How to eat pineapple buns on the immigration ship

Chapter 279 Toast in the Oven

After confirming the condition of the six dough balls, Kagawa decisively chose to proceed to the next step—the first fermentation!
When the five people learned that after waiting for half an hour they would have to wait another two hours, their eyes widened as big as saucers.

Kagawa gave a cold laugh.

"You think making bread is simple? Bread and cakes are pastries with thousands of years of history, just like steamed buns and dumplings, so there are all sorts of ways to make them. And this is only the first fermentation; it will ferment again after shaping and molding."

Ouyang Yating and the others looked at each other in bewilderment.

"People in ancient times...they really knew how to make things complicated!" a modern teenager, whose culinary culture is quite limited, thought to himself.
-
After all this back and forth, they had to go eat lunch before the first fermentation was even over.

The dining table in the Xiang family's dining room is quite large, but there are still too many people (35 students) in Class 8 of the first year of high school. So, class monitor Lu Daiqing took the initiative to decide – let's just eat in the courtyard!

The courtyard is not only spacious, but also has special glass for sunshade and air conditioning, making it suitable for more than thirty people to dine together.

Although the dining location was decided quite quickly, the students in Class 8 of Grade 11 were extremely conflicted when it came to choosing their meals.

The main reason is that the recipes at the Xiang family's house can be considered the most comprehensive ancient cuisine menu in the entire fleet. Moreover, since many important figures have come to the Xiang family's house to "free-meal" in recent months because of their interest in ancient cuisine, agriculture, and history, Xiang Weiguo even asked Daxing to help re-format and categorize the recipes according to the style of Yuexiang Restaurant. This makes them easier to read and, with the addition of pictures and images, makes them even more appetizing.

Since we're already here, we should choose some dishes that we don't usually get to eat and that seem to have plenty of ingredients!
At this moment, the thoughts of the students in Class 8 of Grade 11 reached a high degree of consensus.

So when it was twelve o'clock, the temporary dining table in the courtyard of the Xiang family was piled high with plate after plate of tofu!
In the end, Kagawa overruled everyone's objections and had Daisei quickly stir-fry some chicken or beef for everyone.

"You should eat meat when you're growing! Don't ask why!"

As he spoke, Kagawa took a big bite of the steak that was cooked to medium-rare.

Although no one knew why Kagawa suddenly lost her temper, since she had already made the arrangements, they decided to follow the host's instructions.
When it comes to meals, Class 8 of Grade 11 has begun to blindly follow Kagawa's instructions.

Kagawa: ...I was thinking that going completely vegetarian would be too stingy, but looking at how silly these kids look, I guess I'll have to take advantage of them a little.

When I was little, my mother told me that tofu was good for the brain.
-
Fortunately, although the young people in Class 8 of Grade 1 were a bit clueless about food, the conversation naturally turned to last night's "A Bite of China" after dinner.

Kagawa slurped up a mouthful of noodles.

The discussion about "A Bite of China" had already gone on quite a bit at the dinner table this morning, and she had also seen it discussed wildly on 21st-century social media when it first aired, so she was already a bit tired of hearing about it.

However, both the ecological environment of the Earth in the 21st century and the traditional Chinese cuisine have a fatal attraction for modern people, so Kagawa did not stop these chattering discussions.

But as we were talking, how did the topic suddenly shift from ham to bread?
"...Since pork thighs can be made into ham by coating them with salt, can your bread be made into a special type using a similar method?"

"Coating the entire surface with salt is too salty. If steamed buns can absorb so much soup, wouldn't it be even more effective to use flour instead?"

"How about chili powder? Pepper?"

"...Why not consider regular white sugar? Since you can stuff white sugar directly into steamed buns as filling, you can use a similar method for bread."

"Should we add some meat or vegetables?"

……

Kagawa put on gloves, picked up the stir-fried chicken leg from the bowl, and started gnawing on it. It has to be said that after the baptism of steamed buns, the students in Class 8 of the first year of high school have gradually become more aligned with the 21st century in their approach to food seasoning.

At least no one would think of stuffing garlic or ginger into bread, even though she quite liked garlic bread.

"Kagawa, what do you think?"

As the discussion was drawing to a close, class monitor Lu Daiqing suddenly turned the topic to her.

"They all said it very well."

Kagawa patted her slightly full stomach and looked at the group of people who were watching her with great interest.

“Some of our ideas are correct, such as adding sugar and milk. We added milk this time, and adding more can enhance the flavor. However, chili peppers and black pepper are generally not used as the main seasonings. They are only considered for pranks. If we make it into minced meat, we can add some to enhance the flavor.”

"What about salt? Don't we need to add salt?" Qiu Manman asked, puzzled.

"It's rare to make bread without salt during the dough-making stage, as salt directly affects the dough's consistency. So even the round loaves we make in the morning are already seasoned with salt, but the aroma of the flour masks it since they've just been baked. However, this doesn't mean the salt has disappeared."

Kagawa pointed to his mouth.

"After eating round bread, your mouth will feel dry, not only because the flour itself has lost its moisture, but also because our bodies become dehydrated after eating too much salt."

"As for savory bread, we estimate that we can't make most of it at this stage. However, if we can make toast, we can try savory toast or something similar. We'll consider the others when we've sorted out the pork."

The implication is that savory bread cannot be made without pork.

However, these words satisfied the students of Class 8, Grade 1. At least they learned that there was a lot to be done with the seasoning of bread, which excited them greatly.
-
in the afternoon.

After the fermented dough was divided by Kagawa, it was shaped and placed into molds.

Toast molds are generally divided into two types: with lids and without lids. The square toast that Kagawa often buys from chain stores near her company or rented house in the 21st century is the type with a lid, while she has seen the lidless type more often online or in European and American TV series.

This time, she looked it up and found that the two types of bread also differ in their intended use. The square toast with a lid is more suitable for making sandwiches or eating directly, while the uncovered type is usually served with jam and butter.

So this time, Kagawa took a clean break and made all the toasts with lids.

She's barely touched her under-eye makeup, let alone made jam. Making apple jam occasionally uses up almost half her fruit stock, with even more going towards fruit milk and other desserts. Although the production support ship is currently working on shortening the growth time of grafted fruit trees, if she doesn't conserve her resources, she's afraid she won't even have enough fruit milk to drink.

From the time the dough was divided and relaxed to the end of the second fermentation, it took about an hour and a half. By the time Daxing had almost served afternoon tea (which had no tea left), she hurriedly had Aino and Liangong put the toast box into the oven.

She now understands why the cooking vloggers she used to watch often made all sorts of breads but were too lazy to make toast.

Tired!

For everyday consumables like these, it's probably the most time-saving and labor-efficient way to have them mass-produced by the food industry.

In my experience, spicy bread is more often curry bread? I've never actually seen bread with chili sauce or chili powder added directly.