2
“I’ll be tackling a brand new dish today, Ai Fa!” I declared near sunset, only to get a muttered, “Do as you please,” back from the sour-faced young woman. Perhaps my blunder from earlier in the afternoon was still having a lingering effect. Still, it was the kind of incident where I’d be sure to lose in court if she accused me of sexual harassment, so I suppose there was no helping her doubting my character a bit as a result.
“I mean, the giba soup has turned out pretty well, but if you eat the same thing every day, you’ll end up getting bored of it. Look forward to a serious surprise this time around, Ai Fa.”
“Do as you please.”
“...By the way, I decided to go ahead and try on your father’s clothes right away, but what do you think? Does it suit me?”
“It doesn’t. You just look ridiculous. In fact, I wish I never loaned it to you.”
Hmm... Yeah, she was being pretty deeply contrary right now.
Well, I’m sure that once I feed her something tasty, her mood will improve.
By the way, I felt uneasy in the fluttery vest with only my waist down covered, so I had on my t-shirt underneath. It may not be the proper way to wear it at all, but hopefully that can be pardoned out of consideration for my fear of getting burnt while cooking. Plus, hopefully it was acceptable that I still had a white towel wrapped around my head as per usual.
“Anyway, there’s no point in hiding it any more: the poitan is already done cooking. Also, I used up a lot of firewood, but I’ll try to make up for it when I’m out gathering tomorrow, so hopefully you can forgive me.”
Ai Fa remained silent, her face expressionless. Eventually I realized I wasn’t getting a response.
After hitting me she headed off for the forest like always, so she shouldn’t have seen any of me cooking the poitan. Was she really not curious in spite of that?
“Well, whatever. It’s a little early, but should I go ahead and start cooking? If you’re not hungry yet, then go ahead and use the time to build up an appetite.”
I may have been the opposite of Ai Fa right now, being that I was in something of a manic state. I couldn’t help it, though, since I was looking forward to taking on a new dish.
Originally, the plan was to tackle yakiniku for the first time today. I also had all kinds of ideas like steam-grilling or teriyaki, too. But after I figured out what the poitan was, I put those off for later and decided to take on a special dish tonight.
Now, I have no intention of putting on airs: Tonight’s dish was going to be giba hamburgers. Or shortened, giburgers.
I headed off into the pantry while humming a tune, and then carried the necessary ingredients to the stove.
I had about 500 grams each of giba thigh and rib meat.
Six of those pseudo-onions, the aria.
Two pinches of pico leaves.
Fruit wine.
Rock salt.
And then that magical extract I got from the poitan.
There wasn’t all that much of it, so I was just storing it in a little container I had made out of one of those pseudo-rubber tree leaves.
Now then, time to get cooking!
First, I needed to cut off a bit of the roughly one centimeter thick fat clinging to the blocks of thigh meat. It was kind of a shame, but I needed it to serve in place of lard. All of the fat that came off the pelt this time had been processed to be used in the candles, so I’d have to be sure to secure at least a bit for cooking next time around.
It had already been five days since I’d prepared this meat, but it wasn’t showing any signs of going bad. It seemed that pico leaves really were a first-rate preservative.
But apparently, despite that impressive preserving power, meat would still end up going bad by the time that 15 to 20 days had passed. If that happened, I’d have no choice but to smoke it in order to preserve it. I still had time left since it had only been five days, but there was still a mountain left to use, so I spent each day thinking about how I could best use it.
But anyway, I was cooking now.
I fired up the stove, and as the pot was heating up, I diced two aria.
Once that was done with, I moved onto the meat. I minced up both the thigh and rib meat into little bits, and then finally pounded away at them with my knife. For the first part I used the memento from Ai Fa’s father, and for the back part I used the knife that was my old man’s heart and soul.
It was roughly a kilo of meat, but it wasn’t really all that hard to handle. Hamburgers were a popular dish at the Tsurumi Restaurant, so I was already an old hand at this kind of work.
In less than 10 minutes, I had minced giba lying before me.
I turned around to look at Ai Fa, only to find her sitting in a Buddha-like pose and staring back at me with a displeased look.
Normally she would just sit there silently, like she was showing some degree of respect for me as a cook. But she was looking rather cranky today... Didn’t she have any interest at all in why I had turned the precious giba meat into this strange, pink little mound?
While holding back the unnerved feeling I had inside, I went ahead and checked the flame. When I put in a drop of water it evaporated in no time at all, so it seemed to be about right.
I added in a glob of fat, then spread it out with a wooden spatula (self-made), then threw in the minced aria. It was a bit troublesome that you couldn’t move a metal pot around the way you could with a frying pan, but I didn’t let that get me down and just kept on stirring with the spatula.
Once I saw them gain a certain degree of color, I added in the fruit wine. Then, I carefully stirred it around until the alcohol evaporated. Once the green aria reached a golden brown, I scooped them out into a separate bowl using the spatula.
Back home, we kept a ratio of one fourth of an onion for every 200 grams of minced meat, so two whole aria for one kilo was a bit on the high side. But the giba meat had a fairly quirky flavor, so there was no issue with going heavy on the aria.
I couldn’t move on to the next step until the cooked aria cooled down, so for now I went ahead and chopped up the rest of them. Rather than mincing these, though, I cut them into thin slices parallel to the fiber. When you want to heat them up and get them nice and soft, it was best to cut perpendicular to the fiber, but that texture was going to be important today so I changed up how I cut them.
I piled up the four aria worth of slices atop a pseudo-rubber tree leaf... If you’ll allow me to speak a little selfishly, I really do wish I had a few more containers to work with.
