It took Belze no time at all to kill the boar.
While carrying me, she sprinted through the forest, making a loud noise on purpose to chase the prey toward the riverbank. Then, just as I had requested, Belze’s attack cleanly sliced the boar’s carotid artery.
“Iron-feathered bird, four-wing blades.”
She spread three iron wings to control her balance in the air, while the fourth one served as the blade to hunt the prey. To the boar, the mass of iron approaching at high speed, weaving through the gaps in the trees, must have been nothing but terrifying.
…Wait, can you grow four of them?
Real iron-feathered birds only have two wings. Is that even possible?
” ‘Gluttony’ is all about compatibility and how you use it. Even if a monster is weak, if the characteristics you gain are excellent, you can use them in many ways. It is easy to surpass the original.”
“I see, that is very convenient.”
“I am good at handling wings. The iron-feathered bird you fed me was a good match for me.”
While hanging the boar from a tree on the riverbank and draining the blood from the neck she had sliced open, I reconfirmed Belze’s cheat-like combat ability.
“By the way, Belze, what is the most powerful monster you have ever eaten?”
“A dragon from the ancient era.”
“A-a dragon?”
“Yes. My father obtained some meat from an ancient dragon. It was dried meat found inside a pot from some ruins. It was so disgusting I almost vomited, but I swallowed it while crying and gained its power.”
What on earth is that?
I don’t think even I could cook that well.
“The scales of an ancient dragon can deflect everything. It is my most powerful trump card, but it consumes too much energy. I rarely use it.”
I see. That is a fascinating story.
After hanging and draining the boar, I first scooped out the organs and washed it thoroughly. Then, I cut it into blocks and drained the blood again.
That is why I chose a place with water.
The faster you drain the blood, the better. If you make salt water and scrub the meat blocks with it, the water will quickly turn red and cloudy, so I repeated the process by changing the water many times.
“I-is there really this much blood in it…?”
“Blood remains in the capillaries. Just cutting the carotid artery is not enough, so I scrub it to push the blood out. Game meat that smells bad is usually a result of poor processing.”
“Is blood the cause of that animal smell?”
“Mostly the blood and the fat. The meat itself barely has any smell.”
That is why I drain the blood all the way to the capillaries and trim off the unnecessary fat. If you do that, the animal smell almost completely disappears.
How to mask the slight remaining gamey taste is where a cook’s skill comes in.
By the way, I am using the fillet for this.
It is the meat from the center that does not move much, so it is very soft, has no gristle, and is moist, lean meat.
I plan to roast this slowly at a low temperature, locking in the meat juices so it doesn’t get dry, but…
“Having only one chunk of meat for dinner is a bit plain, so I will make one more dish.”
“To call this ‘dinner’ in the middle of an adventure… you really are a strong-willed person.”
I picked up my kitchen knife while feeling her steady, amazed gaze.
I am going to make a salad.
When you want a side dish for meat, a salad is the way to go.
However, I barely use vegetables. There is no way Belze would like eating a normal salad.
The main ingredients are cherries, white grapes, mini tomatoes, and fresh cheese from the Gnomes—in other words, I suppose you could classify this as a fruit salad.
“They are so cute and round, these specialty products from the Gnome farm.”
“They might be cute, but I don’t like things that taste grassy or bitter.”
“I understand that.”
I boiled the cherries, grapes, and mini tomatoes to peel them, then cut them into hemispheres.
The cause of the bitterness in fruit is the skin. If you peel it off, it will be fine.
Furthermore, I removed the seeds from the cherries and grapes, and I also scooped out the gooey inside of the mini tomatoes.
There are certainly many people who dislike tomatoes.
But if you peel off the skin, which has a bad texture, and remove the grassy inside, all that remains is the flesh, which is not much different from other fruits. This alone changes the impression completely.
I will cut the cheese into the same hemisphere shape. It’s cute that way.
