Chapter 165: The First Bottle Of Soy Sauce 30,000 Years Later
Xiang Chuan instructed the kitchen AI to perform sterilization heating on the soy sauce that had been pressed in the pot, and after transmitting the soy sauce heating related information she had prepared to the kitchen AI’s database, she swallowed a small bottle of sterilization agent at light speed.
She carried sterilization agent with her due to the first time making steak, when Xiang Weiguo discovered from the recipe that the inside of the steak was not fully cooked, he was so scared his face turned ashen, and even called the home medical AI to check everyone’s bodies before slightly relieving his mind, but he still wasn’t reassured and instructed the family to take sterilization agent every time after eating non-fully-cooked food.
In the 21st Century “battle-hardened” Xiang Chuan also didn’t dare to act tough at this moment, because she didn’t know the tolerance limit of her body for these half-cooked or raw foods, and in order to not let her body collapse before eating the long-awaited snail noodles, she had just tasted the soy sauce and immediately took the medicine.
The reason was none other than—homemade raw soy sauce was very likely to be mixed with mixed mushrooms or even pathogens.
This was something she had learned recently while organizing soy sauce heating sterilization related information; Xiang Chuan recalled that every time she went home, her parents used what zero-additive soy sauce for the dipping sauce for hot pot, this type of soy sauce should have completely eliminated these mixed mushrooms in raw soy sauce.
And this time the soy sauce was made by her with the three people outdoors, even though inside the Third Fleet Main Ship, especially the residential area, regular sterilization and disinfection were performed, unless it was an accident there was no risk of infection with fatal pathogens, but there were definitely quite a few mixed mushrooms, so for hygiene and safety considerations, the family always had Little Star prepare sterilization agent when making steak each time, and the steak sold at Yue Xiang Restaurant to the outside was the same.
There were also some people in the Third Fleet who focused on medical health and wellness who initially had quite a few complaints, but the tender steak’s deliciousness conquered the vast majority of meat lovers, plus the subsequently launched steak meat buns eliminated the drawback of pan-fried steak being undercooked, making these hygiene-conscious people also succumb, and these opposing voices disappeared along with it.
After the steak incident, Xiang Chuan also became more cautious, stocking sterilization agent in the dormitory small kitchen and the A Bite of China Club just in case.
Sure enough, it was immediately put to use.
Ouyang Yating and the other three naturally knew about this, but usually the only one who bravely showed the “Shennong tasting a hundred herbs” spirit was their own club president, so the sterilization agent in the kitchen was mostly not their turn to use.
Modern people’s curiosity and spirit of adventure being lacking was really an urgent problem to solve. Xiang Chuan swallowed the not-hard-to-drink sterilization agent, thinking this in her heart.
“Club President, what food do you plan to make with the finished soy sauce?” Liang Gong blinked his eyes and asked, while the other two also looked at her curiously.
“There are actually quite a few options, soy sauce used on staple food or meat can all have very nice chemical reactions, um…” Xiang Chuan touched her chin and opened the warehouse ingredients menu, “Soy sauce chicken is actually very good, but I’m not very familiar with the operation method, and there’s no rice right now, eating it directly might be too salty. The simple version of marinated beef is good, but it needs some time to marinate and air-dry, which can be done first later, and in a few days it can be eaten with noodles… Using it to improve the current recipe is also simple, adding soy sauce to things like meat patties, meat buns, and stir-fried chicken can greatly improve the taste.”
“Do the buns still need more filling? I think those buns are already very delicious.” Ainuo said in surprise.
That’s because you haven’t tasted truly delicious buns. Xiang Chuan muttered in her heart, and said on her mouth:
“According to the ancient recipes I’ve seen, these buns were originally supposed to have soy sauce in the filling, but when I actually made them I found the version without soy sauce was delicious enough, so I settled for that, but now that we have soy sauce, let’s restore the recipe completely and see what these buns originally taste like.”
“Then does the cake also need soy sauce?”
