Chapter 28: Learning the Basics

Chapter 28: Learning the Basics

Mishun, as she insisted on being called, made me rotate through all of the stations in the kitchen. After chopping veggies, she moved me over to sauces.

“Sauces bring life to the meal,” she explained. “If you don’t mix them right or burn them, the rest of the dish dies. If you want to provide the best for your customers, you need to create the perfect sauce.”

To teach me sauces she handed me a little white book.

Le Guide Culinaire by Auguste Escoffier - Translated Edition

Rank D

Owned by: Mishun Aires

Condition 47

I flipped through a few pages and discovered there were five mother sauces in French cooking.

Bechamel Sauce: White sauce based in milk thickened with white roux.

Espagnole Sauce: Brown sauce based on brown stock reduction, and thickened with a brown roux. Ingredients typically include roasted bones, bacon, and tomato.

Tomato Sauce: As well as tomatoes, ingredients typically include carrots, onion, garlic, butter, and flour, plus pork belly and veal sauce.

Velour Sauce: Light-colored sauce, made by reducing clear stock, and thickened with a white roux.

Hollandaise Sauce: Warm emulsion of egg yolk, melted butter, and lemon juice or vinegar.

I wondered if it was possible to use an Arcane Circle to create a sauce from nothing but no matter how I stared at the recipe, no shortcuts were suggested.

Mishun hovered as I attempted to mix the melted butter with the sauce mix.

“Faster!” She said as I whisked as hard as my arms would allow. “No. That’s no good. Start over.”

“Don’t you want to taste it first?” I asked. “It might be okay?”

She shook her head. “Don’t need to. When you’ve been doing this as long as me, you get an eye for these things.”

Ruined Hollandaise Sauce

Made by: Evans

Condition: 100

Grade: F

Suggestion: Start Over

Even the Analysis agreed I messed up. I sighed, taking the pan over to the sink to wash it out while Mishun continued the lecture.

“Mastering the five mother sauces paves the way for dozens of daughter sauces that have become the staple ingredient in many popular dishes that you enjoy every day.”

She didn’t give me long to practice before moving me over to the cooktop.

“Making sure the pan is the right temperature is equally important to how long you cook,” she began, taking a handful of water and tossing it on the hot surface.

It sizzled and immediately evaporated. “That’s how you know it’s hot enough to begin. Now, there are a few important things to know about meat. First, make sure you bring it up to room temperature before cooking it. This ensures that it cooks evenly. It’s also a good idea to marinate in advance and give the seasonings a chance to soak in. Finally, the meat doesn’t stop cooking when you remove it from the pan, so it’s important to let it rest before serving. Do you got all that?”

The only thing I knew was that I knew nothing. My experience had always been to cook something over a hot stove until it looked done. That usually made things edible and a starving kid wasn’t a picky kid. I knew my cooking didn’t always taste the best but what could I do? Not eating was never an option.

Mishun started me out with an expensive-looking steak that she’d just taken out of the fridge and set on the counter in front of me.

“What are you going to do first?”

I looked at the meat. “Let it come to room temperature first?”

She smiled and nodded. “Very good. Then what?”

“Um,” I panicked, thinking back to her lesson while examining the meat.

New York Strip - Seasoned

Owned by: Aires

Rank: B

Condition: 97

Info: Current Temp is 51 F 10 C

I watched the number impatiently as it slowly went up. Mishun never told me what the appropriate temperature was to start cooking, so the data was practically meaningless to me.

After about five minutes, she gave a thumbs up. “Okay, that’s long enough. Go ahead and start.”

The meat sizzled the moment it touched the cooktop. I stood there holding a spatula feeling like a statue as I watched the temperature slowly rise.

Info: 90 F 32 C

Info: 95 F 35 C

Info: 100 F 38 C

“Okay, the first side should be seared,” Mishun announced, handing me a thermostat. “Go ahead and flip it. It will be finished when the internal temperature reaches one hundred thirty-five degrees.”

I debated telling her I had an internal skill that told me the temp but decided to use her method to see what it was like.

Info: 110 F 43 C

Info: 115 F 46 C

Around that time, Mishun showed up with a bowl of butter with something green in it and began spooning it over the steak.

“Garlic butter,” she announced. “For added flavor.”

She was right. The steak, which already smelled good, gave off an even stronger aroma that made my mouth water.

Info: 125 F 52 C

It was around that time that Mishun had me stick the thermostat in the meat. “Be careful not to push it too far. You are checking the internal temperature, not the cooktop underneath.”

The thermostat took a few moments but the needle quickly pointed just below the one-thirty-five mark.

“Take it off!” She demanded while hovering over me like a brooding hen.

Info: 130 F 54 C

But it wasn’t ready. The thermostat was off, so I stood my ground. I trusted Analyze more than a piece of cooking equipment.

“What are you doing?” She pleaded, reaching out for the prongs that I held just out of reach.

“One more minute,” I announced, hoping she wasn’t about to do something drastic.

“You see something, don’t you?” She asked, raising her eyebrows.

I sighed. “Yeah. I can see the temperature.”

Info: 135 F 57 C

I quickly scooped the steak off the stove and placed it gently on the plate Mishun had prepared.

You have gained 500 experience points.

Trait Obtained:Apprentice Chef.

Congratulations, you are now level 5.

I whooped so loud Mishun jumped. Straightening her apron to compose herself, she continued the lesson. “It’s important to let the meat rest for at least five minutes after you take it off the grill. It will continue cooking during this time. Now, tell me what you saw and why you got so excited just now.”

