Fried Chicken from Coco Meat, Boneless Seasoned Chicken
Fried Chicken from Coco Meat, Boneless Seasoned Chicken
We returned to Viscount Britten's territory with the wagon packed full of Coco meat.
"Alright. Tomorrow, we're back in business."
I gazed at the Coco meat filling the entire wagon, my voice thick with satisfaction.
Andrea, who'd been driving the Imperial refrigerated wagon — the kind that keeps meat fresh with chilling magic — spoke up.
"Huh? You're not opening today?"
"Obviously not. The shop stays closed."
"But it's still morning."
"We've got new meat, so we're developing new menu items too."
And honestly, even if I wanted to open, I couldn't.
While we were dealing with the Coco farm problem, I'd asked the other farms and ranches not to send us supplies.
The result: we had practically nothing to cook with right now.
No vegetables, no other meats — how was I supposed to run a restaurant?
Our rule was same-day or night-before supply, same-day sellout. We didn't keep leftover ingredients lying around.
Still, three days without work does sting a little.
A break felt nice, but skipping the daily routine had left me feeling sluggish.
Restless, you could call it.
When we rode back into the viscountcy town, the guards at the gate started grinning the instant they spotted me.
"Oh! Sir! You're back! And you've brought a wagon with you this time."
"Did everything wrap up well?"
I knew both of these two — regular lunch customers.
The one on the left, a guard named Hanson, was a real regular. He'd show up for dinner, order soju and bar snacks, and settle in.
"Wrapped up nicely. The knights will handle things from here."
"Then are you open today?"
Both guards' eyes lit up.
From the look of it, they were ready to come sprinting the second I said yes.
At that, the guard captain wagged a finger and lightly smacked both of them on the head.
"Quit your useless chatter and focus on your work, you pups."
"Agh!"
I dipped my head lightly toward the guard captain, Marco.
"It's been a while, Captain."
"Sir Knight! You're really opening the moment you get back? You can't open today. I'm on a twelve-hour duty shift — I couldn't make it for lunch or dinner..."
"Captain, asking him not to open just because you can't make it — that's not right."
"You're one to talk! After the Sir's been out on assignment all this time, you want him to just throw open the shop on the spot?"
The guards, bickering among themselves, pulled a laugh out of me.
"Where did you two eat while I was gone?"
"Ah, Sir, where would we eat without you around? We starved or ate at the barracks mess."
"Captain! Captain, the other day, that place across the way—"
"Shh! Shh! Have you got zero sense?"
"Mmph!"
Marco clamped a hand over Hanson's mouth.
"I might just have to ban you from visiting for exactly as many visits as you made to that other place."
"S-Sir, are you serious?"
"It's a joke."
Grinning, I held up my identification badge.
"Also, we can't open today regardless. There's not a single prepared ingredient in the kitchen."
"Ahh, truly a shame! Hahaha."
The contrast between Captain Marco's face and his men's was pretty damn funny.
"We'll be back to normal hours tomorrow, so come by then."
"Of course! Hahaha!"
"...Sigh. I'm on duty tomorrow."
Past the guards and back at the shop, I packed the mana-refrigerator full of Coco meat.
"But do you really think that woman was a vampire?"
Andrea was thinking back to the gray-haired woman we had driven off.
"She was draining blood. There was a faint trace of magi. And then she turned into a bat and vanished mid-air... At that point, it'd be weirder if she weren't a vampire."
"Yeah, when you lay it out like that, I suppose so. But why would a vampire go after a chicken farm in Litmal Village of all places?"
"Who knows? Some reason we don't know about, maybe."
I lifted a piece of still-pristine Coco meat as I spoke.
Old texts already told us vampires could feed on animal blood.
But wasn't human blood supposed to be their mainstay?
Had the ones who could survive on animal blood alone been the only ones left after all these centuries?
Natural selection — does it apply in this world too?
Well, no law says it can't.
Still. Coco blood, though.
How much blood does a little thing like that even have?
Wait, no. You get a whole chicken out of one bird — that's actually a decent amount of blood.
I fiddled with the bare, thoroughly plucked Coco flesh as I thought.
Was its blood, like, outrageously delicious compared to other animals?
"Wouldn't we find out if we tried it ourselves?"
At Andrea's suggestion, I looked at her.
