60th of Frost, Evening
It had been a slow night at the Hen. Leith didn’t care for these for multiple reasons. The stress of a busy night she’d take over a shift dragging any night of the season, but the second was because when Ozias didn’t have drinks to pour and customers to woo with his stories, he would bother the wait staff, the cooks, her. Leith had quite a lot of patience. More than either of her two races might suggest, but it wasn’t infinite, and she always had an issue with an overbearing boss, especially those who didn’t critique as much as pester.
Of course not everyone shared her opinion. The chatty Orkhan innkeep had mixed a couple fruity drinks for a couple of the waiters who sat on top of the prep tables, legs swinging, chatting amicably with him as the cooks shuffled around keeping meals going and soups ready for any influx of customers that might appear. If Ranette were here, Leith thought, staring hard at the waiters and a couple of bussers, they wouldn’t be able to so jovially shirk their duties. Laughter too loud in response to one of Ozias’s quips made Leith grit her teeth as she poured a bit of flour into the stew she was braising lamb shanks in, thickening the concoction. As it reached a simmer she emptied a pot of boiling water containing potatoes into one of the sinks, gathering butter and cream and pouring it in with the now steaming softened tubers, beginning to mash them with a frenzy as she forced herself not to look, yet still found herself catching the group out of the corner of her eye.
When a short time later Leith came up to the prep table carrying two plates of mashed potatoes with lamb shanks covered in the delicious gravy they had been simmering in, one of the servers reluctantly took the dishes and broke away from the conversation. Leith stood with her hands on her hips and gave a glare that would make Ranette proud to one of the bussers who dashed out back to do some dishes.
Ozias gave Leith a sidelong glance and chuckled at the thunder on her features.
“This is quite unlike you, Rathari, where is my amiable blue cook gone?” Leith scowled. It was hard not to be taken in by Ozias, but on this night it was quite simple as her rage built. She opened her mouth to respond, but he slapped his hand down on the table and the other pointed at her. “You don’t have any orders coming up do you?” Leith’s mouth opened somewhat like a fish, then closed and she shook her head, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“Perfect. I’ve heard Gremor mention your dishes, the ones you cooked in the Southern Ocean, said you whipped up something for him out of our leftovers one night?” Leith blanched. She had hoped to keep that quiet, most restaurants did not enjoy cooks making their own dishes, but it had been right at close with leftover fish that would have gone to the stray cats or beggars. She nodded, mouth still forming a ridiculous ‘O’ of mounting confusion.
“Make something for me- for us!” The wait staff and lone busser looked equally confused, but a slender girl with raging red hair suddenly caught on and nodded, “Cook something for us Leith!” She echoed. The Rathari’s mouth worked a couple more times, then Leith glanced in a calculating manner about the kitchen. There was fish, there was rice, there were plenty of vegetables and seasonings.
She looked back at Ozias. “What if more orders come in?”
The Orkhan waved a dismissive hand. “Firstly, they won’t. Secondly if they do, one of the other cooks will handle it, right boys?” Gremor, who was one of the ‘boys’ in question gave a cheery thumbs up and winked at Leith. All anger gone, a fiery excitement gleaming in her eye Leith gave a decisive nod and set to work. As she assembled her prep, Ozias came over and slid her a squat round glass with a single round ice cube in it. “Some single malt Scotch from your homeland, or er, home ocean?” She gave an appreciative nod, a long sip of the amber liquid which burned, but went down in a smooth heated path down her gullet. She let out a single cough following it that made Ozias break out in laughter, shot him a glance, then went back to it, she had to make Kinousa for the entire staff with the leftovers of a kitchen nearly done for the day. It would be a tough thing to do, but after all, it was something of her specialty.
Firstly Leith got many cups of short grained white rice and rinsed them thoroughly in the sink before draining the water and letting the rice sit there in order to fully absorb the moisture. Then she set two pots of water to boil on the stove. What she had available for protein was a rather sad looking flounder, the remains of several crabs, basically only empty shells and the legs, which were fortunately untouched. A handful of mussels, a cod as well as the fortunate accident of it having the roe, the reason it hadn’t been touched by whichever less fish experienced cook thinking this was something to be avoided. It wasn’t enough, not by far though the ideas for what to make with what she had were coming together in her mind. She went to the ice box and pulled out a beautiful looking salmon she had picked up from the market. She had been saving this to make some food she could make on the street to follow up her Shokaze food stand performance, hopefully keep folks around Kalzasi interested in her food, but she had no choice but to use the beauty here.
“That’s not our leftovers is it?” Ozias said leaning on the counter with one eyebrow raised.
Leith held the fish aloft and inclined her head. “I can make you something with what we have left, but not something for the staff, what’ll it be Ozias?”
The Orkhan glanced at the plaintive looks of his gaggle of clingers-on, then sighed and nodded. “Allowed, Rathari, but I’m deducting points.”
“Points, he says.” She muttered as she lay the fish down. She had paid a high price for the fish after finding a fisherman who knew techniques of the Druskai of the southern waters where a quick death blow to the brain of the fish when caught preserved the meat compared to those who struggled and strained, the stress making the meat give way faster.
