Chapter 4: Get back in the Kitchen

"Right, Tohru" I cross my arms and look down at her "We're going to move onto the most important lesson that I'll ever teach you…." I narrow by eyes at her "the basics of cooking."

"What's wrong with my roasted tail though?" the sheer innocence in her tone as she asks me what was wrong with that thing masquerading as food makes me scowl at her.

"Beyond the fact that it was inedible" I punctuate the last past of the sentence with slightly raised voice "It was also tragically overcooked. So I'm going to walk you through making one of my more simple dishes."

"Is that why we're going to a market?"

"Yes, well more specifically we're heading for the nearest fish monger. This is your first lesson when it comes to cooking, it's always best to get the freshest ingredients." I turn my head away from her and we continue our walk towards the market stalls, we garner quite a few stares from passers by or rather Tohru does. She refused to change out of her maid outfit and I'm not going to argue with a dragon over its choice in attire.

I quickly spot the stall I'm looking for and gesture for Tohru to follow "Right, from what I've noticed Kobayashi-san's budget isn't the greatest so markets like this are going to be your one of your best sources of ingredients." she nods in response as I scan the selection of fish available.

Seeing the fish I'm after I nod to myself before turning back to face Tohru "I'm going to teach you how to make salmon baked in foil." returning my attention back to the fish monger I buy two pieces of salmon before we leave.

"Obviously it's not going to be just Salmon, so we'll head off to the greengrocers to grabs the carrots, onions and mushrooms that we need." we continue on our walk and I think of topics for small talk.

"Say, Tohru…" she turns her attention to me "Why are you so desperate to live with Kobayashi-san?" she stares at me as if I just grew a second head "I'm not criticising you, I'm just curious."

"It's because I love her." she states immediately as if that is the only answer I need "that and...well…" she has sad smile on her face as she continues "she was helped me. She didn't ask anything in return, just pulled the sword from my side-"

'Pulled the what from her now?'

"-and just offered me a place to live. She didn't care what I was." Her smile shifts and becomes a bit brighter "That's why I want to help her just like she helped me!"

"Yeah…" I turn away from her and stare at something in the distance "I know the feeling." I shake myself out my trance as I notice we're approaching the vegetable stall "Right, because it's only you and Kobayashi we'll only need a couple of carrots a single onion and a small bed of mushrooms." I turn back to Tohru "This is another important part of of cooking, making sure you have the correct amount of ingredients. We don't want to have the dish to be too barren or too overflowing with ingredients." she nods to me again.

"If I remember correctly Kobayashi-san has Sake at home" I say more for my own benefit than anyone else's "Okay, we've got everything we need so we can head back now. If we're lucky we should have the dish completed by the time Kobayashi-san gets back from work."

"I'll get to show off my cooking skills!" Tohru excitedly nods next to me.

"You'll get to avoid killing her at least" I mumble under my breath as we turn away from the market.

"Hey, Emiya-san?" Tohru calls out behind me and I cast a sideways glance at her before replying "Yes Tohru?"

"Why did you agree to help me learn maid work?" she questions me.

I simply smile at her in response "I just like helping people and both you and Kobayashi needed help" I shrug at her raised eyebrow and questioning look "That was the only reason I needed to help, I'm a bit selfish like that."

"Alright Tohru" I turn to her as I finish buttoning up my apron "the first thing we need to do before cooking is washing our hands. While you start with that I'll get the initial preparation done" I turn away from her as she moves to the sink and place the salmon in a baking tray.

"Done!" Tohru calls out and joins me, I nod to her before turning my attention back to the ingredients "The first thing we need do before seasoning the salmon is to sprinkle it with a little bit of sake" I grab a bottle and lightly dab it over the salmon fillets before placing it to the side and picking up the salt "after that we need to lightly season both sides of the salmon with salt this will help draw out the moisture" I turn to make sure she's still paying attention, seeing that she's focused solely on the salmon in front of me I nod to myself.

"That's going to take around ten-minutes to marinate so while we wait for that" I grab a kitchen knife and hand it to the girl next to me "You can help me prepare the vegetables, we're going to want to slice them very thinly." I grab my own knife and place a carrot on the cutting board "just watch how I do it and then copy me" I begin to start slicing and after a minute I make quick work of it. Turning my attention to Tohru I see the dragon girl humming to herself as she cuts up her own vegetable.

After she finishes I look over her carrot slices, they're slightly blockier than mine but for a beginner she's not bad "Hmmm, good work. Now if you break up the mushrooms into their individual stalks I'll slice the onion."

Finishing our respective tasks I turn my attention back to the salmon "The fish isn't quite done yet so we'll preheat the pan in preparation for cooking it. We're only going to steam the salmon so it's only going to be on a low heat." she nods to me as I turn on the hob and sit a large pan on it.