After an hour, the sun had long since set.
Lined up on the table under the night sky were two dishes: a fruit salad of red and white hemispheres shining like jewels, and a rare roast of lean meat showing a glistening, bright red cross-section.
“It is a vivid menu, not what I would expect on a trip.”
Belze first tried to reach for the roast meat with her fork, but she paused.
If you follow the theory, you should eat the salad before the meat dish.
She reluctantly followed the theory. She piled the red cherry flesh on top of the white cheese and pierced them with her fork.
“What is the name of this?”
“It is a Tea and Cherry Caprese.”
“Tea…?”
She lifted the skewered cherry and cheese and quietly smelled it. Belze looked slightly surprised.
“I see, it is tea leaves.”
“Yes. It is marinated with crushed tea leaves, herb oil, citrus juice, roughly crushed rock salt, and black pepper.”
The main ingredients are cherries and cheese.
It is a marinated salad like a Caprese, but with cherries as the star instead of tomatoes.
I hid the tomatoes and white grapes, which lost their leading roles, as accents.
“It’s new. It’s not bad.”
Belze carried it to her mouth, chewed it cautiously, and nodded.
“The complex scent of the tea leaves and spices is wonderful. The accent of the salt is also pleasant. I like it.”
“I’m glad.”
The crunchy rock salt brings out the sweetness of the fruit, not as a dessert, but as a salad.
By the way, this tea leaf is the brand that Belze always likes to drink, and it is what Munier gave me on purpose before we left.
“Who is Munier?”
“He is the cook who served the large-jawed fish meunière in yesterday’s test. Don’t you remember?”
“I wonder…”
Belze tilted her head, looking awkward.
He is the only colleague among the cooks at that villa with whom I was able to become friends. I call him Munier with affection.
“Oh, that is a tomato.”
“Eh?”
“The one you just ate, thinking it was a cherry.”
“…”
After peeling the skin and removing the inside, the appearance is almost the same.
Even so, the taste is different. Belze chewed it carefully and nodded, “Indeed.”
“It’s delicious.”
I am glad you liked it.
Now, for the other dish.
It is the rare roast with the bright red cross-section. Belze was cautious with this one as well.
The lean boar meat, slowly cooked at a low temperature around sixty degrees Celsius, was a vivid wine-red color even though it was cooked through to the center.
It held juicy, flavorful meat juices, was moist and tender, and had a meat quality where the muscle fibers were elastic yet easy to pull apart.
“You smoked it, too. What is this scent?”
“Cherry blossom. I received some cherry tree bark from the Gnome farm. I smoked it lightly just to give it a scent.”
The elegant scent of cherry blossom wood masks the gamey smell of the boar meat.
The light smoke that you would barely notice unless told, along with the various spices and salt I rubbed into the meat, created a complex flavor that Belze loves.
For the finishing touch, I added a bit of garlic butter to make up for the lack of fat.
“Is the sauce also cherry?”
“Yes. It is a dark red sauce made by boiling down cherries and wine.”
Together with the sauce made of broken-down fruit, Belze carried a small piece of the roast meat to her mouth.
It is a pleasure to watch Belze, who is always cautious at first, gradually open her heart to the food in front of her.
She whispered again that it was delicious.
“The elegance of the cherry blossom and the wild, strong red meat… certainly, some gaminess remains, but this unique flavor is refined into richness. The combination of smoke and fruit is novel, but it goes well together.”
“This cherry blossom bark and the cherries were both harvested from the same tree. Such ingredients are compatible.”
“Is that so?”
Belze did not stop.
She ate the meat one piece after another at a steady pace, and she even opened a bottle of red wine, which she shouldn’t be good at, all by herself.
“It is a blasphemy to pair white wine with this dish.”
She said something like that.
I agree with her on that point, but more than that, the fact that I was able to move her heart enough that she took a drink she usually dislikes on her own—
That made me happier than anything else.