“For all the different ways to cook food that people from different races and corners of the world have created, it was always the daring ones, those who dared to do things their way without a care for conventional thought and traditions that kept things progressing by inventing new methods.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.
The majority of Knallzog’s territory had less than desirable lands, unsuitable for the cultivation of the most commonly grown grains like wheat or rice. As a result, the local dwarves used potatoes, which were far hardier and less choosy about the quality of the soil they grew in, as their main crop. The tuber also formed the staple food of most meals in Knallzog, other than a few regions.
Potatoes were processed in every manner imaginable before it was eaten by the locals. It was fried, boiled, roasted, steamed, chopped, minced, mashed, even dehydrated and ground into flour that was later used to make various other sorts of baked goods and confectionaries. It was omnipresent in the region’s cuisine, and the king’s table was no exception.
Dwarven servants dressed in livery brought plates of appetizer to the table, filled with a small stack of cleaned potato peel that had been fried to a crisp and dusted with a bit of salt. It was a popular snack in the region since the peel was naturally leftover in the process of making potato flour, though Aideen had not expected to see it in the royal dining table.
Given how the young prince munched on the snacks with great enthusiasm though, she figured it might be because he liked them a lot. At a glance, the older princess also ate the snack, though with more decorum, except that her hand kept coming back for more at a quick pace. The king and queen just looked at their children with clear amusement and fondness in their eyes.
The snacks themselves had an expected pleasant crisp to them with a rather earthy taste, cut nicely by the bit of salt they were seasoned with. It was a rather addictive thing, the sort that made one want to have more of it once they got a taste, and it had not taken long before everyone polished off their plate of fried potato skins.
Small portions of what seemed to be transparent noodles mixed with various bits of vegetables and thin strips of fatty meat was served next. The noodles were made out of potato flour, bouncy and chewy to the bite, which meshed well with the rather strongly flavored spicy sauce the dish was coated in. The vegetables lent a refreshing taste while the fatty meat added a rich savoriness to the mix.
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Bowls of piping hot soup were brought over next, the soup thickened to the consistency nearing that of a stew like most they had seen in the dwarven kingdom. Floating inside the soup were slices of mushroom and meat as well as what seemed to be pieces of pickled vegetables. It was a hearty meal that warmed them from the inside, with simple but pleasant flavors to it.
While they enjoyed the soup, a dwarf wearing a white apron entered the room while other servants pushed in a large stone bowl set on a stand. The cook – as that was clearly who he was – then broke a large egg nearly the size of his own head, likely from one of the many sorts of large lizards often bred in the kingdom, then mixed it in a different bowl until the white and the yolk was mixed thoroughly.
He then poured the beaten egg mixture into the larger bowl and quickly followed by pouring in a generous amount of what smelled like liquor from an amphora that another of the servants brought over. Then the dwarven cook set the egg and liquor mixture in the bowl on fire and started to stir it around using a metal ladle.
The flame kept burning while the dwarven cook stirred the mixture to and fro, causing a sweet, pleasant alcoholic scent to permeate the dining room. A short while after the diners finished their soup, the egg dish was ready as well. One of the servants presented plates that the cook scooped some of the still-flaming egg dish onto, which were then served to everyone at the table.
At a glance the finished dish appeared similar to some sort of scrambled egg, albeit one that was closer to a viscous fluid in texture with flakes of barely set egg in the mixture. Everyone took a spoonful out of the flaming dish – the last bits of the liquor was still burning even on the plate – and gave it a try, only to exclaim in surprise.
The eggs had a positively luxuriant texture, with the soft, barely set flakes of eggs practically melting in one’s mouth. The heat was the first thing they tasted, as the burning liquor entered their mouth, one quickly quelled by the mild, rich taste of the egg tinged with a sweet, smoky, and herbal flavor likely originating from the liquor it had been cooked with. It was quite unlike anything they had tasted before, a unique way to cook with a positively luxurious result.
From the decorated amphora the liquor was poured from, Aideen guessed that it was some old, prized liquor that was used to cook the egg, something the dwarven royal family likely kept for their own personal consumption. Her guess was further validated when one of the servants poured some more of the same liquor into small cups and presented it to everyone on the dining table.
Much like Aideen expected, the liquor was strong, with the same sweet, smoky, and herbal flavor profile it lent the eggs, although this time backed with an alcoholic kick. It was the sort of drink one savored slowly and carefully, and not the sort to chug down by the mug, to say the least.
That the dwarven king brought out the good liquor to the feast was a very positive sign. She knew from what dwarven etiquette she learned that it was a sign of friendship for a dwarf to do so. The way the queen looked at her with rather idolizing eyes and the way the prince and princess looked at her with interest also bode well.
One could never have too many good relations, after all.