fandomhigh | How to Survive Your Own Cooking [Class 2]

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How to Survive Your Own Cooking [Class 2]

"Today," Lulu began, after the class had come into the home ec room, "as it says on your syllabus, we're going to be studying breakfast foods. As it's still fairly early in the class, we'll focus on more basic foods -- if you'd like more advanced recipes, or even some extra instruction, feel free to see me after class and we can discuss it.

"One of the most basic breakfast foods is cold cereal -- generally, in this world at least, you buy it boxed, and simply add milk, potentially some form of sweetener, occasionally sliced fruit such as berries or bananas, or even eat it as is, straight from the box. Unfortunately for you all, you're not getting away with that today. If you'd like, you can attempt to make your own, but that's not required for today's class.

"One of the staples of breakfast -- although, indeed, it is a great food for any time, including snacks -- is the scrambled egg." Lulu demonstrated proper whisking behaviour, then took her students through the process of cooking the eggs so that they'd be able to recognise when their own were finished.

"Breakfast wouldn't be complete without bacon and toast," Lulu continued. "I will add that I added the toast 'recipe' today," and you could hear the airquotes, "because it amused me greatly -- but do try to follow it as best you can. It is helpful, for all that it seems to be frivolous.

"Your assignment today is to make a complete breakfast -- cereal, eggs, bacon, and toast. If you prefer not to make the homemade cereal, you may used boxed cereal, but everything else requires preparation.

"All of the recipes you need are at your stations. Pair up -- in different pairs than last week -- and cook away! Everything you need is available either in your stations, except for ingredients if you wish to make the cereal, or if you wish to make a variation on the scrambled eggs; for those, you can find the ~~moddable~~ ingredients here at the front of the class."

Lulu smiled. "As a drink, I recommend apple or orange juice, as they will help round out the meal. Coffee and hot chocolate, however, are also provided. You can find the drinks at the front of the room as well." She paused. "Feel free to drink them during the class as well."

[OCD ~~will be up in a few~~ is up! I'm hungry now.]

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After their near disaster (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/1655346.html?thread=101029682#t101029682) with making toast, for some reason it struck them as a good idea to try making bacon. This was probably a really bad idea.

"So," Makoto said, looking at the stove, "how high do you think this should be turned up to start with?"

"Hotter means faster, right?" Cassandra asked as she looked around the cooking station.

"That doesn't seem to work so well for toast," Makoto pointed out, "maybe it'd work better with bacon though?"

"Well, if things start smoking we can just unplug it... right?" Assuming it wasn't a gas stove, at least.

"That's true," he admitted, leaning over to fiddle with one of the knobs, "so, up pretty high do you think?" He currently had it just below max.

"We can always turn it down later if it doesn't work, right?" Cassandra examined the other gear at the station. "How do we do this again?" Did the bacon need to be sliced? Wasn't this pan used somehow?

"And what's this used for?" He wondered, holding up the syrup. Makoto shook his head, long blonde hair flying everywhere for a moment, "Slicing it would be quicker, right? That way it's more separate."

"Good point." Cassandra peeled off one of the slices of bacon and grabbed a knife. "How small do you think we should make the pieces?" she asked, already cutting.

"Pretty small I'd think," Makoto said, lifting up the pan, "if we're going for quickest time ever for cooking bacon." This somehow sounded like a good idea to him.

Cassandra nodded, "Yeah, you're probably right." At least she really did know how to use the knife, so cutting a few bacon strips into pieces the size of her fingernail took less than a minute.

"Now what?"

"You're really fast," Makoto observed, while placing the pan on the stove, "I guess we just add the bacon and hope for the best? And if it starts to smell burnt turn the stove off."

"Lots of practice," she explained as she scooped up the bacon with the edge of the knife. "Um... that sounds right to me," she added as she slid the bacon into a pile in the center of the pan.

"Should we add any syrup?" He wondered, as the bacon started to sizzle, "Maybe it's for extra taste. What to try it anyway?"

"It couldn't hurt, right?"

Makoto eyed the bottle thoughtfully. "More is better, right?" He asked, then without waiting for an answer he poured a good half of the bottle onto the bacon. ~~That poor bacon...~~

The sugar in the syrup begins to caramelize on the heat almost immediately. This leads, predictably, to smoke. Very sweet smelling smoke.

"Oh, that smells pretty good!"

"Much better than burning," he grinned, "maybe we're getting the hang of it!"

"I think so," Cassandra agreed as she watched the bacon floating around in the rapidly-caramelizing pool of syrup. "Does the smell mean it's done, do you think?"

"Maybe wait a few more minutes?" Makoto suggested, eyeing the pan, "It started smelling good the moment we added the syrup so I'm not sure the bacon is cooked yet."

"Oh, okay." The pan was watched impatiently.

"How will we know when it's done?"

"Well, uh," Makoto had no idea, "has it gone black yet? Because that'd mean it's burnt. But almost black was a good thing for toast, so maybe it's a good thing for bacon too?"

"That makes sense," Cassandra nodded sagely as she peered at the bacon. "It's sort of hard to see what color it is through the syrup though..."

Makoto looked around for something that might help. He found a spatula. "Maybe we can flip it over?"

"Oh, good idea!" Taking the offered spatula Cassandra shoves it under the hardening mass of syrup to flip it all over. It's surprisingly hard to get all that sticky gunk to peel away from the pan. That's probably because they forgot to grease it with anything.

Still, eventually she manages it and reveals a blackened crust of syrup, "Is it supposed to do that?"

Makoto poked at it with the tip of the knife Cassandra had used to slice the bacon. "That doesn't look like any bacon I've ever seen," he admitted, after a few minutes, "I'm not sure where it went wrong though."

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