Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 7 - Chapter 2.2

2

Fortunately, it wasn’t especially hectic after that, and so Vina Ruu and I were able to leave for The Great Southern Tree on schedule.

“I’ve been awaiting you, Asuta,” the inn’s owner Naudis greeted us, wearing a gentle expression on his usually stern-looking face. His skin was an ivory-white, but he was short and stout with dark brown hair and green eyes, marking him as having mixed southern and western blood.

The Great Southern Tree was located further south than The Kimyuus’s Tail, nestled among a number of other inns. It was a good bit bigger than Milano Mas’s place, too. It was built with two floors, of course, but it had several times more rooms lined up along its width, and the restaurant on the first floor looked like it could handle nearly a hundred customers.

“The kitchen is this way. Go ahead and do whatever you need to until my wife comes on down.”

“Right, thank you.”

It was about the same size as the Ruu kitchen, probably around 13 square meters at most, but it was equipped with three stoves along the walls, hanging cooking implements, a shelf stuffed with tableware, and a large workstation. It really looked quite spacious, overall.

I naturally had permission to use the stoves and cooking implements as much as I pleased, as well as the water from the jugs and the available firewood.

As I spread out the contents of the bundle of ingredients I acquired in the morning, I called out to Vina Ruu, “Could you please light two of the stoves?”

We were given roughly two and a half hours to work. Naudis also said we could stay past that as long as we didn’t interfere with the work that needed to be done for the inn, but we would need to get back to the forest’s edge anyway so that I wasn’t working Vina Ruu overtime, which meant we didn’t have time to spare regardless.

“Ooh, those sure are big chunks of meat. Guess they need to be to feed 40 people, though,” Naudis chimed in. Apparently he intended to watch me work, as his gaze was fixed on my hands from across the kitchen. “So that meat came from a giba’s torso?”

“Yes. Back where I come from, we call this boneless ribs, as it’s meat removed from the creature’s ribs.”

Since the ribs were for 40 people, there were roughly 10 kilos of meat there. And they really were proper chunks of meat, as I had cut them up into six blocks. After I swept them clean of the pico leaves meant to preserve them, I then lined those cubes up atop the work station.

I also had 40 aria to garnish the 10 kilos of giba ribs. Plus, I had four bottles of fruit wine and an additional 20 aria to grill up. On top of that, I had six bottles of tau oil, a new ingredient I had obtained through The Great Southern Tree. That alone ended up taking up 27.5 percent of the costs of my ingredients. But though the tau oil was expensive, I was only using cheap aria in terms of vegetables, so it didn’t drive up the price too much compared to what I sold meals for at the stalls.

I was preparing a new dish for The Great Southern Tree: cubed giba meat stew.

Since it was a cubed meat stew, I would have loved to have daikon or boiled eggs to go in it, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any similar ingredients to substitute for those around the post town. Still, back at the Tsurumi Restaurant we actually used onions when making cubed pork stew. And since in this world we had aria, which were like onions with even higher nutritional value, I could see no reason not to use them. In fact, the high compatibility with aria was a big reason I picked this dish in the first place.

A few days prior, I had prepared a sample and had Naudis give it a taste. He seemed to really enjoy my cubed giba meat stew, made with plenty of tau oil, as he immediately gave his approval.

And so, I set about cooking.

I had already tenderized the meat to break the long fibers back at the house, so I picked up the cubes and headed towards the stove.

“Thank you. Looks like it’s already nice and hot.”

I guess that was professional cookware for you. At any rate, the pots in this kitchen were a size larger than the ones used at the forest’s edge, so I started off by throwing three blocks of meat into one of them.

“How exciting. And it’s giving off such a delicious smell,” Naudis said with a gentle smile.

To my other side, Vina Ruu was looking down at the water-filled pot, the same displeased expression still on her face. It felt like quite a while since I had actually heard her slow, seductive voice.

It had been decided that Vina Ruu would be the one to accompany me and also act as my guard instead of her younger sister Lala Ruu, but I never imagined I would end up getting her mad at me the day beforehand, or that that would linger all the way up to now.

As I agonized over how to improve her mood, I went ahead and checked how the meat was doing. By now, it had taken on a nice golden brown. Back home, what we always did next was to grill the meat’s surface just a bit more to seal in the deliciousness. Plus, by doing that, you could get rid of the excess fat. And since boneless rib was such a fatty cut, that made this step extra important.

“Hmm, I guess that about does it. And that pot’s come to a boil too, right?”

After cutting off as much of the excess fat as possible, I then took the grilled cubes of rib meat and gently dropped them into the boiling water.

I went ahead and dealt with the other three blocks of meat the same way, then scooped scum for a while.

