HI! Welcome back for another Cooking with the Cardinal Heroes.
*Audiences clapping their hands*
Been awhile, huh? I was hoping to do this chapter but I've lost the motivation and went to other works. But after Rise of the Sword and the Shield was updated, I got motivated and went ahead to work on this.
This takes place in the same chapter with Asuka disguised as a maid and cook for them.
Dare I say, the choice of dishes that the author picked were not easy as well. Different recipes, trying not to pick ones that asked for canned food or condescend.
With that, let's à la cooking!
Roasted Chicken, Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and apple pie
"Do you mind starting the ovens?" Felecia asked.
"Sure." Rino went to the ovens, starting the fire and putting more wood. She turned her attention to the maid and asked. "What will we be making?"
"Roasted chicken, salisbury steak, mashed boetatoes, and for dessert, apple pie." Felecia listed the dishes that they'll be making. She has looked up the recipes from the Cookbook Sword to choose from, a good thing a single person can look into their HUD.
Rino chirped. "Those sound good. Is going to take a lot of work, though."
"Then we better get a move on." Felecia stared at the whole chicken. "I'll start with the chicken, and you handle the boetatoes."
Place chicken in a roasting pan, and season inside and out with salt and pepper. Sprinkle inside and out with the powder made from the look-alike onion. Then place 3 tablespoons of butter in the chicken cavity. Arrange dollops of the remaining butter around the chicken's exterior.
Felecia finished buttering the chicken, she moved on to the next step. Meanwhile, Rino was washing the boetatoes, gritting any dirt and remaining roots off, and then begin to peel them.
Cut the look-alike celery into 3 or 4 pieces, and place them in the chicken cavity.
Felecia brought down the knife and cut the vegetable at a quick speed, the sound caught Rino's attention.
"Goodness, what was that?"
"Eh? Oh! N-nothing! Just chopped the vegetables to put the finishing touch before putting them in the oven." Felecia chuckled nervously.
'Smooth Asuka, you almost blew it.' She mentally slapped herself. There were times when Asuka used her superhuman speed to prepare the ingredients without Rino noticing her but always made sure not to get exposed.
"I finished washing the boetatoes and pell them, I starting the fire to boil them." Rino said, gesturing to the pot with fire underneath.
Felecia nodded. "Good, while they're busy boiling, we'll start on the apple pie."
Rino blinked and asked. "What about Salisbury?"
"We'll do that once the chicken and the pie are put in the ovens. That'll pass the time while we prepare." Felecia explained.
"Oh yeah, good idea." Rino agreed. The two brought the ingredients to the tables.
"Could you cut and slice the apples?" Felecia asked.
"Sure! I've done this plenty as a kid." Rino replied, taking an apple in hand and starting cutting it.
"Then that leaves me with the pie dough." Felecia said.
Put the flour into the bowl and mix it in circles. Add some chopped butter, and make it even finer while using a spatula. Add cold water… mix it and cut it again. Don't knead it.
While Felecia was mixing the dough, she then went to the next step.
Next, bundle it up. Cut the dough in half and put it on top of each other, and knead them to mix them back. Repeat this two or three times.
Felecia then grabs the rolling pin and presses it on the dough.
Roll out the dough with a rolling pin. After that, stretch the dough bigger, then place it on the plate and press it to stick.
After Felecia has prepared the dough, she turns back to Rino who just finished slicing the apples. The two brought the bowl and the ingredients.
In a bowl, place the apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg, and mix them all together. Place the mixture on the pie plate.
Felecia then took a spare dough and stretched it.
Take the spare dough and stretch it. Cover the top and seal it using the fork. Cut holes on the top to allow venting.
"And done! With it, let's put both the pie and chicken into the oven." Felecia said, grabbing the plate of chicken while Rino took the pie. They placed them inside the ovens and let them cook.
"Now onto the Salisbury steak!"
They both placed pieces of meat on the chopping boards.
First, cut the meat into thin slices. Then with two knives, chop it into ground meat.
Rino was amazed by the cutting work of the maid. "Wow! I heard that grating meat with knives is hard, you are pretty good." She was having a hard time chopping the meat into ground meat.
