Back in Japan, it was customary to stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve, awake until the clock struck twelve, marking the transition into New Year’s Day.
However, here, where the concept of ‘midnight’ and a change of date at exactly twelve doesn’t really exist, it feels unnecessary to follow that tradition. Mint can’t stay up that late anyway. So, after exchanging our end-of-year greetings, everyone went to bed as usual, and we all woke up to the first morning of the new year—just like any other day.
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There’s hardly any of last night’s feast left over. At most, the only thing remaining is the pre-made sauerkraut. So, I decided to make a New Year’s meal that would have a different feeling from New Year’s Eve.
In other words, something resembling osechi cuisine.
I can’t make the traditional tiered lacquered box filled with dishes, but there are a few items I can manage with the ingredients available here. Even if it’s just individual dishes, I thought it’d be nice to set the mood.
I planned to make three dishes: glazed shrimp, datemaki, and kurikinton.
「Alright, let’s do this.」
It was early morning.
Still dark outside, I stood alone in the kitchen, ready to start cooking.
First, the glazed shrimp. I had some left over from the bouillabaisse I made yesterday. They were kept fresh in sawdust, and their quality was still excellent. The shrimp, caught in the Dragon’s Village, closely resembled kuruma shrimp from Earth in both size and shape, with a similar taste.
Their whiskers, heads, and legs were a bit spikier than their Earth counterparts. So, I iced them and cut off the sharp parts before deveining them—just like I had done for the bouillabaisse yesterday.
The process changed from here.
I curved the shrimp into a rounded shape and secured them with toothpicks. Next, I boiled a mix of kombu dashi, sake, mirin, and soy sauce, adding the shrimp and letting them simmer gently. Once they were cooked, I quickly cooled the entire pot in ice water to prevent them from becoming tough. After the shrimp cooled, I removed them from the pot, boiled down the remaining sauce, and coated the shrimp with it to give them a nice glaze.
Next, the datemaki.
The ingredients are eggs and fish paste.
Back on Earth, I used to take the shortcut of using hanpen, but there’s no hanpen in this world. So I substituted it with white fish paste, making it more authentic in the end.
I mixed the fish paste and eggs together, added the dashi from earlier and some honey for flavor, then strained the mixture. After that, I steamed it in a frying pan, shaped it into a rectangle, and used a bamboo mat to roll it into the familiar swirl shape before slicing it.
「I’m glad I made that bamboo mat.」
Naturally, they weren’t sold in this world, so I crafted one myself from wooden slats and string in between splitting firewood, all driven by my desire to someday make sushi rolls. Ironically, the datemaki ended up making use of it first. Although it’s not as zigzagged as the traditional datemaki, I’ll accept that for now.
「Bark!」
「Oh, good morning, Chocola. You’re up early.」
「Kuun.」
About an hour after I had started, Chocola came into the living room. He can open doors by himself now, including the front door and sliding glass doors… I sometimes wonder if he secretly transforms into a human when no one’s looking.
「I’m still cooking, so you’ll have breakfast once everyone else is up.」
「Bark!」
Alright, the final dish—kurikinton.
For me, it’s part of the osechi menu, but I imagine the others will see it as more of a dessert.
First, I make a sweet syrup for the chestnuts. We gathered plenty of chestnuts from the forest up until last month, and I stored them for this purpose. They’re a slightly different variety from Japanese chestnuts, but they should work just fine.
With the chestnuts out of their shells, I peeled away the tough outer skin by hand and carefully removed the inner skin with a knife. Thanks to the help of Kannagi, these kinds of tasks go incredibly smoothly. The knife’s edge slices with precision, moving exactly as I want it to.
Once the chestnuts were peeled, I rinsed them under water, then parboiled them. Afterward, I simmered them in sugar water with a drop lid to reduce, creating a sweet glaze.
Now it was time for the kinton part of the kurikinton. This was where the sweet potatoes from our garden would come in.
From early autumn onwards, we managed to grow quite a lot, so much that even after setting aside enough for next year’s planting, there’s plenty left for different recipes. I’m even thinking about making daigaku-imo sometime.
I sliced the sweet potatoes into rounds and peeled them. Since the kinton needs to be smooth and soft, I avoided the tougher parts near the skin, peeling it a bit thicker than usual. After peeling, I washed the slices to remove excess starch.
Next, I boiled them in a large pot of water. Ideally, I’d use kuchinashi seeds to brighten the color, but I couldn’t get my hands on any this time. Oh well, it can’t be helped.
After boiling, I strained the sweet potatoes. Incidentally, I had several different strainers on hand—some given to me by father, and others that I bought or had made here. For this batch, I used a strainer that was finer than the one I used for the datemaki. It was a high-quality one, made with the mane of a bicorn—a fearsome two-horned beast we had once hunted, and whose material I now used for the strainer.
「It feels like the hunting life, doesn’t it?」
「Bark…?」
Thanks to the fine bicorn hair, the sweet potatoes turned into a smooth paste. I placed it in a pot with sugar, and as it mixed evenly, I added mirin, the syrup from the chestnuts, and a pinch of salt to enhance the sweetness. Then, over low heat, I stirred the mixture carefully to prevent it from burning.
The kitchen filled with a sweet, rich aroma, while Chocola, possibly sulking from the lack of attention, curled up on the sofa.
「I can’t help it, I’m busy right now…」
「Fuaa… fss…」
With Chocola yawning lazily behind me, I continued stirring the sweet potato paste. Once the graininess of the sugar disappeared and the texture became just right, I added the chestnuts, allowing their flavors to meld together over gentle heat. Finally, I plated the dish, flattening it slightly, and let it cool.
That was it for the osechi. Now, I still had to prepare everyone’s breakfast.
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「Good morning, Sui-kun. It smells wonderful.」
「Good morning. Thank you for always cooking for us so early, Sui.」
「Yaaawn…hmm… Good morning…」
Mother, Grandma, and Karen had all woken up and made their way to the living room.
Karen, still rubbing her sleepy eyes, was gently scolded by mother to go wash her face, while grandma began preparing tea for everyone. Mother sat on the sofa, softly petting Chocola, who had leapt into her lap.
「Good morning! I’m up!」
Finally, Mint burst into the room from the entrance with her usual energy, and at that exact moment, I finished making breakfast.
As I took off my apron and walked over to the table in the living room, I thought about something.
It seems this world doesn’t have the tradition of greeting the New Year.
And this isn’t Japan, so there’s no need to force it.
But still…
Today is the start of a new year, and just saying ‘good morning’ feels a bit off.
So, standing before my family—Karen, mother, grandma, Mint, Chocola, and even imagining Pochi in the stables—I took a moment to compose myself.
「Happy New Year. Let’s make this another great year together.」
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