Chapter 7 (1/2)
In a short while, I’ll turn eight years old.
In a few days we’ll conduct a moderate birthday party with only those close to the family invited, among those my friend Miina is also invited.
It’s just that I’ve also got some worries.
Mother has recently not been feeling well...
She is always drowsy, and her body is listless.
When asking a physician close to us, the advice given was that if it continues like this, to rest without strenuous activity.
Because of that, we thought it best if she withdrew from the birthday party, but when we said this to her she gave us an angry look and declared that because this is an important day where Liliana draws 1 year closer to adulthood she’s absolutely partic.i.p.ating.
Even though we are n.o.bility, because we’re poor mother does most of the housework.
At the very least she’s going to organize the servants and give them directions.
If free, she can help the one in charge of something that takes time, in one way or another she will work.
If that mother isn’t able to work now, if I don’t help then who will!
I’ve decided to help with the housework.
To start with I wanted to help with light work, but I haven’t really been able to help since they just say that it’s too dangerous for children.
In my previous life I lived in a fatherless family, so mom had to work a lot to support us, that meant that inevitably I did the housework.
I have confidence when it comes to housework because of this!
And above all, there’s a challenge I want to take up.
That challenge is cooking.
The basis of a typical meal in this world are beans and bread with vegetable soup, the meal is then complemented with other ingredients depending on the time of year. Typical side dishes are grilled meat with sauces, cheese with sausages, omelettes and things like these.
For me who’s from another world where we commonly eat food from various styles of cooking, I’d prefer some more variation.
Thankfully the foodstuff of this world has the same texture and taste as my former world.
That doesn’t mean that there’s something like the supermarket in this world with convenient access all year round to all ingredients.
Hoping for that much is doomed to fail, yep.
Too bad.
In this world the art of cooking consists of baking, simmering, boiling, frying, dressing vegetables and pickling.
However, there exists many more culinary techniques, right?
Yes, this time I think I’d like to challenge myself with steaming.
Truthfully I’ve been wanting to try kitchen work for a while, but so far the kitchen has been a forbidden area for me.
Because of that, I went with tears in my eyes and asked the head chef, could you please make this.
That’s when I encountered a problem.
I couldn’t tell him any precise measurements.
Rather than the method for making it, there was no simple way of telling how much ingredients should be used, so he couldn’t make it.
In recipes they often write vaguely, how much is “just a little”?
The correct amount is how much you can grab by pinching with your thumb and index finger, but since questions like these came with all ingredients, it turned troublesome.
Because wasting foodstuff is sacrilegious, in the end I gave up.
The head chef was so apologetic, he made me feel guilty and it’s a bitter memory.
It seems the time for revenge has finally come, though!
Don’t underestimate one of the three great human desires.
(Tn: food, s.e.x and sleep. The three cornerstones of human behaviour according to ayurveda apparently.)
Of course, I’m going to satisfy that desire.
After the unknown quant.i.ty affair, whilst attacking father with my certain death attack I pleaded for him to craft a certain thing.
Well, the outcome was as expected.
Your sacrifice is needed in order to enrich our culinary experience, dear father.
Finally, the completed cookware is ready to debut.
The cookwares are too much for me to carry myself, so I’ve already had it carried to the kitchen.
The kitchen is not in the mansion, but in a different building.
Fire is used when preparing food, so if the worst case scenario happened the house is separated to reduce the risk of the fire spreading.
Well, since the mansion isn’t built out of stone but of wood it’s understandable.
However, for the general populace having the kitchen inside the house seems to be common sense.
Certainly, not everyone can afford to own several houses.
Okay, I’ve arrived.
Upon arrival, the head chef looked at me with worried eyes.
[Young miss, this is a place where we use fire and knives, so it’s dangerous. Would you allow me to take care of those tasks?]
[Head chef, I don’t intend to stand in the way of your duties. Today, mother is feeling unwell and is bedridden… Luckily, her appet.i.te is the same as always, so I want to feed her tasty food, in order for her to regain her strength faster… I want to help you make that tasty food. Can I?]