She'd finished putting things away and had already seated herself at the kitchen table.
And those eyes.
Those were unmistakably cook for me eyes.
"So what's on the menu today?"
"You're just acting like a full-on customer now, huh."
"Today isn't a workday for me. So that makes me a customer."
"If the shop isn't open, you're not a customer, got it? Get out."
"Ah."
Andrea fidgeted, visibly unsure how to recover.
"I-I mean... do you need help getting the fire going? I'm pretty confident with that."
"Forget it. Go to the storage room and bring me potato starch, flour, and milk from the fridge."
"Got it!"
Andrea shot up from her seat.
"...So, um, the name of the dish..."
"If you want to eat, bring the stuff fast."
"Fine."
Andrea's shoulders dropped in defeat as she trudged off to fetch the flour and milk.
Today's menu was fried chicken — and boneless seasoned chicken.
Both were evening drinking snacks, meant to sell alongside alcohol.
If the boneless seasoned chicken caught on, I planned to spin off a variation as a side dish: dakgangjeong.
But before any of that, I had to test the taste.
While she fetched the ingredients, I broke down the Coco meat.
First, deboning and trimming for the boneless chicken.
Using a small, thin knife, I separated the wings and legs, then sliced along the breast line to free the meat.
Two clean boneless breast fillets, formed in an instant.
They're big.
Coco breast meat really was well-developed.
Then I processed the thighs and drumsticks.
Slit the thinner part of the leg, cut through the sinew, and pulled the meat free — yielding pristine boneless Coco legs.
The whole job was done in a flash.
The wings didn't need deboning.
Back in the other world, nobody bothered to debone wings either.
Wingettes and Buffalo wings had plenty of demand as-is, so I didn't feel the need.
Besides, if you debone a wing, there's barely any meat left.
Boneless work was done, at that.
For the other bird, I chopped it into big pieces.
Eight pieces total.
Two wing pieces including the wingettes, two legs, two thigh pieces, and two breast pieces with the ribs attached.
After a clean rinse, I massaged salt and pepper into the chicken.
"I brought the stuff."
Once the preliminary seasoning had settled, I stirred sugar into the milk Andrea had brought and submerged the Coco pieces.
Soaking in milk was all about eliminating gaminess in the meat.
Brining in plain water worked, but milk brought out more of the Coco's natural clean flavor. That meant a slightly higher cost per serving, but I preferred it.
Plenty of people say they can't tell the difference, but...
I subscribed to the belief that these small touches make all the depth.
Brining time: thirty minutes.
While the chicken brined, I made the sauce for the seasoned chicken.
Ganjang, fine chili powder, sugar, and a generous scoop of minced garlic went in.
I'd learned my lesson from the yakgwa incident — running out of rice syrup and having to fill the sweetness gap with honey. This time, I'd asked Viscount Britten to supply me with the malt syrup commonly used here.
Back in Korea, people used rice-based syrups like ssalyeot and jochung. Here in the Empire, they told me, most people used malt syrups made from barley, corn, sweet potatoes, and the like.
This isn't a country where magic makes sugar scarce, but buying sugar is still too damn expensive for ordinary people.
Boiling the other ingredients first and adding honey at the end would've been an option, but since this was destined for the menu, honey wasn't on the table.
Pumpkin Bee honey was for me — or for special guests.
Can't use a rare, hard-to-get ingredient for everyday sales.
I added the malt syrup, then the tomato sauce commonly used across the Empire, and finished with a spoonful of gochujang.
Simmer.
I kept stirring until the sauce reached a gentle boil, blending it all together.
When the bubbles rose, I killed the heat and set the sauce aside to cool.
"That sauce smells good."
Andrea poked her head over my shoulder, eyeing the finished sauce.
"What kind of sauce is this?"
"K-Chicken Seasoning."
"K-Chicken Seasoning?"
"Yeah."
"The name's kind of... weird?"
"You just committed blasphemy."
"Huh? What's that supposed to—"
"It's a thing."
Dismissing K-seasoned chicken? Oh, I'd make her regret those words soon enough.
Into the milk containing the brined Coco, I added flour and starch powder.
Plain flour alone would never work for frying.
Back in modern Korea, there'd be pre-made chicken frying mix, but no such convenient product existed here.
