SWNOVELXO Chapter 395
“Flop!”
Daria cautiously dipped her Tofu Hamburg into the pitch-black sauce, shimmering like a midnight lake.
Unlike the demi-glace or teriyaki sauces, the third sauce embraced her precious Tofu Hamburg without any resistance.
If Daria had been dunking something like a thick, breaded pork cutlet instead of the Tofu Hamburg, the sauce would have seeped all the way through the batter.
But since the Tofu Hamburg had no coating, it only got slightly moist on the surface, and the piece of burger, drenched in the unidentifiable sauce, sparkled under the restaurant lights.
Gulp
“Hah…!”
Daria, enchanted by the dazzling appearance of her Tofu Hamburg, snapped back to reality as she saw the sauce dripping neatly onto the floor.
Huff
She hurriedly tucked the Tofu Hamburg into her mouth.
“Mmm…!? What is this seasoning…?”
It was a completely unfamiliar flavor to her.
It was different from demi-glace and teriyaki sauce.
She felt an exhilaratingly sharp tanginess and saltiness.
While demi-glace and teriyaki sauces are western and eastern flavors, respectively, both are like sauces painted with the colors of sweetness and saltiness on the canvas of umami, this sauce was fundamentally different.
It had sweetness and umami, but the main components were, after all, saltiness and sourness.
Especially the impressive sourness was enough to awaken all the salivary glands at the tip of her tongue.
Overwhelmed by that intense and unfamiliar flavor, Daria unconsciously covered her mouth with her unoccupied hand.
What a shocking blow.
The source of that sourness was ponzu.
Like teriyaki, it was soy sauce-based, but it added vinegar and citrus juice to emphasize freshness over sweetness, making it a distinctly Japanese sauce.
Unlike teriyaki, which has transformed to suit western tastes and can be considered a fusion sauce, ponzu leaned heavily into its eastern roots.
“Ugh…!”
This wasn’t right.
No matter how amazing Kurt’s cooking skills were, and no matter how his dishes always surpassed her expectations, this flavor was too much.
For Daria, with her typical Western palate, the unique taste and aroma of ponzu sauce were so intense that she simply could not adapt.
It was just too alien.
While teriyaki sauce masked the awkwardness of soy sauce with an easily understandable sweetness and saltiness, ponzu pushed that awkwardness forward with its unfamiliar citrus aroma, intensifying the novelty.
Thus, Daria barely swallowed the Tofu Hamburg that was in her mouth and started searching for teriyaki sauce again.
As if she wanted to erase the flavor of ponzu.
Yeah.
Today, she had already tasted the new world of teriyaki sauce.
So, there was no need to challenge herself with any more reckless experiments.
Teriyaki. Teriyaki. Teriyaki.
If that got a bit old, then demi-glace.
And back to teriyaki. Teriyaki.
If she started to feel saturated again—
Pozu.
“…!?”
While continuing her meal, Daria suddenly paused, surprised to see her hand reaching for the ponzu sauce.
‘W-why was I just reaching for that sauce…?’
Why was she suddenly seeking the ponzu sauce again?
That sauce, with its intense flavor from fermented soybeans mixed with yuzu’s sourness and aroma, had made her grimace earlier….
That refreshing… zest of yuzu….
“Huh…!? Why am I now thinking about the flavor of that sauce….”
She soon realized the reason.
Demi-glace and teriyaki sauces were flavors she enjoyed and, after her long prison sentence, offered stimulating tastes, but the stimulation made them feel heavy and easily tiresome.
No, the truth was that Kurt’s homemade sauces were of excellent quality and not the kind that would become tiresome after just one meal…
However, the moment she had tasted ponzu sauce, its clean and refreshing flavor and aroma made demi-glace and teriyaki feel heavy by comparison.
‘No… it’s the opposite. It’s not that teriyaki sauce feels heavy….’
It was the brightness of ponzu that felt so much more pronounced.
The heaviness of teriyaki sauce was merely a byproduct of this.
“….”
When she closed her eyes and recalled the flavor of ponzu sauce, the fresh aroma of yuzu seemed to revive in her nostrils.
And as she dipped a piece of Tofu Hamburg into the ponzu sauce, the initial rejection she felt was gone, replaced by the harmonizing fresh aroma of yuzu, the flavor of soy sauce, and the subtlety of tofu.
