Chapter 161 -- Giant Tarepo, Having Eaten It Before (Sort Of)
Well, what should I make for dinner today? It would be Giant Tarepo at, of course. Oddly enough I had actually eaten ostrich at previously. One ti I was out eating dinner in an izakaya and ostrich at was on the nu. I asked for it because it was unusual to see sothing like that listed. My recollection was that it was quite delicious, a lean red at not typical of bird at’s flavour and texture. Now I had the Giant Tarepo at to hand I decided I’d try to make the sa sort of thing I had back then, seared ostrich at in a cutlet. I should add that ostrich at can be eaten raw like a Korean dish, seasoned yukhoe-style with a raw egg or even as Italian-style carpaccio, sliced thinly after being cooked very rare and then coated in sauce. The carpaccio option was tempting but thinking about it a little more the seared cutlet route ant beer as an accompanint and that settled it, seared cutlets it would be.
Yosh, I started with getting ingredients from the Net Super. I bought sour ponzu sauce to start with, planning to treat the Giant Tarepo at like pork. The cutlet would be cooked Milanese style, I decided so I’d need flour and herb salt, eggs, bread crumbs and powdered cheese and of course olive oil because, well, Italian? Bellissimo! (about the only word of Italian I knew...)
Oh, and beer. Don’t forget that. I assembled the ingredients for the cutlets under the watchful eyes of the Gluttonous Trio and quickly changed my mind -- I’d first make so carpaccio-style cold cuts and store them in my Item Box for later. I’d make the cutlets afterwards.
"Is Fer able to do Ice magic?" I asked. I vaguely rembered Ice magic was listed on his Status but...
"Nuuuu, Ice magic? I can do it." Fer replied.
"Well, can you make a little ice and put it in here?" I held out a large bowl to Fer, the sort of large bowl I had never needed when I only cooked for myself back ho. Feeding my three contracted monsters in this world had required a serious upgrade to the capacity of my cooking utensils.
"Got you." Fer concentrated for a second and a big lump of ice fell into the bowl. "There you go."
"Ah, it’s too big..." I said, "Hold on, I’ll buy an ice pick and break it up a little." I started to open Net Super but Fer interrupted.
"Too big?" When I nodded the lump of ice in the bowl suddenly shattered into lumps. I blinked as Fer asked, "Is that enough? I can break it up more if you like." I sotis forget just how powerful Fer’s magic was and how off-handedly he could use it. I supposed I wasn’t really used to magic even after spending months in this world. Never mind, I got on with making dinner. So carpaccio-style Giant Tarepo cold cuts to start with, I decided.
First I put salt and pepper on a large piece of Giant Tarepo at and cooked it in a frying pan with olive oil until the outer surface was seared. I cooled the piece of at down in the ice bath Fer had prepared to stop the centre of the at cooking from the residual heat and wiped off the moisture with kitchen paper before cutting the lump into thin slices about 5mm thick. I laid them out on a plate and dressed them with ponzu citrus sauce before trying a nibble.
Oooh, it has a rich texture. The Giant Tarepo looked like an over-sized ostrich and its taste was similar to the ostrich at I had eaten once before but it wasn’t, on further reflection, exactly the sa. It was more like lean beef with only a little fat marbled through it, a surprise since it was supposed to be bird at. It was definitely tasty and went well with the ponzu sauce I had dressed the cold cuts with. Anyway, being a low-fat and firm-textured at should make it a good candidate for deep frying, so cutlets were next. As for the cold cuts I’d save them for later. Or so I thought.
"Hoi, what are you doing with those?" Fer interrupted as I started to put the cold cuts away in my Item Box. "Pass the dish over here." Ah- the Empty Belly Army can’t wait, it seems.
"I was just experinting. I’m going to make different food for dinner and I was going to save this for later but do you want to try it now? It’s nearly raw, you know."
