Sword and Sorcery and Martial Arts

Chapter 28 Rhodes' Cooking Skills (4000 words)
Early the next morning, Rhodes was called up by Baron to have breakfast.

Last night, he sat on the bed and practiced the Shenzhao Gong for most of the night, and he fell asleep at dawn.He originally planned to sleep until noon and eat lunch directly.

It is very uncomfortable for him to wake up for breakfast within a few hours after he has just fallen asleep.

After running the Shenzhao Gong for most of the night, his total internal energy increased a little, and he felt itchy all over the wound, which should be a sign that the wound is about to heal.

His right hand, which was scorched black and unconscious, can already do some simple activities.

I don't know if it's a psychological effect or real, but Rhodes feels that his physical fitness has improved a little after he exploded his liver movement skills.

The all-night exercise had produced so many beneficial effects, but the all-night exercise made him unable to open his eyes now, and he didn't even have the strength to stand up.

"Why did you call me so early?" Rhodes said in a daze while lying on the bed.

"Of course I told you to get up and eat breakfast. You have suffered so many injuries, you just need to eat more to heal quickly. You have cut yourself so many times and bled so much. Do you still want to grow taller? I don't ask you to be as tall as me, but at least you have to be about the same size as Jon..."

Rhodes ignored him and closed his eyes to continue sleeping.

I don't know why Baron talked so much this morning. Could it be that they drank from yesterday to this morning, and now he is playing drunk?
As soon as Rhodes closed his eyes, he fell asleep again.When he woke up again, the light of the setting sun shone through the window of the room.

He heard someone snoring, he sat up and looked around, and found that Baron was sleeping soundly on the floor of the room.

There are many fireplaces throughout the castle, and there are even pipes with hot water under the floor, so you can feel the warmth clearly when you step on the floor with bare feet.

It seems that the guess is correct, he really drank too much this morning.

Rhodes got off the bed and stood on the ground. He obviously felt that the injury on his leg was much better, and it didn't hurt like yesterday.

It seems that if there is nothing to do in the future, if you run the Shenzhao Gong more, except for making people unable to stay up late, there are benefits and no disadvantages.

At this time, his stomach growled, and he was about to go downstairs to find something to eat.

Rhodes glanced at Baron on the ground, thinking of the experience of being woken up by him in the morning, resisting the urge to kick him awake, covered him with the quilt on the bed and walked out.

On the stairs, he leaned on the wall and walked down with difficulty step by step. It was Baron who carried him down yesterday.Now that I am injured, it is still difficult for me to go down the stairs alone.

In the hall, the long table was not filled with food like it was yesterday, so he asked a servant who was cleaning the table where the kitchen was.

The maid told Rhode that cooking had not started in the kitchen yet, Rhode asked him where the kitchen was, and after the servant told him, he limped towards the kitchen.

The kitchen is next to the hall, and Rhodes doesn't have to walk up the stairs this time.

When he arrived at the door of the kitchen, he heard the cook in the kitchen muttering constantly, "The guests invited by Master Jon this time are really delicious. They have almost eaten up all the meat in the castle, and there are not many eggs. Help them bake." The flour should be sifted very finely for this kind of bread, the old masters rarely ate bread made of such fine flour..."

Rhodes stood at the door and heard that the cook inside was embarrassed to go in and ask for something to eat.

But he was really hungry. It had been almost a whole day since the last meal, so he walked into the kitchen.

The cook who was kneading the dough stared at Rhodes curiously, "Who are you? Why have I never seen you in the castle before?"

Rhodes scratched his head with his left hand: "I'm one of the very edible guests in your mouth."

"Oh, honored guest, why did you come to such a messy place in the kitchen?" The fat cook laughed.

"I'm a little hungry, and I want to see what there is to eat in the kitchen." Rhodes said awkwardly.

"I'm really sorry, there is no ready-made food in the kitchen, only a little bread left over from eating yesterday. I have to wait for a while to eat fresh bread. I'm still kneading the dough." The fat cook said with a smile as she kneaded the dough .

Rhodes looked around the structure of the kitchen, but did not see anything similar to a modern oven.

He asked curiously, "How do you bake your bread?"

"Isn't that simple?" The fat cook replied without raising her head, "Put the dough next to the fire on the stove, cover it with a cloth strip, wait until it gets bigger, take it out and continue kneading, and then put it Go in and bake."

