Chapter 301
Tondemo Skill - 301 - Dora-chaaannn~~
We plan to leave Doran tomorrow, therefore today was spent preparing for the trip.
The preparation was mainly food preparation: Deep-fried food such as fried pork cutlets, fried minced pork, Salisbury steaks, miso-pickled meat and minced meat soboro are a must, of course. Aside from these side dishes, I’ve also prepared pork soup, seafood soup and lots and lots of rice for the various rice bowl dishes.
“Phew, this should be enough. I somehow ended up with a whole bunch of different things.”
Ever since ‘Cook’ appeared under my Occupation status, I found that cooking [6] had become something like an instinctive action and almost always ended cooking more than I meant to…
This isn’t really a problem since I have these gluttons to feed anyway. [5]
Still, it’s a testimony of my skills when I ended up with more leftovers than before.
[6] Not cooked leftovers but…
[8] I scratched my head as I studied the large bowl of minced Orc and Minotaur meat. [5] [6] I had already made Salisbury steaks and minced cutlets but there’s still so much left… [5]
This was partly due to Sui’s special Mithril Mincer which minces up meat almost without any effort.
I guess I could just put it away in the [Item Box] for another day but I feel like I should make something with this pile of meat…
Let’s see, mincemeat~ mincemeat…
Alright, let’s go with that!
‘That’ being meat pies.
I’d made these before when faced with the same problem. Sometimes, when mincemeat goes on sale, like a hypnotised consumer, I"d usually buy too much. Still, the pies were unexpectedly easy to make and were delicious. Thank you internet.
“Alright, let’s add meat pies to our dishes!”
[9] With [Net Super] on my side, I can just buy stuff like frozen pie sheets which really cut down the work on making pies.
I already have meat and eggs as well as the necessary seasonings but I bought some more onions and carrots to be added to the pie.
First, the onions and carrots are diced into small cubes. On a hot frying pan, I drizzled a bit of oil and stirred the onions and carrots in until just tender before putting the minced meat in. Once the meat has browned and crumbled to pieces, I added ketchup, Worcesters.h.i.+re sauce, crumbled a consommé cube over the dish and adjusted the flavour with salt and pepper. You can add grated nutmeg too if you like. [6] I forgot to buy it so let’s do without for now.
[9] Finally, sprinkle some flour over the minced meat to further thicken the sauce and remove the pan from the fire. While the meat is cooling, I cut the defrosted pie sheets into four equal parts. [6] This will make 2 square pies.
[9] I placed the minced meat in the middle of two pie sheets before covering it with a second layer and crimped it down with a fork. The design is rather crude but it works. Finally, a layer of egg wash to make it look glossy before it goes into the oven.
[9] The pies were relatively small and the insides were already done so it baked very quickly. For this pie, I used onions and carrots according to the original recipe. More often than not, I’d use frozen mixed vegetables since I’m lazy…
Also, curry powder is a good addition to give regular pies an extra twist. In fact, I should make some one day…
[9] As for the shape, I chose to make a rectangular hand pie without bothering with moulds or anything since it’s much easier. Smaller pies cooked faster too and frozen pie sheets are really fun and easy to work with. I’ve made round, triangular and even gyoza shaped pies but it all depends on a person’s taste. The key is to make relatively small and flattish pies that fit into the palm of my hand. Hence, "hand pie"...
I should try making other shapes next time…
Oh, there goes the timer, my pies are done baking.
“Hmm, the pie sh.e.l.ls looked well cooked, the egg wash gave it a really nice colour. Of course, I’ll have to taste it to check if it’s really done…”
The fragrance of freshly baked pastry seduced me into taking a bite.
Crunch.
“Tasty~”
The crisp and savoury texture of the pie is just irresistible [2] and matches nicely with the well-seasoned minced meat, especially since I’ve packed in the meat generously.
“Oi, you’re eating something delicious, aren’t you. Give me.”
“”Me too!””
“”Sui wants some too~~””
[4] “…I was just taste testing…”
Fer and Co had been attracted by the delicious smell of baked pastries. [8] Since the two pieces of pies weren’t enough for everybody, I got to work prepping more pies and ended up giving them platefuls of meat pies as a snack.
“Oh, that’s right. I can make pound cakes with the dried fruit Tirza-san [5] gave me.”
I plan to inform Elland-san and Ugor-san that I’ll be leaving Doran tomorrow. [8] It would be nice to give them some cakes made with Tirza-san’s dried fruits [5].
Once my cakes were baked I wrapped up some meat pies [1] and put them in a basket before heading towards the Adventurer’s Guild.
