"Hm—, so you simmer the bones for a long time?"
"Yeah. When you do that, it turns cloudy white, so you just season it with salt or something... I think."
While explaining tonkotsu soup, Rei spoke with a slightly uncertain tone.
He had a memory of seeing something called soy sauce tonkotsu in Cup Ramen, and he also recalled seeing it on a TV program, but if asked what the seasoning for pure tonkotsu ramen was, he would end up going "Huh?" because he simply could not remember.
The fact that it was delicious left an impression on him, and he had seen on a TV program that pork bones were simmered over high heat for a long time, so he vaguely remembered that much, but he did not remember the specifics of what kind of seasoning was used.
(If soy sauce tonkotsu was a separate thing, does that mean the standard tonkotsu ramen is salt-flavored? Well, Georgima will think about and adjust that kind of thing, so I can only leave it to him.)
Ultimately, what Rei could do was not teach the details of a dish, but merely inform him that this kind of dish exists and this is what its finished form looks like.
"Rei, if you're simmering bones for a long time, what about the meat that's attached to the bones?"
"......I'm not sure? But given it's called tonkotsu, probably only the bones are necessary, right?"
"In that case, it'd be better to firmly remove the flesh from the bones before simmering."
"But, Georgima-san. If you simmer bones for a long time, quite a foul odor will come out, won't it? What will you do about that?"
A cook who apparently had experience simmering bones posed that question to Georgima, who was talking with Rei.
The person asked thought about it for a moment before opening his mouth.
"It'd probably be best to boil it over high heat once and skim the scum, then simmer it again. The meat attached to the bones would come off with that too. After that, when you simmer the bones again, you'd put in aromatic vegetables to eliminate the odor."
Vegetables similar to long onions and ginger also existed in Elgin.
Using them to remove the unpleasant smell from soup was not uncommon in this world, where soup-type cuisine was quite well-developed.
"And also, basically, tonkotsu soup is done once the soup turns cloudy white. Well, I'm not sure whether you need to keep simmering after it turns cloudy, but at least as far as I know, tonkotsu soup is cloudy white."
Georgima cast a slightly puzzled glance at Rei as he said this.
The phrase "as far as I know" made it feel as though Rei had actually seen tonkotsu soup with his own eyes.
Even if he only knew the general outline of the dish from text, there was something slightly off about those words.
It was enough to make one wonder if he didn't know ramen... tonkotsu ramen, not just through knowledge, but through actual experience.
This was partly because Rei had been explaining eagerly, wanting to eat ramen, but more than that, Georgima's sharpness when it came to cooking was the bigger factor.
Given Georgima's intense enthusiasm for cooking, some kind of instinct must have been at work there.
That said, Georgima did not point that out.
Georgima was not pursuing Rei; he simply wanted to deepen his knowledge of cooking.
Of course, it wasn't that he hadn't thought he might be able to obtain other cooking knowledge later on.
"I understand about the soup. We have some techniques in our repertoire that could be adapted for it, so it shouldn't be impossible. So then, the other things we'd need are the toppings and noodles, right? Set aside that Chilled Chinese Noodles ramen for later."
"Georgima-san, tonkotsu soup is the soup for Tonkotsu Ramen. I haven't talked to you about the soup for that ramen called Shio Ramen."
"......Come to think of it, that's right. Rei. What about that one?"
"Shio Ramen should require less effort than Tonkotsu Ramen... I think."
The reason he couldn't say it with certainty was, again, that Rei had never made Shio Ramen with his own hands.
He had made things like Instant Ramen, Cup Ramen, and Fresh Ramen, which required a bit more effort, but he had never made Shio Ramen in a full-fledged sense.
"Apparently you make the soup by simmering chicken bones or seafood... things like that, but Shio Ramen's soup isn't cloudy white like Tonkotsu Ramen. Transparent... is going too far, but it's that kind of feel for the soup. The seasoning is, of course, salt. Oh, by the way, sorry about the tonkotsu one, but I don't know what kind of seasoning it uses. As far as I know, there was something like tonkotsu soy sauce ramen, but you don't know soy sauce, right?"
