Chapter 161 -- Giant Tarepo, Having Eaten It Before (Sort Of)

　　Well, what should I make for dinner today? It would be Giant Tarepo meat, of course. Oddly enough I had actually eaten ostrich meat previously. One time I was out eating dinner in an izakaya and ostrich meat was on the menu. I asked for it because it was unusual to see something like that listed. My recollection was that it was quite delicious, a lean red meat not typical of bird meat's flavour and texture. Now I had the Giant Tarepo meat to hand I decided I'd try to make the same sort of thing I had back then, seared ostrich meat in a cutlet. I should add that ostrich meat can be eaten raw like a Korean dish, seasoned yukhoe-style with a raw egg or even as Italian-style carpaccio, sliced thinly after being cooked very rare and then coated in sauce. The carpaccio option was tempting but thinking about it a little more the seared cutlet route meant beer as an accompaniment and that settled it, seared cutlets it would be.

　　Yosh, I started with getting ingredients from the Net Super. I bought sour ponzu sauce to start with, planning to treat the Giant Tarepo meat like pork. The cutlet would be cooked Milanese style, I decided so I'd need flour and herb salt, eggs, bread crumbs and powdered cheese and of course olive oil because, well, Italian? Bellissimo! (about the only word of Italian I knew...)

　　Oh, and beer. Don't forget that. I a.s.sembled the ingredients for the cutlets under the watchful eyes of the Gluttonous Trio and quickly changed my mind -- I'd first make some carpaccio-style cold cuts and store them in my Item Box for later. I'd make the cutlets afterwards.

　　"Is Fer able to do Ice magic?" I asked. I vaguely remembered Ice magic was listed on his Status but...

　　"Nuuuu, Ice magic? I can do it." Fer replied.

　　"Well, can you make a little ice and put it in here?" I held out a large bowl to Fer, the sort of large bowl I had never needed when I only cooked for myself back home. Feeding my three contracted monsters in this world had required a serious upgrade to the capacity of my cooking utensils.

　　"Got you." Fer concentrated for a second and a big lump of ice fell into the bowl. "There you go."

　　"Ah, it’s too big..." I said, "Hold on, I'll buy an ice pick and break it up a little." I started to open Net Super but Fer interrupted.

　　"Too big?" When I nodded the lump of ice in the bowl suddenly shattered into lumps. I blinked as Fer asked, "Is that enough? I can break it up more if you like." I sometimes forget just how powerful Fer's magic was and how off-handedly he could use it. I supposed I wasn't really used to magic even after spending months in this world. Never mind, I got on with making dinner. Some carpaccio-style Giant Tarepo cold cuts to start with, I decided.

　　First I put salt and pepper on a large piece of Giant Tarepo meat and cooked it in a frying pan with olive oil until the outer surface was seared. I cooled the piece of meat down in the ice bath Fer had prepared to stop the centre of the meat cooking from the residual heat and wiped off the moisture with kitchen paper before cutting the lump into thin slices about 5mm thick. I laid them out on a plate and dressed them with ponzu citrus sauce before trying a nibble.