Half an hour later, we finally removed the lids from the pots. White steam puffed out of them once again, and the sweet, mellow aroma that accompanied it was seriously getting my hopes up.
As far as I could tell, everything looked about how I had expected it to. The shaska grains had swollen up and were now a slick, shining white. Personally, I was really satisfied with how it had turned out, but when the other chefs looked into the pots, they reacted with surprise.
“There’s quite a lot of it, isn’t there? It looks like its volume has more than doubled,” someone said.
“Yeah, because the shaska absorbed the water. I imagine that the other preparation method probably caused it to swell up quite a bit too,” I replied as I used a large wooden spatula to break up some of the clumps that had formed. As expected, the shaska in the first pot had remained very tough and sticky, but its appearance and aroma were incredibly similar to that of white rice. My expectations were getting higher and higher. “Okay, time to give it a try. We’ll use these plates here to serve everyone enough of each variety to make for a good mouthful.”
And so, we started doing just that, loading up the plates with a little of each of the four types and passing them around to the thirty chefs who were present. And as we were doing that, I looked into each of the pots to check their bottoms and found that hardly any of the shaska had burned. I couldn’t tell if that was because of the extra water I had added or because shaska was simply less prone to burning, though.
Once everyone in the audience had gotten a plate, I went ahead and gave it a try myself. I started with the shaska that hadn’t been washed or twice-boiled. I was expecting it to be the stickiest of the four, and sure enough, when I scooped some up with a wooden spoon and took a bite of it, I found that its stickiness remained incredibly strong. It was quite a bit tougher than glutenous rice, and as I chewed it, I felt like I was making mochi right there in my mouth.
But before I could start to feel disappointed by that, the shaska’s taste hit me and made me want to shout out with joy. It didn’t just feel like mochi, it also tasted like it too. That was proof that shaska was similar in flavor to glutenous rice.
“What an unusual texture. It’s hard to tell when I should swallow,” Myme said, though she looked like she was really enjoying it.
After nodding at her, I went ahead and tried the other varieties of shaska. Out of all of them, the one that had been both washed and twice-boiled using the extra water was unsurprisingly the least sticky, and its texture was incredibly close to that of the white rice I was familiar with. For red rice or sweet rice balls, that level of stickiness would be perfect. So far, every kind of shaska I had tried had been similar to rice, but with how this one had turned out, I would probably have believed it if I had been told that it was white rice.
To truly re-create the texture of the rice I had eaten on a daily basis in my past life, I would need to reduce the stickiness even further. Still, I couldn’t help but feel moved. The joy of getting to taste white rice again for the first time in over a year washed over me. The last time I had felt like this was back when I perfected the giba curry.
If I washed it for longer or maybe used more water for the twice-boiling process, I was sure that I would be able to reduce the stickiness a bit more. And if I did, it was possible I would be able to reach the ideal taste I was aiming for. Just the thought of it was making me extremely excited.
“Its texture is quite interesting. Are you satisfied with how it turned out, Sir Asuta?” Polarth asked with a smile.
I reined in the elation I was feeling inside, then turned toward him and said, “Partially yes, but partially no. I was able to confirm that shaska is very similar to an ingredient I know, but I’m not totally satisfied with how I’ve prepared it yet.”
“I see. Then I suppose you’ll simply have to take your time working with it at the forest’s edge. Personally, as interesting as I find it, I have no idea what sort of dishes it could be used in.”
That opinion seemed to be shared by the other chefs around us too. But they had felt the same way when they had tried the plain shaska noodles earlier. Though it was clearly something new and unlike any other ingredient we had, they had no idea how to implement it in a recipe like they did with fuwano. Still, that was no surprise when they were completely unfamiliar with white rice.
“My apologies for saying so, but I felt as if I were eating shaska that was only half done. It is possible that easterners would not be especially happy with this,” Tatumai noted.
But then, Bozl chimed in with a hearty grin. “Ah, but westerners don’t know anything about shaska. Those long stringlike shaska and this grain-shaped version would both feel novel to them. And having two methods of eating the same ingredient will give us more ways to use it.”
“Yes, that is only natural. Sir Asuta, I will be very happy for you when you manage to find a preparation method that meets your standards,” Polarth said with a pleased smile. “A fresh shipment of shaska recently arrived, and there is enough of it that Sir Varkas could not possibly use it all himself, so all of you, not just Sir Asuta, may feel free to take as much of it with you as you please. We’ve already decided to set a good amount of it aside for this, so there is no need to pay for it.” The houses of Duke Genos and Count Turan were treating this as an upfront investment. Still, I was sure that I was going to need a ton of shaska in order to find my ideal cooking method. Because of that, I intended to start purchasing it myself, but I would have to consult with Ai Fa first. “Well then, that will conclude today’s study session. Please inform the scribe there of how much you need of which ingredients.”