120 Rabbit Stew

"That's right, rabbit stew. It's really good. Usually I'd go for cooked rice with chicken, but there's no rice." Said John 

Fortunately, rice existed in this world, and quiet frequently sold at most inns or restaurants that one could go to. Although it was rather expensive. 

"John..." Serena muttered as her eyes sparkled 

"Yes? What is it?" John asked 

"You'd make a good house wife" Ariel answered 

"What's that supposed to mean... Anyways, I'm cooking right now, so don't distract me" 

The two girls hastily nodded 

John looked towards master's brother, and he was slightly drooling. When he saw that john noticed, he wiped it off and turned around. 

The Sweet aroma and the cooked rabbit meat, was flowing through the warm cave. One could almost forget that there was a blizzard outside 

John continued to cook, he got the other 3 skinned rabbit meats which were floating in the air, and repeated the process. 

After that, there were four steamy hot plates of cooked rabbit meat. John made sure to keep all the meat warm by increasing the amount of thermal energy around them. 

HIs precision with magic control really skyrocketed after the training he had at school. His chant-less secret was nearly found out a few times, when he tried to cheat. But in the end, he learnt how to properly cast chants. 

"The meat Is good... Now to move on to..." 

As the oil on the empty pot, continued to shimmer. John added 1 diced onions to the pot before seasoning it with salt and pepper. 

He cooked it until softened and the pieces were just starting to turn brown. That took around 5 minutes. 

"There's no tomato paste so..." 

At the same time as John was frying the onions, he was preparing a tomato paste. John had cut diced up a tomatoes and compressed it until it ended up like some sort of sauce with wind magic. He also made sure to careful separate the seeds which were inside for aesthetics but it was a waste of time. 

But he managed to make it in time. He placed the self made tomato paste into the cooking pot with the onions and began mixing it using a wooden spoon 

"cook it until the raw tomato flavour mellows... Around 2 minutes..." 

After he said that, he waited 2 minutes, while mixing around the tomato paste and onions, so that their flavours could intertwine. After that he sprinkled in a bit of flour before cooking it for a minute. He did this to get off the raw flour taste. 

The last bit of flour that he added and cooked, helped thicken the liquid in the pot into a nice sauce 

"Sauce... Check." John muttered 

Without removing the onions, John looked at the bottom of the pot and a smile was formed on his face. There was a thick crust forming on the bottom of the pot 

"Looks like everything is moving smoothly" Said john happily 

"Hmm... What liquid should I use...?" John muttered 

"Liquid?" Asked Serena 

"Yeah, to lift all of the flavour off the bottom of the pot and into the sauce, I'll need to deglaze it with some kind of liquid." Said John 

"What liquid?" Ariel asked 

John had taken cooking lessons before and had to cook for himself at times, and one thing his teacher would always say, is that red flavour wine is the best. Although he didn't believe it was completely true 

"Well, we don't have vinegar... Red wine would probably be the easiest and tastiest one to get. But I'm not sure if we have any" Said John 

"Red wine?" Asked Master's brother 

"Yeah" John replied 

"Then just use my sister's" He said as he walked up to john 

He looked through the ingridients which john had brought, and red wine was there. He picked it up and handed it to john. 

John knew that his master had red wine, he also brought it in case he'd need it for cooking or she'd want it. But he was rather worried of using it. 

"Haha... Will you take responsibility?" John asked 

"Am I getting a portion?" Master's brother asked 

They looked at each other and shook hands. 

"Of course," Said john 

"Then you bet I will" Said master's brother 

He handed john the wine, and without wasting any time, john poured one cup of wine in the pot, and as it began to boil, john scraped up all the flavourful bits with his spoon 

"Cook the wine until it begins to thicken... That will take 3 minutes..." John muttered 

He began counting the time in his head, and noticed the serena and ariel were also slightly drooling 

"It smells nice..." Muttered Serena 

"J-John, why have you never told us you could cook?" Asked Serena 

"Because you never asked" Replied John 

John's reply slightly annoyed serena, but she was looking forward to the eating so much that she didn't even notice. 

3 minutes later, John returned the meat cooked meat to the pot, with any juices that had accumulated on the plates. The pot was full of cooked meat on the nice flavourful liquid sauce john had made. 

The aroma and scent being let out was making john himself hungry, he couldn't wait to be finished 

"There's no beef broth... Should I use more wine? No... There's a chance of getting drunk... But in exchange for flavour... Serena is old enough to drink and so is master and master's brother. The odds will be 3:2 as me and ariel can't drink." John muttered 

"Need anything else?" Ariel asked 

"Ah, no it's just. We don't have any substitutes to go into the liquid, we could use more wine but we're underaged and we could get drunk, it might give it a boost a flavour and since we don't have any other stock, it's our only option aside from..." 

"Aside from?" Serena asked 

"From water�� John replied 

"Then, why not use water?" Serena asked 

"I'm not sure, wine could bring more flavour but some people prefer it with water so I guess it's fine." Said john 

"Hm, then why not mix it?" Asked Serena 

"Ah... You're right!" Said john