The diet of a soldier consists mainly of meat for stamina, some vegetable, some bean and some thing to go with all of it.
Leonel and Ayva got up at the crack of dawn to transport the beef back to the kitchen.
Bemont is home to soldiers and knights. To cook for all of them is impossible. However, Bemont has around 100 knights in their employ, Leonel thought of cooking for them to make a good impression.
"But seriously dude, why do we have to do this?" Ayva complained after transporting beef to the kitchen.
"Won't the knights prefer their own chef making food for them?" Ayva asks again.
"You haven't eaten military kitchen food before, have you?"
"Have you?" Ayva challenges
"I don't but I hear it tastes bad. So..."
"For one day you wanted to show our cooking skill huh? It is cooking for 100 people Leonel, if we don't have a plan before hand, it would be a disaster." Cooking for 5 is already hard. However, suddenly, with a winning smile, Leonel told Ayva
"I believe we can do it with everyone's help. I actually already planned it since yesterday, that is where the beef come from. Beside didn't we promise to cook together at least one time? I wanted this to be a tradition of our team, not just this one, but at all time, we should do all thing together." Ayva felt that Leonel's winning smile is just a method of dodging hard question at this point but he takes it.
After the boys transported the meat, the girl woke up.
With some explanation, princess Aries froze everything with a snap of her finger. Everyone looks at her with surprise
"It tastes fresher when it is defrosted after frozen." Nodding, Leonel and Ayva started preparing everything.
Ayva were from a big family so he is a bit used to it, however Eliza and Leonel was orphans raised by the town. It is surprising that Leonel was good at this whole mass kitchen business, but Ayva just does as he said.
"First of all, Ayva, you are fast with the knife, you should cut the beef into small pieces and dice the onions."
"He is fast?" Princess Aries asks Eliza, half awake. Normally, looking at Ayva, he looks like a big lump, with hands longer and standing taller than everyone, it is hard to imagine him being nimble with his hands.
"He is he is!" Eliza explains, annoyed.
To do a demonstration, taking the knife, Ayva moves it gently through a big lump of meat.
Suddenly in front of everyone's eyes, the chunk of beef turns into 5 pieces, faster than the eyes can see.
Everyone looks gobsmacked at the fact, especially princess Aries. After demonstrating the fact, Ayva quickly got on knife duty. Looking at him go, princess Aries asks Eliza quietly
"So, does he..."
"Now you see how he actually fights." Eliza explains smugly, however she also quickly get ready controlling the temperature of the fire to prepare for the kitchen.
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After the beef is chopped into small piece, it is all put in a big pot. After a few mishaps at the start, Leonel told him to leave the chunks a bit bigger. Man in the military love their meat and a little biting won't hurt them.
In the pot, Leonel starts preparing the spices and herbs. The beef is coated in a layer of mixed powder spices, made from more than 5 kind of spices. A few flower petal with the peppery taste, and then, Leonel adds even more spices.
"The meat isn't good, so it is more important to mask what they are eating. With the explosive flavor, they won't be bored while eating." Then, Leonel pours in some kind of dried seed all over the thing. After that, he adds salt and pepper. Some flavored oil was added, and then to top it all off, he pours in milk.
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'Curry then.' Ayva guesses from the ingredients and spices 'Beef curry'.
However, even though he said that, the recipe holder was actually Eliza. She and Leonel have this all planned yesterday, with Eliza using her recipe.
Apparently, it is from a book called '100 and 1 recipes a wife should know', Ayva paused after hearing that name but continue with his duty.
Ayva chops some more beef before focusing on the vegetable. He dices the onion into small slices and passes it quickly to Eliza. While Leonel is marinating and adding spices to the dish, Eliza is the main cook. With her power to control the fire, she could accurately control the temperature of the flame to create the best dishes. While Leonel is marinating the meat, Eliza starts quickly working the pan and caramelizing the onions.
It was not just the onion, garlic, chilly and sugar was added in the pan. Sugar to help with the caramelizing, and the rest was just for flavor.
While Eliza is cooking, suddenly, Leonel walks over and gave her some kind of spices to smell. The girl smiles and add it to her pan, giving the onion a more solid structure, a good smell starts emanating from it.
"What a good smell. Sir Leonel is also a genius at cooking." Hearing the princess, suddenly Eliza's mood sours and she accidentally almost burned the first batch of onion, however thank to her Draw Fire, she was able to change the temperature on time and puts it all in a big pot.
Eliza added some green and then takes the batch of beef Leonel has been marinating and cook it on the pan. She fried up some kind of seeds princess Aries suggested to her. After the princess has given some opinion on the dishes, Micah and Aeana suddenly appears and brought in the exact ingredients she has just mentioned, as if they have been collaborating with princess Aries this whole time to one-up Eliza.
They probably have.
In the race for the Leonel's cup, Micah and Aeana are solidly on Aries' side.
'Et tu Micah, Aeana?'
Ayva wanted to say that as 3 people against the one Eliza is unfair but then he remembers that Eliza has both Leonel and him.
However, while Micah was in the kitchen, Aeana opted to stay out, there was a strange kind of tension Ayva could not place, but still he focuses on his duty.
After preparing the seeds, Eliza has Micah ground them all up with some spices, then she dumps the mixture and the beef in with the onions. Then she starts mixing the whole thing up to create a good smell.
After the first batch is done, the second batch has to be sent right in, so Ayva and Leonel, as the preparer of the food have to work nonstop.
It was hard work but it was fun.
When the first knight arrives at the kitchen, they were greeted with the sight of their princess cooking with the hero party.
And while it may have not been the best thing, the sight of their princess alone was enough to boost the appetite of the hungry knights. The thought of their princess working hard to cook them a meal fills them with satisfaction even before the food.
To a knight, the kingdom and the princess come first. Of course, unbiasedly speaking, they know that there was other people involved, they would still be biased toward their princess.
While eating, suddenly a knight shouted
"TO PRINCESS ARIES!"
"""TO PRINCESS ARIES!""" The rest cheers.
While that may not have been what the party expected, it was fun.