Failure Is the Mother of Success (3)
William’s words weren’t wrong.
Objectively speaking, the steak was delicious.
The salt and pepper had seeped in at just the right depth. Every chew released a burst of juices. That soft, yielding give people usually called “chewy.”
Karem had never been especially fond of rare steak precisely because of that texture. Even so, the steak was still clearly good.
The only problem was that it was, in the end, rare.
Which meant the sous-vide had failed.
Chew—chew—
“Haah. If I’d just cooked it medium, at least I could have enjoyed it more.”
Karem grumbled as he worked his way through the rare steak with determined chews.
For the record, he didn’t hate rare steak. He simply preferred anything from medium-rare up through well-done. Honestly, as long as it wasn’t blue rare—basically raw meat with a little color seared onto the outside—he didn’t particularly care.
Anyway, properly seasoned and properly cooked, beef was delicious.
“What? Medium? And you call yourself a chef when you don’t even know how to eat meat.”
“It’s a matter of taste. Please respect that.”
“Don’t tell me you’re like my brother—hating meat just because it’s underdone and still dripping blood?”
The look William gave him was pure “A cook who doesn’t know how to eat meat?” Karem shook his head firmly.
“Rare steak is fully cooked meat.”
Among all the degrees of doneness, the only undercooked, essentially raw meat was blue rare, seared just enough to color the surface. Everything else was cooked through; the pink interior simply meant the proteins hadn’t fully denatured, and what people commonly mistook for blood was juice. The actual blood had already been drained during butchering.
“I just happen to dislike this soft, squishy texture.”
“Squishy?! This is chewy. And the way the juices come out with every bite is seriously good.”
“Considering who taught me and who I’m feeding, this level is the bare minimum…”
How much mammoth meat had been sacrificed for him? The fact that he’d grilled and eaten it whenever he had a free moment had probably helped a lot too.
Karem had been about to take another bite, then shook his head and set down his utensils. He simply wasn’t in the mood anymore. Even though he was still hungry.
“More importantly, I only theorized about it—and I really did fail.”
“You were talking about experiments earlier, and this is plenty delicious. Isn’t that a success? What were you even aiming for?”
“No. I mean… just a second.”
Karem pressed the edge of a spoon against the steak like a knife and applied pressure. Clear red juices welled up through the incomplete tear.
“So what did you just do?”
“If it had turned out the way I imagined, just pressing with a spoon should have let the steak slice as soft as butter.”
“It’s not like you simmered it into a stew. Come on.”
Even for someone who cooked well, that was a bit much. William gave a dry little laugh and waved his fork, putting that meaning into the gesture.
It wasn’t exaggeration at all. Because protein toughens under high heat, cooking it low and slow for a long time naturally softens the meat. Indirect heat, poaching, and a few other factors played a part as well.
The problem was that Karem had only ever experienced the result; he didn’t know the principle behind it. Even in his previous life as Garam, he’d been serious about cooking—but not so serious that he had memorized every scientific process that happened to ingredients during cooking.
There were things he knew. Sous-vide simply wasn’t one of them.
Karem scratched his head in frustration. Outside the kitchen, the sound of rolling wheels grew louder.
Clatter—rattle-rattle—
“Young Master William. Junior Karem. Has the private lesson finished?”
“Yeah. More or less.”
Mary pushed in a cart loaded with dishes.
“More to the point—is that steak?”
Her expressionless face tilted to one side.
“It seems rather small for the two of you.”
“Ah, this is an experimental piece.”
Mary’s wariness flared on instinct. An experimental piece? What was he trying to make this time? That bad habit of his—flipping out the moment cooking was involved and charging ahead without looking left or right—had clearly kicked in again.
She parked the cart right in front of the sink and approached them with a gaze full of questions. The closer she got, the more question marks filled her head.
On the plate sat a nicely browned rare steak for one, about half of it already eaten.
From above, from the side, from below—no matter the angle, the truth didn’t change.
It was nothing more than an extremely ordinary steak.
“Mary. What are you doing?”
