The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 7 - Chapter SS

EXTRA:

Let’s Give Gyoza Another Try!

I looked over the gyoza recipe my dad had written down on a piece of paper. He’d transcribed this recipe while I described my memories to him. Since it was hard for me to write down the cooking directions while searching my memories, it was very helpful that my dad had done it for me.

“So I was right: We really did underestimate just how thin we needed to make those wrappers.”

Last time we made gyoza, they came out three times as big as the ones in my memory, and they were too thick as well. They were still pleasant enough to eat, but they were a far cry from what I wanted. Ideally, the wrappers would be as thin as I remembered, and they could be eaten in just two bites. The thin skin was especially important; I absolutely longed to eat gyoza like that! Also, the gyoza wrappers in my memory had a crispness to them—that was the goal!

My dad and I stood side by side in the kitchen as we got to work on some gyoza. While I thinly minced the vegetables, I had my father knead the minced meat until it was sticky.

“I think the meat’s ready. Can I add the vegetables now?” I asked.

“Yes, please.”

I dumped the vegetables into the meat bowl. Now they just needed to be mixed, and my father would take care of that.

Meanwhile, I was making the wrappers. I added some hot water to my flour and whisked the mixture together with a pair of chopsticks, then I added some salt and swirled it around and around. When the dough got cool enough to touch, I kneaded it well. Once I was finished with that, I let the dough rest for thirty minutes. I covered the bowl with a damp towel to make sure the dough didn’t dry out.

“Hey, Ivy, do gyoza only come in one flavor?”

The flavor… I’d been so obsessed over the wrapper thinness and the dumpling size that I’d almost forgotten about the flavor. My father did love his food on the spicy side.

“I think it’ll still be good with a little heat powder mixed in.”

Heat powder was a dried and powdered medicinal herb that was easy to mix into food. And since it was powdered, it was easy to measure, too. We had five different kinds of heat powder at the moment. Whichever one we used would greatly affect the spiciness of the gyoza, but I’d let my father take care of that. I had a feeling that any of the powders mixed into the gyoza would go perfectly with some liquor.

“Sounds good. Let’s put the filling into a few different bowls and try some seasonings.” My dad got out five little bowls.

“Are we really going to make five flavors?”

“Yeah, I think it’ll be more fun that way.”

He had a point.

“How about this?” he said, holding up a tangy fruit. Fruit in gyoza?

“It might work.”

“Fruity sauce tastes good on meat, right? So I figure it’ll go well in gyoza, too.”

He was right: Tangy fruit sauce was delicious with meat. The sweet and sour flavors of the fruit were a refreshing contrast to the fatty meat. The fruit my father was holding up was especially tangy, though. Would it really work?

“This is just a test, so we’ll make a small batch of this one.”

“Yeah, I guess that’ll be okay,” I agreed.

It might taste super good. I took the fruit from my father, peeled it, and cut it into slightly bigger pieces than the vegetables. I handed it to my dad, and he mixed it into one of the small bowls of gyoza filling.

After the time was up, I checked on my rested dough. I remembered letting the dough rest in my past life, but I didn’t see much of a difference in it afterward, so I really had no idea how long I was supposed to let it lie there. Still, our timing seemed to be okay, so it would probably work out.

I rolled the dough into a long snake and cut it into smaller balls than last time. Okay, let’s roll these out as thin as humanly possible!

Um… Huh?

“Dad… That filling on the left…isn’t it a bit red?”

I looked over at his finished gyoza fillings, and one of them had a very peculiar color. It was bright red, probably from an obscene amount of heat powder. I looked at my dad, and he gazed pitifully back at me.

“Yeaaah… I was thinking I’d make some super-spicy gyoza…”

“Will they be edible?”

“Probably. They’ll be spicy, but not so spicy we can’t eat them.”

Really? But the bright-red heat powder is the same stuff they use in the shock pouches you throw at monsters to make them retreat. Still…I guess he can’t unmix the filling now.

“I’m a little nervous,” I admitted. Just how spicy would it be?

“Me, too.”

My father and I looked at each other and laughed. We’d just have to have extra water on standby when we ate them.

I rolled the tiny dough balls out with a rolling pin and, just like last time, it was tough to roll them into perfect circles. I looked at my rolled-out wrappers. They were much thinner than the ones from last time…I hoped.

After I made all the wrappers, we got to work filling them. We put in less filling than last time and pinched them together with a gentle touch.

“Ack, I broke it!”

And yet, since the wrappers were so thin, they broke easily.

“Argh! I hate this!” I growled.

“Relax, Ivy. It’s just a little tear.”

