177: Lessons

Heading back into the kitchen, I tried to put the bacon out of my mind for now. I would need to work on those runes with Sylverith before I needed to make other plans.

“Excited for today?” I said to Crisplet.

He was already holding a knife made out of compressed coal in his hand, and I got a burst of sparks to my question. Entering the kitchen, I spotted Lily sleeping in the room’s corner, which made Torrel freeze for a moment as we entered.

“Right! I have you until lunchtime, so let’s get started…”

The next three hours went by in a blur as I was taught so many different techniques: from safely removing venom sacks from creatures to removing tendons from meat to how to prepare organs to make them edible.

I was then taught several marinades that would help tenderise the meat, including one that used crushed-up fruit, as it was explained that the acids in the fruit helped break down the meat and made it tender.

Then, finally, I had just finished learning how to make an emulsion sauce using eggs, lemon juice, and oil before Auguste pulled out what looked like thin white tubes in a ball.

“I will now teach you how to make sausages. These are important to learn, especially for someone on the road, because like jerky they can be smoked and cured to make them last a long time. These are the casings. You can buy them from butchers in the capital, or traditionally they are made out of boar intestines. Trevor, listen to me well: if you collect your own, always clean the intestines more than you think is required,” Auguste said.

Auguste placed the casing on the counter and took the buvul that Torrel had been finely chopping. He then pulled out what looked like a chunk of fat, as well as some ground-up spices that smelled both nutty and earthy, with a deep brown colour, along with salt and pepper.

“Right, so this is pretty simple. First, you want to have ground meat,” he said.

Then he raised his hand over the bowl, and the finely chopped meat started to churn a little before it appeared to be getting crushed.

“Some chefs have the ability to do this; others get a device that pushes it through rotating blades to achieve a similar effect. It’s always best practice to use both your lean meats and offcuts that won’t make good roasts or steaks, but always add some fat to it, or they will be dry and unpleasant,” he continued.

He then poured in the spice mixture he had, along with a pinch of the seasonings.

“Now, these spices and seasonings can change to something you want—be creative. You can also add fine breadcrumbs to the mixture if you wish to have it hold together better, but it’s unnecessary. For these casings, they have already been cleaned, salted, and dried, so all we need to do is simply submerge them in warm water.”

Auguste then pulled out a bowl and produced water from a ring, submerging the white strips.

“Now, for this part, even I need a tool, but it’s fairly simple: a stuffing tube. You just slide the casings onto the end like this, then push the mixture gently in through the hole on the other side. If you want to smoke or cure them, I would suggest adding some sugar to your mixture to feed the bacteria,” he explained.

He then proceeded to demonstrate how to squeeze the mixture into the casing.

“Right, it’s your turn. You can use my mixture, but I want you to fill it yourself,” he said, tying off his example and cutting it free as a giant curl.

It looked really easy, so reaching into the warm water, I pulled up the casing, finding it was slippery immediately. I tried to fit it around the end of the stuffing tube like Auguste had just shown, but every time I thought I had it on, it just slipped off the end. How did he make it look so easy!

Auguste laughed. “You need to get it over the edge, then slide it up. You want there to be an excess on the nozzle there.”

I finally got it on and tried to slide it up, thinking I had it. I then held on as I pushed the meat with the plunger at the back…

And the casing came straight off.

Auguste was clearly trying to hide his smile with a stone-like expression, but you could see it in his eyes.

“You need more on the nozzle then. You really want to make sure you have a good grip. Be careful it doesn’t tear,” he explained.

It tore.

The moment I finally had the casing on the nozzle, it started to fill before bursting through the side of the casing and tearing off.

“How did you make this look so easy!” I said as I once again tried to slide it back on.

“Lots of practice,” he said with a soft chuckle.

“It’s better I teach you now rather than you trying this on the road and giving up because you think you’re just doing it wrong.”

“I expected you to teach me a really fancy dish,” I said with a laugh, putting the casing back on and trying again.

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“It crossed my mind, but ultimately, when would you ever use that again? I instead felt like you’d be better suited to learn more practical skills, and for Crisplet to learn how to wield that knife properly. You’ll learn something delicious later today. Now focus on that casing and make some sausages. Lily is already eyeing you off,” Auguste said.

And sure enough, looking behind me, there was Lily, staring directly at my hands.

She’s going to be disappointed when she finds out I can’t infuse these because Auguste minced the meat.

It took several more tries before I finally succeeded in letting off enough casing at the right speed for the sausage to properly fill, and even then there were noticeable air bubbles in mine that I swear were not in Auguste’s, but I was happy I finally got some made.

The last thing I was taught were two different types of bread that I could easily make on the road.