At any rate, the aria seemed to have cooled down in the meantime. I went ahead and dumped them on top of a pseudo-rubber leaf along with the minced giba meat. Then I covered it with powdered salt and pico leaf, and finally... It was time for my magical extract to make its appearance. I went ahead and drizzled the sticky, cream-colored paste over the mountain of meat. And then I just started intently mixing it.
After a couple of minutes of kneading it, it stuck together just like I had expected.
I’d shaved the fat off of the thigh meat, but I made sure to add plenty to the rib meat, making for something that was just perfect in terms of feel and color.
I could feel the excitement tingling in my spine in anticipation of my victory.
I scraped off the meat paste that had stuck to my hands, then rubbed the leftover giba fat on them to act as a lubricant and prevent that from happening again. Then, I set about molding the meat.
Regulating the heat would be difficult if I made them too big, so I scooped out one sixth or so of the bundle of meat, then formed it into an oval. I threw it back and forth between my hands with a pat, pat, pat, not forgetting to make sure I got all of the air out of it.
In the end, I had six miniburgers, around 160 grams each. They sure were cute... And they were a really beautiful pink color that just made me want to bite into them right then and there. That would have to wait, though. Now, how was the heat looking...?
Hmm. That may be just a bit high. I pulled out the firewood just a bit, which tested my nerves a tad at the same time.
Having to measure out the heat by eye while cooking was the big obstacle this time around.
First the fire would be too high, and then too low... Having to regulate all that was honestly pretty tricky. But nothing comes from nothing, so I just had to tackle this to the best of my ability. It would be a test of my flexibility and creativity. And lastly, my decisiveness.
I dropped some fat into the pot, then waited for it to get crispy and the grease to boil out, at which point I finally added the giba patties. An absolutely intoxicating smell filled the room alongside the satisfying sizzling sound.
The bottom of the pot was rounded, so I had to take care that the patties didn’t all stick together as I hurriedly added them and then waited a few seconds.
If I messed up here, it would all be ruined. While paying attention to even minute changes in smell, I used the wooden spatula to check the sides that were cooking.
Did I need to weaken the flame? I’d already been regulating it for six minutes now.
Well, it was better to do that than to burn them, right? Even if a bit of the flavor dissolved, I still believed that wouldn’t be enough to exhaust the giba meat’s deliciousness.
After a few more seconds of waiting, they looked to be the right color, so I flipped them.
And so, I hurried on to prepare the next step and... I stepped backwards, only to run into something. At some point, Ai Fa had started peeking into the pot from behind my back.
“Gah, you scared me! You were back there, Ai Fa?!”
“Why should I have to leave my own house?”
“No, that’s not what I meant... Ah, sorry, I’ve just got something I need to prepare.”
Dodging around Ai Fa, I picked up the teapot full of fruit wine and the pseudo-rubber tree leaf bowl full of sliced aria. When I got back to the pot I put down the teapot and checked the color of the patties. They looked about 80% of the way there, so I figured it was about time.
“Ai Fa, something hot may come flying, so watch out, alright?”
I didn’t get a response back, but there was no time left for hesitating. After pouring in the fruit wine, I hurriedly put the lid on the pot.
There was a grand sizzling, crackling sound, though it was a bit muffled.
This cooking method was my own original idea that I came up with for the giburgers.
Normally, with a hamburger you’d first quickly fry both sides using a high flame so that the flavor wouldn’t escape, then slowly heat it on a low flame so that it’s cooked all the way through, or perhaps move it into an oven instead.
Those options weren’t available to me, though, so I chose to bake it in a covered pot. This way, I could heat it all the way through without burning the surface.
I’d made the patties small and thin for exactly this purpose.
I wasn’t able to do any fine adjustments on the heat, but it was absolutely necessary that I cooked both sides on high flame... In that case, I had no choice but to leave it all up to a strong flame. In other words, I had to make the patties small and bet it all on a sudden death battle.
But even at this size, if I waited for the flame to heat them all the way through to the center, they would end up completely charred. In that case, using a quick bake was my only choice.
It was an incredibly simple, logical conclusion.
“Alright, it should be good now.”
As I opened the lid, a powerful explosion of scent burst forth, this time with the fragrance of the fruit wine added in.
Using the wooden spatula, I split one of the patties in two. The meat inside was a beautiful ivory-white, without any red left to it whatsoever.
“Ai Fa, could you grab me a bowl?” I yelled out as I fiddled with the other patties using the spatula to prevent them from burning. In no time at all, a wooden bowl was passed my way without a word. I hurriedly moved three of the patties into it, then I took a second bowl and placed the remaining three inside of that one.
“Alright, now I just need to deal with the aria.”
In the bottom of the pot, I simmered the sauce made from fat, meat juices, and fruit wine. And then, I threw in just a pinch of salt and pico leaf, as well as the thinly sliced aria. Once the aria were nice and soft, it was complete.
“Could I have one of the bowls again, Ai Fa?”
Just as I’d asked, I was handed one of the bowls with the patties. Hmm? I wasn’t certain because I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off of the pot, but had she been holding the bowl and waiting all this time?
She certainly was thoughtful. It was proof of just how good and honest this blunt girl was, to even pick up on something like that.
But I should set that matter aside and return back to the task at hand.
I placed an equal amount of aria in each bowl, then poured the sauce overtop, finishing off the giburgers.
“Oh, could you just have a seat and wait a moment?”
I ran off to the pantry, and brought back the poitan that I had left in waiting. It probably wouldn’t be possible to recognize them as poitan at this point, though.
When she saw what was resting atop the pseudo-rubber tree leaf, Ai Fa tilted her head.
They were rounded, evenly shaped, slightly burnt-looking cream-colored little things. If anyone from back home saw them, they may be tempted to call them Indian naan, or perhaps just really plain okonomiyaki.
This is what the poitan really were.
“Now then, let’s dig in before it gets cold! I’ll explain it all later.”
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