Even long after Ironfoot had left the restaurant,
I remained standing in front of the ingredient shelves.
“Manaaager~ Are you really going to send food to that king?”
Aris, who had come up beside me at some point, tilted her head and asked.
“Yeah.”
“Because you really want to see the brewery?”
“Yeah.”
“……I don’t really get it.”
To an ordinary person, that might be how it seemed.
But if there was a chef who drank that fifty-year-old dwarven liquor and didn’t become curious about the brewery,
that would be the stranger thing.
With one hand resting on the shelf, I quietly organized my thoughts.
A lunchbox that would steal the dwarven king’s heart.
The conditions were clear.
First, it should be centered around meat as much as possible, to suit dwarven tastes.
Second, it needed an impact that wouldn’t be buried no matter what liquor from the brewery it was paired with.
Third, it had to be difficult to find in dwarven cuisine while still being delicious enough to satisfy a picky palate.
Fourth, the flavor had to hold until it arrived before the dwarven king at room temperature.
The second condition was especially tricky.
Dwarven liquor was a drink that went well with any food.
That also meant it would be difficult for the food to take center stage.
He had to focus on my food, not the liquor,
and it needed to have enough impact that he would think of it even without pairing it with a drink.
Dwarven food culture revolved around alcohol.
Side dishes that supported the drink, meals eaten with alcohol.
In truth, rather than alcohol supporting the flavor of the food,
food was seen as a supporting actor that made the liquor taste better.
It didn’t seem like it would be easy.
“Have you decided on the menu?”
“I have.”
“What is it?”
“Meat.”
“……Meat?”
Aris looked surprised.
“You were thinking so hard about it, but isn’t plain meat too ordinary?”
“It’s not plain meat.”
I took out a certain piece of meat that I had stored in the deepest part of the ingredient storage.
“Wild boar……?”
“On the dwarven king’s table, familiar meats like lamb and venison probably appear often. Wild boar is also a meat dwarves enjoy eating. But this may resemble wild boar, yet it’s strictly a monster. It’s called a Titan Boar. It’s different from a wild boar.”
“How is it different?”
“It’s far tougher, and the meaty aroma is dizzyingly strong. It’s not something you can eat with ordinary cooking methods.”
Titan Boar.
A monster nearly twice the size of an ordinary wild boar,
and one of the most dangerous among hunters for its charge, which could even smash boulders.
In proportion to that danger,
the muscles it had developed while alive were incomparably tougher than those of ordinary livestock.
Even when I pressed it hard with my finger, the flesh barely yielded.
If cooked carelessly, it was tough enough to break your teeth.
“……Why that meat, of all things?”
“If the cooking method is difficult, that means it isn’t easy to eat.”
Every race shared the act of making and eating food.
But when it came to “what to eat and how to eat it,” each race had distinct tendencies.
Other races generally chose their ingredients carefully.
Elves accepted what nature gave them as it was,
while dwarves selected things that were good for hunting, preparing, and storing.
Either way, they tended to make ingredients out of things that were “easy to cook.”
In other words, things that required a lot of effort rarely made it onto the table.
Humans, on the other hand, were different.
Humans were deadly serious about turning even inedible things into something edible.
A plant root that was originally poisonous enough to kill you if eaten as is
would be soaked for days, boiled, and soaked again until it could be eaten.
Bones and tendons from beasts so hard they could grind down teeth
would be placed in a pot full of water and simmered all day until they became something that could go into the mouth.
Faced with an ingredient that looked inedible to anyone,
humans first wondered, “How can we make this edible?”
The food culture that had developed from that near-mad persistence
occupied a realm other races could never dare to follow.
And meat like Titan Boar
was also an ingredient within reach of that technique.
“They said the dwarven king has a picky palate and enjoys fine food.”
“Even if he’s a dwarf, he’s still a king, so wouldn’t he have eaten lots of amazing things?”
“Even so, I think there’s a high chance he hasn’t eaten this.”
The dwarven king’s table would certainly often be served good meat.
Well-seasoned smoked meat, richly boiled soup, and the fine liquor they were proud of.
But Titan Boar was the kind of meat that “couldn’t be eaten in the first place if you didn’t know how to cook it.”
To begin with, it required so much effort
that even we humans had all but given up on eating it.
“And one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“This thing is tough, but its flavor is actually excellent.”
I lightly pressed the thawed shoulder meat with the tip of my finger.
It was so hard, like stone, that I wondered if it had really thawed.
But if I could somehow make this meat tender,
its meaty aroma would be on a level no ordinary pork or livestock could compare to.
A rich, deep, wild scent.
This was the true charm of Titan Boar.
“And I already know how to make this meat tender.”
“……What is it?”
“Time.”
“Time?”
“You simmer it for a sufficiently long time over low heat while replenishing the water. While tenderizing it, too.”
The problem was that “long time.”
For meat like Titan Boar to become tender, even if I rushed it, it would take three days,
and if it took long, I would have to keep boiling it without rest for over a week.
But I was Klaus, the archmage.
There were plenty of ways to shorten that time.
* * *
The cooking began with preparing the meat.
The Titan Boar’s meat was a massive chunk that an adult would have to lift with both hands.
Normally, I would cut it into appropriate pieces and cook it,
but this time, I intended to cook it whole.
I took my kitchen knife and cleanly removed the fat and membrane from the surface.
The meat was so hard, like stone, that it wasn’t easy to trim,
but by protecting the knife with magic and enhancing its sharpness, I barely managed it.
I sprinkled salt and pepper over the trimmed chunk.
