She Becomes The Hero In Another World 26 She Cooks 'Melting Potatoes'

"I'm sorry!" Pons.h.i.+eu exclaimed as he stumbled through the door. "I was caught by the old treasurer on my way here!"

"See? What did I tell you?" Keith looked at Robin, who had a.s.sembled most of what they needed for the potatoes.

"Ah! Perfect timing! Do you have any chicken broth?" Robin asked.

"Ah, yes! Wait a moment!" Pons.h.i.+eu immediately wrote down the list of ingredients on the table before running off to a side pantry. On the table was b.u.t.ter, salt, ground peppercorn, diced thyme leaves, garlic, and potatoes, as well as a long, flat dish for baking fish.

Robin felt a whiff of cold air emnating from that room when he opened the door.

'So they do have refrigerators.' She thought to herself.

"Here it is!" Ponzu exclaimed, taking out a large pot, filled almost to the brim.

"We don't need that much!" Robin exclaimed to prevent him from wrecking his back, or dropping the pot. "Just scoop out a large bowl-full, and that will be enough!"

"Ah, got it!" Pons.h.i.+eu returned the pot to the cold pantry, and brought out a bowl the size of a bundt cake, half-filled with broth. Robin sighed with relief.

"Okay!" She said, rolling up her sleeves. "The first thing we are going to do is melt the b.u.t.ter!"

"Huh?" Ponzu paused.

"What?" Robin asked.

"Isn't the b.u.t.ter going to melt inside the oven, anyways? Why melt it now before cooking?" He asked.

"Because, today, we are going to use b.u.t.ter to make a sauce." Robin replied seriously. "Many foods can have very different flavors depending on the sauce. Please remember that."

"Got it!" He took out a small saucepan and melted the b.u.t.ter. He also wrote down that step.

"Then, we add the salt, minced thyme leaves, and pepper and stir it around until it has been evenly distributed through the b.u.t.ter." Robin said. Ponzu did so, and scribbled it down in his notebook.

"Done! Now what?" he asked.

"We set the sauce aside. Now is the time to cut up the potatoes." Robin replied, grabbing a potato and a kitchen knife that she had sharpened, she tossed the potato in the air and sliced the top and bottom rounded edges off, displaying it to Pons.h.i.+eu.

"Do you see this? When you cut the potato to look like this, it's called 'squaring the potato'. this will help keep the potato slices uniform." Then Robin sliced the potatoes into rounds about one inch thick.

"You want to try to keep the slices as close to the same width as possible. This way, they will all finish cooking at the same time, and there won't be any overcooked or undercooked slices."

"Yes!" Pons.h.i.+eu sliced the other potatoes, practicing to make them look as close to Robin's potato slices as possible.

"Next, we put the potato slices in a large bowl, and pour the b.u.t.ter sauce onto it. Then we mix the potato slices up to make sure the sauce is evenly distributed on the slices. Ah, that should be good enough." Robin said.

"By the way, do you have a baking pan?" She asked.

"Baking pan? What's that?" Pons.h.i.+eu asked.

Robin paused awkwardly. "Er, it's like a frying pan, except it's rectangular, and you use it to bake things in the oven. It looks kind of like this." She sketched it out in Pons.h.i.+eu's notebook.

"It can't be helped since we don't have the baking pan, we'll have to make do with the frying pan."

"You can use that too?" Pons.h.i.+eu asked.

"Well, yeah." Robin replied. "The main thing we need it for is to have a flat surface to fry the potatoes on, as well as an instrument to hold the chicken broth after baking it a few times."

"We don't just bake this once?" Pons.h.i.+eu asked, surprised.

"It can't be helped. the potatoes need to be baked on both sides, first." Robin replied. "But the baking parts should only take a quarter of an hour each."

They lined the frying pan with the potato slices, and set it in the oven. After about 15 minutes, they took it out and flipped the slices over, placing it again into the oven for another 15 minutes. At this point, the kitchen was starting to smell wonderful. Robin used this time to efficiently peel the garlic cloves and dice them up.

"We've baked them, but what are we going to do with this chicken broth?" Pons.h.i.+eu asked as he took the potatoes out.

"This is the last part." Robin said. "We pour the chicken broth over the potatoes, but only up until just below the top part of the potato. We want to soak them, not drown them. Then we add the garlic cloves, and stick them into the oven for fifteen more minutes, and we'll be done!"

The potatoes went back into the oven. But this time, the wonderful smell was even stronger. A few of the chefs from the other kitchens came over to the doorway, drawn by the smell wafting out of the doors.

"U-um, excuse me?" The chef from the queen's kitchen asked. "What is it that you are cooking that smells this good?" Pons.h.i.+eu looked over to Robin for confirmation, to see if it was all right to tell her. Robin simply nodded and gave him a thumbs up.

"We're cooking potatoes." He replied.

"What!"

"That super bland foreign vegetable?"

"The one without any taste!?" The other chefs exclaimed.

"Hmmph! I bet it only SMELLS good. One bite will be enough to confirm that it's the same old baseless bland vegetable." The first s.h.i.+ft personnel chef snorted.

"But, what if they actually find a way to make that bland potato taste good?" The Queen's chef asked.

"Tell me this: can you even imagine what the potato would taste like?" First s.h.i.+ft chef laughed derisively. The two other chefs walked away shaking their heads.

"Such a good smell coming from such a bland vegetable. It would be of more use as incence rather than food."

At that point, the only chef that remained was the queen's chef. "Um..I still think that there is no food that cannot taste good if cooked correctly!" She a.s.serted. "May I taste it when it comes out?"

Pons.h.i.+eu hesitated and looked at Robin, who shrugged. She didn't care either way. Anyone who tasted that vegetable would be instantly captured by the flavor -hook, line, and sinker!

"It's time." Robin finally said, and Pons.h.i.+eu opened the oven to take out the dish. The chicken broth seemed to have disappeared, leaving only the browned potato slices in the pan.

Pons.h.i.+eu placed half of the potatoes on a large plate, and stored it in a warming chamber to keep the food warm until dinner. Then, he pa.s.sed out forks to Robin, Keith, Gerard, and the Queen's chef before they partook of the remaining potato slices.

Everyone had a moment of silence as they quietly savored the wonderful dish. Pons.h.i.+eu wiped the tears away from his eyes. "It's delicious!" He mumbled. "It's really delicious!"

"This is potato?" The Queen's chef asked in amazement. "It tastes completely different! Crunchy on the outside, yet soft and creamy on the inside. Is this even the same vegetable!?"

Keith's eyes narrowed in pleasure as he helped himself to a second piece. Robin, seeing that, also grabbed a second piece. Gerard was already on his third. It was as if the three had decided prior to this to ignore any emotional dramatics while they ate.

"Ponzu, did you come up with this?" The Queen's chef asked.

"No, no! I owe this recipe to Hero Robin, over there." Pons.h.i.+eu explained.

The queen's chef looked dubiously at the bird-masked man casually savoring the taste of the melting potatoes. This was the Hero?