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“Hey there, Toor Deen. How’s the cooking going?” Asuta asked with a smile as he descended from his wagon in front of the house.
Toor Deen nodded back, her face still red from the conversation a moment ago. “Hello. I just have one more dish to finish. Did it go well today, Asuta?”
“Yep, sure did. Ah, Ai Fa, I’m back.”
“Right.”
Ai Fa was standing there in the doorway of the house with her arms crossed, staring at Asuta with an expression fitting for a clan head. And yet, in spite of the look on her face, there was a very gentle gaze to her eyes.
She must have been truly overjoyed that Asuta had safely returned. The conflict with the nobles might have been settled, but there was still some degree of danger to people of the forest’s edge heading into the post town.
“Well then, time for me to get started on that final dish,” Toor Deen declared, lighting the indoor stove while Asuta tidied up.
As the young chef transferred the giba lard she had brought from the Deen house into the pot, Ai Fa peered inside and commented, “Oh...? Is the final dish you’re preparing giba cutlets?”
“No, it would be difficult to prepare those with my level of skill, and that goes even more so for the women of the north. This is a simpler fried dish.”
Naturally, it was one that Asuta had taught her how to prepare. Though giba cutlets had apparently earned quite a high regard in the Ruu settlement, they were not only difficult to prepare, but also required a variety of ingredients. And that was why Asuta proposed this dish.
“What should I call it? Meunière-style shallow-fried giba, I guess?” Asuta had once mused.
The dish involved rubbing salt and pico leaves into flat slices of meat, covering them in fuwano or poitan flour, then frying them up in lard.
Steak and hamburger steak used just a bit of fat to grill. Cutlets and croquettes were immersed in heated oil to fry. Shallow frying was a method that fell somewhere between those two.
The meat was the cut from the back that Asuta called sirloin. It was initially about as thick as Toor Deen’s palm, and she then beat it with a wooden pole until it was about two-thirds that thickness. Asuta had said making it that thick would give it a proper chewiness and allow it to heat through quickly so it wouldn’t suck up excess oil.
Next, Toor Deen flavored it with salt and pico leaves, coated it in poitan flour, and then dipped it into the heated lard. The depth of the lard was enough so that the meat was left half-submerged.
The oil crackled pleasantly. The giba cutlets Asuta had once let her taste really were unbelievably delicious, but Toor Deen believed this shallow-fried meat was plenty tasty too.
“Ah, you’re frying? In that case, use this,” Asuta said, coming out of the pantry holding some sort of strange tool. It was like a flat board made by joining together thin metal rods, which left it with a lot of openings.
“This is called a wire mesh. If you place the fried meat on top of it, the excess oil will drip off.”
“Thank you. I’ll go ahead and use it, then.”
As she moved the cooked meat to the mesh, she added the next piece of meat to the pot. And by that point, Asuta was also standing next to the stove.
“Rounded pots are real inconvenient with how you have to cook the pieces one by one in when you’re shallow frying, right? So we’re planning on buying a saucepan for the Fa house.”
“A-A saucepan?”
“Yeah. It’s a type of pan with a flat bottom. You don’t see them that often in the post town, but they were more commonly used back in my home country.”
Just what sort of country had Asuta come from? After all, he claimed he was nothing but a chef-in-training there. Toor Deen couldn’t help but find that rather hard to believe, though.
“All right, that should do it. Sorry for making you wait.”
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for. And this is my first time eating your cooking, so I’m looking forward to it.”
When she heard those words, Toor Deen got a knot in her stomach, and her ears and cheeks felt hot.
But at any rate, the cooking was done. After transferring the meat to a wooden plate once the oil dripped off, she went ahead and laid everything out atop the carpet in the main hall. Giba offal soup, giba meatballs, stir fry using four different vegetables, and shallow-fried giba sirloin... Then when she added the poitan baked in the house, everything was ready.
For the shallow-fried meat, she also sprinkled the juice from a slice of sheel overtop. That sour fruit juice really paired well with the dish, which packed in the delicious flavor of the giba meat.
