The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 268 - Evil Boss Nigel (17) - Housewife and the Magic Powder Set "Ah, no!!" A short scream flowed out from a shabby and ordinary household in Shurabasti. In the kitchen, housewife Melissa, who was trying to prepare the dough for tomorrow morning's naan in advance, watched with a blank expression as mold had grown on the starter dough stored in the jar. "Without this, I can't bake naan...." The main ingredients for naan are flour (naturally not the pure white, fine flour that the rich eat, but the coarse, grayish-brown kind, sometimes mixed with other grains), salt, and water, but if you bake naan with only these ingredients, you end up with something hard as stone and difficult to digest. What's needed at this time is the starter dough - instead of using all the dough when previously baking naan, you set aside and store a portion of it. Naan made with starter dough was much softer and chewier compared to regular naan, and had the characteristic of being easy to digest as well. Some households even passed down starter dough from generation to generation, making it almost essential for any home, but unfortunately, that starter dough had developed mold. Melissa, stomping her feet in frustration, had no choice but to visit the neighboring housewife with whom she usually exchanged visits. It was to ask for even just a little bit of starter dough to share. "Starter dough? I don't have any either?" "What!?" When Melissa was shocked by the answer that came back as if it were so obvious, the neighboring housewife, who had about 5 years more experience than Melissa, burst out laughing. "Who uses starter dough separately these days? It's hard to manage and the taste changes at the drop of a hat." "Then how do you bake naan?" "You can use this." Saying so, what the neighboring housewife held out was something like a light brown powder with very fine particles. "It's sold at Nigel trading company over there. If you add this, you don't need to use starter dough separately and the naan becomes soft and delicious. Also, the dough rises incredibly fast." "If it's fast, how fast?" "About the time it takes for the sun's shadow to move the span of one palm? (2 hours)" For a moment, Melissa wondered if the neighboring housewife was teasing her. Normally, dough fermentation takes about half a day before you can barely see any reaction. If you wanted to bake naan in the morning, you'd have to prepare the dough before going to bed the night before to have it ready in time. Even then, it often wouldn't rise well when the weather was cold, so it was common for somewhat wealthy households to place the dough near the brazier. For ordinary common households like Melissa's, they would sometimes substitute by just hugging the dough while sleeping to save on firewood costs. Naturally, it was inconvenient and troublesome. However, if what the neighboring housewife said was true, there would be no need for any of that. You could just wake up in the morning, add that powder and knead the dough, and there would be plenty of time left. "You look completely unconvinced. Then just drop by our house tomorrow for a bit. We have to go to the oven together anyway, so tomorrow we can just do the kneading together too, right?" Housewives from common households usually only did the kneading at home and baked the naan at the village's communal oven. Each time they had to pay the oven owner a small fee for their trouble, but it was much cheaper than building a huge oven in an ordinary home and bearing the cost of firewood. Though somewhat skeptical, Melissa was drawn in by the strange confidence the neighboring housewife exuded, and the next day she was able to have an amazing experience. "It really... rose?" Melissa poked the naan dough deeply with her finger. The texture that touched her fingertip was surprisingly soft. The degree of rising was also much greater than usual. "What did I tell you?" As if pleased with Melissa's reaction, the neighboring housewife showed a wide grin. When they tore off pieces of dough and stuck them to the inner wall of the oven as usual, it wasn't long before the dough began to tremble and bubbles started rising in bulges on the surface. The naan that was turning golden brown was much thicker than usual, and instead of the musty and sour smell characteristic of starter dough, it gave off a rich, sweet grain fragrance. Melissa, who pulled the fully baked naan out with the oven hook, was half-impulsively driven by the fragrance to put the naan in her mouth and bite down. "......!!" The outer surface of the naan was crispy, and the inside was soft like cotton. Since the ingredients used weren't particularly good, coarse whole wheat husks were chewed along with it, but even that felt like part of its charm. Melissa couldn't believe this was naan she had made herself. Just changing one powder had caused such a dramatic change - wasn't this literally magic? "Delicious, right?" "Yes, thank you so much." "Then try using this too." Saying so, the neighboring housewife held out some sort of stick-like thing to Melissa. "What is this?" To the puzzled Melissa, the neighboring housewife said. "That's powder too. When you add it while boiling soup, the taste completely changes. It's impossible to explain