Rhodes glanced at the stove covered with black ash and felt a little uncomfortable. Before eating bread, he always thought that the black substance on the bread was burnt, but he didn't expect that it was actually ashes.

Even the nobles eat this kind of bread, one can imagine what it was like to eat in the tavern before.

This hearth looks like the igloo of the Eskimos in the past, with a chimney connected to it, and an opening like a door is left on one side of the hearth, through which the firewood is put in, and the bread is placed next to the firewood.

It's not like an earthen stove with a fire on the bottom and a pot on it like Rhodes saw before traveling.

He observed other kitchen utensils in the kitchen. Except for the stove, the only thing he could recognize was a big boiled one. He didn't know what other messy things were used for.

A large cooking pot is a pottery pot similar in shape to a pressure cooker, suspended from a rope, with a stove underneath.

Rhodes walked into the kitchen, feeling an urge to show off his culinary skills, let them feel the magic of Foodies,

He observed the ingredients in the kitchen and began to think about what he could cook.

There are not many types of materials, and even fewer seasonings.It is still somewhat difficult to make a good meal out of these things.

"Aside from these ingredients, is there anything else?" Rhodes asked.

"There are still some in the cellar, why are you asking about them?" asked the fat cook.

"I want to cook a meal by myself." Rhodes replied.

The fat cook raised her head and looked at him warily, "What are you trying to do?"

Rhode felt a little strange seeing the fat cook looking at him like this. He didn't know if she was afraid that he would poison the food or because she didn't believe in her cooking skills.

Or did she think I thought her cooking was terrible, so she wanted to cook it herself?
"I don't mean anything else, take me to the cellar to have a look." Rhodes said.

"Then I will watch the whole process when you are cooking." The fat cook said, she wiped her hands on the apron directly, and led Rhodes to the cellar.

Rhodes walked down a long flight of stairs while holding onto the wall, and then walked into the cellar.

The temperature inside the cellar was about the same as outside the castle, below freezing. He wore very little clothes in the castle, and he was not used to being in such a cold place suddenly.

And this kind of temperature has no effect on the fat cook who is also wearing unlined clothes.

It seems that fat also has the benefits of being fat.

There is a lot of food stored in the cellar, but the cellar is not a warehouse for storing food in the entire fief, so the food stored is also limited.

Rhodes took half a pig and half a bag of stale rice from the cellar, and carried them back to the kitchen with the fat cook.

He decided to make braised pork, braised pork ribs and fried rice with eggs.

If you want to make the meat delicious, you need spices like ginger and star anise to suppress the fishy smell of pork.

Rod doesn't find these in the kitchen, but there are spices with similar functions.

The most critical issue now is that there is no soy sauce in this world, and Rhodes decided to try what it would taste like without adding soy sauce.

There are also materials for making soy sauce in this world. He has also learned how to brew it before, and when he has the opportunity to make soy sauce, a magical seasoning, appear in this world.

Cutting meat is a physical labor, especially for this kind of meat with bones. His injury has not completely healed, so the job of cutting meat is left to the fat cook.

The fat cook is also a relatively professional butcher, she picks up a bone cutter and cuts half of a cow like a butcher, and cuts up all parts of a half-fan of pigs.

While she was cutting the meat, Rhodes used the big saucepan to cook the bag of stale rice first.

Then boil the water in a large saucepan and put the finely cut pork belly into it to cook, boil the blood out, and remove the fishy smell.

Afterwards, he found a pot that was barely capable of frying rice to make fried rice with eggs. He found a piece of clean wood, washed it, and cut the spatula into a rough shape with a dagger.

Egg fried rice needs to be fried with dry rice. He deliberately gave less water when cooking the rice. The rice cooked in a large cooking pot still has a lot of rice crackers to make the rice more fragrant.But it took a long time, halfway through he ate a piece of bread that the fat cook had just baked to fill his stomach.

The eggs here are also native eggs in the traditional sense, and the chickens grow up eating bugs.The egg fried rice fried by the egg fried rice master, even if there is no national goddess Laoganma, it smells very fragrant.The fat cook had never seen this kind of food, and she kept swallowing her saliva beside her.

The bag of stale rice was a special product given to the former lord here by a merchant from the Fish Kingdom. Because the fat cook didn't know how to make it, it was kept in the cellar for several months.Just now she was so engrossed in watching what Rhodes did, that she almost took a small notebook to write it down.

