Chapter 54 – How to Make Use of Water-Glassed Eggs
Sister Geenia and Sister Lucy had discovered several barrels of water-glassed eggs in the storeroom while checking the food supplies. They had been hidden among pumpkins and sacks of beans, all tucked beneath layers of donated leather. The clergy worked with large quantities of papers, and after binding their own books, they often trimmed leather themselves to make covers rather than commissioning a bookbinder.
“Fortunately it’s all food that can be stored for a long period of time,” Sister Geenia said with a relieved sigh as Jade helped her carry the barrels into the kitchen. “I would hate to let anything spoil – that would be most improper for a cook!”
At last, Jade had the chance to examine the eggs preserved in this unfamiliar solution.
The liquid was faintly cloudy, with a milky-white tint. Sister Geenia assured her that this was normal. “If it smells unpleasant, or turns yellowish or grey, then it has spoiled.”
Sister Lucy poured the liquid into a bucket and rinsed the eggs with fresh water. Jade watched curiously. “Are we going to reuse the pickling water?”
“Of course not!” Sister Geenia replied at once. “It would ruin the eggs!”
“A one-time use solution?” Jade glanced at the bucket of wastewater. “Sounds a bit wasteful if it can’t be reused."
“We usually splash it along shaded walls,” Sister Lucy said with a small smile, her voice as soft and gentle as ever. “It helps kill the mold and moss.”
“And it makes the refuse heap smell less,” Sister Geenia added, transferring the eggs into a basket.
The refuse heap Sister Geenia referred to was not a general dumpsite, but the composting area at the edge of the domus farm. Before Lord Ashborne funded the drainage system and the wastewater retention pond – which Jade assumed existed, though she wasn’t sure how worked and where it was – all compostable waste, including the wastewater produced by the domus, had been collected and emptied there.
It was, quite frankly, foul.
The pit was layered: soil, then waste, then soil again, gradually building up until it was filled and covered with topsoil to hinder the odour – though this was somewhat unsuccessful, as it could still be smelled from afar. Usually, the layering process took roughly a year, but that was before the school was founded.
Now, with the domus feeding more students, the pit had been expanded. Brother Aaron, the monk who oversaw the farm, was still experimenting with its size and the time required for proper decomposition.
Anyway. When the stench became unbearable, the monks would pour in alkaline substances to neutralise the smell. The exact materials depended on whatever donations were available, and, at times, on the domus’s budget.
Now, Jade suspected that much of that “alkaline” came from these discarded pickling water, whether from donations or from excess collected from nearby farms.
She did not fully understand the composting process, nor how such alkaline waste might affect it – whether it would alter the pH or kill whatever microbes were responsible for decomposition. But if it had been working so far, and the crops showed no signs of damage, she decided to keep her uncertainty to herself.
Instead, she turned to Sister Geenia. “So, I need to come up with something to do with these eggs, or else you’ll have no choice but to boil them all?”
The stout nun nodded. “I cannot possibly fry hundreds of eggs with the few pans we have, it would take forever! Boiling them all in a large pot is far more practical, Miss Jade.”
Jade picked up an egg and cracked it open. She had expected some kind of transformation – like salted eggs or century eggs, where the texture or and colour would change.
But no. The water-glassed egg looked almost identical to a fresh one. The whites were slightly runnier, but otherwise, the colour, texture, and even the smell were completely normal.
“Can’t use them for cakes,” Sister Geenia said, “I’ve heard they won’t rise properly. But we can still use them for kneading dough. Would you like to use them for biscuits or pies?”
“Kneading dough with water or skimmed milk is fine; mixing them into dough would be a waste.” Jade replied, gazing at the cracked egg. Eggs were expensive – expensive enough that she chose to save her coins rather than buy them from the farm ladies. “We could use them for something better.”
The simplest idea instantly popped into her mind. It could easily satisfy both the students and the kitchen: steamed egg, or chawanmushi.
“Steamed egg?” Sister Geenia exchanged a glance with Sister Lucy, then asked, puzzled, “Would you need a mould? Should we get some dough from the bakehouse?”
“Hm?” Jade understood the part about the mould – though she did not need a specific one, as a simple bowl or cup would suffice – but she didn’t quite understand the bit about the dough. “Why would I need some dough?”
“To seal the mould, so the water won’t seep in,” Sister Geenia said matter-of-factly. She opened a cupboard and retrieved a copper mould. It had a small dent on the side, likely a donation from a wealthy household, but was still serviceable. She used it occasionally to prepare meat jelly during feast days.
Jade paused briefly, then realised the misunderstanding.
Sister Geenia assumed she meant a sealed pudding – something enclosed in a mould, with the gaps sealed by doubt before being submerged entirely in water to “steam”. To Jade, that was boiling or stewing; steaming should be done purely through water vapour. It was a vast cultural difference. People here used the dough-sealing-and-submerge method to steam sweet puddings (or, in Jade’s understanding, Christmas pudding) or blood puddings. The term “pudding” was completely different from the smooth, yellowish, bouncy jelly with a caramel top seen in Japanese anime.
