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 mincremeat 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 .