With a despondent appearance I looked up at the head chef with teary eyes.
[Besides, even one more helper will make it quicker, right? Come on, please…]
[If you promise to let me handle the stove and knives, I will let you do as you wish.]
[Understood! Thank you so very much!!]
While saying that, since the kitchen table is too tall, I stood on a convenient stool, confirming the presence of the cookingwares and recipes.
[Today’s menu is chinese dumplings and steamed meat dumplings. In addition we’ll have stir-fried vegetables. With these cookware and the papers with instructions called recipes, anyone could do delicious cooking. However, can one create the correct texture of these dumplings dough simply by reading the recipe?]
Truth is, I wanted to know if the chef could follow the instructions of the recipe simply by reading it, so I asked him to prepare it before I came.
With only the power of children kneading the dough would take too long, and the dough of chinese dumplings needs to ferment so it had to be allowed to sleep for a while.
In order to create this dough, I told him of the menu in advance, and since he has been making for a very long time he immediately understood the stir-fried vegetables, yet he’d never heard of anything like the dumplings so at first he felt uneasy about it.
But with my pleading, promising that it’s tasty, he reluctantly decided to take the challange.
I’m thankful, head chef.
[This is the requested dough.]
Inside two bowls were the doughs of the two different types of dumplings.
Yep, the amounts perfect too.
Simply by reading the recipe he’d been able to make some good doughs.
Thank G.o.d.
To make chinese dumplings’ you originally add sugar, but this time I tried doing it without.
The dough can be made even without sugar.
Anyway, I mustn't think too much about why I didn’t add any sugar to the dough.
What I’m talking about is that, nothing other than that we are a poor n.o.ble house.
Being poor is sorrowful, isn't it...
No good, don’t think about it, Liliana!
Time to get fired up and make this thing!!
[Thank you very much. I will do the steamed dumpling so head chef, I leave the chinese dumpling in your hands.]
[Certainly!]
I precisely split the prepared dough, then covered them in damp towels.
The divided pieces of dough were shaped into rods, then divided again.
Those parts were then put on plenty of flour, whereafter they were turned into round wrappings with a rolling pin and the wrappings were then also covered with damp towels.
This was then steadily repeated.
The head chef seemed to be very interested in the new style of cooking, while following the recipe he was also preparing the filling for the dumplings.
Because to create the filling you had to use the kitchen knife, that job was stolen from me.
It couldn’t be helped since I’d promised though.
Haah, the wrappings are complete.
Even from just doing this, at my age I used a significant amount of stamina.
In order to not get covered with flour, I wiped my sweating forehead with my right arm.
[Young miss, I’ve brought the dumplings fillings.]
Just in time, the head chef brought the fillings in a big jar.
[Thank you very much.]
After giving me the jar, the head chef returned to overseeing his other work, quickly finis.h.i.+ng it.
As expected of an elite of our house’s few workers.
He’s good at his job.
Well then, let’s wrap these dumplings.
I made a ring with my thumb and index finger on my left hand, stretched the wrapping of the dumpling so it became like a pouch then put lots of filling inside, then flattened the filling.
At first the work of wrapping the dumplings was enjoyable however, it’s painful but if there’s too much you grow tired of it.
No no, I shouldn’t think like that!
Because no matter how much I think about it, it won’t grow less tiresome.
Throwing away the wicked thoughts, I earnestly did nothing but concentrating on wrapping those dumplings.
Then finally, before my eyes a load of dumplings were completed.
Yep, I managed to persevere.
I tried to puff up my chest with pride.
When looking at the head chef’s side, it seemed like he’d started steaming a large amount of dumplings.
I also asked father to make the steam baskets properly.
In order for the wrapping not to stick to the basket, I painted my dumplings with oil that I had lined up.
[Head chef, please also steam these meat filled dumplings.]