A few days later, I found myself thinking back to the raw beef tartare recipe I’d seen in that cookbook.
“Hey, Miina?” I asked. “Remember that sauce served with the beef tartare? Didn’t it look amazing? The book says it’s incredibly rich and sumptuous.” It was illustrated in the book as a neat little dollop sitting beside the carefully shaped raw meat.
“Oh, you mean mayonnaise?” Miina leaned over my shoulder to look at the page.
“It says it’s called mayonnaise because it was first brought over from Mayonnaise Island.” She read the list of ingredients to herself out loud. “The main ingredients are egg yolk, salt, vinegar, and vegetable oil. But I don’t really understand how mixing eggs, oil, and vinegar would turn into something like that.”
“Well, let’s give it a try!” I said. I pulled out the whisk I’d bought just the other day and handed it to Miina. It was constructed like a bundle of thin wooden sticks tied together. “I thought a fork would be too much work for mixing, so I picked up a whisk ahead of time!”
“Well, it is one of my duties to make whatever my mistress wants to eat… Time to get out a bowl,” she said, pulling out a mixing bowl. She cracked the eggs into the bowl, then added the salt and vinegar and stirred everything until it was smooth.
“Now it says to add the oil very slowly so that it doesn’t separate.” Miina checked the book again as she drizzled in the oil bit by bit. As she worked, the bright yellow liquid gradually became paler and thickened into a creamy, yellowish-white sauce.
I checked it with Appraisal and saw a warning that it could cause food poisoning if eaten right away. I casually suggested we wait a few days before trying it, and Miina agreed.
Several days later, when it was safe to taste, we each scooped up a little bit with a spoon.
“It’s delicious!” we said in unison.
“You know,” Miina said, her long tail curling and flicking behind her with excitement. “I bet children would eat more of their veggies if you poured this over them!” She must have really liked it.
“I bet if we use this as a topping on those hearty dishes our male customers are always asking for, they’ll love it!” I said. I didn’t have any particular recipes in mind, but I felt sure that hardworking men would love something rich on top of a hearty meat dish.
Just then, I spotted a jar of breadcrumbs sitting on the kitchen counter.
“Hey, what are you planning on making for dinner tonight?” I asked.
“I was thinking I’d sauté up some crazy chicken,” Miina said.
I picked up the jar of breadcrumbs and looked inside the icebox. Sure enough, there was a bundle of crazy chicken breast meat inside.
Breadcrumbs
Classification: Food
Quality: Normal
Rarity: Common
Status: Finely ground dried bread. Coat meat or fish with it before frying for delicious results.
Feeling: If you dip that chicken breast in flour and egg before rolling me on and then frying it all, I promise it’ll be SO tasty!
Tasty, huh? Now I was intrigued.
“Miina, do you think you could fry this chicken in vegetable oil for me?” I asked.
“Fry it in vegetable oil?” She gave me a puzzled look.
“Yeah! If it doesn’t turn out, I’ll just buy more meat. Please? I really wanna try it!” I clasped my hands together and pleaded.
“Well, your instincts do tend to be strangely reliable,” Miina said. “Sure, I’ll try it. But frying meat with vegetable oil is quite extravagant!”
It wasn’t my instincts at all, but I decided not to correct her. And yes, I would admit that I was feeling extravagant. But if Appraisal said it would be tasty, I had to try it for myself!
We had dishes like cutlets in our kingdom, which were fried in butter or lard, but nobody really deep-fried anything in pure vegetable oil. At least, I’d never heard of anyone doing it. Animal fats were widely used because they were easy to obtain, but vegetable oils were produced in such small quantities that they were considered luxury goods. They were also tricky to make, so it wasn’t something used in everyday cooking.
But Appraisal had recommended it, so I was sure it’d be worth it. I just had to try it!
I explained the method Appraisal had told me, step-by-step, while Miina listened carefully. She poured the vegetable oil into a frying pan and set it on the stove. Then, she thinly sliced the chicken breast while tapping the slivers with the back of the knife to keep them from curling up. She sprinkled them with salt and pepper, dusted them in flour, dipped them in beaten egg, and then finally pressed on a thick coating of breadcrumbs.
“The breadcrumbs really stuck on, just like you said!” Miina said. “Okay, the oil’s hot now. Let’s do this!” She laid the breaded chicken breast slices onto the pan. Bubbles burst up all around them, sizzling, and before long, the crust had turned a beautiful golden brown and pieces floated gently to the surface.
“They look so good, but I wonder how they’ll taste?” She picked one up with the tongs as it gave off a crisp little crackling noise. The aroma was simply mouthwatering.
“There’s a lot of oil clinging to them,” Miina said. “What should we do about that?”
“Could we drain them in a strainer?” I thought. I fetched a bowl and a strainer from the shelves but then hesitated. “No, wait. This one’s made of wood, so it might soak up the oil.”
“We could designate these for frying. Miss Daisy, if we use these now, could you let me buy new ones later, and new tongs as well?”
When I looked at her more closely, I realized her tongs were wooden too.
“All right,” I said. “For now, let’s give them a taste.”
Miina drained the excess oil on the cutting board, then sliced each chicken breast into thirds. She set them on small plates, adding a spoonful of mayonnaise to each.
“Marcus! Come try these if you’re free!” I called over to Marcus, who was minding the shop. “They’re fresh out of the pan!”
“Coming!” He hurried to join us.
“Let’s eat!”
I picked up a piece of crazy chicken with my fingers and popped it into my mouth before I thought to be careful. “Hot, hot!” Way too hot! I almost burned my tongue.
But the crust was so light and crisp as it crackled between my teeth. The layer of breadcrumbs was soaked with savory chicken juices, and the meat itself was so tender and moist. I dipped the second bite in mayonnaise.
“It’s sooo good,” I sighed.
The crunchy chicken, the rich saltiness, and the bright tang of the sauce all came together into something truly delicious.
“You know, I bet this would be even better with some chopped pickles mixed into the mayonnaise,” Miina said. “I’ll think about it some more.” She had been skeptical going into this experiment, but now she looked genuinely inspired.
Later, she tried including some other ingredients, and the final version of her sauce not only had pickles but minced hard-boiled egg. Since she’d gotten the idea from the sauce that came with the raw tartare, she decided to call it tartar sauce.