"Yeah. Unfortunately. I plan to ask Duke Kerebel to search for whether such a condiment exists, but... despite how I look, I'm a man who is particular about cooking."
The moment Georgima said that, everyone present internally screamed that they already knew that, but the person who had been screamed at didn't notice and continued speaking with a slightly boastful smile.
"If even I don't know about it, then thinking about it normally, acquiring it would be nearly impossible."
"In other words, we have no choice but to make ramen on the assumption that we can't obtain soy sauce or miso."
"That's how it is. ...Honestly, I do have a strong desire to reproduce the exact flavor of the dish Rei knows, but... kansui, was it? At the point where we don't have that, perfect reproduction is impossible, right?"
"I can't deny that. Given it's called kansui, I think it's probably some kind of liquid, but..."
Nothing at all, he said.
Rei said that.
Georgima had anticipated that response from Rei, so he didn't particularly blame him and returned to the discussion about Shio Ramen.
"So for Shio Ramen, you need to season the soup with salt, right?"
"That's right. Not just in appearance, but the flavor also has a sense of transparency... that's what was written, I feel like."
The expression "a soup with a sense of transparency" was something Rei had seen on a TV program or something similar.
......The person himself, even if told about a soup with a transparent flavor, couldn't understand what that meant, so he couldn't offer specific flavor advice, but it was something he said hoping it might serve as even a slight reference for Georgima.
And Georgima, hearing Rei's words, seemed to have something on his mind as he nodded in understanding.
The surrounding cooks could not understand why Georgima was satisfied with just the words "a sense of transparency" alone, but if told "That's just Georgima for you," they had no choice but to accept it.
"Well, I've mostly understood about the soup. From what I've heard, it's not something we can do anything about right away, so we'll need to research it thoroughly. ...Next is about the toppings."
"The toppings also vary depending on the type of ramen, but the common ones are chashu, boiled eggs, and menma, I suppose. There are others too, but."
"What is chashu?"
"Meat. You season it, grill or boil it, then cut it a bit on the thick side and place it on top."
"That sounds like something we can manage for now."
Georgima said that, but basically, whether grilled or boiled, chashu uses a soy sauce-based flavor.
At least as far as Rei knew, that was the case.
(Well, he doesn't have to force himself to make it with soy sauce. Georgima can prepare chashu that suits the ramen, so it should be fine.)
Rei judged that, but to the question of which part of the meat to use, he only answered with belly and loin... the fatty meat and the less fatty portions.
It was possible they made chashu with other cuts, but Rei only remembered that much.
"I understand chashu. Next is boiled eggs, right? From the name, I just need to boil eggs, right?"
"That's right. But for the ones a step above regular boiled eggs, there are flavored boiled eggs or smoked boiled eggs."
"......Huh? Flavoring, well, you could just soak them in some kind of soup, but smoked? Eggs?"
The technique of smoking was important for making preserved foods, so it had naturally spread to Elgin as well.
But even so... no, perhaps because of that, the idea of smoking boiled eggs had not occurred to Georgima.
(Ideally, you'd make them half-boiled, but... it seems that in this world, they basically don't eat things half-boiled or raw, do they. I don't know how to make smoked half-boiled eggs, but.)
The smoking method Rei knew was, naturally, the method of burning some kind of wood and smoking with that smoke.
But of course, if smoke came from burning wood, heat would also be transmitted along with it.
In other words, even if he smoked a half-boiled egg, the result might end up being a regular fully-boiled egg—that was Rei's question.
That said, during his time in Japan, semi-boiled smoked eggs were sold at supermarkets, so there must have been some proper method; Rei simply didn't know it.
"So, menma... what kind of ingredient is that?"
"Do you know what bamboo shoots are?"
