I asked the chef in the morning for ingredients for sausages and dried fruits.
Now, I came to the market together with Ashera to look for other things that might be preserved.
The first candidate was fish. If I filleted it into three pieces and dried it in the sun, it would become dried fish.
If I lightly roasted it over a fire in the labyrinth, I could have a dish ready. If there was sake, that would be perfect.
Speaking of alcohol in this world, ale, wine, and mead are commonly drunk at taverns.
It seems that distilled spirits do not yet exist in this world.
When we arrived at the market, stalls were lined up tightly together. In this place, anyone could sell goods as long as they paid 30% of sales.
Among them, probably running a stall herself, a girl obviously smaller than me was bravely negotiating prices with an older woman.
“Aldo. What are you going to buy?”
“Let’s see… first fish. Next, I want some seasonings…”
As I walked, I found a street stall displaying fish.
There were no customers in front of the stall, so I carefully observed the fish.
All the fish looked like river fish, shaped similar to crucian carp and trout. Since it wasn’t the season, the quantity was small and prices were relatively high.
(River fish, huh. Grandpa, who passed away, used to say that sun-dried fish are best from the sea, but river fish are best grilled and dried. Well, I’m dead too, though.)
For now, I bought two of each of the crucian carp and trout (as I call them).
Ashera watched me buying the fish with a curious expression.
“I’ll fillet them into three pieces, grill them, and then sun-dry them. Once they’re done, I’ll let you taste them too.”
Ashera nodded, her eyes sparkling.
Looking away from the fishmonger and at the market, I was surprised to see honey being sold in pottery.
I immediately bought it all at once, pottery and all.
Seeing a 13-year-old like me casually pull out three gold coins, a few men seemed to take an interest in me…
To avoid causing a fuss, I tried to walk in crowded areas, but they followed at a certain distance.
Honestly, they were a major nuisance for shopping. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to the food I bought.
“Haah. Ashera, should we clean…?”
“Yeah. Should I do it?”
“No, I’ll do it. Can I leave the fish and honey to you?”
“Yeah.”
We left the market and walked into an alley with no people.
After we had walked for a while, perhaps they had run here. Two men, slightly out of breath, appeared from the front, and a muscle-bound guy came from behind.
The muscular guy in the back, presumably the leader, turned his killing intent toward me and threatened me.
“Hey, kid. If you don’t want to die, leave all your belongings and money behind.”
I hesitated about what to do, then turned toward the muscular guy together with Ashera.
The muscular guy looked at Ashera, seemed to widen his eyes, and then spoke with a lewd smile.
“And leave your friend behind too. I’ll make her a fine woman and return her to you.”
The men behind him also put on vulgar smiles and fawned on the muscular guy, saying, ‘Please share her with us too.’
I had intended to discipline them lightly, but words directed at Ashera were unforgivable.
I drew knives from my left thigh and right shin, aiming them at the muscular guy… with extreme killing intent.
The muscular guy, befitting the leader, probably realized the difference in our strength instantly.
He was barely standing, drenched in sweat all over his body.
“Just so you know, this one is stronger than me…”
The muscle man looked slowly at Ashera as if assessing her, and when he looked at me, he showed a more surprised expression than he had before and collapsed to the ground.
The two men behind kept asking, “Aniki, what’s wrong?” repeatedly, but the muscle man seemed unable to take his eyes off Ashera.
I shattered a broken wooden box that had been lying in the corner of the alley with my magic weapon (greatsword) to show him.
Ashera had smashed a broken barrel to pieces with her magic fist.
By this time, the two men finally seemed to notice the difference in strength and, like the muscle man, they collapsed to their knees.
“I’m in a good mood today because I bought fish and honey, so I’ll let you off. But next time I see your face, you won’t live.”
I said it with lethal intent and left the scene.
I glanced back and saw all three of them crawling away, so they should leave the royal capital.
After dealing with that annoying event, I once again browsed the market for ingredients.
As expected, they didn’t sell soy sauce, mirin, or miso. I thought there might be a chance, but it seemed there wasn’t.
While enjoying the market and eating around with Ashera, I found that vinegar was being sold.
I tried a little sample, and although the flavor differed from Japanese rice vinegar, it was certainly vinegar.
I wasn’t sure if it would be used for this batch of preserved food, but I bought it in bulk anyway. Now I could make mayonnaise.
Before I noticed it, lunchtime had passed.
“What should we do about lunch?”
“We’ve eaten too much walking around, so I’m not hungry.”
“Yeah, right. Then let’s go back and try making various things.”
“Yeah.”
Today’s harvest was river fish, honey, and vinegar. As for fruit preserved in honey, that was a given… But grilled and dried river fish with vinegar, huh.
Mayonnaise… I wanted to eat it, but it didn’t keep well.
If I started doing everything, it would never end, so for now I’d limit myself to preserved foods and release the recipes from Japan.
I returned to the mansion and immediately headed to the kitchen.
“Head Chef. How about the ingredients we talked about this morning?”