Then I poured oil into a heated cast-iron pan,
and quickly seared every side of the meat.
With a sizzling sound, the surface turned a deep brown.
The heavy, wild aroma unique to Titan Boar spread through the kitchen in an instant.
“Wow…… Even the smell is different.”
“It’s still far from done.”
I transferred the seared chunk into a deep pot,
then added onions, carrots, and herbs.
On top of that, I poured in an entire bottle of fruit wine from my shop.
Then I filled it again with water,
enough to fully submerge the large chunk.
After turning up the heat, I closed the lid and chanted a spell.
“Control Pressure.”
Piiiing—
A calm blue glow of mana shone from my right hand.
Using magic, I increased the pressure inside the pot,
creating an environment like a pressure cooker.
And by using the mana I had previously flowed into the inside of the pot,
I made it so heat and moisture could penetrate the meat more quickly.
High pressure.
High temperature.
And moisture filling the interior.
No matter how tough Titan Boar meat was,
it couldn’t maintain that hardness in such a powerful environment.
“Good, it’s stabilized.”
Lastly, I adjusted the heat boiling the pot to the proper temperature,
and held the pressure down firmly with magic so it wouldn’t leak out of the pot and explode.
About four hours passed like that.
When I opened the lid after the wait,
an intense meaty aroma filled the kitchen.
I lifted out the large chunk of meat whole and placed it on the cutting board.
The meat that had once been hard as stone
had become tender enough to split apart with just a slight press of my fingertip.
If it had been ordinary meat, no matter how tough, four hours in a pressure-cooker environment would have made it fall apart completely.
But Titan Boar meat was different after all.
Even after being boiled in that environment for a full four hours,
the meat hadn’t scattered or turned mushy, and had become just the right amount of tender.
Even if eaten as it was, the texture and meaty aroma would be overwhelming,
so anyone who only knew the taste of ordinary meat would surely be amazed.
But the sauce still remained.
I ladled out a scoop of the rich broth in which the meat had been boiled into a separate pan.
To that broth, I added onion, herbs, and a little grape wine.
Then I slowly reduced it over low heat.
Until the volume was cut in half.
The more it reduced, the deeper the sauce’s flavor became,
and the more it gained a richness that would bring the taste of the meat vividly to life.
At the end, I dropped in a piece of butter and melted it into the sauce.
When I poured the special sauce over the well-cooked Titan Boar meat,
it gleamed with a glossy shine and gave off an appetizing fragrance.
“Heeh…….”
Seeing that, Aris’s eyes sparkled as she drooled.
Leaving Aris behind,
I took out a large square container from the restaurant to use as the lunchbox and packed the food inside.
The completed meat lunchbox looked like it held nearly ten servings.
Steam was still rising from the sauce-covered meat.
I closed the lid of the completed lunchbox,
placed my right hand on it, and infused it with mana.
I had placed a magic seal on it so that opening the lid of the lunchbox would act as the trigger,
warming the meat and sauce inside once again.
With this, when the dwarven king received the lunchbox and opened the lid,
he would be able to eat it hot, as if the meat had just finished cooking.
“Good. With this……”
I nodded with a satisfied expression as I looked at the completed lunchbox.
Now all that remained was to call Ironfoot and ask him to deliver this lunchbox to the dwarven king.
* * *
After finishing the cooking, I immediately headed to the entrance of the northern rocky mountain.
Just as Ironfoot had said, a thick iron rod was driven into the ground in front of a hole opened in the rocky mountain.
Beside it, iron rings were piled up to about my height.
So if I hang this ring on the rod, Ironfoot will notice and come find me……
I lifted an iron ring and hung it on the iron rod.
Clang— The metallic sound echoed loudly into the hole in the rocky mountain.
* * *
About an hour had passed since I hung the ring on the iron rod and returned.
Jingle— jingle—
The restaurant door opened, and Ironfoot appeared.
“Oh, Klaus! Is it finished?”
“You came much faster than I expected.”
“The speed at which you finished the lunchbox is more surprising to me.”
When I handed over the lunchbox, Ironfoot accepted it with both hands.
He gauged its weight once, then whistled.
“Why is this lunchbox so big and heavy?”
“I put in plenty so there wouldn’t be a lack of food.”
“Oho, now I’m curious what’s inside.”
I spoke to Ironfoot, who was looking at the lunchbox with curious eyes.
“You must absolutely not open it first. When the lid is opened, the magic activates and warms the lunchbox.”
“Hooh… So it’s food meant to be eaten warm.”
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but…… I used Titan Boar meat.”
“Titan Boar……?”
Ironfoot looked at me with doubtful eyes.
“You can really make food with that?”
“You’ll know when it’s opened later.”
Ironfoot stared at me for a moment, then burst into hearty laughter.
“Wahahahaha! Now I’m looking forward to it! I’ll speak well of you to His Majesty.”
Then he thumped his chest once more.
“Good, I’ll take it to him right away! I’ll tell you the result later.”
“I’m counting on you.”
“For reference, satisfying His Majesty’s palate is no easy task, so don’t get your hopes up too high.”
Holding the large lunchbox, Ironfoot left the restaurant.
I hope this can leave a good impression on the dwarven king.
“……All right, shall we do a deep clean until the answer comes?”
“Huh? We’re not eating first?”
“He who does not work shall not eat. Let’s eat after the deep cleaning is done.”
“We could eat first and then do it……”
With a sullen face, Aris headed to the storage room to get a broom.
There was no way to know what answer the dwarven king would send back.
No matter what the result was,
all I could do right now was wait.
* * *