The meat broth was far more complicated simply because of one part. Meat. He had to be extremely careful to not end up completely ruining the dish.
"Elyn, did you get all I asked for?" he asked.
She nodded and gestured to the full table of items ranging from pots, strainers, and chopsticks, amongst a bunch of other things.
None of the waste from the last broth was there, indicating that Citro had also done his own part of the cooking process. Now that everything was all set, he needed to pick out the best protein for this broth.
Preferably something semi-hard that would simmer and soften after long on the flames. That would be best.
He looked into his pantry and assessed the beast's flesh he had there. Hemp wanted high-quality stuff, so he automatically disqualified Class Ten beasts. He had a few Class Nine but had sold a lot more to Chris.
But he didn't always sell a lot of them, just because he wanted to use them to cook in the future.
'I'm not an adventurer or a mercenary. I'm a chef, first and foremost.'
That thought set into his mind after a while, but he didn't stop looking for the suitable beast flesh all this time. Finally, it looked like he found it after a while.
Emery pulled out the large body of a cattle-like beast. It had tough yellow skin and a fatty exterior.
[Ding!]
[Name: Yellow-Skinned Earth Bull]
[Race: Beast]
[Threat rank: Class Nine Threat]
[Attributes:
STR- Class Eight
AGI- Class Ten
INT- Class Nine
DEF- Class Eight
DEX- Class Nine]
[Status: Dead]
[Remark: Tough but tasty flesh that requires quite a bit of softening. Simmering over low heat is recommended]
Beef. That would do nicely.
Over to the side, outside the kitchen, the viewers looked curiously. One of the two people that had followed Chris pointed at the yellow bull. It was the lady.
"I recognize that. It had been giving some of our forces trouble recently despite being only Class Nine. I told you and you gave me the instruction to let it go. Remember?" she asked.
Chris nodded.
The silence that had settled in all this while was broken. Even Hemp was a little curious about this.
"How come he didn't sell it, though? He should have known that it would fetch a decent prize," the leader asked, stroking the stubble of hair under his chin slowly.
Oddly enough, Konnor was the one to answer that.
"Food."
No one knew what to take of the large hunter's involvement. They kept quiet and continued to watch from a short distance away from the doorway.
Emery, on the other hand, only caught small pieces of the conversation from what he was doing. He was trying his best to stay focused while cutting out the pieces of the beef.
He replaced the knife in his hands with a larger one and chopped off the head of the bull swiftly. It fell to the ground, blood splattering all over the ground. At that, he grimaced.
'Perhaps I should have thought that through some more.'
There was no time to regret that fatally dangerous mistake.
"Citro, try your best to clean it up. Get a rag or something,"
"Eep!"
He ignored the mongoose's protests and switched knives once more. His hands blurred as he separated all the different parts of the bull. First, the hide came off, then several other things that didn't belong in his dish.
After removing all the unpalatable parts, he moved on to cutting and categorizing the parts that would be in his broth.
A part of his heart bled at the thought of wasting such a high-quality beef on a hotpot instead of a nice, juicy steak. And that almost caused a mistake in what he was doing. Almost. He cast the thought away and continued with what he was doing.
Soon enough, he was done with that.
And for the last part of this beast: the bones.
You heard right. The bones and tendons would be important parts of this broth.
'Before that, I really need to prepare some rice or something along those lines,'
So before he moved on to complete the meat broth, he grabbed another pot from the pile and put some water for rice on. Cooking was a magical art. With his new abilities, he couldn't help but believe that even more.
Emery grabbed some relatively small bones from the pile and put everything in place. It was similar to the vegetable broth but not quite.
This would have a lot of pepper. A lot.
For some reason, there were some deadly peppers in their pantry, so Emery would just use those to give the kick it needed.
'I hope his European taste buds don't suddenly die from spice.'
Well past European tastebuds. There weren't any named continents anymore. Just displaced people for the most part.
He returned his mind to a state of complete calmness and focused on the task at hand.
It was time to begin.
This time around, he activated Energy Circuitry before starting.
As soon as the flames of the burner came on, his energy did at the same time. His hands flew around in a rage as he regulated everything in that pot alone. It almost seemed as if he had grown four more arms from behind his back.
"HA!"
Bubbling emerged from the Dutch oven that he cooked in, and another scent intermixed with that of the vegetable broth that had been over the flames for the past few minutes as well.
Water. Peppers. Mushrooms. Anything and everything that would taste good, he added.
Pop! Boom!
The little sparks of lightning emerged from his hands and leapt straight into the meal. The red colour of the broth gained a sort of glistening sheen that gave the dish an even more magical feel.
Emery kept regulating everything until finally this particular one was done.
'I did it.' he breathed a sigh of relief.
Drops of sweat fell off his head. That was a while since that happened.
Well, they were almost done now, with his Eastern-inspired Western hotpot! Everything after would be easy, bordering on boring.