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Legendary Kitchen Knife and Charcoal Kiln Oven
Episode 6. Legendary Kitchen Knife and Charcoal Kiln Oven
“Wow, but how am I supposed to butcher this?”
Though I had boldly declared I would start cooking, I stood before the wild boar carcass with my mouth hanging wide open.
It wasn’t ready-to-cook meat, but the wild boar carcass itself.
No, I’m a chef, not a butcher.
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield complains, asking if she has to do that too.]
When I aired my grievances to the heavens, the Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield grumbled briefly, but she still took the wild boar carcass, instantly skinned it, removed its organs, and handed back only the meat.
······Though it was a bit tattered.
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield asks if the condition is all right, as she was in a hurry and handled it herself.]
Ah, so she did it herself. Then I can’t complain.
I gave her a thumbs-up to show it was fine.
Still, I have to do the deboning and butchering.
Since the Constellation personally did the rough work, I should at least handle this much.
I had been serious about cooking since I was young, so I often visited Majang-dong Livestock Market and picked up butchering techniques by watching over the shoulders of the butchers.
I had learned how to butcher pigs back then, so it wasn’t a problem.
“Still, how do I move this?”
The real problem was that this boar was enormously bigger than an ordinary domestic pig.
I tried to lift it with all my might, but raising even one leg felt like my back would break.
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield is bewildered, asking if an Awakener doesn’t even have that much strength.]
Suddenly, golden energy surged through my body, and I felt something being absorbed into me in a flash.
What is this?
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield bestows a blessing upon you.]
[‘Blessing of the Battlefield’ is temporarily granted.]
[Your strength increases significantly.]
Blessings are miracles that Constellations bestow upon the Hunters they have contracted with.
And now, she had granted me a temporary blessing just to butcher a pig.
Constellation-nim, you really wanted to eat meat, didn’t you?
I let out a soft breath and lifted the giant wild boar.
“Wow, I can actually lift this.”
I didn’t know exactly how much my strength had increased, but seeing this wild boar that must weigh close to a ton being lifted as lightly as a puppy made me keenly feel the effect of the blessing.
Using the power of the blessing, I lifted the wild boar and carried it to the garage on one side of the parking lot.
The restaurant truck parked inside had already been moved out.
“First, with this Hunter’s knife······.”
I took out the Hunter’s Knife (High-Grade) that I had bought through my younger sibling.
My sibling, who didn’t know I had awakened, had nagged at me, asking why someone who wasn’t even a Hunter would buy something like this, but I had gone through so much trouble pulling out the Cockatrice’s claws last time that I couldn’t recklessly use an ordinary kitchen knife this time either.
Since it was a Hunter’s knife that could cut through monster hide and sever bone, it should be fine.
“Hup!”
······I had been foolish to think so.
“Why won’t this pierce through?”
No matter how hard I tried with the Hunter’s knife, the wild boar meat was so tough and firm that I couldn’t leave a single scratch.
No, I had expected it to be tougher and stronger than a regular pig since it was a monster, but to this extent?
I poured all the strength granted by the blessing into stabbing it, but the result was,
Ting!
The expensive Hunter’s Knife (High-Grade) snapped.
“Sigh, how am I supposed to butcher this?”
I might have to ask the Constellation for an item.
But it felt awkward to ask for more when she had already butchered the boar for me and even granted me a blessing.
Wait, an item given by the Constellation?
“Ah, I had one of those.”
I did, in fact, already have an item I had received from a Constellation.
[The First Sword], given by the Constellation of the Farmer Who Cannot Plow the Constellation’s Land, ‘Cain, the First Murderer.’
If it was that stone knife—Legendary grade, no less—wouldn’t it work?
I did worry whether a small stone knife barely the size of my palm could cut through the tough wild boar hide that wouldn’t budge against a Hunter’s knife, but,
“Still, it’s Legendary grade.”
And so, just as I returned to the warehouse holding the First Knife,
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield recognizes the First Sword and flinches in surprise.]
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield shudders at the energy emanating from the knife.]
As expected of a Legendary grade item—seems even a Constellation is astonished.
With this, it would definitely work, wouldn’t it?
Gaining confidence from that reaction, I gripped the First Sword tightly.
And slashed with all my might.
Shhhk!