While the combination of demi-glace, teriyaki sauce, and the hamburger violently filled her mouth, ponzu sauce did the opposite.
Its sharpness of sourness and saltiness wouldn’t overwhelm her taste buds, leaving just the clean scent of yuzu behind when she finished.
If teriyaki sauce showcases overwhelming synergy with rice, ponzu sauce embodies minimalism, completed entirely on its own with no sides needed.
At the same time, it refreshed her palate from the accumulated fatigue caused by the combination of teriyaki and demi-glace sauces.
Also, the inherent blandness of the Tofu Hamburg kept it from getting monotonous, allowing her to keep eating without hesitation.
‘At this rate… I feel like I could eat infinitely…’
In reality, she was nearly full from eating more Tofu Hamburg than her usual capacity.
However, the refreshing taste of Tofu Hamburg with ponzu sauce was so enticing that, even when she was full, it continually tempted her palate.
Could it really be that just switching the sauce could lead to such a difference in impression?
“What’s this dish called…?”
“It’s called Tofu Hamburg. I thought the ingredient tofu would suit you well today, so I made it.”
Kurt said this with a meaningful smile, but Daria, still savoring the flavors of the Tofu Hamburg, didn’t catch on.
“Tofu Hamburg… such a dish that can bring forth such stimulating and refreshing flavors just by changing the accompanying sauce. If it were an ordinary hamburger, simply altering the sauce wouldn’t create such a flavor transformation. It must have been prepared to allow me and Aila, who hadn’t been able to enjoy proper meals during our long imprisonment, to eat as much as we could with a variety of flavors.”
“…Ahem.”
As she spoke, she quietly closed her eyes and smiled.
If she knew Kurt’s true intent behind offering her Tofu Hamburg, she would have retracted her words and been furious, but luckily, Daria was oblivious to Kurt’s true intentions, allowing the atmosphere at the table to mellow peacefully.
Sometimes, if knowing the truth would only leave scars, burying it in darkness could be a path itself.
.
.
.
The atmosphere at the table gradually grew more pleasant.
Compared to Daria, Aila, who had spent less time in confinement, seemed to enjoy the ponzu sauce, having been dipping radishes into it and happily enjoying them with the Tofu Hamburg.
Meanwhile, Mari, Karina, and Serena had already gobbled down their hamburgers and were requesting refills.
Arisa, Liche, and Yuri initially seemed concerned about Daria and Aila, but at some point, they shifted their focus to the Tofu Hamburg casually.
Lizardmen Lakia and Kirsh, whose taste buds had all but atrophied, didn’t seem to notice the flavor of the sauce but were silently focusing on the texture of the Tofu Hamburg.
Even Lynette, who had initially fawned over the thought of expecting a meaty dish like katsu-don only to grimace when realizing the main ingredient was some tasteless plant-based material recently imported from the Elf’s land, was quietly enjoying her meal.
And before they knew it, Azani and Nisa, sitting next to Lynette, had fully immersed themselves in the flavor of the Tofu Hamburg, eating heartily.
Meanwhile, an elf with silvery hair had nestled naturally among their group, seemingly unable to contain her excitement.
“…Huh? Who are you…?”
“Wow…! I never thought we could make such a dish from the tofu recently imported from an elven village near the Ustia border! To think it could look so delicious! Well then, I’ll dig in!!”
Kurt noticed the elf who had intruded and was about to say something, but she shot back her thoughts like a rapid fire before he could stop her, cutting a large piece of Tofu Hamburg and shoving it into her mouth.
“Wait a minute…!”
“Haha. It’s already too late to say not to eat!! Because I already ate it!!”
She said that while stuffing her mouth full of Kurt’s Tofu Hamburg and savoring the taste.
“Mmm…!! Indeed, it’s a flavor that even the picky Lynette would praise!! And……. Hmm?”
“No! I don’t know who you are, but that Tofu Hamburg contains meat!!”
“Oof…!”
Kurt shouted in alarm, but by then it was already too late.
She let out a forbidden cry during mealtime.
“No way….”
“Ugh…!”
And soon.
“Gwaaaack!!”
“Kyaaaah!!”
“M-Milord Archbishop!!”
“Archbishop Tierra!!”
She committed an act that was forbidden during mealtime.