The moment I arrived at the Adventurer’s Guild the staff member immediately guided me to the second floor [1] where I found both Elland-san and Ugor-san still stuck under a pile of doc.u.ments.
[8] “Oh, it’s Mukouda-san! Ugor-kun, look, it’s Mukouda-san! A break! A break! It’s time for a break!” [5]
“[5] Idiot Master, just keep working. I shall speak to Mukouda-san.”
“Wh-whyyy…..” Elland-san’s excited voice trailed off in a whine. [5]
My condolences to Elland-san but I suspect you"re the reason why you"re both stuck under a mountain of doc.u.ments...
“Apologies for keeping you waiting, Mukouda-san. What business might you have with us?” [3] Ugar-san said, ignoring Elland-san with practised ease.
“Oh, I’m just here to drop off a small report… and to thank you for your gifts and your care,” I said.
“No, no, my family is very happy with Mukouda-san’s gift. We are very grateful for the delicious food.”
“Ah, anyway, since I’ve received something, I thought I’d reciprocate a little, here you go,” I handed the basket of pound cake baked with Tirza-san’s dried fruits and the meat pies.
“Why only Ugor-kun?! Unfair!”
“...and this is Elland-san’s portion,” I said, handing another basket over with a slightly forced smile.
“Ohh Mukouda-san, I’ve always believed you! Thank you so much!” [3] Elland-san declared as he shamelessly poked through the basket.
Ugor-san merely sighed.
“Anyway, the reason I’m here today is to let both of you know that I will be leaving Doran tomorrow,”
“Oh? Is that s-”
Cras.h.!.+ Bang!
“Eehhhhh! M-Mukouda-san, you’re leaving Doran?!” Elland-san had stood up so violently that the chair behind him tipped over and crashed to the floor.
“Idiot Master, you’re too loud. Calm down.”
“How can I? Mukouda-san is leaving Doran!?”
“What are you talking about? Mukouda-san is an Adventurer, so it makes sense for him to leave Doran.”
Ugor-san, thank you for being the voice of reason.
“W-well, that’s true but I thought surely it would be fine to stay a little longer… oh, right! Why don’t you base yourself in this city? Doran has a great dungeon and this is a great city! Don’t you think so?”
“Well…” as Elland-san said, Doran is a great city, “but I don’t plan on settling down for the moment.”
I want to travel a bit more first.
“Ehhh, don’t say that. D-Dora-chan will be far away…” Elland-san wailed heartbrokenly.
Ah, so his real intention came out.
“Ahem, you’ve been a great help to me, please accept my thanks,” I said to Ugor-san with a professional smile.
“Mukouda-san, do come back to Doran again,” said Ugor-san.
“I will,” I said. However, I have no idea when I’ll be back in this city. Thanks to a certain pain in the b.u.t.t Elf and Dora-chan’s disgust against said Elf, it probably won’t be soon. [5]
[6] “I’ll be back someday,” was the best promise I could make.
[6] Ugor-san nodded understandingly and I left.
Just as my foot stepped over the threshold of the Adventurer’s Guild, a loud wail of ‘Dora-chaaaannnn!!!’ startled my party so badly that we quickly ran away from the Guild.
““This place has a good dungeon, but I’m fine not coming for a while,”” muttered Dora-chan as he s.h.i.+vered.
Sometimes, when love is too intense, it creates trauma instead of joy.
Speaking of which, Sui has been peacefully resting inside the leather bag all this time.
“Where do we go next?” asked Fer.
I’ve already made up my mind about this, “Calerina, the first proper city I stayed in.”
“Oh, that one?”
“It’s a little early, but I want to pick up my Wyvern cloak. There’s one other thing I want to do too. Early tomorrow morning, we’ll return the key to the house. After a final stop at the Guild we’ll leave right away.”
“Umu,”
“”Ou, let’s hurry up and get out of this place!””
Early next day, we left Doran and made our way towards Carelina.
[Gumihou: Haha, Elland-san is way too intense here.]
[1] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs
[2] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs
[3] Structural Change: Combine paragraph & dialogue
[4] Structural Change: Change pa.s.sive sentence to dialogue
[5] Delete Repet.i.tive or Pointless Information
[6] Additional Information for Aesthetic Purpose
[7] Add Dialogue Tag
[8] Creative Licence Taken
[9] Some major changes to the sentence structure and order of information to make the whole thing more coherent and interesting. Also, some of the original pie making instructions were… iffy.
Applying egg wash to edges of pie before crimping it together for example. An absolute No.