Kochugunshikan Boukensha ni Naru

“Let’s fry some for real now. Sprinkle some flour on the prawns like so.

Next, cover it in the coating we prepared and then fry them in oil. The oil might splash out a bit, so be careful.

This happens when the moisture inside the ingredients is evaporated due to the high heat. Once the moisture content gets gradually depleted, the ingredients would begin to float up like so.

See. Just like this. We can’t have all the moisture gone, so be sure not to fry them too much.”

We fried enough portions for each of us. After frying them, we plated the prawns in a simple arrangement.

“Yosh, with this, the dish is complete.”

“I see, now I understand what you meant by the presentation being important. This dish certainly looks quite pretty.”

The red color of the prawn tails and the sweet potatoes, the eggplant’s purple, the brown of the shiitakes and the pumpkins, the white of the lotus roots, and the green of the perilla leaves made for a great aesthetic balance.

“Now do you understand the beauty of this dish? Come on. Let’s try some. The tentsuyu is great both warm and chilled. It depends on a person’s personal preference. I prefer it warm by the way. Go ahead and dip one portion.”

I was curious about the actual taste of this planet’s prawns, so I gave it a taste right away.

That’s good! It’s wonderfully crispy, and the prawns taste fresh as well. I haven’t tried frying freshwater prawns until today, but it’s delicious and tastes as good as saltwater shrimp, if not better.

“Delicious! This texture is the best! The taste is amazing too. So prawns can actually taste this good.”

Verse also tasted the vegetable sides. Un, great. I like lotus root the best among the veggies. Its texture is to die for.

“I see. It really is a dish that allows one to enjoy the natural flavor of the ingredients as well as give them a nice, crispy texture. I like this dish, Alan! It’s a great recipe.”

“I’m glad you like it. There’s still time, so get some cooking practice first, Verse.”

I had Verse prepare and fry another batch as I stood aside and cautioned him from time to time. As expected of a talented chef. He sure picks things up quickly.

“The next dish is called tonkatsu. We’re going to make use of the Big Boar meat we bought earlier as the main ingredient for this dish.

I prepared two kinds of meat cuts for this particular dish. As you know, this type of cut contains more fat, so you should pick this one if you want to enjoy the sweetness of the fat in the meat.

This one, however, contains a lesser amount of fat, so you pick this one if you want to enjoy the taste of the meat itself.”

I cut the sirloin into large, flat pieces that were about one centimeter thick. For the tenderloin, I cut it into thick, bite-sized pieces instead.

“This one doesn’t have a lot of fat, as I said earlier, and tends to harden easier once you fry it, so it’s better to cut it into smaller pieces. I personally prefer it this way.

And for these larger ones, you’ll need to place cuts on their surface so the shape of the meat doesn’t change much once you fry them.

Lightly rub salt and pepper on the surface of the cuts like so. Oh, and I almost forgot to prepare the egg wash and flour.”

I hastily prepared the egg wash and flour, coated the surface of the meat pieces with said flour, egg wash, and bread crumbs. There were some bread crumbs left from yesterday, so I just used that.

I heated the oil and taught Verse about the proper temperature and frying time. When the oil got sufficiently heated up, I went ahead and fried some pieces.

“Right, this should be okay. And make sure to pay attention to the frying time so you don’t go overboard.”

I cut a piece of both the sirloin and tenderloin tonkatsu each. In both cases, the cross-section of the meat revealed slightly pinkish cooked flesh. This is a good indication that the meat is in its best state when it’s fried.

“This much is fine. We’re going to dip them in this sauce composed of soy and that grated vegetable I prepared earlier.”

I tried a bite along with Verse.

Yup, these are pretty tasty as well. The bread crumbs give it that crunchy mouthfeel, and the meat is nice and tender. The tonkatsu is delicious and gets even better when paired with the soy sauce and grated daikon dip. If you want to enjoy the fatty sweetness, have the sirloin. If you want to enjoy the actual taste of meat, try the tenderloin instead.

“Great! So Big Boar can also be cooked like this! I also understand the difference between the two variants a bit as well. Both of them have their respective strengths.”

I always put in plenty of mustard whenever I eat tonkatsu, so it’s a bit regrettable that we weren’t able to find any.

“Hey, Verse. Have you ever heard of a yellow-colored, spicy condiment before?”

“Hm? You talking about tars?”

He pulled out a small earthen pot from the top of one of the shelves. When I looked at the contents, I found some yellow powder. It can’t be!?

I tried some and confirmed that it really was mustard.

“Whoah! It really was available! It’s this condiment! Where’d you manage to get it?”

There weren’t any in Tarus-san’s store.

“I got it from one of our regulars here. I got that merchant to share some of it with me.”

