Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 8 - Chapter 5.2

2

Once we finished cleaning up the entrails, we headed back to the Fa house and I returned to my original tasks for the day.

Of course, that’s not to say I put off dealing with the innards for later, though. I started off by steeping the heart, liver, and kidneys in salt water to get out even more blood, and then parboiled the other bits with lilo to remove any remaining stench before finally soaking everything in a myamuu, aria, and fruit wine marinade.

It took nearly an hour to take care of all that, so my preparations for work tomorrow ended up getting rather delayed. And so, I hurriedly set about making the patties for the giba burgers and cutting up the meat for the myamuu giba, cubed giba meat stew, and giba chitt. And somehow, I managed to fulfill my quota before the sun set.

“Alright, well then, let’s get to cooking with the innards.”

We had two stoves set up outside. One of them was cooking the soup for dinner, while I had the other heating up a pot.

“Huh? You’re grilling instead of boiling?” Toor Din asked, her eyes going wide with surprise.

“That’s right,” I replied with a nod. “With the seasonings we have in the Fa house right now, I can bring out a stronger flavor that way. So for now, I’m going to try grilling them up along with the same marinade I use for the myamuu giba.”

“So first you boiled them, and now you’re grilling them...?”

The forest’s edge didn’t have any concept of parboiling, so I suppose it made sense that that seemed strange to her. But I was pretty sure fried offal back in my world used parboiling followed by grilling. Well, “pretty sure” probably made that statement sound a bit unreliable. But embarrassing as it was to admit, we didn’t eat out a lot at my house, so I wasn’t all that familiar with cooking using entrails.

I had to guess that my old man didn’t have much interest in such dishes. In fact, I was pretty sure I could recall one of our regulars saying, “Hey, you should add motsunabe to your menu,” only for him to reply, “Yeah, maybe eventually.”

And so, this was all ultimately guesswork. For the time being, the three I chose not to parboil were the roly-poly heart, liver, and kidneys, instead cutting them finely and steeping them in a myamuu marinade.

As for the bits I parboiled, I cut them up into nice chunks. With that, it was really starting to look like the fried offal that I vaguely remembered. And when I went ahead and tossed the bits steeped in the red sauce into the pot, the sweet aroma of fruit wine and the garlic-esque smell of myamuu filled the air along with a puff of white steam.

“Aah, that smells good,” one of the Fou women muttered excitedly.

“Thanks to you buying the jerky from us, we received so many coins that we should try buying some myamuu for the Fou house, too.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” I replied as I stirred the entrails with a wooden spatula so that they wouldn’t burn. It was then that Ai Fa suddenly peeked over my shoulder.

“Hmm... This certainly has an unusual appearance.”

“But it smells delicious, right?”

“The scent is from the myamuu though, isn’t it?”

It was just as she said.

Still, just how would this go? Would fried giba offal be to the tastes of the people of the forest’s edge? The preparations we did and the marinade should have properly gotten rid of any stench, so it would surely be edible at the very least. But since I pretty much never ate fried offal myself, I couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy.

“Alright, this’ll be my first go at it.”

The entrails were nice and cooked by now, so I moved them over to the corner of the tray. Then, I moved some onto a wooden plate with a spoon and held it out towards Toor Din.

“Here you go. But let me just say in advance that this is just a preliminary taste test.”

“Right...”

Toor Din looked a bit uneasy as she accepted the plate. Was she thinking if it was gross, then we wasted an hour or so of work?

Still, the two of us were sharing the responsibility, at least. And so, I moved some to a plate for myself, then took a bite without any hesitation.

The first thing to spread throughout my mouth was the familiar salty-sweet flavor of myamuu giba. Then, as I bit down on the soft entrails, I was pleased to find that nice chewy texture Toor Din had mentioned. It reminded me a lot of poultry, just like you would assume from its appearance. Yup, it really did have a nice, satisfying texture.

It certainly wasn’t gross, nor did it smell.

Actually, what part even was this? It wasn’t all that thick, so it was probably the small intestine or uterus or something. At any rate, my earnest impressions were that it was neither particularly good or bad.

“What do you think, Toor Din?” I asked, turning to look her way.

And what I found was the girl tightly gripping her spoon and plate, wearing an incredibly joyous smile.

“It’s tasty. Really, really tasty... Much, much more than the last time I ate them.”

Ah, really?

Well, I’m sure personal opinions tend to split on dishes using entrails, too, I thought as I went and tossed a bigger chunk into my mouth. And as I chewed away at it, a whole different flavor than before filled my mouth.

“Huh? This is delicious.”

“Yeah. It sure is, isn’t it?” Toor Din chimed in, smiling even more than before.

What was going on here? The chewy texture was even better than the last bit, but more than that, the flavor was on a whole other level. The wonderful taste of giba fat was coming through really strong, now.

From the shape, had that been the large intestine? It was certainly delicious, at any rate.

“Yup, it’s real good. I’d feel confident recommending it to someone, even. So please, go ahead and give it a try if you’re interested, everyone.”

