21st Century Necromancer

"Mr. Chen Yu, what made you decide to cook yourself today?" Hiromi stood at the kitchen door, arms folded, curiously watching Chen Yu bustling about in the kitchen.

They both had gotten off work early today, and Jounouchi Hiromi had suggested they make dinner together, but for some reason, Chen Yu had insisted on cooking by himself and had shooed Hiromi out of the kitchen.

"Nothing much, just suddenly felt like cooking today," Chen Yu said as he meticulously rinsed the blood off the cleaned chicken he had bought from the supermarket under the faucet.

Hearing Chen Yu say this, Hiromi raised an eyebrow. Although she found it strange that Chen Yu suddenly felt like cooking all by himself, she watched him bustling in the kitchen with the anticipation of an entertained spectator. However, she couldn’t help but ask, "So, Mr. Chen Yu, what are you planning to cook tonight? Seeing that you’ve bought both chicken and vegetables, are you making a stewed chicken dish?"

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"While it is a stewed chicken, it’s not just any stewed chicken, and actually, stewed chicken isn’t our main dish tonight," Chen Yu explained to Hiromi as he placed the cleaned chicken into a soup pot with cold water. "I want to make a dish I’m quite good at but you’ve never tried before.

This dish is very famous, known in China as a dish served at state banquets, a Sichuan Cuisine dish. I’ve tried making it before, but whether it was the ingredients or my cooking skills, I couldn’t quite replicate its true form, so I adapted it a bit to my own method, and the taste turned out pretty good."

"Eh? A famous dish? Sichuan Cuisine? But doesn’t Sichuan Cuisine require chili and broad bean paste?" Hiromi watched as Chen Yu set the pot with chicken and cold water on the stove to cook, and noticed he hadn’t prepared any chili or broad bean paste, which didn’t seem like the makings of a Sichuan dish at all, and she found it odd.

Not only to the Japanese, but in the minds of the vast majority of Chinese, Sichuan Cuisine is synonymous with spiciness.

However, in Sichuan Cuisine, there are indeed some dishes that genuinely don’t use any chili pepper.

"Yes, this dish indeed doesn’t require chili pepper or broad bean paste, but it is definitely a Sichuan dish," Chen Yu said with a glance at the simmering pot, and he started to clean the cabbage he had bought.

In Japan, vegetables are several times more expensive than in China, but thanks to the so-called brand strategy of the Japan Agricultural Association, the quality of vegetables is actually better than the cabbages Chen Yu would casually buy at the markets back home, about the level of those displayed on supermarket shelves.

After thoroughly washing the cabbage leaves and cutting them into small sections on the chopping board, Chen Yu began to explain to Hiromi, "This dish is called Boiled White Cabbage. Although it’s called ’boiled’, it is actually made with a chicken broth that is as clear as water. After these clear broths are brought to a boil, so that they’re like boiling water, they are used to cook the cabbage, and thus the dish is named Boiled White Cabbage.

It was created by a famous Sichuan chef who wanted to prove that Sichuan Cuisine is not all about spiciness and numbness."

"Using chicken soup to blanch the cabbage? That sounds amazing! Mr. Chen Yu, are you going to do it that way too?" Hiromi Jounouchi expressed her admiration after listening to Chen Yu’s explanation, clearly astounded by the culinary creativity of the Sichuan chef he just described.

However, Chen Yu shook his head at Hiromi Jounouchi, "I can’t make it like that. To follow the original method, you need to stew ingredients such as chicken, ham, and spare ribs to create a rich broth, then clear the broth after straining it and cook it with minced meat made from chicken and pork until the flavors infuse the liquid. Only at the very end would you take this simmered and clarified broth and use it to blanch the cabbage."

Not to mention the time and effort, the amount of ingredients needed to prepare just one dish is substantial. When I was studying this recipe out of curiosity, I gave up on doing it this way because it required too many ingredients and instead started using my own method."

"Your own method, Mr. Chen Yu?" Hiromi Jounouchi watched as Chen Yu took the chicken out of the pot of boiling water, poured out the water from the pot, cleaned the pot, and then filled it with a fresh pot of water placed on the stove. She curiously asked, "Why did you take the chicken out, Mr. Chen Yu?"

"This process is called blanching. By boiling the ingredients in hot water, it removes blood and impurities from them. Normally, you would only blanch them in boiling water once, but doing so won’t completely clear out the blood inside the ingredients, so the resulting soup would contain impurities," Chen Yu explained to Hiromi Jounouchi. As the water in the pot on the stove began to boil, he continued, "If you cook them in cold water first, it can squeeze out the blood from within the ingredients. Blanche them again in boiling water, and they will be very clean. Only then will the stewed soup be clear."

As he spoke, Chen Yu also took out a frying pan and placed it on another burner. After lighting the stove and adding oil, he turned and said to Hiromi Jounouchi, "My method might simplify a few steps compared to the original, but chicken soup is still essential, so blanching is an indispensable part."

As he explained, the oil in the frying pan heated up. Chen Yu poured the ginger, garlic, and spring onions he had chopped up on the cutting board into the frying pan and began to stir-fry them until they were fragrant and had turned golden brown. Then he turned the heat down to the lowest setting, tilted the frying pan, and using a spatula, drained the oil and scooped out the fried ingredients.

He then placed the frying pan back on the stove, turned up the heat to reheat the oil, and also cracked an egg into the pan, stirring rapidly.

Hiromi of the city didn’t ask Chen Yu why he was doing this and simply watched him busily at work.

The scrambled eggs were done quickly, but Chen Yu did not serve them out of the pan. Instead, he added the rehydrated and sliced shiitake mushrooms into the pan, stir-frying them until they too released their fragrance before pouring the soaking liquid of the mushrooms into the pan to cook together.

Meanwhile, the chicken that had been boiling again was taken out by Chen Yu, who then cleaned the pot before adding the contents of the frying pan, now boiling with eggs and shiitake mushrooms, along with the milky broth into the soup pot. He put the chicken back in once again.

"Now, adding radishes and kelp and letting it stew together will suffice," Chen Yu remarked as he added rinsed kelp and radishes, along with the chopped ham, into the pot and covered it with the lid.