“We’ll also be preparing normal grilled meat on the day of the banquet too, but these are all of the more elaborate dishes we’ll be offering.”
“Yup, looks like a real extravagant lineup. It certainly doesn’t lose out to what I prepared for the Rutim banquet,” Asuta responded with a truly joyful grin.
As she placed her hand to her rapidly beating heart, Toor Deen took a seat.
It was already getting dark in the room, so Ai Fa went around and lit some candles, while Asuta clapped his hands together and offered thanks.
“We give thanks for the blessings of the forest, and offer our gratitude to Toor Deen, who manned the flame and gave us our life for this night... Thanks for the food.” With that, Asuta started off by reaching for the giba offal soup. “Ooh, so you used entrails in a tarapa stew? Looks tasty.”
Toor Deen clenched her fists and watched intently as Asuta brought the wooden spoon to his mouth. And then, his eyes opened wide, looking a little shocked.
“Those chitt seeds add just the right amount of punch. And this flavor...did you use lilo leaves?”
“Yes, that’s correct...”
“The lilo definitely pairs well with the tarapa, doesn’t it? It’s very tasty.”
Asuta was kind by nature, though, so that comment alone wasn’t enough to put Toor Deen at ease.
Meanwhile, Ai Fa slurped some soup with a frown.
“Ooh, so this is the heart, and this is skirt steak? It sure is nice getting to enjoy all these different textures, isn’t it, Ai Fa?”
“Indeed. And the proportion of chitt seeds used seems just right.”
“You sure are particular about chitt seeds, aren’t you? But I haven’t burned your mouth with them even once since then, have I?”
“Don’t make me remember! My tongue will start throbbing!” Ai Fa shouted with a frightening look. Still, considering how calm and composed she normally was, such an outburst of emotion really went to show just how much she had opened her heart to Asuta.
“Umm...are there any issues with how it tastes?”
“No, it’s delicious! It should make even folks eating offal for the first time more than happy,” Asuta replied as he scooped up a meatball. “Yup, no issues with these either. So you went with a no-frills fruit wine base for the sauce?”
Occasionally, Asuta used words that Toor Deen didn’t really get, which she figured must have come from his home country.
But at any rate, after that Asuta and Ai Fa feasted away just as vigorously as the Deen men did. They both had formidable appetites considering how thin they were. Toor Deen had actually been worried she had made a bit too much, but sure enough, everything ended up in their bellies.
“How was it...? I would like to hear your honest opinions on whether or not it was a meal fitting for a banquet,” Toor Deen questioned after somehow managing to finish off her own plate.
“Thanks for the meal,” Asuta stated in what seemed to be some unfamiliar chant, and then he crossed his arms and went, “Hmm... There was no issue at all with the flavor. To be perfectly honest, I never imagined you had polished your skills this much. After all, I haven’t really had a proper chance to give lessons to the members of the Deen and Fou clans.”
Even before he was kidnapped by that noble girl, Asuta had frequently stayed at the Ruu settlement, where he had apparently prepared food for the stalls and cooked dinner along with the women there.
On the other hand, Toor Deen and everyone else had only been able to get in a little training here and there by visiting the Fa house. Since it was the custom at the forest’s edge that you needed to prepare dinner for your house at your own stove, they had no choice but to bring the techniques learned from Asuta back home and try them out there.
“On top of that, it may be forward of me to say so, but I have some advice.”
“R-Right! Please, don’t hold back!”
“First off, you said before that you’d be offering grilled meat in addition to these dishes, but what about the soup?”
“The soup? I hadn’t come up with anything besides this tarapa dish...”
“I see. For the Rutim banquet I also prepared a tarapa stew, but that took a lot of time to prepare and plenty of ingredients, so I made a normal soup too,” Asuta stated, stroking his chin as he looked deep in thought. “This tarapa and offal soup feels pretty similar, I’d say. How many people will be attending the banquet?”