“Don’t make suggestions that sound scary just hearing them.” Xiang Chuan twitched the corner of her mouth, “Ancient people didn’t dare to eat like that, though looking at the variety of ancient recipes maybe some will really be used in the future, but in the recipes I’ve found so far, soy sauce and desserts are basically unrelated.”
Words can’t be said too absolutely, because she recalled some Japanese snacks that really did use soy sauce. But this wasn’t something she should consider right now.
The oven isn’t ready yet, haven’t even seen the shadow of bread, at least let her taste a pineapple bun or something before thinking about those regional dim sum.
“Using beef bone and radish scallion to simmer some soup, then making some noodle soup also seems good…” Xiang Chuan muttered, gradually falling into thought.
Ouyang Yating and the three exchanged glances, and could only watch her talking to herself on the side while drinking beverage or eating dim sum.
Regarding the soy sauce information, the three actually already had it on hand; after Xiang Chuan organized the information for the kitchen AI, she also sent them an identical copy.
But relying solely on text descriptions from 30,000 years ago, they still found it hard to imagine what this everyday seasoning made from beans—which for a long time before were classified as non-ingredient plants—would taste like; just from text descriptions they really couldn’t imagine it. If it was tasting the finished dishes maybe they could help, but seasonings… they usually didn’t even pay much attention to the taste of solid food and liquid food, okay?
“Sometimes I really admire ancient people’s spirit of exploration, how did they think of making seasoning from beans?” Ainuo sighed.
Ouyang Yating and Liang Gong also silently nodded; from their experience that week at the start of school, just groping to see if some organisms and foods could be eaten was already very brain-draining, yet ancient people even had the energy to develop new seasoning types.
“Could it be that salt or oil was scarce in ancient times, so they needed this soy sauce to fill those gaps?” Liang Gong asked, “I saw in the information that this seasoning’s taste is mainly salty, wouldn’t that conflict with salt?”
“I’m not too clear on the origins, but soy sauce in… ancient cooking could indeed to some extent replace salt, though their flavors differ; salt’s taste is more straightforward salty, while soy sauce’s taste is rich salty, each with its own characteristics… That’s what the information says.” Xiang Chuan paused her hand recording on the light screen, thought for a moment, and gave her understanding.
As a 21st Century corporate slave salted fish focused on enjoying gourmet food, Xiang Chuan naturally had no interest in these historical origins at first, but now trapped in the bizarre situation of “clearly in a super-advanced civilization yet can’t even have a bite of rice,” plus modern society’s strange rules and restrictions, sometimes she really had to explore ancient cooking methods for these seasonings and foods, though soy sauce wasn’t one of them for now, because she remembered the vegetable market near her rental room still had seasoning shops selling homemade soy sauce.
In the 21st Century she was in, everyone was worrying about the economic situation after the pandemic, so various homemade foods for saving money emerged endlessly, even Xiang Chuan herself had nothing to do and got a yogurt maker to occasionally make yogurt or sweet wine.
This trend also gave the usually busy-at-work corporate slave young men and women more or less some hands-on ability, so as not to one day wake up 30,000 years later like her and starve to death because of not distinguishing salt and sugar.
Just because of the yogurt maker experience back then, Xiang Chuan was in a state of having confidence yet not quite for this soy sauce; confident because she knew the fermentation principle, not quite because she really hadn’t made seasonings before.
Because even the 21st Century welfare society’s self-produced and sold homemade soy sauce didn’t say to make soy sauce in public.
The four didn’t continue chatting, because the kitchen AI sounded a prompt tone, followed by a bottle of black liquid in a glass bottle being brought up by the kitchen AI’s robotic arm.
Xiang Chuan received the glass bottle with slightly trembling hands; since it had just undergone high temperature sterilization, even though cooling was performed, the glass bottle still had some residual heat.
The mouth of the glass bottle was sealed with a snap-on glass stopper; opening the bottle mouth, Xiang Chuan poured the liquid in the bottle into a bowl, then picked up a small spoon to scoop up a liquid about the size of a small thumb nail and put it in her mouth.
Ah, it’s the familiar taste. Xiang Chuan thought.
