Chapter 566 Sooofffttt~~
The moment we returned from the Adventurer’s Guild, the Gluttonous Quartet immediately started clamouring for ‘that tough but good’ meat. Meaning, they want to eat the Supersaurus.
Fer and Grandpa Gon were particularly loud in their demands for ‘Meat, meat, meat’. Thankfully, I managed to somehow calm them down a bit by grilling up huge-sized steaks with Gigantic Minotaur and Dungeon cow meat.
It can’t be helped since the Supersaurus meat was just too tough.
How do I know, you ask?
[1]
Well, since you want to know, it is actually obvious from the lack of fat in the red meat. Not to mention, since they insisted on eating Supersaurus meat, I fried up four very small, very rare steaks for them and Dora-chan nearly choked himself trying to swallow the thing whole.
Sui, of course, easily dissolved her steak and declared the Supersaurus ‘delicious’, but even Fer and Grandpa Gon did not ask for seconds, which was telling enough.
I had a small piece, and it was… underwhelming, and terribly chewy. Since the poor creatures went extinct thanks to my familiars, I should at least make it delicious. So delicious that it would make the Gluttonous Four regret killing you guys off so recklessly. Sorry Mister Supersaurus, this is the best revenge I could get for you.
[1]
I put my hands together and prayed over a large piece of Supersaurus meat on the workbench. “I shall make you delicious,” I promised.
Let’s see, one of the ways to make lean meat softer would be to marinate it in Shio-koji [2]. This would not only soften the meat but enhance the flavour as well. Hmm…
“Right, let’s try soaking the meat in a Shio-koji marinade!”
If I were to make Shio-koji myself, it would take a week for the rice to fully ferment, but luckily, I can buy it online~!
To ensure that the meat was properly immersed into the marinade, I cut it down into medium-sized steaks and even stabbed the meat with a fork to make sure that Shio-koji could properly penetrate into the meat.
After that, all I had to do was place the meat and a whole jar of Shio-koji into a plastic bag and let the meat rest inside the magic cooler box.
“Please be tender and delicious,” I gave the meat one last prayer before closing the door.
The next morning, the Gluttonous Quartet were making noises about ‘meat?’ and ‘Supersaurus meat?’ once again.
I glared at them and said, “You want more of those super tough steaks? Sure, I’ll be happy to serve you.”
“Uuuhh…”
“Kuuuhhh…”
“Your choice is either the super tough, Supersaurus steaks or a Beef Bowl.”
“… Beef Bowl…”
“Umu…”
““Beef Bowls are delicious…””
“”Aruji’s cooking is yummy~~””
After breakfast was over, I checked on the meat. “Hmm, I guess it feels a little softer?”
I took out one of the pieces of raw Supersaurus steaks and cut off a piece right at the centre. There’s no point trying the ones in the corners since it would not be a proper representation of what most of the meat would be like.
After removing most of the Shio-koji, I thinly sliced the meat and grilled them on a pan. Since it had been flavoured by the Shio-koji, I only added a bit of black pepper to enhance its fragrance.
“I guess it’s a bit more decent now. But, it could still be a bit softer… that’s right, why not use grated onions and make Chaliapin Steaks [3]?”
[4] It is actually a pretty troublesome recipe. Cutting, chopping and grating large amounts of onions aside, the steaks also had to be cut down to about 8mm thick, excess Shio-koji scraped off, pounded and lattice cut into either sides.
I stared at the three large plastic bags of meat and sighed.
Luckily, thanks to my ‘Solitary Chef’ title, I got everything done without too much problem. Now all I had to do was leave these little steaks in the magic refrigerator for a couple of hours.
Two hours later, I got a couple of pieces of meat out, scraped off the excess onions into a bowl and fried the steaks with a little black pepper. Fry the meat until the brown lattice marks pop up nicely.
Next, remove the steaks and fry the chopped onions that had been scraped off in the same pan along with a little butter, deglaze with red wine, soy sauce, and sugar. Simmer down the liquid into a sauce.
Once the sauce has reached the desired consistency, pour it over the steaks.
“Right, time to taste test! Woah, it’s soft!”
If I hadn’t tried eating it earlier with just salt and pepper, I’d never believe that it’s the same meat!
“Huff, it’s making me crave rice!”
Luckily, I already have some ready.
Woah, rice and meat! Justice!
Now, let’s see what everyone else thinks.
“”Seconds!!””
Well, it looks like this Japanese-style Chaliapin Supersaurus Steak was pretty popular with everyone.
“Umumu, is this really that tough meat just now? It’s so soft!”
“To think that Master could cast this kind of magic spell. It’s too delicious!”
[1] “”It’s nothing like that thing that nearly choked me yesterday. This one is not only soft, but savoury and delicious at the same time~!!””
“”It’s more yummy today~~””
“Hohoho, it’s been marinated in Shio-koji and onions to make it tender,” I explained. “It takes a lot of work, you know? Aside from marinating it twice, the meat had to be cut down to size, lattice-marks cut into the meat…”
“Umu, in short, you can make tough meat tender any time, got it.”
“Master is impressive as expected.”
“”Let’s have this again!””
“”Sui really likes it~~””
“… aside from all that work, it takes a lot of time too. Overnight marinating with the Shio-koji and another two hours after cutting and making grid-marks and then… none of you are listening, aren’t you?”
“It’s delicious, let’s have it again!!”
Tch, look at these bunch of barbarians.
[Gumihou: Hey, appreciate our Mukouda-san a bit more, will you?]
[1] Give plausible explanation how they knew Supersaurus meat was really, really tough
[2] Shio-koji – fermented rice and salt
https://www.seriouseats.com/shio-koji-marinade-recipe
[3] A unique, Japanese-style steak that uses a lot of onions. This dish also appears in Shokugeki no Souma
https://cookingwithdog.com/recipe/chaliapin-steak/
[4] Changed the way a recipe is presented.
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