Bu Family Recipes: Soup Noodles
“How I ended up as a judge? Well, I just had the previous judge over for dinner.” - Cannibal Holocaust, on season 7, episode 89 of Meta Chef’s Liberation Go Beyond X!
A constant pitter patter of rain hit Jun’s window, a dark dusky evening saw her, Aiden and Ranpo stood in a loose circle around her kitchen bench top.
Aiden rolled up his sleeves, eyes distant as he stared back at the night. For a moment, he was recalling memories not his own, but his counterpart, the true Aiden Bu.
“Let’s get started then,” he washed his hands, and both Jun and Ranpo quickly followed. “This is a family recipe from my mum.”
“We’ll need some basics, I’ll separate them into three main groups by order of when they go in the wok.
First off, onion, ginger, garlic, and a meat. What meat you pick doesn’t greatly matter, it’s there to be a source of protein and add it’s fat to the mix. As such pork, lamb, even beef will work. But since you’re going vegetarian, we can skip the meat, and just add more vegetable oil.” In front of him lay a single onion, four cloves of garlic, and three slices of ginger.
“Second off, some tomatoes, carrots, and potatoes. You can add other root vegetables like celery or broccoli stem. Since we don’t have potatoes on hand, we’ll just replace them with Gapples.” He washed the two tomatoes, three carrots, and two large Gapples.
Ranpo tilted his head at the potato like vegetables covered in fine mycelium, “You know, it is kinda strange that something called ‘God Apple’ is relegated to a basic food.”
“Really? I guess it kinda is, never thought about it,” Jun replied.
“Third off,” Aiden continued, “are the stuff that’ll be cooking for the least amount of time. Tofu, peas, mushrooms, other stuff. It’s all mostly optional things to add variety. Finally, the noodles-”
“I already prepared the dough!” Jun blurred, holding a bowl of dough she had kneaded earlier. “Are you going to do the throwing and pulling stuff?”
Aiden pushed a finger into the dough, feeling its slight spring, but there was a problem, there was far too much dough. “Jun, you prepared too much.”
“I’m a big eater,” she lied as naturally as she breathed, for the truth was she first added too much water to the flour, and thus added more flour to compensate, but in turn added too much flour, and required more water. That occurred about four times, leaving them with a ball of dough that could feed three times their number. “Are you going to do a noodle pull?”
“No, far too much effort.” He took out a large rolling pin, and flattened the dough into a large sheet, then poured some flour on the sheet so that it would not stick, folded it down the middle several times, until it was like a flattened rolled up tube or scroll. Taking a knife, he cut strips along it’s length, jiggling the dusty end result so that it would unfold into a noodle. “This is a lot easier, Ranpo, you peel the carrots and potatoes. Jun, dice the aromatics.”
Ranpo picked up the vegetable peeler, very much made for human hands, and stared at it as if it owed him money. Jun went about dicing the aromatics. They worked in silence, Jun naturally finished her task fastest, and began helping Ranpo’s grim task of peeling vegetables with a beak. They finished before Aiden finished cutting all the lengths of noodles. “Dice the vegetables now?”
“Wash them first, then dice the vegetables,” Aiden agreed.
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“How large should they be?” she brandished the kitchen knife.
“Doesn’t matter, just uniform. If you want an arbitrary size, small enough to fit in your soup spoon.”
She nodded, and began dicing the vegetables. Each soon finished their tasks. Aiden dusting his hands of flour, “I cut the noodles thin so they’ll be pretty quick to cook, we’ll get started on the soup.”
Into a large wok he poured a good serving of oil. Jun blurred and returned with a notebook and pen in hand, “How much oil do you use?”
“Just eyeball it, enough to coat the aromatics when you toss them in.” He held his palm just above the oil, once the heat rose hot enough, he poured the diced aromatics in. Loud sizzling and droplets of oil danced as he stirred with a spatula, “Stir to make sure it doesn’t stick, don’t keep the ingredients still, or they may be burned on one side only. Once the onion changes colour and is clearer then you can add the rest of the stuff in. This is generally also where you throw the meat in, though it depends on the meat. If you’re using something thin cut like hotpot lamb strips, then they can be thrown in at the end instead.”
“Again, I’m going vegan,” Jun said.
“Just don’t make it your whole personality trait,” Ranpo muttered as he landed by Fluffy, and patted her head.
She placed a hand over her heart, “I will make sure to convert you guys without you noticing then.”
“The onion is cooked,” Aiden declared, Oros brought him the plate of carrots, Gapples, and tomatoes. He threw them in, and stirred. “Stir this for a bit, only a bit, then pour in water.”
Jun brought the kettle they had left to boil, and poured the water in.
Aiden stirred a few more times for good luck, then put the lid on, “Leave it to boil, but really you’re just waiting for the carrots and Gapples to cook, which is just dependent on how large you diced them.”
After a while, Aiden took a soup spoon, and removed a Gapple piece. He took a quick bite, finding it break easily under his teeth, but not too crumbly. Its mycelium portions were vastly different in texture, soft and firm like a cooked mushroom. He removed another such piece, and demonstrated to Jun that this was considered cooked. Finally, they tasted the soup.
“It’s a bit bland?” Jun asked with a strange face.
“That’s because you haven’t added the seasoning yet,” Aiden replied, taking out a bottle of soy sauce and chicken powder. “Soy sauce and chicken powder for taste. You can add salt, but I find soy sauce offers saltiness in enough portions.”
Jun held the bottles, measuring them with her eyes, “How much do I need?”
“Just eyeball it,” Aiden replied.
She pouted, “You’re not very scientific about this thing.”
“Cooking existed before the scientific method was codified, and will survive its death,” Aiden casually replied, filling the soup spoon again. “If you want a real answer, add until it tastes good. Soy sauce you should be more conservative with, but be generous with chicken powder. Honestly we could fuck up every other step, but if chicken powder is in here it’ll still taste some variation of good.”
With that said, Aiden poured in a bit of soy sauce, added a few teaspoons of chicken powder, stirred and tasted it. “Good enough. Noodles?”
Jun was already on it, bringing a pot of water to boil and tossed the noodles in. Aiden, still working on the soup, added large chunks of tofu and peas.
When all was done, Jun strained the noodles, and ran them under cold water. Prepared two bowls of them, and added the soup.
They ate in wordless conversation, for their loud slurping that sprayed soup everywhere spoke louder than words. Jun found the soup rich with umami flavours, the noodles bouncy, and the vegetables granted rich variation in texture. Jun decided to swap to Daycore, his senses slowed, and he savoured every last drop as he finished the bowl, poured the remaining soup down his gullet, he burped loudly as he finished. “Ranpo, you sure you don’t want to try this?”
“I’m not sure how to quickly summarise the intricacies and differences in ape and avian diets, but I think it would be problematic if I ate that.” Ranpo did peck at his peanuts with a contemplative look, for crow diets were rather bland, and without the revolutionary advances of cooking.
“Shame.”
Companionable silence fell over them, before Jun asked a question, “This seems like it takes a lot of time. I could do it quickly, but I’m me, how do you manage it? And it seems like you end up with a lot of portions.”
Aiden was silent for a moment, “It is meant to be eaten as a family.”
He paused, not sure what to say, “Oh.”
Ranpo nudged Jun, and whispered, “He only eats instant noodles and rice when he’s alone. If he doesn’t have to feed someone else, he would be eating the blandest shit possible.”
“That is simply untrue,” Aiden rolled his eyes. “I have long since upgraded from eating nothing but rice and nutrient supplements.”