A Midwinter Snack, Warm Salmon Bread (2)
"Yes, yes. Let's preheat first."
Mary expressed her discomfort with a quiet, expressionless face.
But she could hardly complain about that. Instead, bowl of batter in hand, she strode over, snatched up the kettle, and poured the dough into it with unhesitating motions.
Karem lit the fire in the oven and set the fish-shaped mold on top at once. As the cold copper heated, white steam flickered briefly across the underside that touched the flames directly.
It did not take long for the mold to come up to temperature. That was the entire reason they had commissioned it in copper to begin with—copper heated over fire in no time at all.
The moment he felt the heat rising, he opened the mold and brushed it with oil.
"Here. The kettle with the batter."
"Yes."
The oil coating finished just in time. He accepted the kettle and held his hand over the pan for a moment to gauge the heat.
Perhaps because of the cold, the temperature had not climbed as high as he expected.
"I think we need to heat it a little longer."
"Are you aiming for pancake-baking heat?"
"Yes. About that should do it."
The classic disaster that struck whenever thin batter hit a pan. There were only a few reasons it stuck and refused to release: not enough oil, the pan not hot enough, or the batter itself not cooked through. Nonstick coatings helped, of course, but even they stuck if the cooking was incomplete. Oil remained essential.
Before he had learned that lesson he had made the mistake more than once. And since this was the first time he had ever bought a mold and baked these pastries himself, a small, needless anxiety lingered. So he decided to give the pan just a little more heat.
When the oil shimmered and pure white steam rose, he seized the kettle and poured.
Sizzle— Clank—
A metallic sound came from beside him. Mary was setting a pot on the stove. And somehow—he had no idea when she had fetched it—a bowl of yellow custard sat ready next to her.
"You're going to bake some too?"
"We can only manage four at a time. More than that, I can hardly leave you preparing snacks by yourself."
"I get the feeling that last part is the real reason."
"A misunderstanding. Pure misunderstanding."
Karem watched her carefully, yet all he saw was that unmoving, deadpan face.
"Was there something you wished to say?"
"No. Well… when exactly did you bring that custard cream over?"
"While you were focused on the fire. From the cold storage."
Mary opened the copper mold over the flames and tilted it this way and that with practiced ease.
"So after the batter goes in, those peas?"
"Yes."
Mary's brow furrowed of its own accord.
"There's fruit simmered in caramel, the custard cream you mentioned earlier, even whipped cream—why peas of all things?"
"Uh…"
"Mashed beans and sugar. I've never heard of such a thing, so it must be a confection from your previous life, junior."
Karem, in the middle of carefully nesting formed pea paste into the poured batter, momentarily lost his words. Why did fish-shaped pastries—or rather these pastries—have bean paste inside? Coming up with a serious answer proved surprisingly difficult.
"No, originally we used a bean called red bean. But there's none of that here."
"And so peas?"
"Yes. Red beans are dark, peas are green—I think that was the idea."
"So the conclusion is simply 'beans.' Why beans at all?"
It was not merely a problem of this life. From the very first ones he had encountered in his previous life, and from long before that, fish-shaped pastries and their kin had always carried sweet red-bean paste as the default. Custard cream, whipped cream, pizza sauce, cheese—those variations had not even existed when the previous-life Karem was a child.
"Come to think of it, the filling that goes into half-cakes is also a paste of mashed peas simmered with sugar. Is that from your previous life as well?"
"Yes, well. That's a pastry from the neighboring country, though."
Karem poured a second layer of batter over the paste and closed the mold. Gripping the handle tightly so no catastrophe could occur, he flipped it.
"It doesn't smell beany at all, and the savory bean flavor with the sweetness pairs surprisingly well, doesn't it?"
Mary had clearly liked it. Otherwise she would never have polished off an entire plate of dorayaki the way Doraemon demolished dorayaki—eaten with milk, dunked in Brownie's Joy, sandwiched with whipped cream. She had enjoyed it thoroughly.
"…It did pair better than I expected, true."
"Then that's settled. That's enough."
"It sounds as though you do not know the exact reason."
"It's just that for ages we've made paste with red beans—well, with beans."
The first fish-shaped pastry Karem had ever seen after being born had been filled with red-bean paste. Even asking his parents and grandfather, he had been told they used red-bean paste. Later he learned that before the various modern fillings appeared, the only real difference had been whether the beans were ground smooth or left whole. And the original from the neighboring country of Japan—the taiyaki, the sea-bream bread—had used red beans as well, hadn't it?
"You truly do not know?"
"Yes. I know that even before I was born in my previous life, this sort of pastry started with bean paste."
"Traditional cultures that forget their original reasons and purposes over long stretches of time are hardly rare."
Mary, following Karem's example, spooned custard cream onto the batter in her mold.
"That cream looks like a bit much."
At the remark Mary blinked several times without speaking, then looked down at the mold.
"Cream is always better in greater quantity."
"There's a saying that too much is worse than none, so—"
"This is already far less than I originally intended."
"If you put that much in, the batter will spill out."
