The Emperor's Chef (2)
"Gah—why is this so salty?"
"It's fish that came up from the south. Of course it's salty. Moments like this, you really don't look much like a Cooking Master."
No—I'd assumed they'd preserved it with spirit arts or magic and hauled it north that way. Who knew it was salt-cured?
The smell and the look had tipped me off, but I figured I wouldn't know for certain until I tasted it, so I popped a piece straight into my mouth. It was seriously salty.
I reached for the white wine on the banquet table and drank. Rich minerals, a crisp green apple, and a bright savory tang washed the salt clean off my tongue.
"So how was the private audience with His Majesty? Why'd he call you in alone, anyway?"
"An honor, from where I'm standing. Don't ask why. You'll get hurt."
"Tch."
Ishilla stuck her lip out and drank.
Strictly speaking, Ermia had been in the room too, so it hadn't been a private audience at all. Close enough to let it slide.
After hashing out rewards with Leonik, I was enjoying the banquet that had been on the schedule all along.
I'd wanted to tour the imperial kitchens as soon as I possibly could, but they were slammed with the feast today. An outsider poking around in the middle of that would only get on everyone's nerves, so I put it off. A cook's heart is something another cook ought to understand.
It wouldn't take long. I'd already let them know I wanted to see the kitchens—and present a meal—before I went back to Silbaerin, and Leonik had said he'd summon me within a week at the latest.
"Kang Jinwoo. You look well. Is your body all right?"
"Ah, Your Highness. Thanks to you, I'm right as rain. Thank you."
"Hmm. Enough with the stiff 'Your Highness.' Call me Princess, the way you usually do. Anyway, I'm glad you're fine. Still, just in case, get yourself examined now and then."
"Understood, Princess. If the chance comes up, I will."
Ermia had already left, busy with the work of restoring the academy. I'd been idling away the time with Ishilla when Kariel came over.
"She's not wrong, Master. You really never know. It might kick in all of a sudden later, like a curse."
"Don't say things like that. It's creepy."
"No harm in being prepared, is there? I think you'd be better off stopping by the Grand Cathedral, at least."
"Hmm... you think so?"
Black mana, a direct hit to the heart. The moment it landed, the strength ran out of my whole body and I dropped to my knees—but after that, nothing. Kariel's personal priest had examined me, and I'd come up clean.
Even so, Ermia couldn't shake her unease over an evil god's mana, and Eilenna, who worried about everything, kept pressing me to get checked again.
Come on. Holy power from a high priest isn't pocket change. How was I supposed to get dosed with it on a schedule?
But hearing even Ishilla talk that way, a worry I hadn't had before started to take root.
Can I walk the rewards back? I want one extra free pass to the cathedral. I don't know what a saintess's examination is worth, but they could yield that much, couldn't they? They did call it merit on the level of a national hero.
"Ishilla. You still haven't greeted your brothers, have you? Come with me."
"Right, we should! Master, take good care of yourself!"
"Go on. Enjoy your youth."
While I was sorting through what I'd say the next time I saw Leonik, Ishilla and Kariel left together, thick as thieves.
With Ishilla gone, there wasn't a single person left in the hall I could talk to. In an instant I was the odd one out—the lone black-haired wallflower.
I should just go home.
I slipped out of the banquet early and headed back.
I'd already tasted every dish they'd set out and taken the measure of the standard. No reason to stay.
Unlike the market food of this other world, which always carried some petty little flaw, the imperial table was in another league.
Banquet dishes the imperial chefs had poured themselves into. Whole roast pig; game—lamb, venison, rabbit, and the rest of it, what they call gibier; salt-cured fish; and plenty more besides. The honeyed fruit and sweet confections laid out for dessert were every bit as accomplished.
Which was why, for all my bold talk about cooking Leonik's meal, the heat was suddenly on me.
All right. I see your level...
It was hard enough to make me want to lie down and die.
Set aside the gaps in how they used ingredients, and in the science of cooking, and even a medieval fantasy world had nothing to apologize for when it came to skill.
Put the other way around, those were the cracks I could pry at. Ingredient use, and culinary science.
Unlike the food I'd thrown together on a whim before, this one was going before the Emperor. Slap down something like tteokbokki with a whatever-happens attitude, and that screaming-red sauce might end up pouring out of me.
Of course, if Leonik was to be believed, my merit sat at the level of a national hero. Botch the food as badly as I liked, and they probably still wouldn't punish me...
Any hope of a comfortable life, though, would be long gone.
A quick look over today's banquet, and a few questions put to the imperial attendants, told me what I needed. When the palace spoke of a formal dinner, they didn't mean the Russian style. They meant the French.
In the modern world, the most expensive restaurants are fine-dining houses, and the service those houses use is service à la russe—a course meal, in plain terms. Appetizer, soup, salad, main, dessert, tea, each arriving at a set interval. When most people picture expensive food, that is exactly what they picture, and the name itself means service in the Russian style.
In Russia's bitter climate, lay every dish out at once the way a full Korean table or a royal surasang did, and the whole spread went cold. So they began dividing the meal and sending it out in stages, so it could actually be eaten at its best. That method crossed into Europe and became the very definition of a formal dinner.
