Chapter 520 When it Comes to Sea Serpents
As soon as the [Mizumaru] touched land, yells of, ‘Sea Serpent! Let’s eat Sea Serpent!’ filled my mental and physical hearing.
“Yes, yes, I have some ideas of what to make already, so please be patient.”
““What are you talking about? It’s Sea Serpent!! How can we not be pumped!!”” Dora-chan was doing loops in the air. Nearly giddy with excitement. He was certainly making me feel giddy just looking at him. “”Also, since it’s Sea Serpent, you must make that!””
“Umu, that would certainly be delicious,” said Fer as he nodded imperiously at Dora-chan.
“What is this thing you two are talking about?” asked Grandpa Gon.
““Fried food~ fried food~”” Sui announced, as she bounced all over the place.
“Oh? If it’s fried food, it is bound to be delicious,” Grandpa Gon stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“…while it was true that fried food is delicious, we already had a bunch of Fried Cockatrice yesterday, and before that we had Fried Crocodile or should I say Fried Caiman? Aren’t you guys bored of fried food yet?”
““No!””
“Blasphemy!”
“I don’t mind having fried food every day…”
“”Sui likes fried food~ fried food~””
“No way, no way, we can’t have fried food all the time,” I protested.
“Master,” Grandpa Gon suddenly loomed in front of me, one forepaw on my shoulder.
“Eh?”
“Master, please allow me to eat some of this Fried Sea Serpent that everyone is speaking about?”
“What- hey, oi! Oi! It hurts! Ow!”
“A-apologies, Master. I did not mean to hurt you. However, I do sincerely wish to try this Fried Sea Serpent…”
“Yes, yes, I understand. I’ll make it,” I sighed.
Right, let’s make more Karaage again today.
After picking out a suitable spot to camp, I got my magic stove out and started preparing.
I could more or less prepare Karaage on autopilot now. As my hands worked to chop, mix and knead the meat for the usual soy sauce-based and salt-based classics, my mind busied itself pondering upon other Karaage flavours.
The classics are a favourite for a reason, but eating them for three days in a row was too much for me. I’m sure it’s the same for the [Ark] too.
Anyway, the main reason was that I, the cook, nay, the Solitary Chef, is tired of it!
Humph!
[1]
The easiest way to do this would be to adjust the marinade for the Karaage, so… hmm, hmm, how about curry-flavour? Major fast food chains and food companies would usually give out ‘curry flavoured’ something whenever they want to revive a classic product.
What else, what else… think limited edition. That’s right, summer yuzu! Should I just grate some yuzu peels? No, no, let’s dump some yuzu pepper into the marinade, that should do it!
Is two enough?
How about a third flavour?
Um, something that’s typically Japanese but not soy sauce. Huhu, let’s go with miso! That’s right, strong red miso is always a favourite when it comes to meat marinades. Ah, but do I have any? Yes! I still have some leftover from the miso-grilled meats project. Next is curry powder and yuzu pepper.
Oops, I forgot I don’t have curry powder since I usually use boxed roux…
Uh, no one’s looking, right?
[Ark] is setting up their camp on the far side of the field, so let’s quickly buy the stuff from [Net Super]. Do I still have yuzu pepper left? Eh, let’s just buy them anyway…
[1] [1] [1]
In front of me were five large plastic bags of chicken, I mean, Sea Serpent marinating in their individual flavours.
Salt – Marinated in saké and salt
Soy Sauce – Marinated in soy sauce, grated ginger and saké > coat in a light dusting of starch
Curry Powder – Marinated in soy sauce, grated ginger and saké > coat in a light dusting of starch mixed with curry powder
Note: The curry flavour is a bit weak
Yuzu Pepper – Marinated in yuzu pepper, chicken stock, saké, grated garlic and grated ginger
Miso – Marinated in miso, saké, mirin, soy sauce, grated garlic and grated ginger
Since the marinade for Soy Sauce and Curry Powder Karaage was the same, I made two portions of it. Naturally, I will be double-frying everything.
The thing about Karaage is that marinating and frying takes time. You can’t hurry either or the Karaage would turn out bad.