As if Moses were parting the Red Sea, the wild boar’s meat split cleanly along the grain.
“Wow, this knife cuts like a dream.”
If anyone heard me, they’d think I was some swordsman cutting down monsters in a dungeon.
But it was no wonder such words came out on their own; with a knife that sharp and my strength inflated by the blessing, the meat was splitting like it had a zipper attached.
“This is the skirt steak, this is the tenderloin, here’s the sirloin, and if I cut this out with the bone it becomes back ribs······.”
I effortlessly separated the different cuts from the wild boar’s belly, then carved out two large slabs of today’s core ingredient: pork belly.
“Goodness, there’s over 100kg of pork belly alone.”
Since the wild boar itself was so massive, the pork belly alone amounted to about 140kg.
I decided to move the cut pork belly to the restaurant kitchen for now and start cooking in earnest.
“The first step in Pleskesteck is scoring.”
Since it was a dish of roasting whole pork belly, if I didn’t score it, the inside wouldn’t cook through properly.
After making clean cuts with the First Knife as if drawing lines in a notebook, I carefully stuffed dungeon rock salt between the cuts.
Salt makes the skin crispy.
Now, after stuffing dungeon herbs between the cuts as a substitute for herbs, all that was left was to put it in the oven and roast it······or so I thought.
“But could an oven capable of cooking this even exist in this world?”
The maximum temperature of an ordinary commercial oven was about 250℃.
At that temperature, monster wild boar meat would never cook properly like the Cockatrice samgyetang.
And since it wasn’t a soup dish that could be thoroughly simmered, cooking it too long would ruin the dish.
And it wasn’t low-temperature sous vide, either.
“I think I need to cook this with high heat of at least 1,000℃······.”
The problem was that there was no cooking oven anywhere in the world that produced such heat.
No, let’s try a change of perspective. It didn’t necessarily have to be an oven, did it?
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield puts on a crying face, asking if you won’t be able to cook it then.]
“Not at all.”
I smiled brightly at the Constellation’s worry, telling her not to be concerned.
Then I took out my phone and called somewhere.
“Yes, sir. Am I out of charcoal? Ahaha, no. I want to try cooking with a charcoal kiln. Yes, right now. I’ll be there soon.”
The place I had called was the oak charcoal kiln that supplied charcoal to our shop regularly.
For reference, the temperature of an oak charcoal kiln was between 1,200℃ and 1,500℃.
“If the meat won’t cook because the heat is insufficient, I just need to take it somewhere with an excess of heat.”
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield rejoices, calling you a genius.]
A genius? Hardly.
I had simply recalled the memory of eating 3-second pork belly at an oak charcoal kiln with my grandfather when I was young.
I put the pork belly into a cauldron to use in place of an oven, loaded it onto the truck, and climbed into the driver’s seat.
The destination was an oak charcoal kiln in Wonju, Gangwon-do.
“Shall we go?”
Even though the Constellation would be watching from above wherever I went, since she was a comrade waiting together for the food, I made the mood feel a bit like we were traveling together.
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield’s heart begins to race.]
See? The Constellation is excited too.
I grinned as I gripped the steering wheel and started the engine.
“Our goal is to use the charcoal kiln itself as an oven.”
* * *
After driving for just under two hours, we arrived after dark in Wonju, Gangwon-do, at an oak charcoal kiln midway up Chiaksan.
It was a place that had been supplying oak charcoal to our restaurant since my grandfather’s time, so it shared a long history with our family as well.
“What brings you here at this late hour?”
“Haha, sir, I didn’t wake you from your sleep, did I?”
“We have to keep watch over the kiln, so we don’t sleep much at this hour anyway.”
The owner, who laughed heartily, opened his eyes wide when he saw the large cauldron loaded in my truck bed.
“Isn’t that a cauldron? What kind of cooking are you going to do with that?”
“I’m going to put it in the charcoal kiln.”
“Are you in your right mind? I thought you were just going to grill some pork belly?”
“It is pork belly. Whole pork belly.”
Have you ever heard of Viking-style whole pork belly Pleskesteck?
I smirked and made a request to the man.
“Sir, could you adjust the charcoal kiln temperature to about 1,000℃?”
Normally, a charcoal kiln’s temperature is over 1,200℃.
