Night 39: Nian, Benben Fowl (Chicken)
The Late Night Diner is a part of Rhodes Island's canteen. That goes without saying – to whom had anyone ever heard of a diner in the boiler room?
As the name implies, it opens around midnight. There are only a handful of customers at a time.
Operators off their night shift could take an order and bring back to their quarters. Night owls could sit dining-in while leeching off the Diner's wi-fi. The Doctor would come for instant noodles from time to time.
Drinks are in the cooler. Anyone burdened by their own thoughts could take one and chug it down, anytime.
Menu? No such thing exists. What the Chef prepares is what you get. It all depends on his mood of the day.
Welcome to the Rhodes Island Late Night Diner. In here, you might even meet a familiar face or two.
Being a fragment of Sui the Sui Regulator of Yan was keeping a close eye on, Nian had been quite easy-going. Even she was somewhat of a deadbeat, she was surprisingly reliable when it came to projects from the Engineering Department. Other than the complex and masterly crafted weapons and equipment she had designed, Nian even made a wok for the Chef of the Late Night Diner which, after some testing from the Engineering, was proved to be sturdy enough to withstand a hit from Londinium's secondary defence cannon.
Although...the moment she had left her post, Nian could only be described by three titles known to most of the Rhodes Island operators – "Wandering Freeloader", "Party Blackhole", and "The Terminator of Efficiency".
"You could only do your best when you are happy and relaxed. If one go hammering the iron with an irate head full of complaints, then what they make are as good as garbage scraps. And you guys just have so many card rooms and arcades on your ship and someone needs to test them out. Come along now, let's go get a game of mahjong going!" So says Nian whenever she heard someone complained about her work ethics.
Still, the Chef refrained from passing down his judgement. He's a cook, and what she did could hardly affect a cook's work. Besides he was still using that wok Nian made for him. Yet when this evening he saw Nian barging into the kitchen with a small cart full of dried chilli peppers big and small, he sighed and realised that he had, after all, become one of the many whose work efficiency was about to be terminated by her.
"What do you want?! Get that stuff in your hands away from my stove! You know what, get it out of the kitchen!" The Chef, holding a steel spatula in one hand and a large kitchen knife in another, watched a grinning Nian like she was his arch-nemesis. "Didn't you remember that sack of 'facing heaven' pepper you brought in last time made everyone on the ship ran for bathrooms for three days! From the Doctor to the boiler room guy! Three. Whole. Days!"
"Hey, you know it got nothing to do with me. They just can't take spice in their food." Nian stood nonchalantly with her hands on her hip. "Listen, spice is away of life. Once you tasted a little pleasant pain and feel that explosion of heat on your tongue, then experience that good burn flow through your body, you'd be in the right mood to bring the best out of yourself with the greatest energy and passion! Even the hardest mission in the world would –"
The Chef slowly raised the kitchen knife.
"Oh what are you – alright, alright. These peppers were for me and me alone. I just wanted to ask a favour for an evening meal. No one else needs to worry about them in their food." Nian said while pushing his raised arm with the large knife down. "No need to be angry, honestly. Bad for your health, you can get pimples and sores on your face for being too angry...anyway, how about some benben fowl?"
The Chef looked at Nian, then looked to the wok on the stove, and reluctantly nodded. Benben fowl was a dish from Shangshu region of Yan. It was easy to make, maximizing the original flavour of the ingredients while having an unparlleled spiciness at the same time. Though tonight he could tell that Nian only cared about the spiciness part of the dish. If he wanted to satisfy this rare guest of his, he had to make the hot chilli sauce in red oil from scratch.
Still, the quality of the dried peppers Nian brought was the crème de la crème. Every single one was red and shiny, even picking them out of the sack would make one's hand feel the burn. The Chef took "facing heaven" pepper, er-jing-tiao pepper and spicy lantern pepper, rinsed lightly under the tap and mixed them together in certain portions. He then poured them into the wok and started stir-frying them. When the entire kitchen was enveloped in the spicy aroma, he added in quality Yan peppercorn. The pepper mix was fried till they were crisp and crunchy, then add in a handful of sesame seeds and stirred from a few rounds. Afterwards he just needed to put them in a mortar and –
"Hold up boss." Nian stopped him before he could pour out the peppers. "This is barely enough. Add some more."
"Tsk..." The boss reluctantly dropped in more er-jing-tiao into the wok. The dried pepper pods sizzled inside the hot wok, and the golden seeds leaped out and onto the stove. Yet Nian leaned in closer and fanned at the smoke, took a whiff then shook her head. "Not good. A bit more please!"