From the rate that these guys ate Karaage, I’d have to get more of these large, heavy-duty plastic bags soon.
[2] I set out three pans for the potato starch coating. Two large pans for regular starch and a smaller one mixed with curry powder. Then, I placed pans of oil on the stove. Since I plan to double-fry everything, it’s best to get everything ready now. Oh, I’ll have to set out the cooling racks too, and plates for the cooked Karaage and—
[3] “What are you guys doing?”
“…nothing…”
“It’s not ready yet?”
“”Hungry!!””
“”Hungry~~””
“Sea Serpent…”
Ugh, having five pairs of eyes staring at everything I do is just creepy. Please go away.
“Staring harder won’t make it cook faster,” I said.
“Umu,”
“Okay.”
“… …”
“Is it done yet?”
“… I just placed these in the oil, no, not yet,” in fact, I had only placed the first batch of Karaage into the hot oil. The bite-size Karaage were not even floating yet oil, clearly not ready at all.
“… …”
“Is it done?!”
“… this is just the first fry. You’ve seen me do this many times before,” I was starting to get annoyed.
“C-can’t we just eat it now? Sssppp,”
“U-umu…”
“”I don’t mind eating the first fry!””
“”Sui wants to eat…””
“Eat…”
I looked at the Karaage that I had just taken out. Meat juice was just starting to leak out, but I guess…
“Sure, here you go-”
“Chomp chomp huff ooff hot! Hot!”
“-it’s really hot though…”
Well, while everyone was huffing and puffing, Sui was happily digesting her piping hot Karaage since heat don’t bother her. Feodora has a fork in each hand, a Karaage at the end of each fork and was huffing and blowing as she took a bite out of both.
Since they were so impatient, I served up the first batch of Karaage that had been only fried once. Since the double fry was to make the crispiness last, there was no point doing such pointless work when my familiars (and one gluttonous Elf) were going to swallow them right away anyway.
This went on for three more batches before they finally slowed down enough for me to do a proper double fry. I guess it was nice to see them happily beaming and chomping on my food.
“Hey, why don’t you come and try some, Gaudino-san,” I called out to the more polite members of the [Ark]. “I planned to make something different with the Sea Serpent meat, but ended up making more fried food since that’s what my familiars wanted…”
“No, no, fried food is delicious. So, it’s no problem at all.”
“Indeed, indeed, this is all very delicious. Hm, hm, in fact, I believe it should go very well with alcohol.”
While this may be true, I will not be serving alcohol today, Siegwald-san.
““Hey, this one has a citrusy fragrance! I can’t get enough of it!”” I heard Dora-chan called out.
“Now that you mention it, there are some very unique flavours here,” said Grandpa Gon.
““Sui like everything~~””
“Umu, it is very good.”
“Right, here’s the next batch of Karaage~”
While everyone ate, I continued to fry up the Sea Serpents. So long as they keep eating, I’ll just keep serving the once-fried Karaage. It won’t be too late to start on the second fry once they stop devouring everything on sight.
My personal favourites were the Yuzu Pepper and Miso flavoured ones. The Curry flavoured Karaage was good too, but the curry flavour was a bit weak. As expected, I should have mixed some curry powder into the marinade.
“This is my first time eating Sea Serpent. As expected, it’s really delicious.”
“I believe that with Mukouda-san cooking, anything would become delicious.”
“Right? Even so, this tangy one is really unique, I never had anything like it before. Ahhh, it really makes me crave alcohol…”
“Oi, oi, don’t forget we’re still in a dungeon.”
“Hehehe…”
“Still, you’re right. It would really be great with alcohol.”
All three men of the [Ark] looked at me.
“… …” no matter how you look at me, I refuse to serve alcohol!
Also, when can I finally sit down and eat too!!!??
[Gumihou: You’ve worked hard, Mukouda-san…]
[1] Deleted the steps to making karaage and devote more time thinking about what kind of flavours to make. Because, like, dude, we have seen this many, many, many times…
[2] Include some steps that were never mentioned and intersperse them with the gimme gimme dialogue
[3] Delete excessive yummy, hurry, hungry comments from the peanut gallery
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