"Hand it over." Fer ordered. Okay, okay. I took the Giant Tarepo cold cuts and divided them into three dishes before putting them down in front of Fer, Dora-chan and Sui-chan who imdiately dived in.
"Oh, this food’s texture is wonderful." was Fer’s opinion after his share had been vacuud up. I didn’t understand what Fer was going on about, the carpaccio was basically raw in the middle so it was actually quite tough and chewy.
"This bitter taste’s kinda refreshing, makes wanna eat more of it." was Dora-chan’s opinion. So you liked it too? The ponzu citrus sauce works well with at cooked like this.
"Aruji-, seconds?-" Sui-chan had already finished her portion? I needed to hurry making the cutlets now all the cold cuts were gone. First, I put bread crumbs in a plastic bag and broke them up very fine, mixing in powdered cheese and herb salt. I pounded pieces of Giant Tarepo at thin, to break up the sinews and dusted them with with salt and pepper before coating them with flour and beaten egg as a binder for the breadcrumb and cheese mix coating I had prepared earlier.
To cook the prepared cutlets I used a frying pan with about a centitre of olive oil heated to near-boiling rather than deep-frying in regular cooking oil as I normally would for cutlets and kaarage. When the cutlets were crisp on the outside they were done. I didn’t bother with extra seasoning since the breadcrumb coating included herb salt but I did add so lemon juice since it’s an option for Milanese-style cutlets if you like that sort of thing.
I fried lots of cutlets, three each for Fer and Sui and one for Dora-chan, dishing them out on plates and putting them down so they could eat. "The juice coating is lemon, see how you like it?" I explained as Fer gave the cutlets a sour look before he gobbled them up.
"Umu," he declared, head tilted before he nodded. "Yeah, more like that."
"I’m fine with this too." Dora-chan agreed, working on his own dish. "But one is enough for ."
"Sui is also good with sour for seconds-." Sui-chan’s dish was already empty, of course.
Okay okay. I was already frying more Giant Tarepo cutlets Milanese-style for Fer and Sui, including so for myself this ti round. And of course, fried food ant... pssssh, glug glug glug. Oh yeah, beer is delicious. I ant to have so after eating the cold-cut carpaccio but on second thoughts beer goes better with hot food like these cutlets.
I bit into the cutlet, crispy and delicious with the cheesy taste from the crisp coating adding a noticeable tang to the at. Beer to chase it down, glug glug glug and then another bite of cutlet. Ahhh, what was it about fried food and beer that make them work together so well? Oops, I forgot the lemon juice. I sprinkled a little on the rest of my cutlet and took another bite. Oh yes, the refreshing sharp taste combined with the lean at juices, yummmm and then wash it down with more beer.
""Seconds"" I put down more cutlets for Fer and Sui, this ti leaving the lemon juice off for a change, to see how they liked it. Both of them agreed they preferred the cutlets without the "sour stuff" as they announced they were full up. I had a second cutlet on bread with ketchup and shredded cabbage and that worked fine too.
I marked up the Giant Tarepo cutlets as a success and made a lot more of them while I had the ingredients to hand, putting them away hot in my Item Box to keep in reserve. After tidying up I put out Fer and Dora-chan’s futons in the inn’s stables and Sui and I returned to our room.
Sui was full up and went to sleep straight away but I had more to do. I wanted to see how the magic bag worked for marinating and soaking at since Fer had said that ti didn’t stop for goods stored inside such a bag. My first experint would be with at marinated in miso. I diced up Orc and Bloody Horn Bull at and put them in oversized plastic bags partially filled with miso and other ingredients. I deposited the bags into the large magic bag, intending to make miso-yaki dishes with the results the next morning.
I wasn’t quite finished though, I still wanted to make a lot of minced at with the excellent Mithril mincer Sui had made. I fed large pieces of Orc and Bloody Horn Bull at into the mincer’s hopper, amazed again at how little effort it took to turn the handle as the minced at poured out. After producing a ridiculous amount of minced at I tidied up, put everything away back in my Item Box and went to sleep.
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