It's My First Cooking
St. Celestia Academy was divided into two major sections.
One was the New School Building, a collection of facilities thoroughly modernized with the kingdom’s full support…
And the other was the Old School Building, where facilities that had once been cutting-edge now stood gathered together.
The place I was heading for was the Old School Building.
Even on ordinary days it saw relatively few people, and with enrollment not yet begun it was, for all practical purposes, completely deserted.
There was only one reason to venture into such a secluded corner.
“Obviously, to borrow the kitchen, you see~”
Right after obtaining salt from the practice dungeon, I had bought a little meat and some vegetables at a nearby market.
Part of it was the desire to test the salt I had gone to such trouble to acquire…
“Heh, meat.”
…but I had also made a promise to the drooling fellow at my side.
“Now then… was it around here…”
I opened the door of a building that had been rather neglected, weeds growing freely around it, and stepped inside.
A wave of long-stale air rushed out at once.
“Cough, cough!”
Only after a long fit of coughing did I grasp the problem.
The original owner of this body—
That is to say, Carmilla—possessed the delicate bronchial tubes of a young lady, with no particular resistance to dusty air.
Ugh, normally this wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest… but this body is rather sensitive, you see.
Watching Luca stroll about completely unfazed even in that murky air, I found myself envying beastmen who remained perfectly fine no matter how rough the place.
“Here, quiet. Super quiet. Doing something bad?”
I had no idea how he’d arrived at that connection, but the way he spoke as if we were committing some misdeed was oddly entertaining.
Still, to a certain extent he was right.
Strictly speaking, what we were doing right now violated school regulations.
But as long as we don’t get caught, it’s fine, right?
With that lighthearted mindset I entered the kitchen—and found it surprisingly clean.
“Oh my, it’s quite thoroughly equipped, you see.”
The air itself was completely different from the outside.
It was relatively clean; not even stray dust floated in the air.
It felt, if anything, like a facility that was being properly maintained.
“Hmm, so this would be an oven…”
After a quick survey, I discovered the equipment was quite varied.
A sink with running water was a given, and there was even a wide prep table perfect for laying out ingredients…
In the heat-handling area stood a multipurpose oven and burners that produced flame.
Both ran on mana, but simple mana manipulation was no problem for me at present, so handling them would be fine.
What was more surprising was that the cooking utensils were properly stocked as well.
Frying pans, pots, ladles, spatulas—
Not a single piece left neglected; everything was neatly arranged.
Curiosity piqued, I rummaged through the kitchen for quite some time before I finally had to admit it.
If only I could procure the ingredients, this was a facility where I could serve a full course meal right this instant.
Still, it was strange. Given that this was a thriving academy, the mere existence of such equipment wasn’t surprising—but the fact that it wasn’t abandoned and buried under dust…
Well, whatever.
It’s a bit suspicious somehow, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a good thing, you see.
If someone had cleaned the place, I simply needed to make use of it.
Even if, by chance, I ran into that someone, it would still be a good thing.
Anyone who maintained a kitchen this carefully was someone I would want to talk with at least once.
They were surely diligent, so they couldn’t be a bad person.
In any case, it was time to accomplish what I had come here for.
“Well then, shall we begin cooking!”
“Ooooh!”
Raising a wooden spatula high, I energetically set to work.
The very first step was washing our hands.
“Luca, the start of cooking is hygiene. We shall all wash our hands here, you see.”
“Yeah.”
Only after carefully scrubbing our hands at the sink did we begin preheating the oven.
I set a pan on the burner I had activated with a light infusion of mana, then took out today’s star ingredient.
It was the pork I had bought at the butcher’s.
A fatty cut close to pork belly—so, in other words, a whole pork belly.
Gazing at roughly a pound of it, I smiled with deep satisfaction.
And this cost a mere fifty shillings.
“Luca, open the oven for me, you see.”
I slid the tray into the oven that had not even finished preheating.
But it was not a tray meant simply for cooking meat alone.
On the tray I had roughly chopped potatoes and onions laid out; a wire rack separated the upper level where I placed the whole pork belly.
This way the vegetables would cook naturally in the dripping fat…
A cooking method that aimed for the so-called two-birds-with-one-stone effect.
Come to think of it, pork belly is expensive back in Korea, but not here.
Fat is bad; lean meat is good.
That was a concept that held true in gourmet culture no matter the country.
Across every era and every land, nobles preferred tenderloin or sirloin, cuts that let them enjoy the pure meaty flavor of soft lean flesh.
Thus, pork belly here was cheap meat used only for salt-cured products.
As far as I was concerned, that was perfect.
“Ordinarily I would start by pouring oil, but the situation is different now, you see.”