“R-Right, it should be around seventy or eighty, I believe.”
“It’ll be real tough preparing enough innards, then. The Deen clan is on a break, so who will be providing those and the meat?”
“Well, the plan is to have the Deen men go around to our related clans during the break period to teach them how to bloodlet and remove the innards. It should be clans that are closer than the ones up north, though.”
“I see. Well, even if you can get enough, I’d still say there’s no harm in preparing a normal soup too. A simple dish like that can help the flavors of everything else stand out, and soup can efficiently provide a nice helping of vegetables, so I’d recommend using plenty of aria and the like.”
“Right, got it.”
“And also...this is really getting nitpicky, but it might be good to mix in some poitan or fuwano flour with the sauce you drizzle over the meatballs. That should help it cling better to them.”
“Poitan or fuwano flour? Understood,” Toor Deen replied, carving Asuta’s words firmly into the back of her mind.
And as she did that, Asuta shot her a smile.
“Right, that’s all I have to say.”
“Huh?”
“I know you’re trying to avoid using unnecessary ingredients as much as possible with the meatballs, so it’s no big deal if you don’t do so. Just adding the simple soup dish should be plenty.”
“B-But isn’t anything else wrong...? Not just with the contents of the dishes, but with the flavoring and everything...?”
“Like I said before, there’s nothing wrong with the flavor. At present, I figure it’s worthy of a perfect score, right?” Asuta asked, shooting Ai Fa a questioning look.
“Indeed,” she nodded back. “I find these dishes even more delicious than what was presented at the Rutim banquet or the clan head meeting. It truly is surprising that you were able to prepare something on this level without Asuta’s assistance.”
“That’s right. You may not quite be at Reina Ruu’s current skill level, but considering how little instruction you received, this is a tremendous result.”
“Then... Then if I receive more of your instruction too, can I get even better?” Toor Deen asked, leaning forward without even thinking.
Asuta’s eyes opened wide in shock as he answered, “Y-Yeah, of course. You’re still only ten years old, so you should have plenty of room left to grow.”
“In that case... I really would like to learn more from you.”
She hadn’t planned on revealing that to Asuta until after the banquet. However, she simply hadn’t been able to hold in how she was feeling.
“You heard from Gulaf Zaza too, right, Asuta? My clan member Jas Deen asked him if the Deen clan could also help out with your business in the post town. If this banquet satisfies Gulaf Zaza, he should grant that request... Or at least, that’s what Jas Deen said.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard. There was no time to discuss stuff like that until everything was settled with the nobles... But now that things have settled down, Gulaf Zaza is finally getting up off his backside, huh?”
“Yes... And Jas Deen said that’s why I’m being placed in charge of this banquet.”
“Huh? You’re only ten, but you’re being put in charge of the chefs?”
“That’s right. So if I can properly show the strength you bring to our people, then Gulaf Zaza and the clan heads under him should give their permission for me to help you out... Jas Deen said that if I want something, then I should be the one to see it through.” Suddenly, Toor Deen realized her body had started trembling. She clutched her knees to still herself. “So you see...if I really am successful with this job, then could...could I help out with your work too...?”
“Yeah, of course, Toor Deen,” Asuta replied with a gentle smile but a serious tone. “The truth is, we were actually just talking about expanding our staff. We’re already borrowing lots of folks from the Ruu and Rutim, and the Fou and Ran don’t have women to spare, so it’s been looking like our only options would be the Lea and the Min. But if you can join in, that’d be a huge help.”
“Really...?”
“Yeah. So make sure to give this banquet everything you’ve got, okay?”
Toor Deen felt like she was about to break down in tears.
And yet, this was no time for crying. After all, she still had work to do.
If she could manage to make the banquet a success, she could help Asuta with his stalls... And if that happened, then it would probably be okay for her to cry a bit.
With such thoughts running through her head, Toor Deen replied, “Thank you.”
At that, Asuta and Ai Fa both stared back at the young chef with more warmth than ever before.
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