After a few more minutes the salmon has finished marinating and I turn my attention to Tohru again "Now that the moisture has been extracted from the salmon what you want to do is wipe the fillets down with some paper towels. Remember be gentle with them." I hand her over a role of paper towels and let her wipe down, her movements are a little blocky but she doesn't damage the fillets so I can overlook that.

"Okay, now that we've wiped down the salmon what we'll need to do now is just lightly season them with salt and pepper. Not too much but no too little."

She nods to me and begins to sprinkle a little bit of seasoning on the fillets, she does just enough and I stop her before she can continue "That's the perfect amount, now if you would be so kind as to retrieve the aluminium foil from the cupboard"

"Alright" she retrieves the foil and hands it over to me.

"Okay I'll show you how to make the first one and they you copy what I do" she nods at me again although I can see that slightly determined and excited look in her eyes, I suspect she's already looking forward to boasting to Kobayashi-san about her achievement. "First thing we need to do is lay down a bed of our sliced carrots and onions, we'll crumble our cube of bouillon over the vegetables. Next we'll sit our fillet on the bed of carrots and onions and just place a few of our mushrooms on and around the salmon, we'll top it off with a cube of butter before we fold up the packet like so."

I turn to her and give her the go ahead gesture to start hers. Her bed of vegetables is slightly too clumped together and her cube of bouillon isn't broken up as much as mine is but these are only minor issues she has which are easily solved with practice.

"Good work." Tohru smiles at me and starts rapidly nodding her head "now we put the packets in the pan and cover it up. We just want to steam them so we'll keep them in their for around 20 minutes."

"You did good work Tohru-san" my voice breaks her out of her focus on the currently cooking salmon "I'll leave you an ingredients list and tomorrow you can have a go at making a curry by yourself. I've leave you the instructions and I'll come over later to review your work."

"Do you think Kobayashi-san will be happy with the dinner I helped make?" she asks me and I just wave her off with a small smile.

"Yes, yes I'm sure she'll love it."

"I'm Home!" we both turn to the source of the voice as Kobayashi enters the living room and sniffs the air "Something smells good, I take it you've been teaching how to cook?"

"Yes" I nod to her "contrary to her past attempts she's actually pretty capable when she put her mind to it."

"That's nice."

Tohru lights up at the off-handed compliment and I simply smile at her glee filled expression before turning back to Kobayashi "Dinner will be ready in about five minutes. It's salmon baked in foil."

Kobayashi nods at us before going into her room to get changed.

A few minutes later she re-enters to find the packet unwrapped to reveal the salmon. She sits down and they cuts out a small piece and takes a bite.

She freezes for a few moments after placing the salmon in her mouth, her eyes seemingly light up are she turns to myself and Tohru with a slight smile on her face "It's delicious!"

Tohru turns positively glowing at the praise before letting out a cheer and rushing over to Kobayashi "Is it!? Is it really!? Did I do a good job Kobayashi-san!?"

Kobayashi simply lets out a good natures sigh and rolls her eyes in an exaggerated manor "Yes Tohru, you did a good job and Shirou-san?"

I look over Kobayashi and hum in acknowledgement and she bows her head at me slightly "Thanks for taking the time to help her."

I wave her off and my lips slightly curl into a small smile "It was no problem Kobayashi-san besides I've still got more stuff to teach her."

I make my way over to the door "I'll see you tomorrow Kobayashi-san, Tohru-san."

"Tohru..." I say, staring at the plate in front of me "Why?"

She tilts her head at me in an innocent manner as if she hasn't done anything wrong "Why what Emiya-san?"

I look up at her and at least she has the decency to immediately look away from me, I can see slight beads of sweat trailing down her cheek.

I turn my attention back to the plate in front of me. I had come back as I promised to review her progress with the curry.

It started off quite well, she cooked the rice properly, prepared the sauce as per my instructions. There was just one small...

"Why Tohru..."

Tiny little...

"Why in the Root..."

Problem...

"Why is there your tail in this curry?"

The amount of sweat starts increasing as I stare down the dragon. The worst part is that she overcooked her tail again. Everything else is fine, she just overcooked the meat.

"I'm home!" Kobayashi voices calls out and Tohru is briefly spare my wrath.

"Welcome back Kobayashi-san" I turn around and greet her as she enters the kitchen.

"Hello Shirou-san" she turns to see the plate of curry on the table "How did Tohru do?"

I turn back to the plate and scowl before picking it up and scraping into into the bin. Ordinarily I hate wasting food but for this... Thing... I'll make an exception.

"I'll handle dinner for tonight Kobayashi-san." I say before checking the fridge for I ingredients.

"Oh, no I don't want to trouble you Shirou-san... " she tries to shut me down but I'm having none of that, I'm not letting my neighbour be poisoned.

I turn around to make this point and then sigh as I see the face Kobayashi is making.

"Kobayashi-san... You're drooling."

AN: A short and sweet chapter. Just want to have Shirou in his natural environment. A kitchen. Next time we're onto some basics in washing clothes!