Just as with the oven, I placed the cut fat into a pan that had not yet heated.
Then I slowly drew up the heat on a low flame.
Slowly, taking my time, as if melting tallow.
After a little while, a transparent liquid began to gather on the pan that had been dry as a desert.
That was oil.
More precisely, pork fat rendered from the fat by heat.
It was nothing more than that process, yet a savory fragrance of oil rose into the air.
“As expected, pork belly is always right, you see!”
To grill meat was, in essence, to eat the umami created by the Maillard reaction—the meeting of high heat and protein.
The reason I had chosen pork belly was not simply the price.
To successfully sear meat, oil is necessary.
Strictly speaking that proposition is false; the Maillard reaction can occur without oil.
But that is only theoretical possibility.
In practice, reproducing a proper Maillard reaction without oil is difficult. Not impossible, but unless one is pursuing some academic achievement there is simply no need to bother.
When oil soaks well into the meat’s surface and that oil is heated, a far richer Maillard reaction takes place. Why go out of one’s way to avoid it?
My intention was the same.
Cooking oil was hard to come by at the moment, yet grilling still required fat.
And if I could extract that fat from the meat itself, so much the better.
Simply put: meat fried in its own fat is delicious.
Sizzle-sizzle—
At the meaty aroma rising from oven and pan, Luca began to drool.
“Oh, good smell. Luca got hungry.”
“Luca, recall the saying that good things come to those who wait, you see.”
Roughly thirty minutes passed.
After long, gentle cooking on low heat, a respectable amount of oil had now pooled in the pan as well.
Time to take a look at the oven side…
People love large cuts of meat.
Whole pork belly, whole roast pig, even roast beef—
Wherever one goes in the world, it is easy to see people savoring such massive pieces of meat.
The reason is simple. The less a knife has cut into meat, the more satisfying it is. That unique body of a huge piece of meat filling the mouth and being chewed thoroughly satisfies the most primal human desire—appetite—to a remarkable degree.
But such cuts are difficult to cook.
The larger the mass, the harder it is for heat to reach the center.
Yet people could not give up on large cuts, and in the end they perfected a genius technique.
It was reverse searing.
“Oh, already done? Eat?”
“Not yet.”
That grilling cooks food from the outside in is common sense.
The surface is the first place heat touches; that much is obvious.
But with thick meat the process needs to be reversed.
To deal with the unique thickness of whole pork belly, I chose a method that cooked it from the inside out.
Simply put—the interior by oven, the exterior by pan.
I took the tray holding the whole pork belly from the oven and transferred the meat to the pan.
From low heat to medium.
Thanks to the abundant rendered fat, the meat in the pan was now essentially being deep-fried.
The true Maillard reaction began in earnest; the pork belly shone with an appetizing golden glow that made me want to cut off just one bite and taste it.
Just one bite, maybe?
After being sucked into the game world, I had not had a single proper meal.
All I had eaten was that unappetizing oatmeal gruel and some cheap skewers.
Because this was the body of a noble young lady with a small appetite, I was not starving to death…
But watching meat fry into something magnificent right before my eyes was pure torture.
Ahh, but I must endure, you see.
With cold reason I suppressed my appetite.
Eating now would not be wise. It would not be cool. Above all, it would be a loss of dignity—
Both as a young lady and as a cook.
“Just a little longer…”
Since only the surface needed a quick sear, I worked with busy hands.
The meat’s surface had already been dried in the oven, so coloring it was easy.
Basting with oil, flipping front and back, frying for several minutes each side through a trial of patience…
Ding—
At last, two dishes were finished at the same time.
“Fufu… behold this beautiful creation, you see!”
“Wow, looks delicious! Luca never saw something like this before!”
On the plate rested a whole pork belly roast glowing golden.
As a garnish, vegetables roasted in the oven together with the pork fat.
At that radiant sight I could no longer hold back; I took up a sharp carving knife.
First came the sensation of breaking through the crisp surface, then gliding through the tenderly cooked interior.
That alone was enough to confirm a perfect cross-section.
Fat that had melted thoroughly into a pudding-like texture.
Lean meat that still had chew yet released abundant juices.
“The finishing touch, you see!”
Over it I sprinkled the salt I had made myself.
The salt melted softly into the juices, creating seasoning of beautiful precision…
There was no longer any reason to wait.
“Shall we eat?”
“Yeah…!”
The moment I sliced a piece of that perfect dish and was about to put it in my mouth—
“You there, what are you doing?”
Ah, please.
Not now, of all times.
It was a moment I wanted no one to interrupt, so I ignored every disturbance around me and simply savored the taste.
It was an exceedingly noble flavor…
A taste that granted such happiness that the uninvited guest who had suddenly barged in did not even register in my thoughts.