Since the cauldron’s material, cast iron—namely pig iron—melts around 1,150℃, if I put the cauldron directly into the charcoal kiln, it would obviously melt.
“Of course I can do that, but······.”
For the owner, a master of charcoal who had been making charcoal his whole life, adjusting a charcoal kiln’s temperature was no difficult task.
It would probably be more accurate than a machine-controlled oven.
That was precisely why I had come here.
“Even if the cauldron holds up, the food inside will become a lump of charcoal, won’t it?”
“It’s fine. I have a way.”
“Hehe······, Boss Do wouldn’t do anything pointless, but I truly can’t make heads or tails of this.”
The owner selected one of the kilns, opened the vent, and fiddled with a few things here and there.
“You can use this one. I’ll go inside and rest, so do whatever you like.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What thanks between us?”
Despite me showing up suddenly and making an unreasonable request, the kind owner didn’t frown once as he lent me the kiln and went back.
“Now then, shall we start cooking?”
First, using the remaining power of the blessing, I lightly unloaded the cauldron from the truck and opened the lid.
Inside, a grill rack had been placed to keep the meat from touching the cauldron floor directly, and the whole pork belly rested on top.
And at the bottom, I had poured enough leftover mana water from boiling the Cockatrice samgyetang to slosh around.
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield asks why you are cooking in such a complicated manner.]
Why not let it touch the bottom?
If I roasted the meat directly on the cauldron floor heated by the kiln’s high temperature, even monster meat would burn.
By raising it on a grill rack and placing the covered cauldron into the kiln, the heated air would cook the cauldron from top to bottom.
As a bonus, the steam from the mana water, which boiled at 380℃, would keep the meat moist as if steaming it.
It utilized the principle of a Dutch oven, where charcoal is placed on the lid to make it function like an oven.
“This needs to go into the kiln.”
When I opened the bottom vent of the kiln the owner had prepared, I could see the red-hot charcoal inside as heat gushed out with a whoosh.
I inserted the cauldron directly into the opening of the charcoal kiln.
Though my bare hand holding the cauldron had gone into the inferno close to 1,000℃,
“Pretty hot.”
The Constellation’s blessing was truly effective.
Seeing that a temperature of 1,000℃ only felt pretty hot to me, I felt I could understand why Hunters who raid dungeons are so desperate for blessings.
“This is really convenient. To the point that I want to keep this blessing permanently.”
Since I often get burned or cut when cooking anyway.
There was a time when I wasn’t used to it yet and smashed my finger with the meat hammer while making tonkatsu.
Ugh, it still hurts thinking about it.
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield is proud, asking how the power of her blessing is.]
“It’s the best.”
I gave a thumbs-up toward the sky, then lifted the cauldron.
Then I stepped back and checked the time.
I figured 30 minutes to cook, then flipping it and another hour would cook it deliciously.
Then should I do something else in the meantime?
“I can use these.”
I planned to make an altar with the bricks used to seal the kiln.
Since the altar I had originally made was in the parking lot of the restaurant in Seoul, if I completed it there and then brought it back, the food would obviously get cold in the meantime.
Food tastes best when eaten right after it’s made.
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield is moved by your thoughtfulness.]
“You have to acknowledge how hard I’ve worked for this, right?”
I joked with the Constellation, with whom I had developed an inner sense of kinship after messaging so much, as I stacked the altar.
Since this was already the third altar I was building, I could complete it in exactly one hour.
I must have grown skilled at building altars from being nagged by Cain so much when I first built one.
In the meantime, I took out the cauldron that had been roasting diligently in the kiln and flipped the whole pork belly inside as well.
After completing the altar like that, shortly after, my pre-set alarm beeped.
[The Maiden of Power Who Traverses the Battlefield urges you that it is time to take it out.]
“I know. I’m going to take it out now, so stop rushing me.”
Shaking my head at the Constellation’s urging, I approached the charcoal kiln, took out the cauldron, and opened the lid.
Hiss!
I had to hold my breath for a moment as suffocatingly hot mana steam gushed up.
And as the steam cleared inside the pot,
“Wow, the smell is incredible.”
The appetizingly cooked whole pork belly—no, the Pleskesteck—emitted a savory meat aroma that made my stomach churn, displaying its beautiful appearance.