“I leveled!” I announced excitedly, leaving out the new trait.

“Excellent,” she replied.

She spent the next five minutes going over the steps again before saying, “Now for the fun part. Let’s taste your cooking.’

She brought out a steak knife and a pair of forks and proceeded to carve the steak up into bite-sized pieces. The inside was a light pink color and juices leaked out all over the place as she carved. Once she was finished, she plucked up a piece on the fork and handed it to me. “Here, try this.”

I accepted it and tried a bite, closing my eyes as the flavor exploded into my mouth. The outside had a savory crust that had just the right amount of crunch while the inside preserved the natural flavor of the beef. The entire bite melted in my mouth and made me long for more.

It was a race between the two of us as we both devoured the steak.

“I probably should have had you make two,” she said with a satisfied sigh. “Now that I’ve shown you the basics, I have some recipes I’d like you to take a look at for me.”

“Sure,” I said, allowing her to lead me over to an office with a desk cluttered with papers.

“Start with this one,” she said, holding out a recipe for fried chicken. “My friend is experimenting with a new way of frying chicken and is looking for some advice on his recipe.”

She handed me an old slip of paper with ingredients written in awful handwriting.

HDS Experimental Fried Chicken

Chicken

Flour

Buttermilk

Milk

Salt

Pepper

Celery Salt

Garlic powder

Ground Ginger

Dried Mustard

“What does your skill tell you about this?” She asked. “What’s missing?”

I squinted at it, seeing a flaw that I didn’t need Analyze to tell me about. “You’re missing half the recipe. None of those tell you how much to put or how to cook it. Where are the directions?”

Mishin chuckled. “Forget about that. It’s irrelevant. Use your skill and tell me what’s missing. Which ingredients do we need to add?”

Suggestion: For ideal flavor, add Basil, Oregano, Thyme, Paprika, and White Pepper along with all listed ingredients.

You have gained 100 experience points.

She scribbled the ingredients on the recipe as I listed them off. “This is excellent. My friend in Kentucky will be most pleased with this. Now, let’s do some recipes for me.”

I did the same thing for several hours, gaining experience every several recipes. Analyze took longer to give experience the more I repeated the same task. Still, I owed it to Mishun after she took her time teaching me cooking techniques.

She called after me as I left. “Don’t forget about the Slime ooze. I still want to try that sauce you suggested.”

I searched my bag before realizing Leslie still had it. “I’ll bring it for sure next time.”

Mishun smiled and waved me off.

I walked over to the Bank after leaving the restaurant. While I didn’t have much money, I needed to get at least something to keep Miss Havasu off my back.

“Can I help you?” A man asked as I walked through the door of The Manhattan Guild Bank.

“I’d like to convert some copper into regular money,” I replied, taking out a handful of copper.

“Regular money?” He frowned before realizing what I meant. “Why on Earth would you want to do that?”

I shrugged. “I have expenses.”

“You do realize anything you can buy with peasant money you can get cheaper with gold, right?” He asked. “The only reason people typically use paper money is to reward peasants for their hard work. But very well, the current rate is two to one. For every two copper, you get one American dollar.”

“Really?” I asked, unable to contain myself. “That’s a lot.”

I’d never held a dollar before but here he was telling me my one-hundred-forty-nine copper was worth nearly seventy-five dollars. The last person I wanted to know about my discovery was Miss Havasu, so I was going to have to go to great lengths to keep it a secret.

“I’d like five dollars,” I said, digging ten copper out of the pile.

“Very well,” the man replied, leading me to a line that fed into a series of teller windows. “Just wait your turn and tell the clerk what you’d like. If you’d like to open an account, come see me again.”

While I did like the idea of having a bank account, I decided I needed at least a gold first. There was only one person in front of me so it didn’t take long to be called on.

A woman greeted me when I arrived at her window. “How may I help you, Sir?”

I slid the ten copper to her. “I’d like five dollars, please.”

She nodded and knelt, picking up a small tin box filled with all sorts of money. She counted out five dollars and handed them to me.

“Will that be all today?” She asked.

I smiled and nodded. “Thank you very much.

With enough money to placate Miss Havasu, I decided it was time to look into making some money for myself. Working for Mishun and Miss Spencer was great but neither of them paid me. I had a skill and needed to find a way to parlay that into profit.

“Where can I find The Tinkerer’s Guild,” I asked the receptionist.

She smiled. “The Tinkerer’s Guild is located in town at twenty-two Cortlandt Street. They occupy the upper three floors as well as both sub-basements.”

I thanked her and headed off. On the way I passed by the MaxCorp building, so I decided to drop off the package to the grumpy man in the business suit. He scowled when he saw me coming but the door was open, so I walked in.

“It looks like you learned your lesson,” he said in a haughty voice. “Put it in the back in the same place as last time.”

I was pleased to notice he hadn’t fixed his luminary. While it still hung from the wall, other more conventional lamps had been brought in to light the room. I took the opportunity to further examine the broken device.

Luminary - Failed

Grade: C

Condition: 2

Created by: MaxCorp

Error: Item Damaged. Requires lubricant. Currently non-functional.

Info: Thametrazine is ideal but Liquid Mana can be used as a substitute.

Your Research skill has increased: +1 (10)

I stared at the words, willing myself to learn more.

Info: Thametrazine is an Alchemical compound created by separating Thramite into its pure form using a centrifuge.

Info: Liquid Mana can be created by mixing mana and water using an Arcane Circle. It will not last as long as natural elements.

Your Research skill has increased: +1 (11)

“I can make that!” I said with a grin.