“Shh.”
“What—”
“Please be quiet. I am observing.”
“Observing? Observing what, exactly?”
That left only one remaining answer.
The moment Mary straightened and her eyes began rapidly scanning the kitchen, they locked onto the unfamiliar rectangular structure that had no business in a kitchen—specifically, the aging unit Karem had brought in yesterday.
“That thing. You called it an aging unit. You said you were experimenting with something, so I take it this steak is the result. Did you succeed?”
“Nope. He was grumbling about failing.”
“Failing? I cannot understand. Is this not a perfectly well-cooked rare steak? Is it because it is rare?”
“Something about it needing to be soft enough to cut with a spoon. I couldn’t make sense of it.”
William, who had no reason to know cooking techniques from another world, speared another piece of steak without much interest.
“For someone who skipped lunch, it’s a good thing either way.”
The stew that had been the original goal had failed. Still, he had eaten steak, so whatever.
That didn’t mean he was full, of course. He might not match Alicia, Winterhome’s little ogre, but he was still a proper man of the Felwinter family. No one had ever accused him of eating lightly.
Well, if I eat this and then ask him to make something else, that should be fine.
William thought that with complete calm and kept slicing and chewing in accordance with a stomach that still had a long way to go before feeling satisfied.
“…You skipped lunch?”
But someone who could never let that casual thought pass was right there in the kitchen with them.
Karem flinched at the deadly seriousness in Mary’s voice, but William, still absorbed in the steak, just kept working his utensils and teeth.
“I originally planned to eat the stew we finished in class for lunch. It tasted so bad I couldn’t bring myself to.”
“So that stew is the one sitting on the stove over there.”
“Right. Karem said if we just left it, someone would clear it.”
“You are correct. But that is not the important part right now.”
Mary put a little distance between herself and the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. With a stiff face, the house elf strode straight to the range, opened the lid of the only pot sitting on a burner—
Clack—
Enough time had passed that no steam rose. William’s stew was still warm, though, and the slight cooling had made the broth start to cling to the ingredients. If anything, it looked more appetizing than before.
“Good heavens.”
Of course, it only looked fine.
The taste of the contents hadn’t changed at all. Still completely flavorless.
After tasting William’s beef stew, Mary’s hands shook so hard she dropped the spoon. Her eyes, full of horror, whipped around to the two of them.
“You filled your stomach with this… this object?”
“‘This object’? That wording feels a little harsh.”
William frowned mid-bite of the last piece of steak on his plate.
Of course a stew that literally tasted of nothing was an abnormal dish. He knew that. Hearing it put so bluntly still didn’t feel great.
“I cannot accept this!”
William’s feelings? Karem’s awkward look? Neither of those concerned the house elf Mary. If she had cared about such things, she would never have received that forced vacation the time before last.
Mary absolutely could not accept this. Skipping lunch—skipping a meal. She was as shocked as a grandmother who had just been told someone was hungry.
If he had at least eaten something proper afterward, she wouldn’t have been this appalled. But what he had eaten after that was a joyless monstrosity that insulted the very concept of cooking? Unthinkable.
Mary’s tightly clenched fists filled with the determination to stuff her contractor’s lord’s second son full.
William blinked at the sight, carefully set his fork and knife down on the plate, and whispered to Karem.
“Your house elf. Is she always like this?”
“The third young master said the exact same thing. And yes—when it comes to work, she’s pretty extreme. Just take her as she is.”
“No, this is completely different from the way she first snapped at me.”
“There probably isn’t any malice in it.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Mary could not accept this disastrous fact.
The magic tower was territory that had been acknowledged by her contractor, Catherine—effectively her domain. William had visited that domain while starving. And all he had eaten was a few spoonfuls of completely tasteless stew he had made himself, plus half a steak they had shared?
“So what would you like to eat? Preferably something that can be made quickly.”
William watched for a moment as Mary, who had already begun devouring the mountain of dishes at impressive speed, accepted the utensils Karem held out and shoved them into the sink. Then he stroked his still-smooth chin.