He was right. If I didn’t relax, I’d just break more wrappers. I shook the tension out of my shoulders and filled more of the wrappers. After I pinched the last one shut, I sighed in relief.

“All done!”

I smiled at the sight of the tidy rows of gyoza. It gave me a sense of accomplishment.

“Okay, let’s cook ’em.” My dad got out a large frying pan. It was usually too big for me to use, but it was going to come in handy today.

We wound up with four flavors in all. Most of them were gyoza seasoned with ponzu. The slightly spicy gyoza was the second-biggest batch since we knew that one would be delicious. The super-spicy kind and the fruity gyoza batches were small since they were just tests.

I arranged the gyoza in the pan and lit the flame. Once they were browned, I added water to steam-sauté them. When it had evaporated, I removed the lid and added some oil to crisp up the wrappers, then I put our cooked gyoza onto plates and carried them to the table.

“One of these gyoza looks quite a bit different from the others,” my dad observed.

“Ha ha! It sure does.”

Since the filling was bright red, it looked a bit pink through the thin wrapper. It looked kind of tasty, but I knew it would be fiery hot. It was the kind of gyoza you needed to psych yourself up to eat.

“Okay, let’s dig in.”

“Yeah.”

We had steamed rice and a big supply of water at the ready.

First, we tried the gyoza seasoned with ponzu. They were small enough to be eaten in two bites, just like I’d hoped. And since I’d taken the time to roll the wrappers thin, I was immensely satisfied.

“Let’s just see if they taste good.”

I took a bite… The browned wrapper crunched against my teeth, and then the hot meat juices flooded into my mouth.

“Ah! This is it!”

The parts of the gyoza where I’d repaired the ripped wrapper with extra dough were different in texture, but it was so good.

“Yeah, the wrapper is much thinner this time. These are amazing.”

My dad must have really liked them, too—we devoured the first plate in a flash. I could have easily wolfed down another three plates of the same flavor.

“Next are the fruity ones.” My dad moved the plate of fruity gyoza to the center of the table.

“Are we eating the spicy ones last?” I asked.

“I think that would be best…unless you want to eat the spicy gyoza first?”

If they were too spicy, I might lose my sense of taste, so I decided it would be a good idea to have the super-spicy ones last.

“Yeah, let’s leave the spicy ones for the end and eat the fruity ones first.”

I grabbed a fruity gyoza from the plate and took a bite. Mm?! Um…this is way too tangy!

“I can’t taste the meat…the fruit is too heavy.”

My dad looked just as conflicted as I was when he tasted it himself. “Yeah, it’s really tangy. It’s not quite what I thought it would be.”

I nodded. I’d thought it would be refreshing, but I couldn’t get the tangy taste out of my mouth.

“Guess I picked the wrong fruit,” my dad said.

I laughed. “You sure did.”

After we somehow managed to get the rest of the fruity gyoza down, my dad reached for the spicy gyoza. “Now, I know the slightly spicy gyoza will be good.”

After he ate one, I took a bite of slightly spicy gyoza. It burned my mouth a little at first, but the flavors of meat and vegetables quickly filled my mouth afterward. He had added just the right amount of heat powder.

“It’s great. It goes really well with rice.”

“Goes great with liquor, too.” My dad ate another spicy gyoza and followed it up with a gulp of alcohol. “A match made in heaven.”

He was hitting the sauce awfully fast today… I’d have to keep an eye on him.

“All right, last but not least…”

My dad and I stared at the final plate. There were ten gyoza in all, so we’d each get five.

“Let’s eat it at the same time.”

“Okay.”

My dad and I each popped a pinkish gyoza into our mouths.

It’s…not spicy? Huh… Mm?!

“H-hot! Wh-what the… Aaaagh, my tongue!”

Even though the first thing I tasted was the meat juice, now my tongue was on fire.

“Agh, my tongue is tingling! Uh-oh…this stuff’s dangerous.” My dad gulped down his entire glass of water. “It’s no use…the fire’s still there.”

I drank some water, too, but my tongue still burned. “Dad…we can’t eat this.”

“Yeah.”

No wonder this stuff was used in shock pouches. It was extremely spicy. Aghhh, my whole mouth is tingling!

“So…what do we do with the rest of them?” My dad stared down at the remaining gyoza on the plate. Since we couldn’t eat them as they were, maybe we could mix them into something else.

“I’ll try putting them in soup.” One gyoza couldn’t make a pot of soup too spicy.

“Soup, eh? Yeah, that might work.”

“Uh-huh. We were right to leave these gyoza for the end.”

“Agreed.”

Our second batch of gyoza was a success…but the flavors were a mixed bag. Next time, we would have to try to get our flavors perfect, too. I’d also need to study up on how to roll the wrappers thin without breaking them.