The suitable ways to eat rice noodles weren't limited to noodle soup—there was another method that made one's mouth water, one bursting with fragrance.
Lard-mixed rice noodles!
Jhin had noticed long ago that every single cooking oil in this world was a vegetable oil. Animal fats were practically nowhere to be found, which meant it was high time he gave this other world a taste of lard's shocking power.
Luckily, he had already planned to render lard for stir-frying anyway—otherwise, pulling out an ingredient straight from his Storage Space without inspection would have very likely gotten him disqualified from the competition on the spot.
"Pecorine, help me chop this lard into small pieces."
Jhin sliced off a large slab of white fat clinging to the Deep Forest Wild Boar meat and handed it over. When rendering lard, you always chose pork leaf lard—the sheet of fat that sits across the pig's belly.
"You got it!" Although Pecorine didn't know why he wasn't following the earlier method, she didn't ask. After rinsing the lard clean, she brought her knife down crisply and chopped it into small cubes.
Jhin swapped in a large pot and set it on the stove, added half a bowl of clean water, then tipped in the chopped lard.
As the spatula stirred, milky-white fat began appearing in the water—but this didn't mean the leaf lard had started yielding its oil. Only once the water had fully boiled away and bright, pale-yellow oil emerged in the pot would it count as true lard.
He tossed in the chopped Noisy Green Onion and Silent Earth Ginger, then added a few pieces of Star Anise and Serrated Bay Leaf to chase off the gamey smell. Before long, a rich oily aroma laced with a faint herbal fragrance spread through the air, drawing curious glances again and again from the surrounding chefs.
What on earth was he rendering over there? How could it possibly smell that good?
Pecorine wiped away the umpteenth bead of drool slipping from the corner of her mouth. She had clearly eaten breakfast already, yet beneath this aroma she had somehow gotten hungry all over again—her stomach obligingly chimed in with a "growl."
Jhin grinned at her. "You've already learned how to make rice noodles, right? Go make a bigger batch. Once I'm finished here, we'll fix ourselves a couple of bowls first."
"Mhm, mhm, mhm!" Pecorine nodded like a pestle pounding garlic. Only now did she realize why such an enormous amount of ingredients had been prepared—he'd been factoring in her hunger from the very start.
As expected of Jhin—always so thoughtful and considerate!
The ahoge atop her head bobbed along with her owner's cheerful mood as Pecorine hummed a lively little tune and skipped off to start on the rice noodles.
The originally white cubes of leaf lard tumbled inside a film of fine bubbles. When they surfaced on the oil once more, they had taken on an entirely new appearance—turned golden. Once their color had deepened just a touch, Jhin scooped them all out and poured the finished lard into a clean earthen jar.
"Pecorine, I'm all set on my end. How much rice noodles did you make? Enough for the two of us?"
"Um… should be enough?"
A troubled girlish voice drifted from behind him. Jhin shrugged helplessly.
Looks like I'll have to eat a little less this time.
A cool, jade-like fingertip poked at his cheek. He turned his head, puzzled, and saw Pecorine holding an enormous platter stacked two meters high with rice noodles, winking at him mischievously. Realizing her earlier line had been a tease, he opened his mouth and made a show of biting at her finger.
Pecorine let out a sly little laugh and pulled her finger back, setting the platter down on the stove. "So what kind of dish is this, anyway?"
"Lard-mixed rice noodles. Give it a try and you'll see."
Jhin pulled two custom-made, half-meter-wide bowls out of his Storage Space, loaded them with rice noodles, then added the rendered lard and soy sauce, finishing it off with a sprinkle of chopped scallion.
On aroma alone, mixed noodles tossed with lard rendered from Deep Forest Wild Boar fat were like the lovechild of scallion-oil noodles—the signature fragrance unique to animal fat married with the clean, herbal notes, the two intertwining to elevate the smell by more than just a notch or two.
He lifted a chopstick-full of noodles into his mouth. Rice noodles that melted with a single press of the tongue, paired with the deep oily fragrance, shot straight up to the crown of his skull. The herbal aroma cut the richness at exactly the right balance—no matter how much you ate, it never felt cloying.
Meanwhile, as the competition time drew to a close, the host accompanied the five judges across the broad arena, sampling the breakfasts prepared by each competing chef one by one. When they arrived before Jhin and Pecorine, the sight of two cooks contentedly eating noodles out of giant bowls drew an astonished remark from the host.
"The source of that unusually rich aroma in the air turns out to be these two—and this couple of chefs has already started happily digging into their own creation… could one of you please give us an introduction?"
"I'll do it." Jhin set down his chopsticks and dabbed his oil-glossed lips with a handkerchief. As he spoke, he produced five bowls already prepped with rice noodles and began adding lard, soy sauce, and chopped scallions to each. "This is a special delicacy from my hometown—rice noodles. Where I'm from, they're often eaten as breakfast, and what I've made today is one specific preparation, called lard-mixed noodles."
The five judges—immaculately dressed, varying wildly in height, weight, and build—lifted up the bowls Jhin pushed in front of them, the enticing aroma rising to meet them. One of them picked up his chopsticks and applied just enough force to snap a rice noodle. The cross-section, which didn't look anything like the texture of wheat flour, caught him off guard. "This… doesn't appear to be made from flour?"
As one would expect of a competition judge—he truly had some skill, able to tell from the cross-section alone that no wheat flour had been mixed in.
Jhin nodded. "These are made from rice. Lard isn't pleasant once it cools, so I'd ask all of you to please taste it as soon as possible."
As mentioned before, noodles as a food simply didn't exist on the continent of Astraea. The judges stared at the long, springy strands of "flour," momentarily at a loss for how to even begin eating them—until one of them caught sight of Pecorine's technique. Only then did realization dawn, and they began clumsily mimicking her, lifting the noodles with their chopsticks and bringing them to their mouths.
The moment the rice noodles entered their mouths, all five judges' eyes flew wide open. Then, without a single word, they polished off the very generous portion of lard-mixed rice noodles to the last strand. Watching this unfold, the host let out a yelp of disbelief. "Heavens above, what am I seeing?! The five judges have actually finished an entire bowl of food!"
"You have to understand—in order to ensure they can sample the dishes from every single contestant, the judges all adhere to a strict principle of never taking more than three bites of any one dish. But now, they've willingly broken that very rule and eaten the whole serving clean. Could it… could it really be that delicious?"
With that, the host swallowed his own saliva and turned to Jhin. "Contestant, that… rice-noodle dish of yours—is there any left? Might I have a taste myself?"
Jhin spread his hands helplessly. "My apologies—aside from the portions set aside for the judges, the rest has already been polished off by my companion and me."
"I see…" The host's face crumpled into a sorrowful expression. "Looks like I won't have the privilege of enjoying a dish so good it made the judges break their own rule. In that case, may the judges please score this team's entry."
"Hmm… the creativity and texture are both perfect. Eight points."
"Isn't that a bit on the low side? A special fragrant oil rendered from Deep Forest Wild Boar fat—this practically opens a brand-new chapter in culinary history. I think it deserves a ten."
"I think this bowl of lard-mixed noodles could use a sprinkle of Popping Chili Pepper—it'd be even more satisfying that way. I'll also give it eight points."
____
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🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
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