“I see. I’d also like to get some if there’s an opportunity. Let’s use it right now.”

I mixed the powder and prepared the mustard spread. Instead of just plain soy sauce, spreading mustard on top of the tonkatsu and then adding the soy sauce is way tastier. Let’s try it.

“Great! This is it! So this condiment is called tars? It goes especially well with this dish. Have a bite.”

“That really is good! The combination of tars and soy is amazing. This is great.”

The side veggie for tonkatsu should definitely be shredded cabbage. Mayonnaise is also good, but I’ll go with a Chinese-style dressing this time.

Add a little soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, salt, sesame seeds, and garlic into a small bowl and mix them well.

“In my home country, the side dish that’s always been paired with tonkatsu is this type of vegetable salad.”

I poured some of the dressing I made onto the shredded cabbage.

Un, that’s good. The cabbage was crisp and fresh. Delicious.

“This sauce also tastes great. I kinda get why you decided to purchase that soy condiment from Tarus-san’s store now. It’s quite versatile.”

“Right? I can go with you if you want to buy some as well.”

“Really? I’ll be counting on you then. It seems there’s still time, so let me practice a bit again. Oh yeah. We’ll have to cook some rice as well.”

“I’ll write the recipes up for you in the dining area now. Call me before you start cooking tonight’s dinner.”

Cleria and Elna were already in the dining room when I came out, so I had them help out with the characters I’m unfamiliar with as I wrote the recipes.

“Amazing! And you didn’t even know a single character just a few days ago. How did you manage to learn them in such a short time?”

I constantly updated the language database and got Nanom’s support, so I managed to learn this world’s characters in no time.

“Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a quick learner.”

Cleria nodded with a serious expression, seemingly convinced. I was kinda joking y’know.

I wrote the recipes for tempura, tonkatsu, the Chinese-style salad dressing, and various other tips. I also added some hand-drawn illustrations, just for fun.

“Hey, Alan. I’m gonna start cooking now.”

“Okay. Here are the recipes I wrote up. How are they?”

“Lesse? Hey! You managed to write all these in just a short time, Alan?”

It seems Verse was pretty impressed with the contents.

“This is amazing! This is it! You’re really the best, Alan!”

“Thanks. Try making the dishes according to the recipes then.”

“Leave it to me!”

Fried food was more delicious when freshly cooked, so we started with the tempura, and would serve the sirloin and tenderloin tonkatsu once we finished eating the first dish.

Verse fried the tempura under my supervision. The tempura was cooked up without any problems.

“I’ll cook the tonkatsu by myself. I’ve already fried some, so have a taste first.”

The tonkatsu meat had a perfect-looking pinkish hue. It was well cooked.

“Impressive, Verse. You’ve already got the knack for it.”

“It’s because I have a great teacher.”

“I’ll leave things to you then.”

I carried the freshly cooked tempura to the dining room along with Verse.

“Right then! Let’s eat! This is a dish from my country called tempura. It’s a dish that showcases the natural taste of the ingredients. Dip it in this special sauce before you eat it. It’ll taste pretty different.”

I ate one portion as an example. Un, that’s really good. It’s nice and crispy.

After seeing me eat, Cleria and Elna both dug in.

“Delicious! The flavor is more subtle compared to yesterday’s dishes.”

“The natural taste of ingredients… This kind of thing may just be my favorite.”

It seems Elna has really taken a liking to the tempura.

Right when we were almost finished eating the tempura, Verse brought out the tonkatsu.

“Check it out, Alan.”

I cut a piece of both the sirloin and tenderloin tonkatsu. The flesh of both had a nice light pink color.

“They’re perfect, Verse.” You’ve got the timing down pat.”

“This is a dish called tonkatsu. You spread this condiment on top of it and then eat it. The salad is eaten paired with this dressing.”

I poured soy sauce with grated daikon on top of a piece and ate it. Delicious, as expected. It was quite crunchy too.

“We cooked two types of meat cuts for this dish. The larger pieces should have a strong, fatty flavor, while the bite-sized ones will allow you to taste more of the meat itself. I recommend putting on a bit of this yellow condiment on top before eating them. It gets really spicy if you put on too much, so be careful.”

“Alan! This dish is comparable to the ones you cooked yesterday evening. I’m torn about which of the dishes taste better.”

“This salad is also quite delicious!”

I put on plenty of mustard on a piece of tenderloin tonkatsu and ate up. The pairing of tonkatsu and mustard really is the best.

Cleria copied me and put on plenty of mustard, but ended up covering her nose in a panic afterward. And I just warned you earlier too.

Verse cooked up quite a bit, but they were all but gone in a flash. We ate our fill tonight as well.

I’ll start attending the magic tool making short course tomorrow, so I guess I’ll tuck in early this evening.