Chapter 89
Ch 89 -- After a Hard Day's Work, Let's Deep-fry Some Mincemeat Cakes
First up, we dealt with the Wyverns....
"Sui, can you extract all the blood from the Wyverns?" Since Sui was able to suck up the the pools of Bloody Horn Bull's blood I thought she'd be able to do that.
"Yes, I can do it-" Sui agreed.
"Wyvern's blood? What are you going to do?" Fer looked puzzled.
"Well, I think that bleeding the carcasses thoroughly will prevent the meat from rotting or smelling funny, that's all."
"Oh, is that so Aruji-? Sui will suck out all the blood then." If I tell them that the meat they'll be eating will taste better they're all for it, of course.
A thought occurred to me. "Ah, hold on. Wyverns are poisonous aren't they? Does that poison have any effect on the blood or meat?"
"Wyvern's poison isn't a problem if you watch out for the poison sac in the middle of the tail and the poison needle itself." Fer explained. "You won't contaminate the meat or poison the blood if you're careful."
So that's how it is. "Sui, there's a poison sac in the tail so watch out for that." I cautioned. "Can you drain all the blood anyway?"
"Yeah, I got it-." Sui said as she trembled and burbled. Big Slime? Yep, after she grew in size she split into small Slimes to do the work.
"Everyone, drain the blood of the monsters over there-" Sui ordered the little Slimes. Each of the Slimes headed off to a different Wyvern corpse and latched on to the body's neck stump. As I watched each transparent Slime gradually turned red as they sucked the Wyverns dry of blood. As each Slime completed its task it dropped off the Wyvern's neck stump.
"Aruji, all done-" Sui informed me.
"Thanks, Sui." I stored the blood-drained Wyverns in my Item Box. I wasn't sure what to do with the Wyvern heads but I decided to take them back with me so I stored them too. Maybe the Guild would buy them.
Right then, food. As I thought about preparing a meal the smell of Wyvern blood all around distracted me.
"Sui, I'm sorry to ask you but can you suck up the Wyvern blood that's lying around here?"
"Yeah, easy -" The small Slimes slowly sucked up the blood pooling on the grasslands nearby, leaving the entire area pristine. Great.
"Thank you, Sui. I will make something delicious for you."
"Yay! I want to eat now-" Sui bounced happily.
"Nnnn, now is good for me too." Fer added.
"Yeah, yeah." Now is always a good time for Fer to stuff himself.
Well, I gave some thought as to what to make and decided quickly that deep-frying was the way to go. Eating fried food under the blue sky, yes! I'd make fried mincemeat cakes. I'd buy ingredients from the Net Super but the mincemeat I'd make from what I had to hand. Hmmm, how about some 100% Bloody Horn Bull mincemeat and some 100% Orc General mincemeat as well as a mixture of the two, I thought to myself? Three different flavours, a nice contrast.
First I chopped a lot of onions up, I'd need them for fried mincemeat cakes. It's like hamburger steak but with breadcrumbs -- oh, I had to buy more breadcrumbs from the Net Super. While I had the menu open I bought some premium beer too because fried food and especially fried mincemeat cakes go well with beer, or is it the other way round? Whatever.
I started off by soaking some dry breadcrumbs in a small amount of milk and then added the chopped meat, a 50/50 mix of Orc General and Bloody Horn Bull, the chopped-up onions, eggs, salt and pepper and mixed it all up thoroughly until it got sticky. I made the mixture into suitably sized balls and then pressed them flat. Since I was still experimenting I made them small enough for me to eat in a single bite. I repeated the steps with the Orc General meat and the Bloody Horn Bull meat, to get a good comparison of the different flavours. I dunked the meatballs in wheat flour then in whisked egg and finally in dry breadcrumbs before deep-frying them in oil.
Gulp... Is there nothing that can't be made tastier by deep-frying it? No sauce, just a single bite and... success. The meat juices oozed out, delicious and flavourful, the breadcrumb coating crispy. Simply fried mincemeat cake with no sauce or other additives, a winner!
"Hey, why're you eating it all? Give some of it to us too." Fer was drooling over my shoulder.
Yeah yeah, hang on. "OK, first of all here's some fried mincemeat cake, it's a mixture of of Bloody Horn Bull and Orc General." I passed the two battle maniacs some samples straight from the frying pot. "Watch out, they're hot."
"Huh, this is hot but delicious. The meat juices are bursting out." Fer said telepathically, his mouth too full to talk.
"Really, this is delicious-" Sui agreed. Both of them gave fried mincemeat cake a thumbs up.
"Well, try these ones. I've added some sauce to them." Worcester sauce is recommended for fried mincemeat cakes.
"Oh, it's even more delicious with this black sauce on top."
"Yes, yes-" Sui agreed. They seem to prefer them with sauce. I got down to business, quickly frying mincemeat cakes of all three types before dishing them out.
"This is fried mincemeat cake made just with Bloody Horn Bull meat." I passed them each a plate. "And these plates are fried mincemeat cake made from Orc General's meat." handing back another plateful each. I kept back my own servings, I remembered the times I'd had little or nothing left to eat myself after the gluttons had done their worst. Never again. The two of them wolfed down their portions.
"So, there were three different types, which one did you prefer?" I asked for future meal planning.
"Well, it's all tasty but I prefer the Bloody Horn Bull meat by itself." Fer said after thinking about it.
"Sui thinks they're also delicious, but I guess this is the one I like best-" Sui's tentacle pointed to the fried mincemeat cake made just from Orc General's meat.
"Well, my own preference is for the mixed mincemeat cake." I declared. "All three of us like different versions."
"Hey, they're ALL delicious. You should make all of them again." Fer said.
"Sui wants to eat them all again too-"
I'm the one who does all the cooking around here so it's up to me, but I'll make all three types of mincemeat cake again since you asked.
"Fu ~, Sui's tummy is full-"
"Well, I'm stuffed too." Fer chimed in. The gluttons had had enough. Victory!
I fried up a lot more mincemeat cakes for storage, holding out just one portion of mixed mincemeat cakes for myself before I finally settled down to leisurely enjoy the fruits of my labour.
Pssshhhh, glug glug glug. Ha~, beer is delicious. A bite of freshly fried mincemeat cake, mmmm. I put some Worcester sauce on the next piece. Success! The sauce and the meat juices mingled on my tongue. I swallowed and then drank more beer and smiled.
"Hmm, yes, it's the best." I slowly enjoyed the combination of premium beer and fried mincemeat cake.