Once the scum seemed to die down I moved down to a medium flame, then added some lilo leaves on top. That served to both take the place of an inner lid and also cover up the smell. Normally I would use green onions or ginger or something here, but sure enough, I just couldn’t find any ingredients similar to those. The garlic-esque myamuu had too strong of an aroma, so though up till now I only used lilo for jerky, it was finally time for it to take center stage.

Lilo reminded me of rather large fern leaves, and I soon packed the surface of the boiling water with them. If the meat came to the surface, just the exposed bit would harden, which is why I needed to make a substitute inner lid like this.

From here it needed an hour of parboiling, so I could take my time with the rest of the preparations.

“Well then, I’m going to make the broth, so could you maintain the heat and keep an eye out so that the meat doesn’t push its way past the lilo, Vina Ruu?”

She was silent and utterly expressionless. However, I believed she wasn’t the sort of person to ever neglect her work.

Making the broth was incredibly simple. I just need to grate the aria, which I was using as a potherb. And fortunately, the tool I needed for that was here in this kitchen: a crustacean shell with a surface coated in fine spikes. It was milky-white in color, and was circular with a roughly ten-centimeter diameter. In all likelihood, it had come from some sort of crablike creature. I didn’t exactly know the details, though.

“By the way, does it look likely we’ll be able to purchase tau oil regularly?” I asked while grating down the 20 aria.

“Yes,” Naudis replied with a nod. “I asked a peddler about that. He was very surprised to hear we would be using three bottles in five days.”

That was no surprise. After all, tau oil was a rather pricey ingredient. A roughly one liter bottle, around the same size as a container of fruit wine, cost a whole ten red coins. And so, that meant spending 30 red coins on the stuff every five days.

Tau oil was a condiment made by fermenting tau beans, which were a local specialty of the Southern Kingdom of Jagar. It wasn’t produced here in Genos, so all of it had to be imported from Jagar, which was apparently where the high price came from.

Thanks to that, only inns with a great number of customers from the south like The Great Southern Tree dealt with the ingredient, as it was just too expensive. And so, even though it was a familiar everyday flavor in Jagar, it was seen as a luxury item here in the western kingdom.

However, this tau oil was an ingredient I couldn’t possibly just ignore. After all, it had an incredibly similar taste to soy sauce. To preserve it, it was kept as a type of gooey paste and had a strong flavor of salt and alcohol about it. But aside from that, it really was exactly like soy sauce.

When I happened to encounter that tau oil for the first time here in The Great Southern Tree, I just about broke out in a dance of joy. If it hadn’t been just before the clan head meeting, I’m sure I would have been so elated that even Ai Fa would get sick of me. However, I somehow managed to hold back my excitement, and instead focused my attention on creating a new dish.

A lot of folks from the south didn’t seem fond of the quirky taste of giba meat. And a good number of them hated the texture of burgers, too. However, that apparently wasn’t just down to disliking soft meat like it had been with Donda Ruu. Plus, they seemed to prefer stronger seasoning.

All of that information I had gathered led me to go with cubed giba meat stew.

“Now then, all that’s left is to let the meat cook for a while, right? I’ll go ahead and take care of a bit of my own work while I wait,” Naudis stated, then he left the kitchen.

Having finished grating the aria, I checked how Vina Ruu was doing with the boiling pot. Sure enough, the meat had sunk down below the lilo. And the fire was right at a medium flame. It even seemed that she was scooping out any fresh scum that bubbled up.

As I patted my chest in relief, I stepped on over and stood next to Vina Ruu.

“Thank you. I finished preparing the broth, so let’s switch. Ah, and Vina Ruu... I really am sorry about yesterday.”

How many apologies did that make since this morning?

And yet, Vina Ruu still remained silent and showed no signs of so much as looking my way.

“I really didn’t mean anything by it. It was just that I got completely distracted by Gazraan Rutim and Yamiru Lea and everyone when they showed up so suddenly.”

There was no response.

“I wasn’t trying to ignore you, Vina Ruu. I was careless and a big fat idiot, but I hope you’ll at least believe that much. You have my deepest, most sincere apologies for hurting you that badly.”

With that, Vina Ruu’s displeased eyes finally turned my way.

“Do you really mean that...?”

“Yes! Of course I do!”

“Well, I suppose I’ve made it hard for you by being like this when I’m supposed to be helping out with work...”

“Ah, no, you’ve been handling all your work just fine, so you don’t need to worry about that... Actually, even ignoring the matter of work, I just can’t stand the thought of having angered you that badly. I’ll be more careful from now on, so could you find it in yourself to forgive me?”

“That would be tough to do all of a sudden... But if you let me slap you once, that might help me settle down a bit...”

“If it’ll make you feel better, then go ahead and slap away!”

