When I returned to Aella's store, I found Haruka and Toya already there.
　According to Yuki, the blackboard in the store was a little big, so she went to call them first and then went to pick it up.

Nice to meet you, Aella. I'm Haruka.
I'm Toya. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you both. We've been working with Nao and the others.
Don't worry about it. We just had some time on our hands because I was busy with other things.

Thank you very much. So, shall we make the inspiration sauce first?
Yes, after the pork cutlet.
Yes. The kitchen ...... is a little cramped, so let's bring it here.

　The kitchen was originally designed for Ms. Aella to work alone, but it was impossible for all of us to work in it.
　We cleaned the jar we had bought and put it on the table.

The first thing we'll do is to get some inspirational sauce.

　The jar that Aera-san was carrying was about a size larger than the one I had bought, and when she showed me the inside, I could see that it was about 80% full of sauce.

　He put about a third of it in the big jar that Aella bought, and put the other half in our jar.

She put about a third of it in a big jar that Aella bought, and put the other half in our jar.

　I'm sure you'll be able to figure out the best way to use it.
　I've heard of people making eel sauce and other sauces by adding more and more, but I think this is too little sauce to use as a base. .......

Yes, it's fine. If the amount is small, it will take a little longer. But in that case, it's better to chop the ingredients as finely as possible.
Oh, really?

Next is the fruit, this time dindol. Not only the skin, but the fruit as well, that's really extravagant!
It's too expensive to buy. Are you going to pack everything you picked today?

　Three backpacks are almost full, so it's a lot, but two large jars and two small jars should be enough.

No, no, no!　No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's not like the ...... dindle is too good?

Yes, of course. It's all about taste, right?
Of course it is!　It's a matter of taste, isn't it?
Yes, it is. It's a matter of taste, isn't it?

　Yuki and Natsuki agreed with me.
　Obviously they just want to eat Ding Dongs.

Well, more than half of them were taken by Aella, so I don't mind. ......
Yeah, yeah. I need dessert with my pork cutlet!
Right. Aella-san, should I chop up the dindol and add it?

　Before I could change my mind, Natsuki took out the dindle and started to put it on the table.

"Yes. Wash them clean, remove the stems, and chop the skin into small pieces as well. Please wait a moment.

　Aella brought out a large tub of water and began to wash and chop the dingdol and put it in the jar.

She washed and chopped the dingdol and put it in the jar. "Oh, don't put it in this jar. "Oh, don't put it in this jar, I'll use it for pork cutlet sauce later.
"Oh, that's what you need.

　It's not difficult to chop them anyway, but Aella is the fastest. Her knife work is invisible to the naked eye.

　Next up were the skilled Haruka and Yuki, followed slightly later by Natsuki.
　Natsuki muttered, "It's ...... a bit humiliating to lose to Yuki," suggesting that Natsuki was originally a better cook than her.

　By the way, Toya and I are about the same.
　If I tell you that while I process one, Haruka and her friends process two, and Aera-san processes at least three, will you understand how delicate we are?

　But even so, thanks to the [Dismantling] skill, I think I'm better with knives than I was in the original world.

"Okay, that's about it. I'll mix it well at this stage.

　After chopping half of the total number of dindol and dividing it into portions according to the size of the jar, Aella-san mixed it well so that it would be mixed with the sauce at the bottom.

　The dindol is quite fresh, so if you mix it thoroughly, the pulp will be crushed and it will be a little looser than ketchup at this point.

　If you have a large jar with a lot of dingdol, it will be mostly dingdol juice (with skin), and there will be only a faint smell of sauce left.

At this point, you can leave it alone if you don't want to, but it is faster to mix it. If you're making it at home, it doesn't really matter because you'll be adding it little by little.

　In this case, there is only a little amount of sauce because of the large amount of ingredients, but usually, the pieces of fruits and vegetables are submerged in the sauce, so you can leave them alone.

Next is the appropriate vegetable. Let's use what we have. We don't have any customers and a lot of the vegetables are wilting. ...... ...... ...... ......

　Aera-san smiled a little darkly -- scary.

　With our help, we brought in several crates of vegetables from the refrigerator that were, as Aella said, a bit wilted.

　Needless to say, these were foodstuffs that we had bought with the aim of making a small profit.

Please put these vegetables in their respective jars in an orderly fashion. I don't think any of them are rotten, but please be careful.

"Can I put all of this in?　Can I put all of this in the jar? ......



No problem. It can be made properly even if it's done properly. However, you should be a little careful when you put in vegetables with a strong smell.

　Again, I just keep washing and chopping.
　I desperately need a food processor.

