victory_road | Bakers, start your baking!

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Bakers, start your baking!

Who: Everybody!
Where: Riegfried and Soy's mansion
When: January 15th; day time for the cooking part, evening for the mingle part.
Summary: Come one, come all to the newest contest hosted by Riegfried and Soy. Today's theme: cooking!

[Daytime - The kitchens]

Throughout the day, the kitchens will be open to all contestants, though any casual onlookers --human, pokemon, or otherwise-- will be shooed out to prevent any cheating.

Each contestant will be directed to a gleaming counter, where they will be able to find everything from your basic whisk and spatula to gleaming kitchen machinery fancy enough to make any cook feel faint with envy. Each counter comes complete with a small fridge (should you need to chill any of your ingredients), an oven, a stove, a microwave -- really, anything you can imagine and it is there. Riegfried and Soy clearly didn't want anyone to run into the issue of not having the right equipment for the job.

At the back of the room are the fridges: tall, imposing fridges made of gleaming metal stocked full of every sort of ingredient you could possibly think of. And next to the fridges, contestants can find rows and rows of shelves, each nearly bowing under the weight of the products placed on them -- from fresh fruit, to spices, to rice and noodles. If you need it, you can find it.

Riegfried and Soy will be flitting around the room like a pair of extravagant Butterfrees, happy to engage contestants in small interviews. Everything for the camera, baby! Because those are also there; they are clearly trying to stay out of everybody's way, but small, Rotom-powered cameras flit around the room for close-ups, while cameramen and women with heavy-duty equipment get the distance shots. Hopefully, you haven't got an issue with stage fright.

[Evening - The show]

And when all is said and done, and the last dishes have been cooked, it's time for the actual show. There is some time between the actual cooking and this part of the evening, during which contestants have a chance to change their clothing and freshen up, but before too long, the mansion's doors open to the guests, who are herded by the cheerful hosts to an enormous hall.

The hall itself is set up with all manner of comforts. There are some small tables and chairs for anyone who wants to sit down for a while. Long tables line the sides of the room, absolutely laden with all manner of refreshments. There is even a special table set aside where the dishes the contestants made (at least the ones that made it to this part of the evening) are displayed and ready for tasting.

The schedule for the night is rather straightforward.

After some meet-and-greet and time for every last guest to arrive, the day's events (cut and edited by a very exhausted camera crew) will be projected onto a huge screen for all to enjoy. The votes will be tallied afterward and awards and prizes will be handed out. The rest of the evening will give the winners a chance to celebrate, the losers a chance to commiserate, and everybody else to clear the buffet of everything edible.

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You can fry bread? [Well, the Americans fry everything, even he knows that joke! But he's not aware that fry bread is a common military staple of the past. He wanders over to Dimitri's station out of curiosity, and it is indeed an explosion of the dish in every conceivable fashion.] It doesn't look bad at all! Well. Most of them?

[Some of these ingredients definitely don't go together...]

Yes. I remember being taught the trick when I was younger - you need rather few ingredients, and only a pan of some sort...

[And, you know, being on the run as a wanted criminal from the illegitimate regent who stole leadership of the country from you, leaving you to survive as you wander from the wilds to the poorest parts of a city-]

[It's fine, don't worry about it]

[Dimitri shakes his head at the verdict, not looking particularly surprise or put out by it.]

That most of them look fit for consumption is a relief... I was going based off of texture for some of them, and consulting with Hob for the others...

[Which explains the cheese and banana combo.]

[The Rat Squad being behind this does occur to Kazuki, as some of the combinations do strike him as something a creature that lives in the trash would have a taste for. Perfectly good separately, but together? No as much.]

Texture is important. All of it's gonna turn out crispy if you deep fry it though.

[A couple of blinks.]

Deep fry?

[Today in the medieval king learns...]

Oh, it's when you fill a big pot or something full of boiling oil, and then cook the food in the oil! It makes things come out really crispy. And kinda greasy.

I see! That really is interesting. I would not mind knowing how to use that... although it sounds as though I would have to be careful.

[Boiling oil is something used in siege defense, and for good reason.]

I am thinking of a different kind of 'fry', I think... Would you like to watch me make the recipe?

Oh yeah, it splashes everywhere if you aren't. I've tried it a couple of times and it's always a mess.

Sure, if you've got the time!

It is rather quick to make, so it won't take a long time at all.

[And back to the mixing bowl he goes!]

You don't need very many ingredients for it.. Mainly wheat - well, whole wheat flour, I suppose - and salt.

[Kazuki might notice 'yeast' missing from that equation.]

Mmm... [Kazuki watches thoughtfully. Yes, by now, he does know enough about baking that some kind of leavener is needed here unless your aim is to make a cracker.] No yeast? Or maybe eggs? How does it rise?

[There's the faint hint of a grin.]

It doesn't.

[So, yes, the result really is going to end up as a cracker. Not that Dimitri seems to mind as he does, at the very least, get some... water to put in?]

[Listen, this is minimalist bread.]

[Dimitri starts to mix everything with his hands, letting Hob get the pan with oil in it ready. She's very careful, good news there.]

