Ultimate Yakitori (2)
Fortunately, I didn't have to trek all the way to the slaughterhouse at the first wall just to get chicken. The butchers' guild near the city market sold every kind of meat there was, so I stopped in and looked over nothing but the chicken.
Sniff, sniff.
Handling it with bare hands would have been a serious breach of manners, so I settled for the smell. Hm. There's a faint fishy note coming off it. Set beside the chicken I'd traded for through Mana Market, the quality was uneven, and none of it was top grade. Only natural, if you thought about it. Still, a little smell didn't mean much. Grill it properly and it would be a different story. What I wanted, in the end, was the taste of the chicken once it was cooked.
"One Dunkkuk chicken thigh and one Kushe chicken thigh, please."
"Aye. Much obliged."
The butcher wrapped both breeds' thighs in a scrap of cloth with practiced hands.
I didn't think they'd even bother sorting by breed. This world hadn't seen the kind of systematic breeding you got in the modern age, so I hadn't expected much. They were selling two distinct breeds anyway, so I bought one of each without hesitation.
"Is there anywhere in the guild where I can cook?"
"Not us. There's a camp near the adventurers' guild over that way. Their communal kitchen ought to do."
"Oh, thank you."
Going home to taste it, then wandering around for new meat if it was bad, would have been a hassle. This worked out nicely. I picked up the chicken and headed for the camp in front of the adventurers' guild.
A communal kitchen, though. The place practically dripped with medieval-fantasy atmosphere. Adventurers and travelers rarely had anything you could call a home, so the broad campground came equipped with a shared kitchen as well. It was still a little early to start on supper, so with any luck the place would be empty.
And so I arrived at the adventurers' campground. Calling it an adventurers' camp was only half true — merchants and travelers could use it too. I walked up to the entrance, where a simple fence had been put up.
"Ten copper for the day."
"No rate for just a few hours?"
"You think this is an inn room? Ten copper."
"Tch."
Clink.
A usage fee. That was a variable I hadn't counted on. I paid the ten copper without argument and stepped inside.
As expected, there weren't many adventurers around. They were probably still out on commissions and hadn't come back yet. The ones with fat purses, who had no need to take work at all, or the listless ones who hadn't managed to land a commission — only those sat in their own tents. Best to run the test while it was this quiet.
I went straight into the kitchen at the center. "Went in" was a strange way to put it, honestly. It was just a large tent with a shared hearth, a prep counter, a brazier, and a well. This is plenty. I hadn't bought a whole Dunkkuk and a whole Kushe anyway. Just the thighs. All I had to do was bone the meat and grill it, so I didn't need any serious equipment.
From what I'd brought out of the mansion, I took out a small boning knife — a honesuki, by its other name. One was English and the other Japanese, and both meant a knife for cutting bone.
Shk, shk.
Separating bone from flesh on the thighs wasn't difficult.
I'd expected the communal kitchen to be less convenient than the one at the mansion, but it had one unexpectedly powerful advantage: being outdoors, I could use charcoal that had been fired hard in the hearth. The mansion didn't run on a gas range either, but they cooked with mana-fueled burners or spirit arts. Those might win on convenience. On flavor, they could not beat a charcoal fire. If I kept at the yakitori, I might end up haunting this adventurers' kitchen quite a lot...
Ah. But I don't have skewers. Of course I didn't. I'd assumed I'd be cooking in a frying pan. Hmm. What now? Would an adventurer have some? Most of them probably just cut branches in the forest, but I had nothing to lose by asking.
I looked around. The adventurer nearest me was sitting there with sweat beading on her face. If she was going to sweat like that, she could at least take the hat off. It was fairly warm, and still she had a floppy hat clenched down over her head — a woman, and an adventurer.
"Excuse me."
"Eh? What d'you want, nya?"
Her way of talking was something else. I flinched, then asked as calmly as I could.
"Do you happen to have wooden skewers? The kind you stick meat on."
"Skewers? Got some, nya. You need 'em, nya?"
"Yes. I'll give you a bit of copper."
"Forget it, nya. Brought leftovers anyway, nya."
Clatter.
She rummaged in a corner of her shabby tent and handed me a few wooden skewers. Hmm. They were something I genuinely needed. Taking them for free felt a little wrong.
"Have you eaten?"
"Eaten... not yet, nya. Why're you asking, nya?"
"I'm about to grill some meat. Wondered if you'd like a bit."
"Meat? You mean skewer-grill, don't you, nya? Uegh..."
"If you don't want it, never mind."
Right — I'd heard adventurers especially hated the stuff. So this was how much they hated it, enough to show their distaste right out in the open.
"No, it's not like that... if you're giving it, I'll eat, nya."
"Huh. All right. Just a minute."
"Take your time, nya. Didn't get any work anyway..."
Growl.
She'd asked for the food all the same. One listen to that stomach and the priority was obvious: hunger first, smell be damned. Fair enough. Fill the belly, then argue about taste. That was the proper order. And I'd gotten my skewers.
