Ch 85 -- Sweet and Sour Chinese Miso Stir-fry with Eggplant
I bought cloth bags and bottles at a general store before I returned to the inn to start fulfilling Lambert-san's wholesale order for delivery the next day.
Once I got back to my room I opened Net Super and started buying soap, 10 packs of 3 cheap soap bars and 10 packs of 3 rose-scented soap bars. After that I bought 10 large refills of rinse-in shampoo, 10 large refills of regular shampoo and 10 large refills of conditioner. Each refill pack would fill three of the glass bottles I had bought from the store. I also bought hair wraps. Each pack of hair wraps would fill two jars so I bought 15 packs. I had to buy 30 jars from the Net Super to put the hair wraps in.
I put all of the items in my Net Super cart and clicked on "Buy". The total came to about 30 gold coins. Once I had fed the required coins into the Net Super screen a large cardboard box appeared in front of me.
I started with the cheap soaps, removing each bar from its other-world packaging and putting it in a cloth bag, 30 pieces in all. I did the same with the rose-scented soap. After that came the rinse-in shampoo, decanting each refill pack into three of the glass bottles I had bought from the local store before corking each one. That made 30 bottles of rinse-in shampoo. I did the same with the shampoo and conditioner refills.
"Fuuu, thank goodness that's finished." I muttered, looking at the 90 bottles and 60 cloth bags lined up in front of me. I looked in the box again and noticed there was still more items left. "Oh, there's still the hair wraps to do." I opened the packs and put four hair wraps in each of the 30 glass jars I had purchased from the Net Super.
"Well, I finally finished." I sat back, relieved. "The smell of soap and shampoo though, it makes me want to take a real bath, not just wipe myself down like I've been doing since I got here." When we got paid for the Mithril Lizard's subjugation I was going to buy a bathtub and have a proper Japanese soak.
Looking out of the window, I saw it was began to get dark. "Is it that time already?" Dinner, I decided. I picked up Sui's bag and headed down to the beast stables.
* * * * *
I was in the mood for a feast. I decided to start off with ground meat, an easy and tasty dish. Going to Net Super I bought tubes of the sweet-and-sour Chinese miso that I've used before, that's what I needed for Chinese-style sweet and sour stir-fried ground meat. Oh, and eggplant too.
I cut up the eggplants about 2cm square in their skins then fried them in a pan until well-done. I added the minced meat (three parts Bloody Horn Bull beef and seven parts Orc General pork) and kept frying until it browned nicely. Cooking for Fer and Sui I added lots of ground meat. I put sweet-and-sour Chinese miso in a small amount of water and mixed it thoroughly then added potato starch to thicken it before adding it to the contents of the frying pan.
Really tasty. I served up Fer and Sui's portions over rice because it's especially delicious when you eat it that way.
"Here you are." I put the bowls out.
"Well, that smells good," said Fer, drooling.
"It really does -" Sui-chan agreed. The two of them started to eat.
"It's delicious when it's sticky like this..." Fer mumbled.
"Yes Yes-" Sui agreed. The potato starch makes the sauce thicker, you see.
Watching them gobble down the sweet and sour stir-fry I'd made I realised it wasn't going to be enough for those two. What else... hmmm, I had some cheese-filled chicken cutlets ready in my Item Box.
"Still hungry? Here, eat this." I passed over some chicken cutlets.
"Oh, it's the tasty food with white stuff in the middle. Sui likes the white stuff-" Sui seems to like cheese, doesn't she? I decided I'd cook more dishes using cheese when I got the time.
"Seconds." ordered Fer as he finished his stir-fried sweet-and-sour Chinese miso ground meat over rice.
"Sui also wants more-." Oh, Sui-chan, too? I fed them some more cheese-filled chicken cutlets while I made another two servings of sweet spicy Chinese miso stir-fried ground meat rice bowl.
"They're ready." I said, handing over the the freshly-cooked stir-fry. While they were eating that I made some more Chinese sweet-and-sour miso stir-fry just for myself, cutting back on the amount of meat to just a cup-full.
I took a mouthful... the fried meat with sweet and sour sauce plus the eggplant made a delicious combination.
"Seconds here." Fer ordered. Shouldn't that be thirds? Whatever. Okay then, I pulled out some more cheese-filled chicken cutlets from my Item Box.
"Sui wants to eat something different this time, the ground-up fried meat filled with white stuff-"
"That's hamburger with cheese in. Is Sui wanting to eat that?"
"Yup. It's delicious, full of white stuff-" Sui really likes cheese.
"Well, just a little." I fried up some cheese-filled hamburger for her.
"Thanks, Aruji-" Sui-chan is definitely cute. Of course when Fer smelled the cheese-filled hamburger I cooked for her he wanted some too so I had to do it all over again and then when I smelled it myself... I made mine with ketchup, mixing it in the frying pan with the juices from the hamburger then I took a bite. Cheese-filled hamburger truly is Justice! Gulp.