“There is something I definitely want.”
“Anything you like.”
“I want the thing Alicia was bragging about all over the place, saying it was delicious.”
William furrowed one brow in thought.
“That sweet, nutty paste you spread on bread… Nu… New… New Delhi?”
The completely unexpected word hit Karem out of nowhere. He squeezed his eyes shut and barely held back a laugh.
“Ahem. Ahem! You mean Nutella?”
William snapped his fingers as if that were the correct answer.
It wasn’t a particularly difficult request. If they had to start from the raw ingredients it would be another story, but he had prepared some Nutella just in case, and it was still sleeping peacefully in the cold room. Originally he would have asked Mary to make it, but he’d had no choice but to do it himself.
At any rate, Karem shook his head.
“Uh, why all of a sudden?”
“Even so, that’s dessert or a snack. I’ll bring it out after the meal.”
“Can’t I just spread it on toast and fill up on that?”
“Do you want to end up puffy like the first young master a few months ago?”
“…Wait, does it make you gain that much weight?”
Comparing Nutella—which was basically a nut paste—to mayonnaise, a pure lump of fat, was a bit unfair to the Nutella. But just because he had replaced the cacao with Amadeus didn’t magically turn a product that, even in his previous life, had contained an appalling amount of sugar and nuts into something that wouldn’t make you gain weight. If you treated it like a meal and slathered it on and ate as much as you wanted instead of having a little as a snack, the result waiting for the person involved was obvious.
“Right now I want fried chicken. With a sweet-and-spicy sauce on the side. I’ll take the Nutella toast for dessert.”
“Fried chicken?”
“Why? You told me to say what I wanted.”
William’s tone carried a clear “if not, I’ll just pick something else,” and the awkward Karem locked eyes with Mary, who also looked troubled. He didn’t know why Mary seemed put out, but it wasn’t a hard problem either way.
“Is there any brined chicken in the pantry?”
“I have not prepared any yet. Even if I start now… the timing will not work. It takes a fair amount of time.”
“Then there’s only one way.”
“Is there a method?”
“We just fry the meat.”
“Just the meat? That would indeed work.”
If they fried the chicken bone-in it would be different, but if they stripped the meat off and fried only that, it wouldn’t take long at all.
Clatter—clatter—clatter—
“In that case, Junior Karem, please wait just a little. As soon as I finish these dishes I will bring the ingredients right away.”
Karem looked at Mary with a thoroughly unimpressed expression.
“Why are you looking at me with those eyes?”
“Mary. I think you forgot something important. Do you really not remember?”
“…I-I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Mary’s gaze slid away.
There was no way she didn’t know.
On the day of the coming-of-age ceremony, she had completely ruined a perfectly good atmosphere by being oblivious. If it had been a first offense, maybe they could have cut her some slack. This had been the second time. Mary had received a heavier punishment than before and been handed two weeks of “disciplinary leave” that was not leave at all.
Preparing meals and snacks for the mages of the tower. Being completely barred from any work directly related to cooking in the kitchen—except for him. There was no way a brownie, a house elf whose life was work itself, could be unaware of that.
And Mary was a brownie.
“…Even so, Young Master William is an outsider, so strictly speaking he does not fall under the contractor’s restrictions—”
“I’ll handle the ingredients myself.”
“Please! Junior Karem! How can you do this to me!”
“No. If I do, Lady Catherine will scold me too. Hey—let go of my arm.”
“Please do something about that part!”
“Uh, uh-oh. You’re going to tear my clothes. Wait—before that, when did this house elf even finish the dishes?”
“That is a part I can fix as much as I need to. So please—”
The servants squabbled. William, who had been watching with mild interest while gently rubbing his stomach, suddenly paused. His ears had caught a snatch of conversation that was impossible to ignore.
…Did that guy just call Atanitas by name?
William’s eyes caught Karem slipping a lavish ring he had never seen before off his left hand and tucking it into a pocket.
He was already looking forward to the moment he could ask about that later.