As promised before, because Jarred managed to catch the biggest fish, he will get the extra dish from my cooking. His eyes look excited, maybe because he already eats Frikadel and feel that delicious. I check what ingredient they bring in this journey in the horse cart. Although there are many ingredients we bring along the journey but I only take flour, egg, potato starch, water and cooking oil. Since sea fish already salty, there"s no need for additional salt. I already have something to make in my mind, Fish Tempura!.I also take some bowl, chopping board and knife to cut the fish. When I get the ingredient, Claude, and his friend already clean the fishes from its scales and head, also prepared small fireplace to fry the fish. Since the fish already clean, I only cut them into fillet and remove the bones.
And for the tempura batter, I mix 100 g plain flour and 2 tablespoon potato starch together. After those ingredient mixed, I separated from the rest. Then I crack the egg into the bowl and beat the egg roughly until the white of egg and yolk mixed after that I add one cup water into the egg bowl and stir the mixture until they mixed evenly. Then I put one-third of the mixed flour into egg mixture and stir it gently using a fork. After all mix together, I add another one-third mixed flour again and stir until mixed with egg mixture. When it already mixed together, I add the last one-third mixed flour and mixed it again until between egg and flour all mixed together.
During I"m preparing the batter, I heating the frying pan and pour cooking oil into it. I wait until the temperature is high enough for frying tempura. I"m testing the temperature by drop a batter into the pan, and wait until it floating in frying pan without makes any crackling sound or sink into the bottom of frying pan.
After coating the fish fillet with the batter, I put them into the pan and frying it for 1-2 minutes only to keep the fish meat stay fresh and not overcooked.
With only 1-2 minutes frying time, not take for a long time before all coated fish fillet finished to fry. After finish frying the fish, the next thing to make is dipping sauce. The easiest one to make Is mayonnaise sauce. With egg, lemon essence, olive oil, a little bit salt that will be done. First I put lemon essence in the bowl, and then I add a bit salt, beat the egg over the bowl and dip some olive oil over the egg. I wait for a minute until the mixtures stabilize before I stir them with high speed. Although easy to make, there"s no blender in this world, with blender, a simple mayonnaise sauce can be made within 5 minutes while in this "pure handmade" world need a strong arm that able to stir in high speed within around 15 minutes. I slowed down the stirring after the mixture become blended and incorporated together into a thick solution. Then the mayonnaise sauce is done.
"Its done guys, help me clean this all before we eat together"
"You"re finished, master Henry?" I never see someone can cook this fast" (Cody)
"Of course you never see, you never go to the kitchen before" (Rodney)
We all laugh together hearing that while cleaning the tools I used during cooking. When they about to throw away the fish head, an idea flashing in my head
"Wait, don"t throw away that fish head yet. It"s still can be used"
"Eh? Fish head still can be eaten, Henry?" (Claude)
"Of course, but not now. Put that in a cooking pot, soak with water and simmer it over the fireplace"
They take a cooking pot from the cart and put the leftover fish head there and boil it over the fireplace with a small fire.
After all been done, we gather again near the stove to enjoy fish that we catch tonight together.
"Okay guys, let"s eat. Since jarred manage to catch the biggest fish, he can have an extra dish"
I handed two bowls with fish tempura to jarred, and one bowl to each other. Since we don"t have a small bowl to split the sauce, I put the mayonnaise sauce bowl in the middle of our gathering
"This is the sauce, you can eat that after dipped with this sauce. Or you can directly eat if the sauce not fit in your taste"
"Master Henry, what is this food called? I never see this kind of food before" (Jarred)
"It"s called tempura, and the sauce name is mayonnaise"
"Can we eat It now?" (Claude)
He seems already can"t wait to eat this food but hesitate because I haven"t started to eat. The others also seem thinking like him. Oh, I start to like these guys, they still have respect for me although I"m not asking them to respect me formally. So I take one piece from my portion and dipped it in the sauce.
"Of course, let"s eat"
I said that while putting the tempura in my mouth and bite it. The others follow my doing and dipped their own tempura into the sauce and eat that.
"Oh my G.o.d, it"s so delicious!"
"The fish meat taste so fresh and crunchy!"
"The sour-sweet sauce melts together with the fish in my mouth, amazing"
"I never eat fish so tasty like this!"
I just smile hearing their comment. That"s all enough to prove my cooking is not failed. And when this area developed into a town many years later, I heard this tempura dish has become their proud dish of the town.