As she stood in front of the bubbling pot, Vina Ruu puffed out her ample chest and said, “You shouldn’t go about thoughtlessly saying stuff like that. It would be one thing if you were a man of the forest’s edge, but with a foreigner like you, Asuta, my slap could easily knock a tooth loose...”

“E-Even so, I’ll take it. That was just how big of an idiot I was.”

“But why...? I shouldn’t matter at all to you, Asuta... You shouldn’t have any reason to go that far for a woman you don’t even intend to take as your bride...”

“That’s not true at all. Someone can still be important to you even if you don’t have romantic feelings towards them. In fact, I’d say that without those other motivations getting in the way, it should be easier to see how much someone really cares.”

Vina Ruu thoroughly furrowed her brows and stared at me with an even firmer look in her eyes.

“So you aren’t falling for my womanly charms in the least, then... I knew that, but still... Even now that thought gets me a bit worked up, so I guess I will go ahead and hit you, just the once...”

Vina Ruu brought her slender fingers and palm up to my cheek.

Even though she wasn’t a man, she was still an able-bodied person of the forest’s edge. That meant at the very least she needed enough strength to carry things around during her daily work, so I was prepared for enough force to knock down a full-grown man who was better built than I was.

I checked out of the corner of my eye to make sure I wouldn’t hit the pot even if I was knocked down, then gritted my teeth as firmly as I could manage.

Vina Ruu lifted her right hand up high... and then hugged me.

“That’s what you went with?!”

“Oh, my... You reacted just like I expected... How boring...” she whispered as she squeezed my body tightly. It was like I had been caught by a giant madarama snake again.

Well, if this’ll make Vina Ruu feel better... I thought to myself, only for that determination to be crushed in about three seconds flat.

“U-Um, Vina Ruu, don’t you think that’s about enough...?”

“No, not yet... I need to get at least a tooth’s worth out of you...”

A sensation I couldn’t exactly describe in polite company was pressing down on my body with incredible force. But just when I thought my nerves were on the verge of burning out, I was finally released from Vina Ruu’s soft yet powerful grasp.

“I’ll let you off with that, even though my heart is still torn to shreds...” Vina Ruu muttered as she tossed a piece of firewood into the stove.

Despite feeling like I was on the verge of collapsing, I went ahead and checked the contents of the pot. The water level had gone down quite a bit, so I would need to add some more.

As I transferred some water from a jug using a ladle, Vina Ruu called out in a depressed tone, “Hey, Asuta... It wasn’t really your thoughtless treatment that hurt me.”

“Huh?”

“What really hurt me was the kindness I saw in your eyes when you were looking at that woman... The thought that you could be like that even towards someone who tried to kill you... It made me think that the way you looked at me must not have been anything special...”

At that moment, Vina Ruu’s face shook me to my core. She looked completely sad and helpless, like a young child abandoned by their parents... and also incredibly frail.

I half braced myself for Vina Ruu to break down sobbing, but she held back her tears to the bitter end, then gave a deep sigh as if she was breathing out all her sadness.

“Still, I’m sorry... I only approached you to fulfill my own desires to begin with, so I have no right to criticize you. I really felt like I was keeping that in mind, and yet... You were just so kind that my expectations creeped up without me realizing it.”

“Should I have done more to distance myself...?” I foolishly pondered out loud, only for a frightening glare to shoot my way.

“Now you’ve gone and said something like that... My heart’s gone all smooshy like an overcooked aria...”

“S-Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize if you don’t know what you did wrong. And don’t you dare distance yourself from me, alright...?” Vina Ruu said while looking down a bit, then childishly started biting at her thumbnail. “You just don’t seem to be able to handle me well, so you should just stay as you are, and I’ll settle my feelings on my own... Don’t go reading too much into things and end up getting in my way, though.”

“Really...?”

“Yes... Maybe I’ll even come to enjoy being hurt by you...”

“I-I really don’t think you should be saying stuff like that!”

“Why not...? Everybody has different things that make them happy, right...?” she said with her usual bewitching smile, causing me to quietly bow my head. “Well then, I’ll apologize for today, too. I’m sorry for failing to suppress my feelings during this important job. So will you forgive me...?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. I’m the one who’s at fault.”

“If you’ll forgive me, I’ll accept any humiliation necessary...”

“I told you, I forgive you already!”

With that, our little tragicomedy came to an end, and a few minutes later, Naudis returned.

“Now then, is it just about ready?”

“Yeah, I think it may be.”

I pushed aside a bit of the lilo, then poked one of the meat cubes with the end of a grigee chopstick. The chopstick sunk into the meat with no notable resistance. Yes, it was definitely ready.

“Alright, let’s take out the meat and move the pot off the flame.”