　While Toya, Haruka, and the others were looking quite tired, Aella, who was chopping the most, was moving at a steady pace.

Aera-san, how can you keep going at that speed?

Hahaha, it's pretty tough to be a chef. It was not uncommon for me to peel potatoes for half a day. In the beginning, I dreamed about it. ....... Compared to that, this is a piece of cake that can be chopped into small pieces.

　The training of a chef is said to be tough even today, but in this world, it is even tougher.
　Since there are no machines that can perform simple tasks, a large restaurant would have to do them all by hand. In other words, the work would be passed on to newcomers.

Did you still want to be a chef?

"Yes. When I was living at home, I used to cook for people I knew, but I wanted more people to try my cooking.
　It's always been my dream to have my own restaurant. In order to achieve this goal, I worked hard on my cooking skills and saved up money. ...... Thinking about the restaurant, I was able to endure the hard training.
　It took me a long time to get to this point, but now I finally have a restaurant and I'm ready to start .......

""........."

　We're silent.
　Who are you?　Who duped such a nice guy!
　We look at each other and nod in agreement.
　We've got to get back on track, we're not going to sleep well.

A few days ago, I didn't know what to do. ...... I'm really grateful to Nao-san for coming into the store at that time.

"Oh, no, it's just luck. We're glad we met you too. You know?

Yeah, we got to know some great places to eat.
She taught me how to make aspirin sauce.
I'm glad to hear you say that.

　As we talked, we repeated the process of adding and stirring the vegetables several times, and by the time the crates were empty, each jar was more than 80% full.

Thank you for your hard work. You're almost done. Next is the potatoes.

　The next item in the crate was potatoes, which are used to make mashed potatoes.
　They are quite cheap and are often eaten as a staple instead of bread.

I chopped them up and added them to the sauce, but unlike other vegetables, you don't want to just add them to the sauce, because they are the key to the sweetness. My sauce is a little sweet, so I put about five in this jar.
So, in our jar, it would be about four?
Well, there are no fruits in this jar other than the ...... dindol, so five might be fine.

　I took Aella's advice and chopped up five potatoes and put them in.
　Aella's large jar is many times larger than that, so you will still have to chop dozens of potatoes.

Next comes the herbs. I'll put in the ones I picked in the forest today. You can use whatever you like, but if it has a strong aroma, you might want to go a little easy on it. It's your choice.

　This time, I tore it up by hand and threw it into the jar.
　I don't know how much to add or subtract, so I just do what Aella tells me to do.
　My goal is the sauce that Aella-san gave me, so it's no problem.

Lastly, spices. Use less salt. Use less salt and less of the other spices. If you add too many stimulants, you'll never get it back.

What if I add the wrong one?

What if you make a mistake? I once dropped a jar of spices into the sauce, and my ...... mother was very angry.

　Aera laughs at this.
　In normal cooking, if you make a mistake, you can just throw it away, but in the case of an inspirational sauce, you need the inspirational sauce to make it. There is no way we can throw it away.

　In that case, we might as well keep them in two separate containers.
　If one of them fails, we can always get it back.

After a week of stirring, it is ready to use. Stirring occasionally will speed up the process.

　While saying this, Aera brought a long wooden spatula from the kitchen, like those used in food processing factories, and stirred it around, but the contents were hardly moving.
　But the contents were barely moving. We were small enough to stir it somehow.

"Noooooooo, it's really heavy.
"Oh, Aella, I'll do it.
I'll do it. ...... Excuse me, please. Toya.

　He looked at the jar and at Toya for a while, but he thought it was impossible to mix the two pots, so he gave the wooden spatula to Toya.
　Toya took the spoon and stirred the jar from the bottom with a relatively light touch, but it didn't look like a sauce at all.
　It's more like a chopped salad.

Aella, are you sure this is okay?　It doesn't look like a sauce at all.

"Yes, it's fine. "Yes, it's fine. It looks like this now, but the water will come out after a night. In three days, it will be very saucy. If you want to make a completely smooth sauce, you should stir it occasionally for about a week.



"In a week, this is what ......

　If you put salt on pickles and put a weight on top of them, they will become very runny overnight, so it is understandable that they will become runny.
　However, I don't understand how that sauce can be made in a week. I wonder what kind of fungus has such an excellent metabolic function.

　Rather, the black sauce itself is a bacteria, or perhaps a slime...

　Oh, no. I'll think no more about it.
　I won't be able to eat that delicious sauce.

"This is the end of the work for now. Thank you for your time.
"Thank you, Aella. Now it's my turn.
It's time for the pork cutlet!

　Aera-san leaned forward with a smile on her face.