I wondered if it was really okay to come straight to the kitchen and say something like this, but it was the lack of time that was to blame. Let me use that as an excuse.
“The fruits we got are orange fruits, stro fruits, lemon fruits, and we barely managed to get apo fruits.”
“Thank you, Head Chef! And also, bring out a lot of small ceramic bowls.”
“…U-Understood.”
The head chef didn’t understand what I meant and had question marks floating above his head, but he still listened to what I said.
Sorry, Chef. I didn’t really intend to spread much knowledge about Japan.
Once it was finished, I’d have you make it as a ‘recipe’ exactly the way I said.
I didn’t intend to explain why it became preserved food. I assumed that even if the recipe spread, it would fade away if people didn’t understand the meaning.
First, put the pottery into a large pot and fill it with hot water. Let it simmer as it is for about 10 minutes.
Drain the water while being careful not to touch the inside of the pottery.
Using chopsticks, carefully arrange the fruit pieces — Oren, Stro, Lemo, and Apo — cut into bite-sized pieces at the bottom of the pottery.
Of course, the pottery was different depending on the fruit. Each piece of pottery was about the size of a fist.
Once the bottom is covered with fruit, add honey. Once the honey is spread evenly, layer more fruit on top.
The container was filled to about three levels, so I sealed it with a cork.
When I had made three of each fruit, I ran out of honey.
I carefully placed the honey-soaked containers in a wooden box, putting cloth as cushioning between them.
Finally, I used magic to make ice and put it into the wooden box.
In this season, adding ice once a day should be enough. With this, the honey-pickled fruits were complete. Whether they could actually be eaten would be the fun of exploring the labyrinth.
Next, I made jam from each fruit. Jam is simple. I put the fruit in a pot and simmered it.
After adjusting the taste with sugar, I just put it into containers. I put this into slightly larger containers and let it cool.
The remaining fruit would be dried fruit. Later, drying it under the sun with fish would complete it.
Next was sun-dried river fish. I filleted it into three pieces, grilled it with salt, and dried it under the sun.
In Japan, the dried fish I bought wouldn’t last more than a week. If I dried it until it was crispy, it should keep longer.
Whether it was tasty or not… I’d leave that for later.
Next was the sausage, but ground meat… I guessed I just had to do my best.
I desperately used a knife to turn the pork (boar) into ground meat.
I used the body enhancement for one hour. Sweat was about to drip, so I used air-conditioning magic to lower the temperature to freezing to cope.
I’d leave the ratio of pork fat to meat up to the head chef. For now, I was testing preservation and doing rough seasoning.
I mixed the ground meat with spices. Then it was time to stuff the intestines, but it wouldn’t go in well.
With the maid making a piping bag out of cloth, I somehow managed to handle it.
The sausages made from pig intestines were bigger than I had thought. These were the size of frankfurters. In the end, I made ten frankfurters.
All that was left was to boil them and then smoke them to make smoked sausages. I’d been cooking in the kitchen since noon today.
Honestly, I was getting fed up. I had to somehow muster my strength and finish the Frankfurt sausages…
I also put these in a dish and let them cool. I took out just one for tasting and was frying it in a pan until it got a nice browned color.
A smell that was hard to describe wafted up, and when I plated it, I heard a voice calling me.
“Aldo. Your tasting promise.”
Ashera put her hands on her hips and struck a pose that said ‘I’m angry’ and called out to me.
“I remember. But it’s the first time, you know. I might get a stomachache, so I’ll eat it myself.”
“No. I want to eat too.”
“You won’t know if you get sick.”
“Okay.”
Saying that, she cut about a quarter off the Frankfurt and cautiously tried a bite…
It didn’t compare to Frankfurt in Japan, but I felt like this was fine as it was.
It seemed Ashera liked it too.
“Head Chef. I think it’s fine. Please try it.”
“Yes.”
I had the Head Chef taste it to check the flavor. I planned to leave any further improvements from here on to the Head Chef.
“Delicious…”
It seemed the Head Chef liked it too. I asked him to try various combinations of spice and meat ratios, and then I left the kitchen.
I carried the two wooden boxes outside the mansion.
Since the boxes got wet on the bottom due to ice cooling, I planned to take these two boxes on my dungeon exploration to actually test their preservation. Of course, I wouldn’t forget to add ice every day to keep them cool.
While I was moving the box, Ashera kept following me the whole time. If she showed up in the kitchen at that timing, she must have been watching the whole time from somewhere.
Of course, she should know that the contents were fruit preserved in honey and jam.
“Ashera, this is preserved food. I want to take it to the labyrinth and check how well it keeps.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, but tasting it will have to be done inside the labyrinth.”
“I want to eat even just one.”
“Once it’s opened, it has to be eaten right away. That’s why it’s portioned… but just one, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll open just one… I need to check the taste too…”
“Yeah!”
I should compare the baked dried items too, from those dried for one day to those dried for four days.
At worst, the jam should be okay somehow…
It was a long day that drained my energy, making preserved food, which turned out to be more difficult than I had expected.
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