Chapter 103 (1/2)

Ch 103 -- 100% Wyvern Meat Hamburger

Since we were leaving this city the next day I wanted to prepare a lot of a.s.sorted dishes for the trip. I borrowed the inn's courtyard again to carry out all the cooking I'd need to do. What to cook though?

Well, I knew deep-fried food was a sure thing for my two companions (and me too of course) so kaarage it was. I started with Red Serpent, Black Serpent, Rockbird and Giant Dodo each with salt and soy sauce marinades. Pork cutlets and the ever-popular cheese IN chicken cutlets were next up. I dug out the remaining ground-up meat from my Item Box and made mincemeat cutlets before deep-frying them too. I experimented by making some mincemeat cutlets with cheese IN since Sui liked cheese. What next? Hamburger? But I had just used up all the ground meat... ah well, I can make more. I fed Orc General meat and b.l.o.o.d.y Horn Bull meat into the mincer and started turning the handle round and round. Eventually my arm hurt but I had a large amount of minced meat ready to use.

”Is this enough?” I shrugged. ”Fu ~ I'm tired. It'll do for now.” What next? Remembering the taste of the Wyvern meat from yesterday I thought that cooking it shabu-shabu or sukiyaki hotpot style, thinly-sliced and boiled quickly in soup then dunked in sauce might work. The thick steaks of seared Wyvern meat had been delicious, cooking them that way should be good too. I sliced a lot of Wyvern meat ready to cook shabu-shabu later, piling it up on plates, covering it with clingfilm and storing it back in my Item Box. I reckoned that hotpot would be a welcome change along the way as we travelled.

Slicing the Wyvern meat this way I ended up with a lot of cut-offs. Staring at them I had an inspiration -- I'd make some 100% Wyvern meat hamburgers. I had seen a teevee program once where the presenters turned trims and sc.r.a.ps of Wagyu beef left over from preparation of other gourmet dishes into 100% Wagyu hamburger so me doing it with the leftover Wyvern meat should work the same way. As I remembered it the teevee show presenters put nutmeg in their recipe so I'd follow their example. I don't usually put nutmeg in hamburgers, it's not a good idea to just throw everything you might think of into a recipe after all but in this case it was worth a try since I was using such high-quality meat. The presenters had said it improves the flavour after all. I didn't have any nutmeg to hand since I don't normally use it in cooking so I bought some on Net Super.

First I chopped up some onions finely, fried them until they were well-browned and then set them aside to cool. I didn't run the Wyvern meat through the mincer, instead I chopped it up with a sharp knife. If I minced it too finely the fatty marbling in the meat would make it fall apart when it was fried.

I'm a true believer of the 'onions in hamburger' faction so I stirred lots of browned onions into the roughly-chopped Wyvern meat. The chopped meat might seem a little bit lumpy to some hamburger enthusiasts but I reckoned it would add to the taste since you'd be exposed to the texture of the meat a little. I added breadcrumbs and egg for a binder and some nutmeg, salt and pepper to finish and stirred the mixture thoroughly before rolling it into b.a.l.l.s and pressing them flat to make patties.

I cooked some of the patties, about a minute at medium heat and then at low heat for about 4 minutes then flipped them and repeated that cooking on the other side. I added some sake and ketchup to the sauce as usual before covering the pan to steam the meat but this time I included some b.u.t.ter too. I figured it would complement the tenderness of the Wyvern meat.

”Right then, where have Fer and Sui got to...” I wondered, looking up from the stove as the hamburgers finished cooking.

”Ahem.” ”Aruji-”. They were both waiting right behind me. What a surprise. Not.

”Here you are.” I dished out some 100% Wyvern meat hamburgers which they immediately started to eat.

”Umu.”