You cannot make a proper loaf like this... but I often stayed in the forest, where I did not have access to an oven anyway.

But it won't be fluffy at all. It'll be, like... Hard. [Even ~~demons~~ Kazuki knows that flour and water makes glue. Or concrete, after the bake it.] You can make it fluffy even in a pan if you have some eggs. Then it'd be like a pancake!

I know. Thank you for the consideration.

[Dimitri ducks his head down with a light huff of laughter.]

But try it once I have completed it, won't you?

If you say so! [Okay, he won't protest anymore.] I'll still try it, it's just flour. Worst thing it could do is crack a tooth.

The good news is that I have eaten this many times before, and fortunately have all of my teeth intact.

[He's already missing an eye, it would suck if he was missing parts of his mouth too.]

Still, you are right in that the hardness becomes an issue... but the trick to that is in how you place down the mixture. The ball is mostly for, ah... structure, and to make sure that everything gets mixed in properly.

And then you have to stretch it out- like so.

[And none of that nonsense against the counter. Dimitri does so while holding it up, to let Kazuki see the proper thickness - or thinness, in this case - that's worked best for him.]

Needless to say, this won't be kept in the pan for an extremely long time... Or else we will either truly break our teeth, or something will catch on fire.

And I would like to not be escorted from the premises for accidental arson.

[Yeah, the eye. It's kinda hard to miss. Kazuki does his best not to stare.]

Oh! I see, it's kinda stretchy, like when you knead the dough for bread. [Maybe the protein structure is key? He needs to read about it.] So just long enough in the pan that it doesn't taste like raw flour anymore?

Yes. Because it's so thin, you can go overboard in the blink of an eye if you are not paying attention... And then it is a waste of food.

[Something that Dimitri is loathe to do, even in a world as plentiful as this one.]

Besides.. It may just be my own mind influencing things, but I feel as though the addition of salt helps come through in the cooking process for a pleasant texture. Does that make sense, or am I being silly...?

[And with that, he puts his creation into the pan at Hob's nod. Time for the actual cooking portion!]

It's not silly, it really might. I mean, I don't know about it, but it sounds like it could. [He pays extra attention to how the dough is laid in the pan, and how long it is cooked.] Besides, it would probably taste really bad without salt.

Oh, I have been told that is true for most things. Which makes it unpleasant, if you cannot afford it...

[Dimitri shakes his head, trying to get out of that particular train of thought.]

Well, that does not seem to be much of an issue here. I rather like that, about this place.

Yep! You'd be surprised how bland food is without salt. Even just a little totally changes things.

[Kazuki vaguely remembered something from school where they mentioned salt was once incredibly valuable, so maybe that was why Dimitri brought it up.]

I'm glad you get to experience that. People can be poor where I'm from too, but not even having enough for food is almost unheard of.

Well, there are a great deal of environmental factors... Ah.

[Before Dimitri can get into an explanation of the cold mountain hell that is Faerghus, or wars, or corrupt and illegitimate regents, he makes a move to get the bread out of the pan.]

[Well. Not quite the traditional bread. It really does look more like a cracker, although with a bit more texture in the form of curves or light bubble-type mounts that were no doubt a result of Dimitri messing about by hand. Dimitri lets it cool on a small rack for just a second before he picks it up.]

[Snap! He smiles, splitting it in half.]

I think this won't break any teeth. Here - it's best while warm.

[And it... does manage to be edible, in both terms of being able to actually bite through it, and the flavor. It's obviously rather plain compared to other forms of bread, although the salt does show... but it's a nice homey kind of plain.]

Thanks! [Always polite, Kazuki say an 'itadakimasu' before taking a bit of the still-hot bread.]

[And it's really not bad! It's a little reminiscent of a tortilla, but less chewy and more crispy. There's the flavor of the fat it was fried in too.]

It's good! It just needed something to put on top of it, or to dip it in. Like some kind of sauce.

Yes, I have been working on improving the texture with more things! [Dimitri smiles, looking tentatively hopeful.] And because there is so much food here, I have also been trying to make more... dessert types, although I admit that I am nowhere near as good at desserts as others I know.

Yourself included, there.

Heh, I guess I am! I've learned a lot from Montblanc here, and my Slurpuff Sticky. The dish we made today was totally her idea. But I've got the gist of baking pretty well now.

Well, you can easily make it sweeter by adding some sugar or honey, and make it rich by adding butter or eggs. You just have to get the ratios right. Too much or too little of any one ingredient knocks the dish off balance. Have you experimented with that yet?

I have tried some honey to varying degrees... but I am afraid I am a little more tentative about the sugar.

Baking is... something I have done less of, you see. So getting the measurements down correctly is always a worry...

Hmm... Well, if you want to learn, I think a good recipe to to get to know the right ratios with is pound cake. It's Flour, eggs, sugar and butter, all in the same amount. So, if you use 300 grams of flour, it's 300 grams of the other ingredients too. You pour it in whatever kind of pan you like and then bake it in a hot oven until it's golden and a toothpick stuck in it comes out dry.

Once you get that down, you kinda get a feel for how much of an ingredient you need when you bake. At least for things that you want to come out with a cakey texture.

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