She couldn’t recall the exact historical distinctions of puddings and jellies – she had barely passed that topic during her academy days – but she knew enough to recognise the difference in terminology.
“Um, I don’t need a mould. A simple bowl is enough,” Jade said. Then she glanced at the stove and the available tools, hesitated, and shook her head. “Actually, this might not work well here. I’ll think of something else…”
“Miss Jade, why don’t we try the steamed egg first before deciding?” Sister Geenia suggested. Kitchen work was demanding and time-consuming, and it occupied the time nuns could have spent studying the Lumen Codex, so few volunteered for it. Sister Geenia, however, had taken charge out of genuine passion. She even collected recipes from newspapers whenever she could, and she was not about to miss the chance to see an unfamiliar one.
Since steaming an egg would not take long, Jade nodded. “ Alright. I’ll need a pot and two bowls. Let’s see which size fits best…”
Without a proper steamer basket, Jade placed a smaller bowl at the bottom of the pot to act as a stand. She added water until it reached about halfway up the bowl. In a larger bowl, she mixed the cracked egg with a bit of water, whisking until smooth, then carefully set it on top of the smaller bowl.
She covered the pot, lit the fire, and waited.
Sister Geenia and Sister Lucy wastched from the side, surprised. “That’s all?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Jade said. “That’s why this recipe came to my mind first. It’s simple and quick. With proper tools, we can could easily make dozens at once. If you want it sweet, add sugar or use milk instead of water. If you want it savoury, add a bit of salt; drizzling the top with some drippings would taste good, too.”
Of course, the best would be seasoned with soy sauce, but too bad there’s no such thing in this kingdom. I guess Chinatown doesn’t exist here yet, so no Asian food… wait, maybe there’s curry? Does India even exist here? Or is it called something else?
Random thoughts drifted for a moment before Jade quickly checked them. She turned back to Sister Geenia. “However, without proper tools, it’s impossible to steam that many bowls of egg. That’s why I said it wouldn’t fit our current conditions.”
Sister Geenia nodded. She could already see the limitation in Jade’s method; she understood that there must be specialised tools to make steaming more efficient, rather than relying on a bowl as a stand at the bottom of the pot.
Soon, the sound of bubbling water rose from within the covered pot. Jade poked at the coals in the hearth, adjusting the fire, then said, “Have you heard of egg tarts? Or custard tarts?”
She wasn’t certain whether the term “egg tart” existed in this world, so she switched to “custard tart”. If she wasn’t mistaken – based on what she had learnt – most egg-based recipes were considered a type of custard in this era, including mayonnaise. And as she had expected, both nuns recognised the latter.
“Custard tarts?” Sister Geenia frowned. “But we don’t have milk.”
“And no nutmeg,” Sister Lucy added.
“We can replace sugar with malt,” Sister Geenia said after a moment of thought. Ever since Jade introduced the method of producing sweetness from germinated barley, Brother Milo – the youngest monk in the domus – had been assigned to produce malt sugar. It had since become a small source of income, aside from supplying the bakehouse.
“Omit the nutmeg, use water instead of milk, and yes, use malt instead of sugar,” Jade said with a nod. “We can have the students make more pie crust. Personally, I’d prefer a flaky, crispy crust, but the usual hard one will do. It might taste a little plain, but it’s the best we can manage.”
Sister Lucy nodded in agreement, but Sister Geenia hesitated. “It will still require some skill to prepare the custard. With just the three of us – and Josh – it may take quite some time. Do you think any of the students could assist, Miss Jade?”
“Hm? Oh!” For a brief second, Jade forgot that “custard” here referred to the technique of tempering egg with milk. She quickly shook her head. “No, we don’t need to. It’s fairly simple, just like the steamed egg we’re about to taste now.”
Both nuns looked doubtful at first. But when Jade lifted the lid and revealed the softly set, gently, yellowish trembling delicacy, their expression shifted to surprise.
They each took a spoonful. Sister Lucy nodded silently. Sister Geenia, however, smacked her lips as she considered the taste. “It resembles custard, yet silky, but still firm…”
“So, we just need to replace the bowl with a pie crust, and bake it instead of steaming,” Jade explained. “The filling will be similar to what we’re eating now, just with an edible base. But unlike a covered pie, where everything goes into the oven at once, we’ll need to bake the crust first before adding the egg mixture.”
She gave a small shrug. “The first few batches might crack on top – but hey, it’s eggs. I doubt the children will complain about having more of them.”
Sister Geenia nodded, agreeing with the idea, though she still thought it would be nice to have something to sprinkle on top. “I’ll check the storeroom and see if we have anything for sprinkles.”
“Alright.” Jade lifted the basket of eggs. “I’ll inform Josh about the additional task. I’ll need to teach him how to make these as well.”
As she turned to leave, the image of students’ thin faces surfaced in her mind. She hoped that this small treat would bring them some happiness at tomorrow’s meal… while she subconsciously murmured to herself about the lack of child welfare in this setting.