Chapter 95

Ch 95 — Beef Bowl and Beef stew

"Fer, why aren't you back yet?"

"Fer-ojichan, why aren't you here?" Sui added plaintively .

Sui and I were waiting for Fer to come back from hunting but there was no sign of him at all .

I didn't think he'd forgotten about us but I couldn't be sure . I expected he'd be back once he got hungry so instead of just waiting around I got started preparing dinner . What to cook though . . . well, there's lots of Bloody Horn Bull beef so maybe we want to eat some of that . Right, beef bowl it is . Quick to cook, delicious to eat and the pinnacle of cheap fast food in Japan . It brought back memories — sometimes after I finished work I'd stop by a local store for a quick beef bowl . It's simple, sliced beef over plain rice with some sweet sauce .

I checked my stocks, I had onions, soy sauce, sweet cooking sake and ginger . I was short on regular cooking sake and instant dashi soup granules so I bought them from the Net Super .

Right, let's get started . First of all, I sliced up some Bloody Horn Bull beef . Since I planned to make two large pots of beef bowl I sliced up a lot of beef .

I peeled the onions and sliced them up then I put water in the pots and added the soy sauce, sugar, cooking sake and the dashi granules before squeezing out some grated ginger from a tube and stirring it in as the mixture came to a boil . I added the onions to the pots and after they softened I added the sliced beef . I let the sauce reduce over a slow heat for about ten minutes . It smelled really good, how did it taste? I tried a mouthful, the beef was tender and juicy and the onions fell apart in my mouth . Just right .

I made two pots of sliced beef at the same time as I knew how much Fer and Sui could eat . By the time I was finished though Fer hadn't come back yet . Sui had gone to sleep in her bag and I didn't want to start eating by myself so I decided to cook some more food while I waited .

Cooking the beef for the beef bowl got me into the mood for some beef stew . Most folks would just use a roux or sauce in jars to make beef stew but not me . It's more work but I prefer my own recipe for this, prepackaged sauces are not the same .

Stew does take a long time to cook but I had to wait for Fer to come back anyway . I used the Net Super again for more ingredients — I had plenty of onions but no carrots or potatoes so I ordered some . I also added butter to the cart, I had run out of ketchup and consomme so they went on the list, oh and a can of demi-glace sauce and some red wine too . I paid for the order and the usual cardboard box appeared in front of me . I looked over the ingredients, did I have everything? Yep, it all looked OK so I got started .

First I cut up Bloody Horn Bull beef into bite-sized pieces then I peeled and diced the onions . I peeled the carrots and potatoes too before cutting them up into bite-sized pieces . I made the potatoes a little bit bigger though .

After melting some butter in the bottom of the pot, I browned the Bloody Horn Bull beef, seasoning it with salt and pepper . Once the cubes of meat were thoroughly sealed I added water and red wine to the pot and then the onions, potatoes and carrots . When the mixture started to simmer I added a cube of consomme .

I kept simmering, skimming the scum off the surface until the potatoes and carrots softened . When that happened I added a can of demiglace sauce and some ketchup to the stew then let it simmer for another 20 minutes . That's it, a familiar dish for me . I sometimes add butter at the end to make it a bit richer but not always .

By the way I use a can of demi-glace sauce rather than making a roux because it's easier . Weighing out the exact amounts of butter and flour to make a roux from scratch is a pain and it's too easy to burn it if you're not careful . Canned demi-glace works just the same and it still tastes delicious but it's a good idea to cook the meat well before adding it .

I sampled the stew, it tasted just the way I wanted it . It seemed I had managed to cook beef stew perfectly well in these conditions . I put the finished beef stew in my Item Box and looked around but Fer hadn't come back yet . Funny, I thought the smell would have attracted him . . .

"Hey Fer, how far have you gone?"