CH 58

On the stove was one giant pot. Ah, technically it’s a kamado stove, not a western one. I placed a smaller pot on the other stove top.

If I’m just using the pots to boil, I might as well try making that now. The most important thing would be to watch them and remove the scum, as well as stirring the contents while watching the flame to prevent them from burning. I can make both at the same time, there’s no problem.

And so, one pot was for the kakuni.

The other pot was to make that using plenty of MP potions. If I remove all of the liquid from the cola, I should be able to make sugar, and thus I would have sugar to use!

Also, the cola has cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, cardamom, and lemon.

Hm, everything other than the vanilla was okay. I don’t know what the vanilla will do to the kakuni though… I’ll just believe that it’ll work out.

I threw in the ingredients, and measured the seasoning for the kakuni by eye… Taste test, taste test.

Ah, I have to note down… Wait, does anybody need the amounts for such a large portion? …Maybe if they make it for a dining hall somewhere? I guess I should note the amounts down. 

Um, I should write down how many bottles and the scale I used.

As for the smaller pot with the MP potions… I should write down a proper number. Writing it based on the scale of the pot would make it hard to adjust.

Now I just have to make sure they both don’t burn.

Simmer, simmer.

Remove the scum~

Simmer, simmer.

Adjust the heat~

Simmer, simmer.

Uwah, what a nice smell. It’s coming from the small pot. Since there’s so much cola in it, it’s giving off a sweet fragrance.

Good thing I used less cola in the kakuni. It’d be bad if the kakuni tasted strongly of vanilla.

Simmer, simmer.

Thicken, thicken~

Haah, it smells good.

Now that I think about it, what happens to my status if I only taste-test the food?

「Status open.」

Um, Rofas-san mentioned that the effects from last night’s dinner was gone, so I should be able to check if taste-testing can affect my status as well.

「Huh?」

I didn’t get any additional points for anything.

My HP and MP were both full, so I couldn’t see if there were any recovery effects for them, but…

I used soy sauce and cooking sake, and yet no buff points were added onto my defense or attack. Why?

Did the MP potion cancel the effects?

That’s right, there were no effects when I drank the losing potions by themselves. Maybe it’s the same for taste-testing?

Do the effects only appear after the dish is complete? Eh? Does that mean that depending on how complete the dish is, the effects could change as well?

What would happen if I were to accidentally burn something…?

There are still so many things I don’t understand, really.

Well, it’s okay.

Alright, the kakuni is done.

I just need to cool it down to let the flavors soak in… But with such a large pot, how long would it take to cool down?!

They’re going to dry the meat overnight once it cools down, right? Guess it can’t be helped. Let’s take the meat out of the pot.

「Bryce-kun, what should we do to turn this into dry meat?」

「Thank you, Yuuri-san, but I’ll do it.」

「No, I want to learn how to make it, so please teach me.」

Bryce-kun said that it’s easy, and taught me how to do it by laying the meat out on a sieve-like thing, and by tying up the meat with strings.

Both methods require you to dry the meat in a good place where the wind passes through. 

「Ohh, it looks good. Bring it over here. I made a place for you to dry the meat.」

Rofas-san waved us over.

There was a laundry pole setup, along with a shelf just outside of the storage. How fast. He always does so much when it’s related to food. 

「To prevent the meat from being eaten by wild beasts while it’s drying, we’ll set up some beast wards.」

We placed a bunch of rocks with dried grass wrapped around them around the laundry poles. The grass probably emits a smell that beats don’t like.

「What should we do if it rains?」

「Put everything into the storage.」

「If we do that, the humidity would be high and not much wind would pass through. Is the meat going to be okay?」

Wouldn’t it rot and get moldy…?

「Ahh, we have these, so it’s fine.」

Rofas-san pressed his finger against the wall.

…And then a hole opened up. Okay, I think even a person doing karate would have trouble making a hole in the wall with just a finger.

There were stones buried inside.

They were neither red, blue, nor yellow, so they couldn’t be fire, water, nor light magic stones.

What element would green stones be?