without trying it, so definitely add it." Without a proper explanation, just try adding it and you'll know. As a housewife responsible for her family's dining table, these would have been words difficult to accept normally, but Melissa's psychological resistance had greatly diminished after already experiencing the power of the 'magic powder'. Melissa, who returned home with the bread, prepared to boil soup as she always did. She placed a pot on a fire that was much smaller in scale and heat compared to the communal oven, but sufficient for ordinary cooking, and put sheep fat into the heated pot. After frying mutton that had a higher ratio of bone than meat but was correspondingly cheap, she added various vegetables and cooked them together, then poured water and boiled it. If this were soup for the rich, they would add saffron and various high-grade spices, but Melissa's house, being that of an ordinary commoner, had no such things. The only things she could add were relatively cheap cumin or wild pepper. Now the original recipe would be to close the pot lid so precious moisture wouldn't escape, then seal the gaps with leftover dough or something, but Melissa added one more step. As she had learned beforehand, she tore open packaging with a strange texture that was neither paper nor leather, and poured the powder contained within into the pot. When the powder, much darker brown than what was used in the naan dough, dissolved in the water, the broth that had been clear to the point of being nearly transparent was instantly dyed to a pleasant color. Melissa carefully tasted the broth. The moment the broth touched the tip of her tongue, Melissa instinctively widened her eyes. "Wow...!" A bomb of umami flavor exploded in her mouth. It might have been a taste that would still leave locals where the magic powder was commonly sold feeling somewhat unsatisfied, but for Melissa, who had always eaten only bland, salt-flavored soup, it was stimulation that was almost like violence. As the heavy and rich meat flavor moistened every corner of her mouth, Melissa couldn't come to her senses. As she stood there blankly, having even forgotten to close the pot lid, Melissa's husband quietly appeared. "The food smells particularly good today? ...Honey? What are you doing?" "Ah, um, ah. S-sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment. I'll prepare breakfast right away." "Alright." The dining table that was set afterward could hardly be called luxurious, even as an empty compliment. The menu consisted of just two items: naan and soup. However, having few items didn't mean the taste was poor as well. "The naan seems a bit thicker than usual? *sniff, sniff* The smell seems better too." While tilting his head curiously, her husband took a big bite of the naan. And then, he froze like that. Melissa felt embarrassed thinking that she must have looked the same way when the neighboring housewife saw her, while also feeling a strange pleasure at her husband's reaction. "What, what is this? Why is the naan like this? The taste is completely different?" To her husband who was so flustered he was even stammering, Melissa spoke with a bit of bravado, as if this was nothing. "Try the soup too." "Right, well. ...slurp!?" This reaction was even more dramatic. His eyes widened round, and various facial muscles moved colorfully. The way his lips trembled seemed like he was fighting between wanting to quickly swallow the broth in his mouth and wanting to enjoy that taste for a longer time. But that was only momentary. Once he swallowed it down his throat, he seemed to have no time left to feel conflicted, and her husband began hurriedly shoving soup into his mouth. Dipping the naan in the soup, then moving it to his mouth. And repeating that process over and over again. After watching her husband continue his meal with such vigor with satisfaction, Melissa also began using the naan to dip and eat the soup. When the taste of naan that was twice as soft and savory as usual combined with the rich broth taste as if it had been boiled with large amounts of meat, she felt like she could keep eating forever. What made her even happier as a housewife was that despite this being such an excellent meal, the actual cost was hardly different from what they usually ate. That meant they could continue eating food like this in the future as well. Watching her husband, who seemed unsatisfied with just dipping naan in the broth and now lifted the bowl entirely to slurp down the contents before exclaiming "Keuher!", Melissa made a decision. 'I need to go straight to Nigel trading company today and buy these magic powders.' *** "Master! The sales of the dry yeast and artificial seasoning you mentioned are going smoothly!! Especially this time, unlike before, the commoners' reaction is enthusiastic!!" "Really? Since they said we couldn't sell salt or sugar because of some monopoly system, I sold these instead, and it seems not bad. But that's ultimately just a side business. How's the reaction to the real masterpiece product, the roll... tape cleaner?" "Yes! No matter how much you peel off new surfaces, they say it becomes unusable soon because of sand dust, so our current inventory is piling up like crazy!!" "......" "...Uh, should I report again in a depressed tone?"