The salt in the castle is also refined sea salt from the Fish Kingdom, unlike the unprocessed mineral salt that Rhodes has been eating before.

The meat in the large frying pan was taken out after a little water came out, and now it was fried in the oil pan for a while, then the seasoning was added and the lid was stuffed.

If there is no rock sugar in the braised pork, honey is added, and if there is no cooking wine, some refined ale is poured into it.

I don't know if this braised pork dish can be a leader in the dark cooking world.

The ribs have been cooking in a large frying pan, and now that they are being picked up, Rhodes thinks that without soy sauce, it seems that the braised series cannot be made.

So he took another pot, took some fat meat and put it in the pot to fry the lard, then took out the fat meat, put the ribs in and fried it, and when it was golden brown, poured out most of the oil, then added water and Seasoning, cover and cook for a while.

In the past, if he made pork ribs, he would add peppercorns. He liked the numbness of peppercorns very much, but he couldn't find a substitute.But the world is so vast, and you will definitely be able to find peppercorns in the future.

At this time, the water in the braised pork was almost boiled dry, and the kitchen was full of aromas, and it still smelled very fragrant after adding some honey.

Then I took a clean plate and put the braised pork in it. I tasted a piece of it with a fork, and it tasted okay. It would be perfect if there were rock sugar and soy sauce. The added spices are more effective than ginger in removing the fishy smell. It's better, the meat tastes only fragrant and not fishy.

The ribs were almost stewed, and when the lid was opened, there was a smell of meat, which almost made Rhodes saliva flow out.

The fat cook asked Rhode tentatively, "Can I have a piece?"

Rhodes immediately nodded and agreed, and of course delicious food, especially the ones made by oneself, should be shared.

The fat cook lady felt unsatisfied after eating a piece of braised pork. Her eyes kept staring at the pork. It should be called boiled pork without soy sauce.

"The taste is very good, you are cooking too much fume." The fat cook commented.

Chinese food has a lot of oily smoke. This is what Rhodes knew quite well before. There is no range hood in this world, and chimneys alone are not enough.

After being affirmed by the fat cook, Rhodes decided to call Baron and the others to share.

The fat cook called a servant to place Rhodes' dishes on the long table in the hall, and then grilled sausages and fried bacon herself.

It took Rhodes nearly two hours to cook, and after he finished, he went to the toilet. There is no toilet in the castle room, and the toilet is in the open space surrounded by the castle.

His previous clothes were all tattered and completely unwearable, and were used as firewood by the servants who took care of him in the castle.

He borrowed a piece of clothing from the housekeeper and ran outside to use the bathroom.

When he returned to the hall of the castle, he found that Baron and the others had already sat on the table and started eating. The food he had worked so hard to make was almost eaten.

"You are back." Baron said, "Sit down and eat. The food in the castle today is really delicious. I have never eaten such delicious food before. The nobles will still enjoy it."

"I haven't eaten it before. I knew that the food at home is so delicious. Why did I go out? I should stay at home and eat and drink, so that my brother will not be killed." Jon said while eating .

Rhodes is hesitating whether to tell them that he actually did it by himself. If he tells them, what will he do if he asks me to cook every day? Cooking is so tiring.

"Why didn't you share the dishes today?" Rhodes asked.

"No need, it doesn't matter whether we divide or not, I don't despise you." Jon said.

"It's not that you are too eager to eat, and feel that dividing the dishes is a waste of your time." Hammer mocked.

"Haha, it's obviously you." Jon laughed, "I think this egg tastes good with this, but it's a little missing. Matthew, ask Jenny to make us some more."

The butler at the side nodded and walked towards the kitchen.

Matthew was the name of the castle steward, and Jenny was the name of the fat cook.

Soon, the fat cook Jenny came into the hall and said to Jon, "Master, I didn't make these. I only roasted sausages and fried bacon today. The egg fried rice was made by that adult. I haven't learned how to do it yet." .” Jenny pointed to Rhodes.

The name of egg fried rice was told by Rhodes to Jenny, so she knew the name of the dish.

"Why don't you take risks with your uncle in the future, just stay with me and be a cook for me, which will make you more money than taking risks with him," Jon said to Rhodes.

……

(End of this chapter)