Chapter 519: The Mysterious Power Of Cooking Magic
I've also discovered that the Cooking Magic is related to Life Attribute Magic, perhaps because there is no true Cooking-type or something, or Gourmet-element, so Life is the closest to food. It kind of makes sense, we all gain life from eating, any living being requires eating, gain calories and more, and unless you're a plant doing photosynthesis, everything you cook used to be alive, even plants, fruits, and vegetables.
The Quality Enhancement Spell lets me enhance the quality of the food products I use to cook, it can only be used before cooking them, as it loses its effects and doesn't work when using it over an already cooked plate.
Then there's Flavorful Blessing, this one is a flavor enhancer, it makes the food you make have a stronger and more addictive flavor, it also makes things tastier and fulfilling, and sometimes it can help people get full while eating less, great for those trying to lose weight, I guess.
And lastly, Spice of Life is the latest spell I've made, I made it out in the necessity to add spices to food that I often didn't had. There were a lot of spices that I often wished I could add to food, this spell helps me bring out a bit of the flavor of spices I had tasted before, including, yes, my previous life.
This way I can even add a bit of curry to food, other spices, and more, merely by conjuring a spell. These spells are the only ones I've figured at the moment, I am not the most talented chef to be honest, and I think this power is mostly thanks to the System that levels up Skills the more you overuse them rather than my innate talent, after all I was never really good at cooking, nor I was interested in any cooking career.
What we decided to prepare first was the chicken soup, we needed to make it first because it was the thing that would take the longest to be made, so I quickly brought a large cockatrice from the storage, which had already been beheaded and plucked, and had its internal organs taken out as well.
The carcass was fresh from the freezer, so I took out a sharp knife not made out of ice, but of steel, a classic cutting knife this time around, and began cutting the entire chicken into pieces so it would cook faster than by putting it whole into the soup.
The water was already boiling with vegetables previously added by Benladann, we added basic stuff such as potato-like tubers from the salt roots, and then there were some that resembled onions and garlic, which were also added, alongside ice carrots.
In this world there are many of the things from Earth in terms of vegetables, and even grains, but they're all infused with elements for the most part, it is rather hard to find something that is element-less. I guess due to the cold temperatures.
I wonder if in places like Muspelheim there would be fire-infused garlic and more... it would be interesting to add to the cooking.
After the water was boiling with vegetables, I quickly added the chopped pieces of cockatrice, the closest thing to a chicken here, which were like several times as big as one, and fitting for the diet of ice giants who had big stomachs.
As the chicken boiled, I added some spices such as special herbs that had very strong and aromatic scent and flavors and would leave the soup with their essence alongside the bones of ice buffalo, to give the soup a bit more texture. Salt was also added in little quantities, and I closed the lid, leaving everything boiling down.
"Dear, I already put the rice, its slowly boiling... What else did she wanted? Ah, right, meat!" said Benladann.
"Yeah, here, I brought all of this..." I said, opening my Inventory and taking out several pieces of meat the size of watermelons, which we quickly began to cut into slices to cook over the grill, adding some salt and a bit of aromatic herbs on top of it was more than enough to leave these thick steaks grilling themselves.
"Do we got fish?" wondered Miranda, she was checking the soup after she was preparing the salad.
"Yeah, we got some in the pools, they're still alive and fresh." I said.
To keep fresh fish, I had designated an entire room only to make a large pool of fresh water to store fish in there, living fish that would easily be able to live there and grow bigger and maintain their freshness while being alive.
I had yet to figure out a way to make them multiply, although I saw some eggs left around. We feed the fish with other smaller fish, clams, and sometimes dried flakes made out of meat that I've been making, the fish were varied but I couldn't really recognize them from any form Earth, some looked similar to salmon, while others were as big as tuna and had colorful scales.
Nonetheless, we ate them without discriminating their appearances.
We picked some and then ended their suffering. After that, we cleansed their guts out and began to grill them near the meat, adding some more salt on them.
I've heard there is sea salt in the places near the shores of the continent, I wonder if it tastes any different from the sea salt of my world, Earth, or if it is different and perhaps better than the salt we usually consume.
Most things were getting ready by now, and I decided to use some Cooking Magic over the food while it was still preparing before things were done.
We sat down around the kitchen's table and sighed.
"Phew, my back hurts..." sighed Benladann.
"It must be because of all the weight you carry with that giant belly of yours." Said Miranda.
"Hahaha... Maybe." Said Benladann.
"Let me give you a massage." I said.
I quickly moved behind Benladann, and began to slowly make her back relax, it was quite sore.