Lus stepped into the kitchen and rubbed his hands together, his nerves buzzing with a mix of anxiety and excitement.
"I'm going to really impress everyone tonight," he promised himself.
He had found frozen kechin meat while cleaning out one of the storage nitroboxes and decided that he wanted to take the time to make the Beginner's Luck Soup properly.
Learning how to use the pasta roller had made the process easier and given him something to do for the last two nights, but he couldn't just make pasta forever. He wasn't sure how to get more recipes from his system, but he had a feeling that making this soup perfectly and completing the [Perfect Soup Quest] was the first step.
Pulling up the recipe, he scrolled down to the bottom and read through it again to make sure he remembered everything properly.
"I'll do the pasta dough first, then cook the meat," he murmured to himself. "Then the veggies. Oh, I should chop those first."
Instead of using the frozen veggie mix, he had decided to use some of the fresh vegetables in the produce cupboard since they were starting to look a little questionable. He really needed to find time to chop all of them up for freezing.
Shrugging aside that thought for later, he pulled out ten large, rust-colored garoots and twelve sticks of slightly wilty, dark green slerry. He grabbed five white onnins as well.
Sliding out the largest cutting board, he looked over the vegetables. "Should I start with the onnins?" he wondered. He'd never actually cut up veggies before. He'd been using the frozen mix Chelf Wlnp prepared before his untimely death since he took on this position.
Lus pulled out the largest knife he felt comfortable with and set the first onnin on the cutting board. It had a papery wrapping that he was pretty sure he needed to remove, so he started with that.
The inside of the onnin was white and firm. As the pungent scent hit him, his eyes began to water.
"Oh, Suns," he gasped. "That hurts!" He backed up, wiping at his eyes and looking around for something that might protect him, but he couldn't see anything that looked helpful. Gritting his teeth and squinting, he stepped forward and began to chop the onnin up as quickly as he could.
When he finished the first, he took a short break, stepping away until his eyes had cleared. The second onnin wasn't as bad, so he assumed he was adjusting to the scent.
The third onnin drove that hope away. Almost the moment he sliced into it, tears began streaming down his face. As he chopped, he had to take regular breaks to wipe his cheeks and eyes on the sleeve of his shirt so he could see well enough to avoid cutting his hands.
Finally, he slid the last onnin slices into a bowl and set it over by the stove. The pieces weren't anywhere near even, but at least none of them were huge.
Next, he worked on the slerry sticks. They were easier. He rinsed them off and chopped off the leafy tops, then cut the sticks into small slices. It went quickly and he turned his attention to the garoots.
They were large and somewhat conical in shape with rough, rust colored surfaces. He rinsed the dirt off the outside, then frowned. He was pretty sure that people usually peeled garoots before eating them.
Thankfully, he had spent a few evenings peeling brown-skinned prootas for the previous chef, so he knew what a peeler looked like.
Digging through the drawer of random utensils, he found the familiar tool and carried it over to the garoots. They were easier to peel than prootas, so he finished quickly and set to work chopping them up.
Because of the conical shape, he had a hard time keeping the slices even. No matter how evenly he sliced the garoots, the slices at one end were many times larger in diameter than the tiny slices at the more pointed end.
He considered trying to chop them all into halves and quarters to make them more similar in size, but a glance at the clock quickly changed his mind.
"Time, time, time," he muttered, scooping the uneven slices into a third bowl and carrying it to join the others.
He had taken the time to find the largest frying pan in the cupboard, which would hopefully speed up the process. Since he still had to cook the vegetables in batches, though, he decided to just cook them separately.
Lus had just poured some clear, golden elsha oil into the pan when he remembered that he needed to do the noodles.
Turning off the burner, he pulled out the largest pot and filled it with water. Once the water was heating, he turned his attention to the pasta dough.
Kneading the dough was almost relaxing, though it still made his arms ache. Once he had it all mixed, he broke off a chunk and carried it to the rolling press. He slid it through five times to get it thin enough, then carried it carefully back to the counter and cut it into noodles, which he tossed in the now boiling water.
While those boiled, he rolled out another chunk of dough, continuing in shifts until the last of the noodles were boiling.
"Now I can do the veggies," he said, turning the heat back on under the frying pan. He waited a few minutes for the oil to heat, then dumped in the bowl of garoots. They sizzled and he stirred them with a wooden spatula.
He was so entranced by the slow darkening of the garoot slices that he nearly forgot his last batch of pasta. He glanced up at the still boiling pot next to him and gasped.
Lusac grabbed the pot-shaped colander and quickly scooped out the last of the noodles. He slid them into the large bowl with the rest, grabbing one off the top to taste. It burnt his tongue, but it wasn't too mushy.
"Thank the Watcher," he said, returning his attention to the garoots. He gave them a stir, flinching at the sight of the dark bottoms.
"Well, these are probably done," he decided. He dumped them intoanother large, clean bowl, then added some more oil and the sliced slerry to the pan.
The slerry cooked quickly, the dark green slices turning slightly translucent and soft. He added them to the bowl with the garoots.
Lus had saved the onnins for last, not wanting to deal with them any sooner than he had to. Now he glanced at them as he poured in more oil. "Please don't make me cry," he whispered, dumping the irregular white chunks into the pan.
They sizzled nicely and he began to stir them around. To his surprise, as they cooked, the pungent, unpleasant scent changed into something pleasant and fragrant.
"Watcher, that smells good." He breathed in the scent and his brows furrowed in confusion. "How do these smell so good now?" He shook his head. Maybe he would never understand cooking.
When the onnins were done, he added them to the now almost overflowing bowl and glanced back at the recipe. "Right, the kechin," he said, snapping his fingers.
The kechin meat was in the interbox, thawing. He pulled out the box of meat and unwrapped it, unsure what he was going to find. Unlike the ground gervin meat, the kechin meat was in large, pinkish-white chunks. He pulled a few out, wincing at how slimy they felt against his fingers.
Plopping them on the cutting board, he quickly sliced them into smaller, bite-sized pieces. He worked his way through the box, taking longer than he had hoped to get all of the meat chopped up.
When he finished, he had a bowl full of small, slimy meat bits and his hands were nearly numb from handling the still cold meat.