Chapter 80

Ch 80 — "Cheese In" is Justice!

I decided to make a lot of dishes to put in my Item Box, things I can store after I prepare them and then just pull them out when we want to eat . The smell of cooking so much food would linger in my room so I used the inn's courtyard instead after asking permission .

So what did I decide on? First of all, I made Orc General meat marinated in miso . It's easy, just put the meat and miso in a plastic bag and let it soak in . I could grill the meat afterwards but I'll probably deep-fry it since that seems to be a staple for us these days . I can do that any time if I've got the meat already marinated .

There are two types of rub, soy sauce based rub and salt based rub for the other meats, of course . I used Black Serpent, Rock Bird and Giant Dodo since they were like chicken . I coated half of each type of meat in the soy sauce based rub and the other half using the salt based rub . I was preparing an enormous amount of meat so I washed and drained some rice before I started cooking it .

After putting more money into the Net Super I bought yet another portable cooking stove and another big earthenware pot . I only bought one extra stove because I can't really manage more than four stoves at one time . It would be terrible to burn food if there's too much going on for me to cope with and I make a mistake so I made pots of rice on three of the stoves while I was also frying a lot of meat marinated in miso on the other stove . Given the eating habits of Fer and Sui I was cooking large amounts of food . Each pot of steaming-hot rice was stored in the Item Box when it was ready so that we could eat cooked rice anytime . I cooked more rice again on the three stoves, but this time only two pots of rice went into the Item Box for later and I held back one pot of rice to make onigiri .

"Fu ~, finally finished getting everything ready . "

I took out the rice pot which I had put in Item Box so that it would stay warm after cooking, ready to make onigiri .

"Onigiri hmmm, I'll need nori, salmon, mix in some wakame and maybe whitebait too?"

I bought the fillings from the Net Super and made lots of onigiri . OK, some of the onigiri (a lot of them) were badly shaped but that was kind of normal and entertaining in its own way, and it didn't affect the taste . To tell you the truth I'd really have liked to to make some onigiri with mentaiko but it's kinda sticky and messy so I didn't bother .

I still had ambitions even after all this work . "Fahahahahah, I've wanted to get this since I saw it on the Net Super . " It was a hand-operated mincer, sold in the cookware department . I could make minced meat with this .

I decided that I was going to make hamburger . Everyone likes fried or grilled hamburgers, right? I intended to fill some of them with cheese Japanese style ("Cheese In"), the two tastes go so well together . First of all, I had to mince a large amount of meat . I could use ground meat for all sorts of dishes so I decided to make a lot of it . I started with Bloody Horn Bull meat, turning it into ground meat .

Put the meat in the mincer and turn the handle, turn and turn . . . . . . . . . . . . I don't know how many times I turned the handle but finally I had a lot of Bloody Horn Bull mince ready to cook with . However I wasn't finished . Next I had to mince up a lot of Orc General's meat too . Like mincing the Bloody Horn Bull's meat, I put in the Orc General's meat and turned the handle, turned it and turned it and turned it and turned it . . . . . . . . . . . . I minced a large amount of Orc General meat that way .

"Well, I'm worn out but I can make hamburger now . " I said, looking at the piles of minced meat with the satisfaction of a job well done .

I chopped up some onions to start with . Some folks like to fry the chopped onions beforehand but it's a pain so I don't bother . I decided I'd make the ground meat ratio for these hamburgers 60 percent Bloody Horn Bull and 40 percent Orc General meat .

I started mixing the ingredients . I added some milk to bread crumbs in a bowl and left them to soak while I mixed the minced meat with the onions, eggs, salt and pepper and then added the milk-soaked bread crumbs afterwards . I formed the mixture into patties of the right size, arranged them on trays I bought from the Net Super, wrapped them in film and put them in my Item Box for safe keeping . I made more the same way, and more . . . I finally got to the point where I could move on to the next step so when I was making the last batch of hamburgers I put cheese in the middle of each patty, Japanese style .

Afterwards, I cooked deep fried meat so I'd have it ready to eat when we wanted it . After warming up the oil, I deep-fried half of the marinated meat, cooking it twice to make the outside crisp . I also fried chicken cutlets and pork cutlets . I put cheese into a bunch of pork and chicken cutlets and fried them too since it seemed like a good idea . "Cheese In" is Justice!

"Ok, the oil is still nice and hot . . . how about fries?" I opened up Net Super again and bought some frozen fried potatoes, wedges with skin on as well as regular thin French fries . I could use them as sides for the fried meat and hamburger and fried potatoes go so well with beer, so I deep-fried a lot of potatoes .

"That's enough deep-fried food, I think . " It was time to fry some hamburger . I used a shallow frying-pan, cooking both sides thoroughly without any oil . At home I ate them with a sauce I made with ketchup . After taking out the cooked hamburgers I added ketchup and Worcester sauce to the fat which had oozed out of the ground meat and reduced it in the pan, stirring regularly until it thickened . Some people might add sugar but not in my kitchen . Heathens .

I fried up some "Cheese In" hamburgers and made sauce for them as well .

"Alright, all done . " Now for a taste . I was looking forward to . . .

"Gruuumble . . . " came the sound of a great empty belly behind me . I looked back and sure enough Fer was standing there, saliva dripping from his jaws . Sui was sitting next to him expectantly .

"Of course . . . " I gave into the inevitable and quickly prepared hamburgers for the two gluttons .

"It smells nice," munch*munch*munch "Oh, this is delicious . " Fer paused thoughtfully . "Both are delicious, but the ones with the soft white stuff inside taste better . "

"True, this is real good . The sticky white stuff inside is delicious . " Sui agreed . "Cheese In" hamburger is popular, it seemed . "Cheese In" truly is Justice! I like "Cheese In" too of course . I had some fresh-cooked rice with my "Cheese In" hamburger and yes, it was delicious .

I worked hard cooking all day, so I decided I'd have some premium beer with potato fries as a reward . *Psssshh . . . * Ummm, that's nice .