Rei asked with a tentative manner, but the feeling that they probably didn't know was stronger.
That was why he was slightly surprised when Georgima and the other cooks each nodded.
That said, even with similar ingredients, there were cases where things had the same names as on Earth, and cases where they had completely different names.
Thinking about it that way, it wasn't strange for them to know bamboo shoots.
(Were there bamboo shoots in Gilm?)
As a bamboo shoot lover, Rei was happy that the word bamboo shoots was understood.
"What kind of bamboo shoots are those? As far as I know, there are big ones and small ones... maybe it's better to say thick ones and thin ones, but there are two types."
"We have both. Though the larger ones are more commonly eaten in Duke Kerebel's Territory."
"The small ones are a pain to peel, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, the area under your fingernails starts to hurt."
At Georgima's words, the surrounding cooks exchanged their respective impressions.
......The difficulty of peeling nemagaritake was something Rei experienced every year, so he found himself involuntarily agreeing with the cooks' words.
"It's the large bamboo shoots, right. I understand that you'd use them, but I don't know specifically how to make them. Plus, they're seasoned with soy sauce, so to reproduce them, I'd need to think of a different seasoning."
"......Soy sauce again, huh. For some reason, a lot of the dishes Rei knows use soy sauce. You said they were in a book, but are they all dishes from the same era and the same region?"
"I wonder. Now that you mention it, there are a lot of soy sauce-based seasonings, so maybe that's the case."
"If so, then we'd really need to figure out how to make soy sauce, but... do you really not know?"
"I know roughly how to make a similar but different condiment."
At Rei's words, Georgima's gaze sharpened.
"What kind of condiment?"
"Fish sauce... among those, the one I know is a condiment called shottsuru. But that one uses a fish called Hatahata, so I don't know if that fish exists here, and if it doesn't, we'd be making a different fish sauce with the same method, so I couldn't say how the flavor would turn out."
"That's fine, just tell me."
"......Keep in mind, this is just a rough outline, okay?"
Saying that, Rei began to explain how to make shottsuru.
That said, the method of making shottsuru that Rei knew was not particularly difficult.
You thoroughly wash the Hatahata, cut off the head and gills, chop it up including the internal organs, and salt-cure it.
After that, let it ferment, and it's done.
Strictly speaking, there were more various and complex processes, but unfortunately, that was all Rei knew.
"Hm, I can't say whether it's exactly the same, but I have heard that similar condiments are made in port towns and fishing villages."
"Ah... I figured."
To put it simply, fish sauce was easy to make as long as you had fish and salt.
It was a condiment with a somewhat peculiar flavor, but that was precisely why its umami was also strong.
That was why it was only natural that in port towns and fishing villages, where salt and fish were never in short supply, this kind of condiment existed.
"Well, putting that aside... the last thing is the noodles, right? ...Basically, the ingredients are the same as udon—wheat flour and water, just those two. But this one requires kansui."
"And you don't know the true nature of that kansui. So how are ramen noodles different from udon?"
"First, the texture is different, and the throat-feel is different too. The color is yellow compared to udon."
"Can I assume that's the effect of kansui?"
"......No, the yellow color might be because eggs are in it, maybe? Ah... sorry, but I'm not really sure about that."
At Rei's words, Georgima thought for a moment... and then, after nodding, he opened his mouth.
"Understood. Then, I'll try making it for now, and you can eat it and point out what's wrong with it."
"No, I don't mind that, but... I'm only here until the New Year's party ends, right?"
Given that he knew Georgima's cooking skill from last night's dish, if Georgima was offering to let him eat something he had made, he had no intention of declining.
But... since he couldn't stay in Duke Kerebel's Territory indefinitely, he couldn't remain here until the ramen was complete.
"I know that much. At the very least, I'll have it done before you return to Gilm. ...If that doesn't work, at worst I just need to go to Gilm myself."
Georgima said that, but the other cooks desperately tried to stop him.