I scooped all the lilo leaves and meat onto a wooden plate, then lifted up the pot with Vina Ruu’s help. Rather than lowering it onto the floor, though, we placed it atop a similarly sized pot full of water.

Instantly, there was an overwhelming sound as the heat from the pot caused a great deal of water to evaporate. Then we changed out the water and repeated the process three times before finally leaving the pot there to sit.

The meat had also cooled down in the meantime, so I went ahead and washed it off too. That was important to remove any excess fat clinging to it. Since the meat was already plenty soft, I took care not to damage the shape as I washed it, and then I wiped the moisture away thoroughly using a clean cloth. And so, I managed to successfully remove the fat.

Once the meat was nice and washed, I then cut it into cubes that were around five centimeters squared on each face. This step also required me to be meticulous so as to not ruin the shape.

Then, it was back to dealing with the pot. As it had been cooled and some time had passed, the fat had once again floated to the surface. Well, I say ‘cooled’ but the water was just room temperature so it may not have amounted to much, but it was still enough to cause some solidified fat to cling to the upper portion of the pot. And so, I removed all of that and transferred it into a leather bag I had brought along. Even if I wasn’t using it in today’s cooking, such lard was still valuable.

Then, I added the chopped up giba meat to two new pots along with the aria, which I had peeled the skin of, and sliced the top and bottom off. Since I had used ten kilos of meat and 40 aria, that was enough to fill up both of the large pots.

As for the broth I had removed the fat from, I added around 60% of a container of tau oil, four bottles of fruit wine, and the 20 grated aria. After giving it a thorough stir, I evenly divided it among the other two pots using a ladle.

Now all that was left was to heat it up over a low flame.

“Phew, looks like we made it in time, somehow.”

In total it worked out to two and a half hours of cooking, an hour of parboiling, and 30-40 minutes or so for heating it up at the end, which made for a pretty strict timetable. The step of washing the meat in the middle in particular took quite a bit of time. Well, I could surely get that time down as I repeated the process, though. But at least at the start, I was aiming more for precision than speed.

“Hmm... What a sweet smell,” Naudis stated with a big sniff.

Naturally, the kitchen was currently filled with the aroma of tau oil and fruit wine. It made for a different sort of sweet smell than myamuu. Even I couldn’t help but be spellbound by the scent, which called to mind my old home country.

However, I couldn’t just stay in a trance. I could no longer use lilo leaves or add more water at this point, so I had no choice but to keep on heating the stew once the meat started popping up at the surface.

Once the water boiled down to a third, I was finally able to stop continually watching over it. Then after 30-40 minutes it was at last good and heated, completing the dish.

“Alright, I’ll cut off the flame for now, so just heat it up again before serving it to your customers.”

It sounded like an obvious instruction, but it was still a crucial step. With dishes like this, heating them back up after they cooled down for a bit brought out the flavor of the ingredients even further.

If refrigerators existed in this world, I would have liked to set it aside in one overnight, but there was no helping what you didn’t have, so I just had to let it sit out at room temperature for a bit. But there were still more than four hours till sunset, so that would allow some time for the flavor to seep in.

“Good work today. Here’s the payment I promised you,” Naudis said, holding out a small cloth bag.

I went to check, and sure enough there were eight white coins inside.

“Thank you. I hope you can manage to sell out, but I don’t know how it’ll go.”

“I’m not sure either. There’s the issue of price, too. But if it doesn’t sell as well as I would like, then I intend to bring it down to four red coins, just like my karon dishes,” Naudis replied, then he cheerfully brought over a wooden plate.

“Huh? You want to sample it? But you’ll only get the proper taste after letting it cool for a bit first...”

“Yes, I want to try it both now and later to compare... But to be honest, it’s more that I want to give it a taste as soon as possible now that it’s finally done.”

Well, I had already passed ownership of the dish over to Naudis, so it was ultimately up to him anyway. Looking ever so slightly more excited than usual, the inn’s owner scooped up one of the cubes of giba meat.

The meat was already wiggling back and forth atop his spoon. By this point, it was clearly soft enough that a spoon or chopstick alone could easily cut through it. And with the fat removed, it had taken on a gelatin-esque transparent appearance.

The tau oil and fruit wine had also seeped into the meat, hiding the true giba flavor under that strong seasoning... As that thought ran through my head, I started feeling hungry.

“Well then,” Naudis said, then he tossed the chunk of meat into his mouth. As the layers of meat and fat separated, what an incredible deliciousness must have been gushing out.

And after plenty of chewing, Naudis gulped it down as if he felt reluctant to do so, then turned and faced me with an enraptured smile.

“It’s... It’s truly delicious. If this doesn’t sell, then it will be entirely my fault. You truly did some splendid work here, Asuta.”