Reverently Leith disassembled the salmon, expertly and swiftly carving, drawing a few of Ozias’s brood to watch her knife work. Some slices of salmon were the thinnest strips practically translucent, others she cubed, and still others she carved into thick meaty rectangles. The nearly pristine carcass of the salmon with only its head and tail intact and the leftover shells of the crab went into the now boiling pot of water along with one long dried section of seaweed that she adjusted to a nice roiling simmer. Leith then performed a similar act on the flounder, slicing thinly the areas she felt safe for consumption, and a less elegant job on the cod, getting nice meaty hunks of the fish. Then came the vegetables. Red onions, green onions, garlic, chile peppers, parsley, tomatoes, avocado, lemons, cucumbers, carrots, ginger, and a large pink citrus fruit, bruised and left over from breakfast. She chopped, diced, julienned. Dividing the vegetables up into the areas they would be going. Pouring vinegar over the small bowl filled with ginger for a quick pickling. She pulled out a large wooden tray and set the thick rectangles of salmon on one corner, forming a brick of pale orange fish skin. She covered this with a coating of coarse sea salt, the julienned carrots, parsley, and lastly drizzled sesame oil atop it. Now she added her rice to the second pot of water, covering it.
She juiced her lemons whisking in sugar until incorporated. In this bowl she combined her chopped tomatoes, finely diced chili peppers, pink citrus, and thick slices of avocado mixing the combination gently, then added the thin slices of flounder and put this on another section of the tray. She then strained the simmering water of fish and crustacean bones, saving the crab legs which now cooked, she extracted every bit of meat from with a rolling pin and returned the stock to the stove adding garlic, some of the onions, the whites of the green onions, salt and pepper, sesame oil, and a bit of white wine, as well as the cod and small amount of mussels she had been left with.
Leith took a long sip of the scotch, realizing like Ozias had said no new orders had come in and now most of the kitchen was simply watching her, though there was still tittering around the Orkhan, there was a hushed quality to it. Wooden bowls came out of the cabinets and she piled them on one side of the tray, delicately arranged the very thin slices of salmon to form flowers of a sort near the flounder salad, garnishing with a bit of leftover parsley, and setting the pickled ginger next to it. She then used the rest of the pink citrus fruit, crab legs, and cucumbers to make another fresh salad, mixing in a bit of lemon juice and white wine, arranging this opposite the flounder salad.
By this time the rice was nice and fluffy, having absorbed all the water. Leith took the pot off the stove, fluffed it and began spooning it into half of the bowls. Several bits she shaped with her hands, taking segments of salmon and fitting them over the ovals of rice and laying these in their own section. On top of the rice in the bowls went the cubes of salmon, and the remainder of the avocado which she mixed into a paste with the rest of the red onions, covered in a dressing of sesame oil and soy. She set this tray in front of Ozias and most of the kitchen including some cleaning staff that had come in at this point, held up a finger. Then arrayed the rest of the bowls around the tray and returned to her own version of a seafood stew, taking the pot off the burner and ladling the concoction into each bowl, white chunk of cod bursting to the surface, and making sure each bowl had at least one mussel that had split open to reveal its yellow orange innards. Stepping back she opened her arms. “Eat up everyone.” And after an awkward pause and more staring, Ozias let out a barking laugh and started clapping, everyone joined in, and Leith felt a bit of heat rise to her face. “Don’t clap until you’ve tasted it.” She said in a low voice, but the cooks and wait staff alike were already digging in. Leith feeling uncharacteristically nervous about how the Kinousa would be received, went to retrieve the rest of her scotch, taking another long swig to finish it off.
Murmurs of approval radiated outward. Compliments of the light citrus in the salads, the quality of the salmon, and the broth with the cod and mussels. Ozias had grabbed one of the bowls of rice and fish, and was using a fork to try each bit of the tray, holding it over his bowl and chewing thoughtfully, before moving to the next. He didn’t finish his bowl, merely came over to Leith, took her empty glass and disappeared. Then he reappeared having re-filled it with the scotch, the bowl also empty as he picked up one of the ones filled with broth and began sipping appreciatively.
“Like I said, points off for the salmon, which was a lot of this, but this was dinner and a show, Rathari. Almost all raw as well, something I don’t take to in this business.”
Leith gave a small nod. “Thank you, sir, it means a lot.”
The Orkhan gave her a sidelong glance. “And this is what you want to sell in the city, aye, make a name for yourself?”
“More than anything, sir.” Leith said, and Ozias cuffed her on the shoulder.
“Enough of the sir, don’t pretend you were about to try and rip me a new asshole before I asked you to do this, Ozias is fine.”
“Of course, Ozias, sir.” She said with a heaping of snark, taking a sip of the Scotch. The Orkhan snorted.
“Well, Seal, how about you make these dishes for the Hen?”
“Make, for the Hen?”
He nodded. “As specials on our chalk board. Only on the nights like this, slow like, you can’t use Gremor or any of the cooks to help you, only what you can handle, and it can’t get in the way of any of the usual meals, but this will liven up the menu on nights you’re here. How about it?”
Leith finished the second scotch, the warmth spreading through her and nodded a bit to hard and fast, causing Ozias to snort again. “Alright Leith, see you next shift, and look forward to what you make.”
It was with a light head and heart that the Rathari made her way after a third scotch back down to the docks, knowing that she had scratched the surface of her goals in Kalzasi that night.
Generally, you can do 10-20% increase for luxury foods like that.