I went back to the communal kitchen and prepared the thighs. Thread a skewer wrong and the meat can slip off while it cooks, or the wood can burn, so it was better to set them close and tight. I left the skin on and sliced the meat into long strips. Cut that way, I could thread it so the skin wrapped the thigh as it went onto the stick. The fatty skin would take the charcoal heat and deepen the savor, while the meat tucked inside kept its juices and cooked up moist. A simple pinch of salt, and the prep was done.
I scooped a shovelful of good charcoal out of the hearth and moved it into the brazier. Then I stacked a few loose bricks into a rest just a little higher than the fire and laid the skewers across it.
Sizzle.
Not the sound of meat hitting a screaming-hot pan. Not the sound of something sinking into a deep well of oil, either — a different melody of the Maillard reaction. That quiet, peaceful cooking-sound, the one only charcoal can make, lifted my mood all on its own.
Turn them evenly so they don't burn. I rolled the skewers ninety degrees at a time until every side was cooked just right, and now and then pulled a single brick to change the height and tame the heat. You couldn't control the charcoal's temperature directly, so the height had to do the work. About eight careful minutes of that, and—
"Good. This should do it."
My first chicken skewers, made from otherworld chicken rather than anything out of Mana Market. I carried them over to the adventurer I'd promised to share with.
She had that small, neat mouth pressed tight, eyes fixed on the skewers in my hand. She'd made such a show of not wanting them, but the smell was a different matter, wasn't it?
"H-huh, nya. That's the skewer-grill you were talking about, nya?"
"Yes. If it looks like it won't taste any good, I'll just eat the lot myself. Can't be helped."
"No! It's not, nya! It smells incredibly good, nya!"
She waved her hands and bounced where she sat. Yeah, yeah. The body doesn't lie. To be fair, her mouth had been honest too — she'd said it smelled good.
"I'm joking. Try it and tell me what you think of the taste. I'm testing a recipe."
"A test? You're a cook, nya?"
"Yes. I run a place at the Academy."
"Heeeh... impressive, nya."
I sat down on the ground across from her as if it were the most natural thing. The grass was decently kept, so I didn't mind it at all.
With a soft tok, twelve appetizing chicken skewers came down between us. I'd bought four thighs in all — two Dunkkuk, two Kushe — and each thigh had yielded three skewers. Cut the meat bigger and I'd have ended up with fewer, but the small size was part of the charm. Too large, and skewer-grilling, unlike cooking on a grate, takes far longer. Serving slightly smaller pieces so you keep wanting another is one of the great features of Japanese-style yakitori.
"Eh, the pieces are small, nya. You did that on purpose, nya?"
"Yes. If it's not enough, you can always have more. Go on and try it."
"Ehh. Meat tastes best when it's big and chunky... anyway, thanks, nya. It does look good, nya."
She picked up one skewer. I took one to match and tore into it with focus.
Nom, nom.
Oh. The meat aroma's stronger than the Mana Market chicken? Unexpectedly, the otherworld bird tasted better grilled than what I'd cooked from Mana Market. On pure all-around balance — the full flavor hexagon — Mana Market still won by a landslide. But the wildness of real meat, that deep meat-scent, appealed to me quite a lot. Not quite gibier, wild game cookery, but a fairly concentrated aroma of meat. It hadn't been raised under any proper system of husbandry, so the texture ran a bit tough, and cutting it small turned out to be the clever move. I hadn't planned it that way, but with the portions kept small, "tough" edged closer to "good chew." At the very least, this was more charming than Mana Market chicken.
I made a note to register this chicken as an item later, and glanced over to see whether she was eating well.
"Haap, haap!"
"Aigoo. How many days has it been since you ate?"
A skewer in each hand, she was stuffing her mouth without a pause. Every time she opened it, oddly sharp fangs worked the meat. And at the same time — I couldn't say why — the hat bobbed right along with her. An awfully distinctive person, in more ways than one. Were all adventurers like this?
"Eat slowly. You'll choke."
"Hup— hnya. It's so good, nya! Is this really skewer-grill, nya? Are all the Academy cooks this delicious, nya?"
"I'm not the delicious one. And I'm not an Academy cook, either."
"Anyway— nom, nom. Same difference, nya!"
She liked the skewers enough to wolf them down without a scrap of dignity, like a starving animal. Staring at someone while they ate like that wasn't exactly polite, so I let my gaze drift around her.
Rustle.
And then, all at once, I saw something strange at the hem of her tent. A tuft of fur. What was that? Soft-looking, and oddly long... almost like a tail. Something that fluffy, and the human instinct is to touch it.
Grab!
I seized the tuft without a second thought. And at the same time—
"Kya—kyaaaaaaah!!!!!!"
"Shit—! You scared me!!"
Crash!!
The woman, who had been devouring the skewers as if possessed, shot straight up on the spot like someone who'd just hit the jackpot in a round of pirate roulette. The recoil sent that floppy hat sliding off of its own accord.
"C-cat ears?"
"Ah."
Perked atop the woman adventurer's head... ears. Cat ears, no less, and they stole every bit of my attention.