"*South-western Yan tribal swearing*, still want more? Is that really a stomach inside your body or what? I can't even keep my eyes open." The Chef said, then put on a pair of thick cotton gloves. He took out a handful of roundish red pepper with slightly pointy end from a bag with a flame emblem on it. He threw them into the wok. Those were the pepper from a small border nation at the south-eastern edge of the known Terra. It had an ominous name –"reaper". It was said the locals planted them on the outskirts of their farmlands to ward off aggressive tuskbeasts. It was also said that Victorian and Columbian military had them bought en-mass, and made the extract into prototype tear gas grenades that could easily disperse the crowds. These "reaper" peppers scored one million on the famed Scoville scale, meaning a unit of the juice would require a million times more sugar water of the same amount to dilute its spiciness. In comparison, even the "facing heaven" pepper that could deter most of the operators on board could only score forty thousand on Scoville scale.
"My body burns at over 1400 degrees! What could mere chilli peppers do to me?" Nian said smacking her lips. "Other than that good little brother of mine, anyone that could make me even taste spiciness in food had not been born. More peppers, more!"
The Chef was furious. There was only one flavour left in the kitchen and it was spiciness. All the stew, all the salad, and all the sweet pastries he spent all those time on were completely ruined. All the food items inside the display cabinet had been stained by the spiciness of the peppers, and that meant nobody would dare to visit the Diner tonight. Barely holding down his anger and the urge of driving Nian immediately out of the kitchen, the Chef put on a pair of thick mittens and opened the smallest bag with skull-and-crossbones on it.
The chilli peppers in the bag were tiny. They were all dried up and looked wrinkly. One could mistaken them for dried berries if not examining carefully. Yet anyone with a working sense of smell would not make that mistake – these little peppers could make one feel burning sensation inside their nose just by smell alone. They were cultivated by the botanist scholars and farmers of Victoria. They scored a terrifying two and half million on the Scoville scale, and required fully enclosed containers when putting on display at agriculture conventions.
Their creator gave them an artistic yet fearsome name – "draco's breath"
Even with the gloves and mittens, the Chef could still feel the heat emanating from these peppers. If some poor shmuck took only a lick of one, their tongue would be numbed within ten seconds, then the capsaicin would bypass the epithelial cells and stimulate nerve endings underneath, and blisters would start forming. If they were brave or foolish enough to eat one, their throat would blister also, and could even have their oesophagus burnt and trigger a severe allergic reaction, closing their wind pipe and endangering their life. Yet when facing with a big handful of these weapon-grade peppers, Nian simply curled her lips and said. "Looks like this is as spicy as it goes. Good enough for now."
Before they could even turn the corner, operators off their night shifts and heading towards the Diner to refuel all caught the pungent scent of chilli peppers in the hallway. And when they moved closer and saw through the kitchen window that the inside was submerged in white-grey smoke and saw the shrouded visage of that white-haired deity, the spiciness in the air was thick enough to give one chemical burns. Everyone turned around in unison, started sprinting and turned the ventilation along the way to the max. Finally as a few reached safety, they took out their tablets and posted on the ship-wide web forum. They even messaged Dr. Kal'tsit directly.
Nian brought chilli peppers to the Diner again for her weapon of mass destruction! Please Dr. Kal'tsit, please protect us from this menace and save our lungs and stomach!
"Not bad, not bad at all. You can keep on cooking with just lab goggles and medical mask. I thought you ought to have an entire set of HAZMAT suit and gas mask put on for now. Ey, the vegetables are done already. When can I have my chilli sauce?" Nian looked towards the Chef. She took out the skewers of cauliflower chunks, lettuce stem slices, sliced potatoes and lotus roots from a boiling pot on another stove and left them to dry on a plate.
"You should count yourself lucky that there is still a cook that could put up with your taste on the ship. Otherwise you're gonna starve." The Chef took a ladle-full of simmering canola oil from a small pot on the stove and splashed into a large porcelain bowl with the stir-fried and freshly crushed pepper bits. In an instant the hot oil brought out the aggressive yet enticing aroma of the chilli peppers. A series of sizzling came out from the bowl, with it the declaration that Nian's weapon concoction had nearly reached its fruition. When it cooled down slightly the Chef splashed two more ladles of oil in quick successions. At this point the pepper bits had given up all of the pleasant aroma held within, and the golden seeds were coloured crimson red. By the end, the Chef sprinkled in a handful of sesame seeds, and dripped in a few drops of Yan spirit. Then he put a lid on the bowl for the flavor of the chilli to fully spread into the red coloured oil. Thus a bowl of bright red and fearsome Shangshu hot chilli sauce was made.
Fowlbeast gizzards, hearts and feet were cleaned, boiled and put into a small pot of salty and savoury white broth the Chef had prepared beforehand with the vegetable skewers. Just as he was ready to pour in a ladle of the chilli sauce, Nian grabbed the ladle from his hand and dumped the entire bowl into the pot. The broth was coloured brilliant red, and almost overflowed out of the edge. Satisfied with her handiwork, Nian fished out a fowlbeast feet soaked with broth and chilli sauce with a pair of chopsticks and sent it toward her opening mouth.
The Chef knew he wouldn't have a chance to get any feedback from this mythical being before him. He just glanced at his tablet – the message on the forum had suggested that Dr. Kal'tsit was on her way, with her the fully geared and fully armed S.W.E.E.P team.