"I will not compromise. Not one bit."
Better to drop it. After several attempts at persuasion failed to move her, Karem simply gave up. She would learn caution once she suffered the consequences.
In the meantime, white steam and a savory aroma began to rise from between the tightly clamped halves of the mold. The smell was mouth-watering, yet he kept his guard up. In a life without stopwatches, timers, or any way to set precise intervals—where everything had to be judged by feel—distraction and carelessness while cooking were the classic recipe for failure.
Then the steam leaking from the seams thinned. That meant the moisture that could still escape had lessened.
"It seems fully baked."
Karem nodded and opened the mold. His tightly clenched palm ached, but the result inside was worth the discomfort. The fish-shaped pastry in the copper mold had baked to a bright brown from snout to tail; thanks to the pancake batter, a gentle sweetness scented the air. A little batter had squeezed out and crisped into a flat cookie-like edge, but that was nothing more than a minor flaw in the jewel.
"It spilled a little. You warned me about overflowing, yet the pastry you yourself baked overflowed, did it not?"
"At most the fins are joined a bit."
"Overflowed is still overflowed."
"Hah. As if. Then shall we see how well you managed yours?"
Karem shook the finished pastries into a basket, returned the mold to the fire, accepted the kettle from Mary, and poured fresh batter.
"Look as much as you like."
"I did warn you."
Mary waved a dismissive hand. Seeing the outcome was already obvious, Karem decided to ignore it. As he had said—she would be careful next time after tasting the result once.
Paste in, batter over, wait for it to cook. While that cycle turned, Karem's gaze drifted to the basket beside him. Whether the artisan Govanius had commissioned had decided it on a whim or not, the shape engraved into the mold was long and salmon-like. So the finished bread looked less like a carp and more like a salmon.
"I believe eating a pastry the moment it comes off the fire is a chef's privilege."
"First let's see how yours turned out."
"It's just about done."
Mary kept her eyes fixed on the mold as she opened the copper halves.
"Ha."
A dry little laugh. When Karem smiled as if to say "See?", Mary turned her head away. Between the fish shapes and beyond them, a flat square of pastry had flooded the entire mold and baked to the same appetizing brown. It looked so crisp it would crack and crumble at a touch.
"What did I tell you?"
"…It seems a little batter overflowed."
Was that even an excuse? Apparently even she felt the sting of her own words, for Mary kept her mouth tightly shut until every last drop of batter left the kettle. Yet the amount of custard cream she used never decreased. The same disaster simply did not recur—because this time she had reduced the batter instead of the cream.
At that point Karem no longer felt like needling her. He simply baked in silence until the batter was gone. Batter, paste, a little more batter, close, wait. With time and a practiced eye it was simple, repetitive work. The weight of the kettle and the bowls of pea paste and custard dwindled quickly; in proportion the basket filled at a speed that looked filling just to look at.
"Ah. Just a moment."
"Planning to make something else?"
"There's still plenty of roasted Alraune left, right?"
"We took delivery a few days ago on commission."
"Then…"
The moment the words left him, Mary wore an expression that clearly said, Look at this.
In the end the salmon breads piled high enough to fill the basket and then some. Karem fetched the Gourmet's Lid from the shelf. It was a tight fit, yet the lid settled perfectly over the basket. Meanwhile Mary finished the dishes and cleaned the stove that had suffered the first disastrous overflow.
"But where has Lord Atanitas gone?"
"She went out first after receiving a request for cooperation, did she not?"
"I mean that request for cooperation."
Mary paused while wiping crumbs from the stove with a rag and turned her head.
"Weren't you the one who was with the contractor?"
"Yes. That's right?"
"And yet you never asked the location?"
Karem pulled on his outdoor clothes, handed the basket to Mary, and kept his mouth tightly shut all the way down to the first floor under the gaze that pressed against him from the side.
"Take the basket."
He accepted it on reflex. Why was she giving it back? What sort of mischief was she plotting now?
"No need to look at me like that. It's simply because there is still work left unfinished."
"What?"
"I have not yet prepared snacks for the mages who will be doing the snow-clearing."
"Ah."
Karem opened the door and looked outside. He could see the majestic wall of snow that Mary—up since dawn—had built in her spare moments.
"You must deliver that basket to the contractor in perfect condition. Understood?"
Karem clicked his tongue openly and waved a hand without looking at Mary as she saw him off.
Fortunately he did not have to wander about asking people for Catherine's whereabouts like a kitten searching for its mother. Soldiers were already leaving the castle, escorting five supply carts.
"Excuse me. Are you headed to the Jack Frost subjugation right now?"
"Ah, Lord Karem. Yes. These are supply carts for the soldiers at the site."
"I'm trying to join Lord Atanitas—"
"Hey! Make some room on that cart! Climb aboard!"
The senior soldier bellowed at the escorts and laborers. At a glance the cart looked packed solid, yet the superior's stern order quickly produced space enough for two people to sit with their legs stretched out. The moment the senior confirmed that Karem, basket in hand, had climbed aboard, he set the procession moving.