We didn’t exactly have enough to go around, so I was only able to hand a single set of tableware to each clan. The Fou women timidly took hold of the plate, while Toor Din scooped up some fresh innards and handed them to Jas Din with a smile.

As for me, I presented a plate to my clan head.

“Is this really tasty...?”

“It’s delicious. Ah, but it seems the taste varies a good bit depending on which part you get. But I think if you eat a couple bites, you’re sure to find something you like,” I replied, cooking up the heart and liver and whatnot as I did so.

The liver looked just like what I expected, but I could no longer recognize the kidneys at all. As for the heart, it was a bit thicker and almost reminded me of red meat.

As I grilled them all up, I spared a glance over at Ai Fa.

“Well? It’s not bad, right?”

“Yes, it isn’t bad at all... But when exactly should I swallow it?”

“I honestly can’t tell too well myself. If you give it a solid chew, though, that should probably be enough.”

As we had that exchange, the heart and liver finished cooking.

I had at least had stir-fried liver and garlic chives and chicken liver yakitori, but how would this be? Ai Fa was still chewing away, but she handed me back the plate, and I decided to start with trying the liver.

It was definitely good.

The flavor was a good bit richer than the poultry or pork livers I was familiar with, and I couldn’t sense even the slightest stench of blood. If those preparations could earn results this good, then they more than earned a passing mark. So much so that I couldn’t help but regret getting rid of them up till now.

The kidneys had a similar taste and texture to the liver. They didn’t have as rich of a taste, but they had a less quirky flavor to them overall. I’d say they were a bit softer, too.

And as for the heart... it was pretty much just like eating normal meat. It looked like grilled red meat, and was even softer than thigh meat.

“Yup, it’s tasty. It’s easier to eat than fried offal, too. You should give it a try, Ai Fa.”

“What is it? It’s not meat, right?”

“This is the liver, these are the kidneys, and this is the heart. The liver’s a bit on the quirky side, but it’s probably packed with nutrition. And the heart’s tasty and pretty much just like ordinary meat.”

“A giba’s heart, is it...?” Ai Fa muttered like she was thinking something, then she went ahead and started with the heart, sure enough. “It’s good...”

“Right?”

“Yeah... And I can strongly sense the fact that I am taking in the giba’s life,” Ai Fa stated, looking incredibly satisfied.

Everybody else was wearing similar expressions, too.

And so, the test batch I had cooked up was quickly finished off by the six of us. And I would gladly take the uncooked leftovers to use for dinner tonight at the Fa house.

With that, our pre-dinner taste testing party came to a close.

“It was all very good... but the preparations take far too long, wouldn’t you say? Leg and torso meat is just about as tasty, and they’re much quicker to prepare,” Jas Din stated after we wrapped up, acting as a representative for the group.

“That’s true. I think it would be good for each house to decide if they want to eat them or not. Or it’d be possible to just eat the organs that take less prep work, like the heart and liver... Oh, and I don’t think they’d last that long even in pico leaves, but do you have any thoughts on that, Toor Din?”

“Yes. They may last a couple of days, but we generally ate them on the same day we prepared them.”

“I knew it. Still, I think we’ll probably end up eating everything here at the Fa house as long as time allows. Now that I know they’re tasty, I just wouldn’t feel right throwing them away. And besides... if it becomes possible to sell meat in the post town, then the prices on the meat itself will also go up.”

Jas Din and the others just tilted their heads, seeming like they didn’t understand.

“This giba wasn’t even that big, but I was able to create this much food. So with a large giba, it’d probably be easy to prepare at least one dinner with the innards, right? And if that means I can save one extra meal’s worth of meat, I could sell that in the post town instead. Still, I guess it may not really be necessary to think that much about profits.”

“Ah, I suppose that makes sense...”

“Also, this is a dish that hunters can only eat on the day that they capture a giba. So doesn’t it sort of feel like a blessing granted to them for their hard work? That may be why I feel a need to cook it properly instead of just throwing it away.” Those feelings surely varied from person to person, though. And I had no intention of forcing anyone to do the same as me. “Well, I guess it could also be good just doing it when there’s no extra work on your plate, too. Plus, the innards should provide different nutrition than meat, and a different sort of texture, too.”

“At the very least, I’d say the men would like the heart...” Ai Fa quietly chimed in. “That’s likely a food that fits well to the tastes of hunters. It gives you a satisfying feeling that you’re taking the giba’s life into yourself.”

“I see. You really have taught us quite a bit, Ai Fa and Asuta of the Fa clan,” Jas Din added.

Then, still wearing a gentle expression with a strict gaze, she placed her wrinkled hand atop Toor Din’s head.

“We should aim to eat the innards in the Din clan, too. Toor Din here seems to love them, after all.”

Hearing that, Toor Din blushed a bit, but she also smiled.

“They’re all chewy and yummy, right?” I unnecessarily chimed in, only for the girl’s face to go even redder as she whacked me in the chest and went, “Geez!”

As my clan head watched over me with a chilly glare, the curtain of twilight fell over the forest’s edge.