Sausage and Vegetable Stir-Fry That Even Drove the Sergeant to the Mess Hall
Sausage and Vegetable Stir-Fry That Even Drove the Sergeant to the Mess Hall
Once the cooking was done, serving wasn't my job — the knights on meal duty handled distribution.
Usually the junior squires took on most of the serving, which left me free to lean against a corner of the galley and watch the knights line up for their portions.
"Hm? Vice-Commander, you're not taking the braised Pog spine?"
"...I'm fine. Help yourselves."
Andy walked straight past the platter of bones drenched in red sauce without reaching for it. If I remembered right, she'd loaded up on the blander side dishes that day instead.
It wasn't a one-time thing.
She simply couldn't handle spicy food.
I adjusted the seasoning to accommodate knights with a low tolerance for heat, and still she never lifted a spoon.
'I heard Warmaiden knights are trained to eat anything without complaint.'
Were spicy dishes a step too far even for warriors raised on survival rations?
So I watched her reaction closely when I put out meat dishes with different seasoning profiles.
Anything heavy on the gochujang, or thick with the deep fermented funk of a doenjang base — she barely touched it.
Even the soy-sauce meat stir-fry I'd privately considered one of my masterpieces went ignored.
It gnawed at me.
I'd failed to hook her palate?
Me?
Every other knight loved my food — why didn't she?
So I paid attention to what she actually took.
She consistently reached for the dishes with the lightest seasoning, or the ones made with nothing but salt and pepper.
Even when the dish was something like stir-fried eggplant, she'd scoop up the most underseasoned portion available.
Granted, she still grimaced her way through every bite, brow furrowed like she was enduring a punishment — but at least she took it. That was more than she did for anything with a real marinade.
That was when it clicked.
'Vice-Commander Andy can't stand heavily seasoned food.'
After that, I'd call her aside and serve her dishes where I'd kept the seasoning as restrained as I could manage.
It wasn't as much trouble as it sounded.
I just had to set aside a portion of meat before the marinade went in and stir-fry it plain.
"Thank you, Sir Lucas."
Drawing on that memory, tonight I planned to make Andy a clean, straightforward steak using Coco breast — seasoned simply with salt and pepper, served with sautéed vegetables for proper nutritional balance. A true knight's meal.
"Now that I'm looking at it, this isn't knight's fare — it's gym-rat health food."
A sharp sizzle filled the kitchen.
I breathed in the scent of chicken breast, asparagus, and green onion searing together in the pan.
Thin garlic slices sizzled in the oil first, painting the whole dish with their aroma — at least that added a little complexity.
'This should do it.'
No need to force anything new on top of this.
For a true knight like Andy, this was already a solid, satisfying meal.
On a white plate I placed the Coco breast steak — the one Bldi had personally bled, scored with neat shallow cuts, and pan-seared to a golden finish.
I arranged the vegetables alongside it, and for insurance against underseasoning, I scattered a pinch of salt in the corner of the plate.
"Coco breast steak."
"It... smells wonderful."
Had the carbonation finally worn off?
She regarded the steak I'd set before her with as composed an expression as she could manage.
But whatever control she had over her face didn't extend to her ears — the rims had gone unmistakably red, though she didn't seem to realize it.
Maybe she'd been rationing it — her glass still held about half of the clear, golden lemonade.
Which meant she'd already drunk half of it while I was grilling.
"Go on, try it. I think it'll suit you."
"Thank you."
She picked up the fork and knife that had come with the plate, then glanced over at me and the other knights.
"Are the rest of you not eating?"
"Ah, the knights have a separate menu."
"Do they?"
"Yes. Please, eat comfortably."
"Very well."
Her composure restored, Andy sliced off a piece of steak with her fork and knife and brought it to her mouth.
The meat was surprisingly tender for breast — and at the first taste, her eyes widened just a fraction.
"Hmm."
But that was all.
No explosive reaction like when the fizzy lemonade had hit her tongue earlier.
'Right. This was always how she reacted.'
Andy had been like this from the start.
No matter how hard I'd worked to win over her palate back in the order, she'd never so much as wavered — a knight among knights. Honestly, I'd respected her for it.
She actually looked the part.
Not that respect outweighed the fear. I'd kept my distance right up until the day I left the order.
"It's good."
She delivered the verdict with the same flat calm, then took another bite — and the other knights stared at her, then at me, eyes darting back and forth in open disbelief.
"Has there ever been anyone so utterly unmoved by Sir Lucas's cooking?"
"She's the vice-commander of the Imperial Princess's Knight Order. At that level of mastery, perhaps Sir Lucas's cuisine simply isn't enough?"
"A formidable opponent."
"It's almost as if she's crushing Sir Lucas under the weight of some higher enlightenment."
"Is this... Sir Lucas's first defeat?"
The local broadcast was, unfortunately, loud enough that I caught every single word.
Serving food is not a competition. There are no winners or losers.
But fine. These were the same people who'd once declared that the spirit of chivalry dwelt within a western-style pork cutlet — I supposed it made sense they'd treat a meal like a duel.
"Does it suit your taste?"
"...Yes."
That lukewarm reply.
I hadn't won over Vice-Commander Andy's palate today either.
'The carbonated drink really seemed to land, though.'
Disappointing.
Was this truly an opponent I couldn't beat without the aid of imperial magical engineering?
I turned my head and caught sight of Andrea and Bldi.