Which leaves the question of how Europe served food before that.
Same as a rice-house back home. Everything came out at once.
Europe—especially Italy and France, the ones who led the way in fine food—wasn't all that cold. Before the Russian method, they used a single full table, no different from Joseon: service à la française.
But the longer Europeans looked, the more advantages they saw in the Russian course. Food cooled even when the weather wasn't freezing, so being able to send each dish out hot, right when it was meant to be eaten, mattered. Less went to waste. Hygiene was easier, and so was the decoration. A noble's table gained far more from courses than from one great spread, and so the course service took hold.
And I would prepare this formal dinner the same way. As a course.
Fine dining, schmine dining—I'd never actually run a service like that. Take it apart piece by piece, though, and I knew how to make every one of them.
The format was settled. All that was left was the menu.
What would be good? What could I cook that would knock that red-haired old man flat?
"Uuugh... Jinwoo."
"Hm? What's wrong, Eilenna?"
I'd been sunk in the problem out in the living room when Eilenna came walking out of the kitchen. Her ears hung limp. Something had happened.
She looked thoroughly dejected as she asked for advice.
"Um... I wanted to make french fries, but it isn't going the way I thought."
"How isn't it? Let me take a look."
"Yeah. Please."
If an answer wasn't going to come right now, clutching the problem for days on end wouldn't help. I hauled my heavy backside up and headed for the kitchen with her.
The moment I stepped in, the air hit me—grease hanging in it, and a strangely damp smell underneath. Something had definitely gone wrong.
I went straight to the potatoes in the oil.
Blub... blub...
Sure enough. Eilenna's fries weren't frying at all. They were being boiled.
"Eilenna. The heat's way too low. Keep this up and you might as well walk around telling the whole neighborhood you're from Nuardel."
"Hiiing... but hot oil is scary. If it splashes, it hurts..."
"Well, yes. Hot oil hurts when it splashes. These potatoes, though, are not going to get hurt. At this temperature you're basically giving them a nice little hot compress."
"Uuuu..."
Eilenna could be as cute as she liked. I still couldn't stand cooking done like this. Somewhere in the middle of talking I'd ended up roasting her, and I did feel bad—but it couldn't be helped. She was the one who'd pushed the button first.
I fished out a potato that had been simmering away and checked the doneness.
Squish—
Crisp? Please. The fry gave under my fingers like a tomato.
What did you even have to do to a potato to get a texture like that? Had she left them in for hours?
"Eilenna. How long have these been in there? The poor things didn't just bloat—they turned into a corpse."
"Jinwoo. Your words have bones in them, you know? Hmph. It's been about an hour."
"Oh my god..."
Even professional torturers don't drown a man for a full hour. And this potato had been shoved under oil the entire time. Just picturing it was awful.
And yet a fragrant smell was drifting up out of the pot. Curious, I leaned in.
"Sniff... don't tell me this is olive oil."
"Yes! It was the only thing in the kitchen, so I used it."
"Eilenna, you ever heard of BBQ oil? Or Golden Olive?"
"Uh... no? But it sounds delicious!"
Flap, flap—!
A moment ago she'd been grumbling, and already her ears were wagging because it sounded tasty.
Well. Being honest with your feelings is a strength. It's one of the things that makes her lovely.
This particular result, though, is not lovely.
Who on earth pours olive oil into a pot to fry potatoes?
Olive oil already has a low smoke point. It is not an oil for frying, which wants high heat.
And if it isn't suited to frying, then what is it for? Fair question.
There's a saying: taste is water-soluble, aroma is fat-soluble. Anyone who actually cooks lives by that bit of culinary science, and the more deliberately you use it, the harder it drives a dish's quality up.
Which is to say, olive oil loaded with the fresh green of the fruit is best used to lift aroma. Or you cook in it low and slow, concentrating fragrance and flavor the long way—a confit...
Wait. Confit?
For a second it felt like lightning cracked through my skull.
A technique with French cooking at its root, so the refinement came standard, and a charm of its own besides. Confit. As the main of a course meant for Leonik, it left nothing to be desired.
Munch, munch—
I popped one of Eilenna's limp fries straight into my mouth.
She startled.
"Ah?! Jinwoo, is that okay to eat? I made it, but something seemed off, so I didn't..."
"The olive oil soaked all the way into the potato. A fresh fragrance, exploding on the tongue. Eilenna."
"R-really? That's a compliment? Yahoo!"
Eilenna lit up, smiling so hard you couldn't miss it.
It was not a compliment. The texture was like chewing food waste that had gone thoroughly bad, and whatever the potato had once tasted like was buried completely under olive.
I smiled anyway.
"Yeah! This is thanks to you, Eilenna! Yahoo!"
"Yeah! I don't really get it, but yahoo, Jinwoo!"
Thanks to Eilenna, the course had a direction.
Leonik, Emperor of the Aethernia Empire. The main of the meal I would cook for him was decided: duck leg confit.
......These fries, though, were going in the trash.