"It's a pepper that grows in the South."
"These will do, thank you for your trouble."
The peppers that Count Trion brought were slightly different in appearance and size than the ones from my previous life, but there was no difference in their flavor.
With the MSG and chili peppers, the base for the ran soup was complete.
Aria would add the other ingredients as she tasted them.
'What's left is the noodles.'
The life of ran is in the chewy noodles but this was out of my control.
I'm not a chef, and I had no experience making noodles, so I'd have to get help from an otherworldly chef.
Luckily, I knew a "restaurant" that could help.
Before I started making processed food, I used to wander around looking for good restaurants to eat at.
It was during one of those visits that I discovered the restaurant I wanted help from.
Golden Garden.
It's a restaurant with a reputation in the capital for serving otherworldly cuisine, and the only dish I've ever found to be "delicious."
However, when Zion heard my story, he was dubious.
"Golden Garden? How about sowhere else?"
"Why? Is there a problem?"
"Not that there's a problem, but the chef at the Golden Garden is known for having a very high ego. From what I've heard, he's even refused imperial invitations. If it doesn't involve cooking, he doesn't even bother."
"That's rather nice."
"What?"
"Take this and deliver it to him."
"What's this?"
"Seasoning."
"?"
What I handed Zion was a baggie of MSG.
*
"...I've never t you before, Laura, head chef of the Golden Garden."
The chef from the Golden Garden ca to the White Tower with an envelope of MSG.
"Are you the one who made this?"
But
'It wasn't human.'
I expected an elderly craftsman, but the chef was a cat.
She was a cat-folk woman with white furry pointed ears and an earthy pink flesh ball on her palm.
I had heard that there were beastman in the other world, but it was my first ti seeing one.
'What's that big bag on your back?'
The cat-folk woman, who identified herself as Laura, was carrying a bag that was three tis as big as her body.
She didn't seem to mind, but her strength was obvious.
"Tell , did you really make this?"
"Yes, I did."
When I finally regained my composure and answered, Laura gave a look of admiration.
"This is amazing! How did you make it, what are the ingredients, and can you deliver it to our restaurant?"
"...Can't you ask them one by one?"
"I'm sorry, I have so many questions, and we cat-folk are naturally talkative, so how did you make this?"
"We extracted the flavors of the crops and powdered them with alchemy."
"I see, that's amazing. So what is the crop and how did you extract the flavor?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you the variety of the crop or the detailed manufacturing thod."
"...Ooh, that's too bad, but you're right, it must be a secret recipe, and I was impatient to ask how it's made."
Laura acknowledged her mistake, but continued positively.
"Then can you sign a supply contract with my shop, because I really want to use it, I really do!"
Despite her rumored high ego, Laura was clinging to .
It wasn't unreasonable.
'If you're a good chef, there's no way you can't recognize MSG's true value.'
Even in the world of my previous life, MSG was called magic powder, a seasoning that no chef could miss.
To present such a thing in this world, where the concept of savory taste was unknown, Laura's eyes were bound to roll.
This made it easier for , as the one asking, to speak up.
"If you do a favor, I'll sign a supply contract with you."
"What is it? Tell anything! ...Do you want to pull my tail?"
"Well, that's a tempting offer, but we'll save that for another ti. Today, I want you to make this."
"What is this? It looks unusual. It looks like sliced dough, but is it fried?"
"That's right."
What I showed Laura was the fried side of a bagged ran.
"I've never seen dough sliced into long strips before. Why are they fried?"
"So that it can be stored for a long ti."
There are many reasons for deep-frying ran, but the main one is to extend the shelf life.
"I would like Laura to make this for ."
"Indeed, you have every reason to ask , because no one else in the empire can make this."
Laura's confidence was palpable.
The concept of 'noodles' in this world was a little different than in my previous life.
In this world, noodles were more like macaroni and were usually scooped up with a spoon.
Ran noodles were not sothing that could be simply described as "fried".
There are a lot of ingredients that go into making them before they're fried, and you have to know the mixtures of the dough and the oil used.