How to describe it.
They were watching Andy with an expression that mingled a strange, grudging relief with outright indignation.
"Insolent woman."
"Sh-she really is the enemy, isn't she?"
I laughed and called over to them.
"Andrea — lunch today is sausage and vegetable stir-fry. Get the ingredients ready."
"Huh? Weren't we doing Coco today? Bldi already bled it and everything."
"We've eaten Coco dishes for lunch for days straight, all prepped by Bldi. Let's do something different."
The fact that the Coco breast steak hadn't landed with Andy had absolutely nothing to do with my decision.
Nothing at all.
"Understood!"
Andrea scurried off to fetch the sausages while I got to work washing the vegetables.
Sausage and vegetable stir-fry. Colloquially: Ssoya.
Whenever I'd put it out as a staff meal back in the order, it had always drawn the strongest reactions.
-This... is genuinely delicious. In terms of flavor, I would rate it equal to the chivalric dish itself — the western-style donkatsu.
-0.8 Gukbap. I suspect I will often eat this when Gukbap is not available.
Those were the reviews given by Heimer, who insisted donkatsu embodied the way of the knight, and Ivan, the walking Gukbap addiction. It had captured both their tongues.
-The sauce looks like blood. I like it.
-Delicious! Boss, even the vegetables taste amazing in this!
The rave reviews were inevitable.
Even in the army, Ssoya had been one of the few dishes capable of summoning the laziest terminal-year sergeant out of the PX and all the way to the mess hall.
A sergeant who otherwise wouldn't lift his backside off a bench would break into a sprint the moment the youngest private whispered that today's menu was Ssoya.
That was how good it was.
In military lore, any day that featured sausage-and-vegetable stir-fry alongside seaweed soup might as well have been someone's birthday.
Taste aside, the method couldn't be simpler.
Sear bite-sized Vienna sausages together with chopped mixed vegetables.
Then dump in a sauce of ketchup, donkatsu sauce, chili, and minced garlic, and stir-fry it all once more.
And just like that — ta-da — a meal, done. The definition of effortless cooking.
But unfortunately, back when I'd worked as a cook-knight for the knight order, I hadn't dared touch this dish.
In the heart of the imperial capital, sausages were luxury goods aimed squarely at nobles and the moneyed elite. The unit cost was prohibitive.
And that wasn't all.
Cheaper sausages did circulate in the outskirts, but with so few shops handling them and distribution margins ballooning between the distant ranches and the capital, sausages ended up priced far higher than plain meat.
'And even that was a tiny supply to begin with.'
I couldn't fathom it.
Sure, cured goods took more work, but wasn't this absurd? I'd even pressed the suppliers on it.
-Honestly, even without sausages, doesn't the capital have plenty to eat? Be grateful we carry them at all.
That was the only answer I ever got.
So I gave up.
When I opened my shop in the south, the first thing that shocked me was the price of sausages.
Half what they cost in the capital.
Mix in some Pog meat, and it got cheaper still.
So every now and then, I'd make it for the staff meal.
The reviews were great, it was fast to prepare — when I wanted to coast through a meal service, I'd stir-fry up some Ssoya. No real finesse required, just load it up with bold, punchy sauce.
Ch-ch-chop, chop, chop!
I cut the onion and carrot into pieces roughly the size of a knuckle.
I seeded the bell peppers, then sliced the bodies to roughly match the onion.
While I worked, Andrea scored the casings of the Vienna sausages she'd brought.
I slicked a pan with oil and dropped in Andrea's scored sausages.
Hiss-ss-ss!
Over the cheerfully sputtering sausages I heaped the chopped vegetables.
Sss-ss-ss!
The sound of oil and moisture colliding — that bright, clear bubbling — was almost like rain.
"Nice."
I genuinely loved the sound of hot oil during cooking.
Over the sizzling ingredients I poured the sauce: a little gochujang, ketchup, the donkatsu sauce I kept prepped for lunch service, and minced garlic, all blended together.
The red glaze coated every surface of sausage and vegetable in a glossy sheen.
By the time the onion had turned translucent and the sausages' knife-cuts had bloomed open —
I killed the heat and tipped the red-gold Ssoya into a large serving bowl.
The sauce — sweet ketchup and savory donkatsu base, the gentle burn of gochujang, the deep savor of minced garlic all swirled into one — glistened under the magic lights overhead as the Ssoya caught the glow.
"Smells good. Looks good."
I didn't even need to taste it.
This was a flawless success.
"Sides, coming out!"
Andrea and the knights moved without needing to be told — they'd gotten the rhythm down by now.
Bldi set chopsticks and spoons at every table.
"Thank you for the meal!"
White steamed rice and freshly made Ssoya.
Alongside it, the banchan spread: stir-fried soybean sprouts, seasoned cucumber salad, and — though most people skipped it — the ever-present stir-fried eggplant, holding its position out of sheer persistence.
A complete, textbook Korean meal laid out across the table.
"As expected — delicious!"
"Kkhhh!"
"Sausage and vegetable stir-fry, as expected!"
"The boss's banchan never misses — it's always so good!"
"Master's cooking is the best."
The reactions to the ketchup-and-gochujang Ssoya erupted exactly as they always did.
Same as ever.
Yeah.
That's more like it.
"...That looks delicious."
The voice came from somewhere away from the main table.
It was Andy.
Her steak half-finished, she was staring vacantly at the Ssoya.