Chapter 149 - 149. Pugilist Hard At Work. (1/2)
The fifth day for the interns had arrived and today I would need them to prepare certain cuisines that would definitely tickle our taste buds nonstop.
The menu today would be Black Pepper Roasted Pork with Brocolli, Cauliflower and Baby Kailan in Oyster Sauce for lunch. As for dinner, I would introduce Beef Stew with Potatoes and Carrots for dinner.
Midway for mid-morning snacks, I would have the interns prepare glutinous rice flour to make into a steamed pudding with a slice of Musa belle banana in the centre. It would be wrapped in banana leaves and then it would be prepared for us as well as the children in the Keating's Day Care Centre. There would be a total of 250 servings that would be enough to go round for both sessions.
Then as for mid-afternoon snacks, it would be mashed tapioca, coconut gratings, some food colouring as well as some glutinous flour to hold the cake in place as it would be shaped with a brim of a cup and be pan-fried with a bit of fat that would be spread into the pan with screw pine leaves.
The list of ingredients had been prepared along with the recipe that notes of its measurements to make for a group of 8. It would then be multiplied accordingly to make for the 250 servings for both the Castle's occupants and the children at Keating's Day Care Centre.
Since the interns had 2 days of relaxing in the kitchen, it's now to whip up a storm to make these desserts. The rest is up to them to create the stew and I showed the interns how to prepare the sweet corn rice. It was basically the same herbs and spices used but with a twist. A blob of fat was being used to stir fry the rice in a wok before ending transferred to cook the rice in a cauldron.
The rice, after being cooked had a yellowish tinge in them due to the spices used and there were heaps of sweet corn kernels in them as it was steamed together with the rice. One look at it would definitely whet someone's appetite and the sweet aroma of the rice what wafted out from the steam filled the whole Castle.
”Sir, this is what you mean by cooking rice in a different manner?” an intern asked as she scoped a spoonful of rice in her palm and gently blew in it before she rammed it down her mouth. Hah hah hah...
”Yup, rice is not meant to be white steamed only. It is so boring after some time and you could even cook a whole meal inside it. It would be shown sometime later but in the meantime, you could do with these 3 cuisines and make a serving of 20 pax for the rest of us.”
”There will be lamb shank and chunks of fist-sized meats cooked with red wine in some light gravy until it becomes dry and this would be cooked together with rice that had been mixed with saffron to give it a yellowish colour and also the herbs and spices with certain leaves inside it.”
”As for this saffron rice, there's no need to use the screw pine leaves but we use a lot of parsley and mint leaves, with cinnamon, cloves and the other 'siblings' instead.”
”The siblings that I mentioned are cinnamon, cloves, fennel, star anise, Szechwan peppercorns, ginger, nutmeg, and liquorice. The flavours that you would receive from this would be sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami.”
There we a lot of note-taking and discussions among them in hearing the new cuisine that they would be undertaking. I explained that its a fusion of Chinese, Indian, Mediterranean and French cuisine all mixed together to make this fine meal.
Just the mention of the meal alone would make them salivate. Even as they were preparing the mid-morning snack, after they had successfully made the glutinous base for the 'pudding', I showed them an example of how to fold them into the banana leaves and used two wooden skewers to closed the two ends together.
A layer of each steamer basket could hold 40 of these cakes and we have an 8 layer steamer basket that could do the job well. In times like this, it would be good to train them to make quantities in order for them to prepare banquets that some nobles would throw every week.
Since it was lull period in the training grounds as well as the fusion chamber in the Realm of Mind is still duplicating the hundred thousand of weapons, I decided to head to the courtyard to do some light training. I changed to a red and black gi that I had bought in the Atelier on my last visit and put in black canvas shoes meant for sparring on unarmed combat.
”Wow...dear. You looked stunning in that pair of clothes. You really look like a martial artist.” remarked Patricia as she saw me sauntering down the stairs and into the living area. ”I don't look like a martial artist because I am one of them.” I chided Patricia and I went straight into the courtyard and activated the button to raise the 8 wingchun statues from the ground.
I set the wingchun spring to be the hardest because I'm not sure the effects of my kicks and punches as I've lately dumped a total of 11k points into my strength. I wonder what kind of damage rating it would do.
I went in the centre of the arena and went into a pouring stance where I would be one with Mother Nature and was watched by Prius, Rebecca and Patricia who sat in the shade under the awnings of the seating area.
”Your husband is really a remarkable man. Not only he is good in culinary but he is also proficiency of several weapons too. And he is also an unarmed martial artist as well?”
”Wow... In this era who would go against the enemy with just his bare fists and feet?” remarked Rebecca to Patricia as she watched how I was pouring myself on one leg and stood on it with almost 90% of my body weight.
”Well, it's good to be versed in ranged, close combat as well as unarmed combat. Who knows he might train a team of pugilist as what he had informed me earlier.”
”Unarmed combat is used even with armed foes and the way he does it was quite a feat. He dodges and then attacks while keeping his distance away from striking distance.”
”That's what he told me,” replied Patricia as she watched me making slow circular movements with my arms as I slowly became one with Mother Nature.