"Hehe, thanks." Felecia giggled before going to cook.
Finely dice the look-alike onion.
'I hate how onions make you cry when cutting them.' Felecia grimaced at the stinging sensation from the onion scent. They placed the diced onion in a bowl before putting breadcrumbs.
Put the look-alike onion and breadcrumbs into the bowl. Then put the ground meat. Mix them together by hand.
Rino then brought the ingredients, before she put them into the bowl.
Mix the minced look-alike garlic clove, egg, similar ketchup sauce, dry beef broth, similar Worcestershire sauce and mustard powder in the ground meat well. Do this until it becomes pasty.
After a few minutes, Felecia finished the mix. Side by side, both she and Rino start to form patties.
Next, form them into patties with your hands.
'Incredible.' Rino is amazed by Felecia's patty slap, left to right.
Heat oil in a frying pan over high heat. Add the patties, and cook the first side until browned, then flip and brown the other side.
After the steaks were taken out and placed onto the plate.
Now for the sauce. In the same pan, add oil again, then add chopped look-alike onion and look-alike garlic. Cook them until the onions are a bit translucent.
Rino then handed Felecia the mushrooms she cut.
Add mushrooms into the pan and cook them until golden. Turn the heat down to a medium. Add butter, and once melted, add flour and cook for 30 seconds, stirring constantly.
Felecia added the other ingredients that Rino passed. The adventurer then brought a large mug, she lower it allowing brown liquid to flow onto the pan.
Gradually add in beef broth, stirring as you go. Once mostly lump-free, whisk in the remaining Gravy ingredients.
"Rino-san, could you check over the boetatoes? I believe it is about time that they are ready." Felecia asked. "And if they are, could you smash them?"
"Certainly." Rino nodded and went to check over the pot.
'Now, I'll just finish with these steaks while Rino-san is doing the mashed potatoes.'
Add the steaks to the pan. Cook until the sauce is thickened, stirring occasionally around the steaks. Remove the steaks onto a plate. Taste the sauce. and adjust salt and pepper to taste.
Felecia took a small spoon, took a bit of the sauce and placed it in her mouth. 'Hmm… seems okay. May as well adjust it with salt and pepper.'
As she did so, Felecia saw Rino coming closer with a bowl of mashed boetatoes.
"Is the sauce ready?" Rino asked, to which Felecia nodded in response.
"All it's left are the chicken and pie in the ovens." Felecia said.
The two went to bring out the two last dishes from the ovens, staring at them they see how well-cooked the roasted chicken looks and it is watering in the mouth, and the apple pie has a beautiful golden crust with a deliciously sweet scent.
"They look good to eat!" Rino delighted.
"Yeah." Felecia then looks at Rino. "Thanks for the help. I hope Vento-san would like them."
The nobleman, Vento, did seem like a nice person, even going so far as to prevent Motoyasu from ending a criminal's life, but there is something about him that the Sword Hero in disguise can't put her finger on.
"Oh, I'm sure! Your cooking is so good I could even kill a dragon for it!" Rino reassured the maid.
Felecia giggled at the metaphor but was flattered. "Thanks. Now, let's bring the food to everyone."
AND THERE!
This may seem shorter to me, but I don't feel like copy&paste the scenes, so I just roll with writing the cooking scene.
I do hope this brings out the teamwork between Felecia (Asuka) and Rino when doing the cooking. I did kinda have the urge to write a scene taking place of the aftermath of Asuka's fight against the three headed hound with both of them, but since I don't what the author has it store in mind I held myself back.
Before any of you could point out; I'm aware that I wrote potatoes as Boetatoes, that's intentionally. In the Shield Hero cooking spin-off, not only did the ingredient looks and taste like the food in our world (that Naofumi referred them as -like things) they also have alternative names that rhytms with the originals, not sure if there's already a name for the potatoes but we'll worry about that later.
And with, I'll see you all later. I'll come back once the story progresses further, meaning I'll wait Asuka to set out in her journey again after the Second Wave Arc. And coming back with original ideas of off-screen dishes.
One more thing; I realized that it has been a year since that story was publish, so... Happy Birthday!
