169: Ash

Arriving in the kitchen, I had made up my mind to use the spider. Although I wanted to try something a little different, I pulled out the royal cookbook, placed it on the counter, and started flicking through the pages.

There was very little monster meat in here, and there were especially no poisonous ingredients, but what I found that might be able to cross over was fried razor crab legs.

Double-checking the recipe, I was sure I could adapt this for the spider legs instead, so pulling it out, I removed all eight of its giant legs. I stored the body away. I could make another spider soup with that later for Liane.

My plan was to cut open the hard outer shell and remove the large chunk of flesh inside. I was able to get three large, almost sausage-shaped pieces of meat from each leg.

I would then create a seasoned flour, or another type of finely ground grain, using fire salt, pepper, and dried herbs. It emphasised to make sure that this flour mixture was very well seasoned.

The next thing I needed to prepare was an egg wash, which was super simple. I just needed whole eggs in a bowl with a small dash of buvul milk.

Finally, since this was to be fried, I found a large pot hanging on the wall and placed in plenty of buvul lard, bringing that up to temperature. Crisplet was there to help me out already, heating up the pot.

The rest was easy. I’d coat the legs twice in the flour mixture, using the egg wash after the first coating to make the second one thicker and stick on really well, then when the lard was hot, you placed it into the pot and cooked it until it was floating on the surface and a nice golden brown all over.

These took far less time than I expected, with each piece only cooking for a couple of minutes before I was scooping them out with a metal tool that was hanging on the wall. It looked like a giant spoon, but it had holes in it so all the fat could drain off.

Lastly, I gave it a final seasoning of salt, used Purify on it, but I noticed I didn’t get credit in my quests, so that confirmed the meat of the spider wasn’t toxic at all. Then I used Infuse on it, and quickly inspected it using Memories just to make sure it wasn’t too crazy if I was going to show anyone.

[Uncommon] Fried Spider Legs

• Fire Immunity.
• Major Poison Resistance.
• Major Improved Stealth.
• +2 Dexterity.
• +3 Intelligence.

Perfect. I stored them away as they were ready. I had no reason to conserve mana today. Since I would be running it out anyway.

Finishing up the last five pieces, a familiar presence arrived, then a second.

Both Lily and Liane showed up in the kitchen at the same time.

“What ya making?” Liane asked.

I just looked at them both for a moment. Why did they arrive together? How did they know? I didn’t even get to respond before Liane spotted the chitin left over from the legs I had discarded to the side.

“You cooked a spider! Why didn’t you tell me! Where is it!” she said, her eyes now locking on the five golden fried pieces in front of me.

Lily was already approaching, not bothering to wait, and with a sigh, I just set two pieces aside, one for each of them, then stored the last three, breaking off a small piece for myself. I was curious as well.

“The rest are for dinner time!” I said, shaking my head.

I took a bite and was immediately hooked. Inside was hot and soft; the delicate, flaky white flesh was still incredibly juicy. The fire salt gave it a slight warmth and tang, but the crispy outside had the perfect amount of salt, making me just want another one. It was so moreish.

“Are you cooking something else?” Liane asked.

“I was thinking about cooking some of the titan boar as well,” I said.

Liane seemed to pause for a moment, rubbing her chin. It looked a lot like what Milo did.

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea. You’ve never cooked it before, right?” she finally said.

“No? But it should be fine. It’s just boar, right, so it’ll be easy to cook, I think,” I said, confused why she’d be telling me no. Usually, Liane was in favour of new food. Even Lily was looking at her strangely.

“I want to try it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a rare beast, and you’re serving guests you’ve not served before with unknown buffs. That seems too risky,” she explained.

It all clicked. She was absolutely right. “Thanks, Liane,” I said, happy that I had not wasted my time.

Instead, I went back to my inventory, going through options, and then I spotted the perfect one. I had three blood owls. They were fairly large birds, so it would be plenty for everyone. I also now knew that the beak was valuable as a regeneration ingredient, so more of those would be nice too.

What I discovered immediately was the difference that Monster Carver made when preparing the birds. The feathers all came out easily, and nothing had been so easy to clean and prepare. I had the eyes, beak, feathers, and guts all stored away and was left with three birds ready to roast.

I consulted the cookbook to see what options they had for roasting birds, and one caught my eye, but I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough time.

“Liane, how long before people would expect to eat dinner?” I asked.

“A few hours? Luis is training with Hari, Darren, and George, and they’ll keep going till someone tells them to stop, so you’ve got a while. Why’s that?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I was too wrapped up in my own planning. That might be enough time.

I grabbed my largest pot, placed all three birds inside, added plenty of salt, pepper, virfolium, garlic grass, and the dried herb mixture I had. I also pulled out some chilli I had left over from the crabs, and finally added a small amount of the fermented bean paste I had in the jars.

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Lastly, I added a bit of water and made sure everything was well coated with the marinade.

Putting the lid on it, to let it sit for at least two hours.

I was going to serve honey-roast carrots alongside it, but that looked super simple, well, except for one ingredient, which I didn’t have.

“Liane, do you think Milo would have fermented red wine?”

“Where it turns to vinegar? Yes, absolutely. He tried to drink some once. You’d have thought he was poisoned,” she chuckled.

“I’ll go get it for you. I’m sure he wouldn’t have thrown it away,” she said before vanishing.

All I needed to do was mix the red wine vinegar with a small bit of sugar to take the edge off it, then mix it with honey and glaze the carrots with the mixture while they roasted.

So my attention turned to the final item I needed to sort out. My dessert, and I think I found something that looked really interesting and not too difficult.

Sour cherries with cream. First, I got all the ingredients out. It seemed fairly simple. I needed the frost cherries, along with sugar, wood spice—which I didn’t have on me, but I was hoping it was in the pantry that was stocked.

It would also need a dash of red wine, fire salt, and root starch.

With a shrug, I got to work, first adding the sugar and a dash of water to the pot. I’d first need to create a caramel by heating it up slowly, and when it was a light golden brown, I would need to add a dash of red wine and the juice of two cups of cherries, keeping the pulp out if possible. It says a small bit won’t hurt, though.

I was surprised when I added the red wine. It rapidly started bubbling, and the smell it was giving off was very sweet. You wouldn’t have known it was red wine at all.

While this was happening, Liane had returned from her own mission and was holding a dusty-looking bottle of wine with a grin.

I rushed to the pantry to get the wood spice, hoping we had it. One slight problem: there were so many options in this pantry it took me a long time to finally find it.

Racing back to the pot, I was sad to see the mixture had turned black, and the sweet smell from before had turned to an acrid, burnt smell.

I had messed it up.