I should commission that mage Camilla keeps sending.
Pre-blended frying and batter flour so I wouldn't have to mix my own — and various powdered sauces.
Now that I think about it, curry roux would be amazing to have.
Even without fussing over complicated seasoning, homemade chicken with a good curry roux alone was basically halfway to success.
Sadly, none existed right now.
They say humans only move fast when they're forced to...
Now that the need had arisen, I kept thinking about reaching out to him.
Already plotting to put him to work, I dropped a spoonful of chili powder into the batter and tossed the various mix-ins together with the Coco pieces.
Chop-chop-chop.
The key was to keep the batter more fluid — pourable, like thick liquid — rather than pasty.
Onto a wide tray, just as before, I spread flour, starch, salt, and pepper, then dredged the batter-coated Coco pieces through the dry mix.
This way the coating itself was seasoned, preventing the chicken's flavor from feeling disconnected from the crust.
"Andrea, put the oil on the fire."
"Got it."
I took the battered Coco pieces and coated them in the starch-and-flour fry mix.
Splash.
Then back into the batter.
Drip. Drip.
Two coats of batter, done.
The point of double-coating was to get that extra-crispy crust texture.
By the time both the boneless and bone-in pieces were fully dressed,
the oil had reached the right temperature.
"Alright. Let's fry."
The thickest drumsticks went in first.
The order went: legs, ribs and breast, wings, and finally the boneless pieces.
Sizzle.
As the Coco flesh in its snow-white batter coat slipped into the oil, yellow bubbles began frantically rising.
Tsiii-!
The sound of frying — like a scatter of raindrops hitting the surface — filled the kitchen.
Transparent yellow foam blanketed the top of the oil vat.
Different from the sound of frying donkatsu.
A little more varied.
If donkatsu frying was a piano solo, this was a symphony.
Maybe it was because chicken used a wider range of cuts.
The Chicken Corps was marching in.
Clear the way.
As the white-crusted batter gradually shifted to gold, the aroma of oil, batter, and meat frying together began to fill the kitchen.
"Ahh, so good."
Andrea had closed her eyes, just drinking in the smell and the sound.
One by one, I lifted the well-fried pieces onto a wire rack and shook off the excess oil.
Sssk! Sssk!
Oil scattered, marking the surface as it landed.
Savoring the culinary aesthetics of the chicken one last time, I plated the fried chicken.
"Andrea, take this to the table and set things up, will you? And bring this side dish too."
I pointed to the chicken radish.
A paler white than the danmuji we'd used in gimbap.
Chicken radish and danmuji were basically both pickled radish dishes at heart, so their flavors sat in the same neighborhood.
The only real differences came down to how you cut it, the sugar-and-vinegar balance, and whether you added gardenia fruit for that yellow tint.
"No rice?"
"This is meant to be eaten without rice."
"Ah...."
Andrea clicked her tongue, a touch disappointed.
"I need rice for strength, though...."
Look at her lately — she's a full-on rice addict now.
While she set the table, I placed the boneless pieces in a deep bowl and poured the nearly cooled seasoned sauce over them.
Using a spatula, I tossed and coated them evenly, making sure the thick, red sauce reached every last crevice.
Patiently, I worked them until the golden fried boneless pieces had fully transformed into glossy, red seasoned chicken.
I plated the seasoned chicken as well, then poured the unused sauce into a small dipping dish and set it aside.
"Alright, we're done."
Fried chicken and boneless seasoned chicken.
And chicken radish.
If only we had beer to go with this.
Chimaek was the single greatest food pairing in existence, wasn't it?
A shame, but the carbonation injector would show up soon enough. Solving that was just a matter of time.
"What's this menu called?"
Andrea was staring at the two dishes — the fried chicken glowing bright gold and the seasoned chicken slick and glistening with red sauce.
The pieces had shed their excess grease, leaving nothing but pure crunch behind. The freshly fried chicken wore its distinctive crust like a dress — as if someone had sprinkled golden breading crumbles across the surface.
"Ah, yes... this is the one called chicken."
"Chicken...."
Then I pointed to the seasoned chicken — the one that had thrown an intense crimson cloak over that golden fried dress.
"And this here... is K-Chicken. Seasoned chicken."
Both varieties of chicken radiated steam in lazy curls, flaunting their presence.