with sparkling eyes as they listened to my explanation.

“It smells so good, right?”

“”Yeah,”” Yunno and Yui replied at the same time.

While having big smile in my face I put the oyster dreg into my spatial storage for later use. Then, I continued the process by bringing the oyster liquid into boiling and turned the fire into medium heat. The goal of these steps was to turn the oyster liquid to oyster concentrate, which looked like a clump of dark and very sticky paste.

Normally, it would take 90 minutes for the water to evaporate until the oyster liquid turned into oyster concentrate, and I had to gently stirring the pot the prevent burn. Fortunately, I could use Time Lapse Spell to speed up the process.

Then, I poured sugar solution made of 250 gr of brown sugar and four cups of hot water to the pot and gently stirred it. It would take a few minutes for the oyster concentrate to dissolve and fully bonded together with sugar solution. After that I added two table spoon of dark soy sauce for the color, and used sweet potato solution made of 3 table spoons of sweet potato flour and six table spoon of water to thicken the sauce.

Once the oyster sauce came into boiling, I turned the fire into low heat and carried out the taste adjustment by adding salt. The ratio I used was a tea spoon of oyster sauce had to be rich and salty enough if I mixed it with a bowl of warm rice. To get this ratio, I had to add the salt in small batch, mixing it well, tasting it, and repeat the step until I got the taste I wanted.

And finally, I got the oyster sauce. Its consistency was runnier than factory-made oyster sauce in earth, but it 5-6 times richer and tastier in flavor. After transferring it into a medium sauce pot to let it cooled down, I turned my gaze to Yunno and Yui.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Now, it’s time for you to repeat the process.”

“Okay.”

Yunno obediently replied, but I sensed some hesitation in her voice so I try to confirm it.

“Yunno, do you have something that bothering you?”

“Mhm,” Yunno nodded before saying, “We can’t use Time Lapse Spell, so we will need more time to make the oyster sauce.”

After a smile I said, “When you reach Level 1, I will teach you how to cast a spell. For now, I will take care of the spell you need, and also help you control the flame using Shadow Hand.

Got it.”

““Hai,”” Yunno and Yui eagerly replied.

After washing the equipment I used, Yunno and Yui worked together to replicate my steps in producing oyster sauce. They still had to ask me here and there when they had some doubts, but overall they did a good job.

Meanwhile, in one corner of the kitchen Kato calmly did needle work.

---

At around 3:00 pm, I had to stop today kitchen work because we ran out of dried oyster. Honestly, I never expected Yunno and Yui would be able to turn every dried oyster we have into good oyster sauce. I still had to supervise them and ensure no mishap happened, but it’s still extraordinary achievement. They didn’t have failed batch and wasted time or ingredient in their first attempt of making oyster sauce using complex method.

“Let’s have some snack before afternoon training.”

“Okay,” Yunno happily replied.

“Uncle Deitoro, will we have peanut butter cookies?” Yui expectantly asked.

Eating cookie was no longer alien thing for Yunno and Yui. Mostly, it was cookie I made at night to test the quality of local ingredient. The price of butter and dairy product at Sotora were very high, but it was good enough to produce some recipe I knew. Yunno, Yui, and even Kato also loved it so much, so I was confident I would be able to sell it someday. But for today, we wouldn’t enjoy cookie as our afternoon snack.

And so I happily replied, “We will have noodle as snack.”

Question mark in an instant appeared in Yui’s forehead. “We will have noodle as snack?”

“Yes, we will have tasty noodle,” I said as I took out a bowl of smoking hot and freshly cooked noodle from my spatial storage and put it on the table. “Now, watch and learn.”

“”Okay,”” Yunno and Yui eagerly replied at the same time.

Wasting no time I heated up a pan before pouring 2.5 table spoon of soy oil. I waited until the oil became smoking hot before putting in the minced ginger and minced garlic. As soon as fragrant smell filled the air, I instantly took the pan from the flame.

Then, I put a tea spoon each of chili flake, oyster sauce, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and improvised Chinese black vinegar to the pan. As I used the heat remains to mix everything, a super fragrant smell spread over to all direction. Even Kato stopped her needle work and turned her gaze to the pan in front of me.

After that, I mixed the noodles and a pinch of chopped spring onions with the freshly made sauce, and then plated it in a bowl.

“It smells very nice right?”

“Mhm.” Yunno firmly replied.

“It tastes super delicious too,” I said as I give Yunno and Yui a fork. “Try it.”

Without delay Yunno and Yui tried the noodles and their eyes instantly widened.

“It’s super delicious,” Yui said after gulping down the first fork of the noodle.

“Uncle Deitoro, what is the name of this delicious noodle?” Yunno curiously asked.

“Let’s called it instant noodle, as we make it almost instantly.”

“Mhm,” Yui said before putting another fork of the noddle to her mouth.

After a smile I said, “We can use almost all type of egg noddle for this recipe. Later, I will teach you how to make it.”

““Hai.””

Yunno and Yui eagerly replied, and it made me smile widely.

“Now, try to replicate it.”

““Hai!””

Without delay I took out another four bowls of cooked noodle along with the other ingredient. Then, Yunno and Yui replicated the instant noodle with ease. I had to admit, their monstrous learning ability was never cease to amaze me.

After that, while having big smile on their face Yunno and Yui brought a bowl of instant noodle for Kato. Then, they took their own instant noodle and ate it with her. In short, they left me behind to eat alone.

As far as I remembered, I and Kato didn’t compete to win affection or attention from Yunno and Yui, but somehow Kato had a big victory smile as Yunno and Yui chose to eat with her. Well, as a grown man I should maintain a big heart when dealing with toddler.

In short, all I had to do just come over and joint Kato, Yunno, and Yui. Then, we happily ate our noodles together.

*****