NOVEL NEXT Chapter 45: His Favorite Dish
Noir was in the kitchen right away and was straight to cooking, not having to worry too much about his other tables since they were in the middle of eating.
After washing his hands thoroughly, he grabbed his ingredients: a yellow squash, a zucchini, an eggplant, some salami and prosciutto, a jar of homemade tomato sauce that the kitchen stored up, ricotta cheese, a small white onion, and two garlic cloves.
He was making his favorite dish, ratatouille, with a bit of a twist. After preheating the oven, he got one of the larger, cast-iron skillets, and placed it on the counter in front of him. First, he grabbed the jar of tomato sauce, unscrewed the lid, sniffing at it to make sure it was fresh, before pouring it evenly across the bottom of the pan.
Pulling a knife from the holder up along the wall, having to reach past a cook or two with a small 'pardon me!' each time, he moved the skillet to the side for a moment and replaced it with a fine, wooden chopping board. Noir crushed the gloves of garlic underneath the flat side of the knife's blade before going in and mincing it finely, making sure to remove the skins.
After that, scraping the garlic to the side for a moment, the cook placed the onion onto the board. Stripping it of its flaky outside, he cut it straight down the middle, in half, before laying the pieces on its sides and dicing up each of them. Picking up the cutting board, he grabbed handfuls of both the garlic and onion and sprinkled it over the tomato sauce in the skillet.
After making sure the knife from before was cleaned off, plus the vegetables, he got to work on the main part, probably his favorite. Taking the eggplant first, its odd shape making it a bit harder to cut, he placed it on the cutting board, cut off the ends, and stared at it idly, placing the knife's edge on the top of it.
After a moment of debating, he finally started to cut the eggplant into slices. Absolutely perfect slices.
Each one was the exact same being 1/8 of an inch thick.
He was perfectly skilled enough to measure the needed length and just go with it without having to properly measure. Noir did the exact same thing with both the zucchini and the squash, cutting them all into perfect, even slices. In fact, he did the same thing with the prosciutto and the salami.
Typically, ratatouille was made with tomato slices, zucchini, squash, and sometimes eggplant, but this is where the twist came in.
Replacing the tomatoes with some meat made for an excellent dish. It was made even better with the fact these were fresh vegetables and everything, adding to the wonderfulness of this simple yet beautiful and delicious meal. After finishing up all of that slicing, he placed each of the slices (in the order of prosciutto, eggplant, squash, salami, and zucchini) neatly in a stunning ring of color.
Hearing the oven go off just in time, Noir grabbed the skillet by the handle, opened the oven door with the other hand, and slipped it in, leaving it to bake. In the meantime, he would go around, helping make the other dish orders he had sent out plus just other tables meals, often giving a few tips here and there like adding more salt or arranging the dish a certain way for presentation.
Noir made his loop back to the oven eventually, grabbing two plates for the ratatouille. He opened the oven, feeling the wave and rush of heat coming across his face, before getting a cloth to protect his hand as he pulled the skillet from the oven, placing it on top of the stove top so it wouldn't burn the counter.
Placing the two plates down, he grabbed a spoon from one of the drawers for silverware and dipped it in some of the tomato sauce before making a curved, smeared design with it on each of the plates. Noir took the same spoon, scooped up the slices of yumminess, and placed the serving diagonally across the plates.
Taking another few scoops of the sauce from the skillet, he drizzled it across the ratatouille so it wasn't dry and simply just veggies and meat as the customers would eat it. The cook picked up the ricotta cheese from before, took the spoon (after assuring it was cleaned off to not cross contaminate), and scooped it up before placing small dollops along the meal.
He reached over to one of the refrigerators after that next, putting up what he didn't use, and pulled out the herb thyme. It didn't take him long to mince that up either, sprinkle it over the dishes as some garnish, and pick up both of the plates before putting them onto a bar tray.
He grabbed the Alfredo and the Frutti de Mare, placing them alongside the ratatouille, before picking up the tray carefully. Making sure to grab a stand for the food so he could serve it out without dropping the tray, he headed back outside to the crew's table.
"Lunch is served!" Noir announced as he came up to the table, flicking out the tray stand before placing down the bar tray, first, picking up the plates of pasta.
"First, the chicken alfredo for the man over here!" He said as he slid the plate over to Kirk, earning an astonished look from the Fishman.
"Theeen the Frutti de Mare for the beauty beside him." He said smoothly as he placed the plate down in front of Jeanne.
"Last but not least, for the both of you here, the Sous Chef's favorite. Ratatouille with a twist!" He placed both of the corresponding plates in front of Leroy and Kale. "I hope you enjoy it!"