I didn't expect Laura to make perfect ran noodles since Ciel's alchemy would fill in the gaps.
But before that.
"Let's taste the finished product first."
I presented Laura with the ran noodles I had recreated using the gemstone.
The water was bubbling red and the noodles were alive and chewy.
"Is this an illusion created by arcane magic?"
"Yes, it's not real, but it looks like it is."
Because ran was a real food, not a fignt of my imagination.
"I don't an to dean you, wizard, but a fantasy is a fantasy, and imagination can't be a real dish."
Laura looked at the magical ran through tinted glasses but that was only until she tried the ran.
"Uh...?"
Laura winced as she scooped up a spoonful of ran.
'Of course it is.'
When you co from a culture that doesn't have noodles, the texture is bound to be different.
Wide-eyed, Laura continued to inhale the ran without speaking.
"Ah, so this is why the dough is..."
She nodded to herself, sotis in admiration, sotis in thought.
"Can I borrow your kitchen?"
"Yes, you can."
"And that white powder!"
"You're welco to use it."
Before I could finish my answer, Laura grabbed the MSG envelope and ran off at a frightening speed.
"I didn't tell you where the kitchen is...."
But being a cat-folk with a developed sense of sll, Laura found the kitchen on her own.
The kitchen at the White Tower was large for a place that fed so many wizards, but the ingredients were stale.
I wondered how she was going to cook.
"That's what that bag is for."
Laura pulled kitchen utensils and ingredients out of the bag and laid them out on the table.
Unbeknownst to , the large bag was a pantry.
Pouring a large pot of oil into the pot, Laura used her cooking utensils to light the fire.
-Hiss!
While the oil sizzled, Laura poured flour and water onto a cutting board.
Then she began kneading the dough with her thick, pink flesh.
She didn't use a rolling pin or a kneader, but with a few strokes of the knuckles, the flour quickly turned into a well-stretched dough.
'This is cat's-mark dough.'
I don't think any modern chef could knead it as well as Laura.
With a thick knife, she nonchalantly sliced through the dough and placed the at from both hands on top of the sliced noodles.
The dough gathered energy and steam ca out.
'She's even letting out steam through her paw pads.'
The steamy dough, flavored with cat's paw, puffed up to a tasty size was then dropped into a vat of hot oil.
-Chaaaaack!
The noodles subrged in the oil were fried to a golden brown.
Laura didn't stop there; she added various spices and MSG to the boiling water, dropped the fried noodles in, and boiled them to finish the dish.
"It's done."
Despite the complexity of the process, the dish took less than five minutes to cook.
'Wow.'
I looked at Laura's dish and inwardly admired it.
This was probably her first ti eating noodles, and she had done a great job.
I was worried that the noodles would fly off, but luckily, she'd magically secured them.
"This should do the trick."
I nodded as I scooped up the noodles.
The flavor wasn't to my taste, but the texture of the noodles themselves wasn't bad.
It was definitely different from ran noodles in thickness and shape. ....
'I wonder what happens with alchemy.'
Making a 'stock' would solve everything.
*
Using Laura's recipe as a guide, the alchemists began to make ran noodles.
It was the perfect bagged ran, complete with ran soup and noodles.
It was hard to create a recipe once, but it wasn't hard to replicate the stock afterward.
Aria looked pleased.
"Now we just have to distribute them to the nobles."
"No, I'm not giving it to the nobles this ti."
"What? You're not going to promote it?"
"It's a test, and the nobles aren't enough."
The ran was finished, but we still didn't have enough data on the average "spiciness" of the otherworlders. There were too few nobles to accumulate that data.
For example, in order to "localize," we needed to ask a lot of people for their opinions on ran.
"Are there any other nobles?"
"You know, our custors who would test it. A million of them."
"A million people? You can't be serious..."
"That's right."
I rembered what the Marquis of Hughes had said to once.
'I wish we could develop a wider variety of canned goods to keep the troops morale up.'
"We'll spread it around the army."
The one million n in the Imperial Army were Ran's first custors.
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