Chapter 215: Seafood Barbecue

Translated by Zzonkedd

Edited by Gumihou

Please read this at kitchennovel dot com

 

The next morning, I started off the day with a light breakfast while Fer and the rest had meat, meat and some more meat.

I had already told them we’ll be having Seafood Barbecue for lunch, [1] so I don’t want to overload my stomach now.

[6] Since I’ve left the shellfish in saltwater overnight, there should be no sand in them by now. The shrimps could be grilled just as they are, I just have to devein them. The crabs were really huge, [6] the legs were so long and large that I had to break them off at the joints and cook them as individual pieces [6] This reminded me of the time we had spider legs. I can’t wait to see how these will turn out. [8]

As for fish, I have the salmon-like Salken. [3] I filleted and cut the thick Salken meat into chunks, planning to do a miso foil grill. Because of the size of the fish, the cut was rather uneven and I’m ashamed to see how much meat I left on the bones. [6] Ah, well, I’ll just throw those into a soup or something later. Thinking positively, I clumsily filleted four more fish for our BBQ lunch.

Now, let’s get some vegetables.

[Net Super], I’ll be in your care again today~

At my last barbecue, I had enjoyed the vegetables then so I got more of the same. [2] Shiitake mushrooms, peppers, asparagus and corn. I could grill the mushrooms and peppers in the foil. Oh, onions and carrots should be great when foil grilled as well.

While I scrolled for the two items, I spotted some enoki mushrooms. Hey, these are great when foil grilled too! Also, they’re super cheap and could be used in any number of dishes. [6] Right, let’s get lots of them.

Oops, nearly forgot the all-important foil paper. Let’s get a few rolls of that.

Now that I have bought all the vegetables needed, the next step is to prepare them for the grill. [3] Well, I say prepare, but the peppers and corn could just be placed on the grill as they are. Especially since the corn I bought were still nicely tucked in their leaves.

I cut the shiitake mushroom stems off, trimmed the asparagus and peeled the onions and carrots. I plan to grill these vegetables with the proteins. Today’s foil grilled proteins will be Salken and Tyrant fish. I’ll be making the standard Japanese style miso foil barbecue with the Salken. As for the Tyrant Fish, I intend to foil grill it with a lemon-butter-soy sauce combo.

Since it’s too troublesome to separate out what vegetables with which protein, I decided to just slice everything up and distribute the same combination of vegetables for both proteins. Today’s vegetable combo will be sliced shiitake mushrooms, onions, carrots and pepper. I’ve also cut off the hard end of the enoki mushrooms and portioned it out into smaller clumps.

To prepare the Foil Grilled Salken: First, a thin dab of butter on the foil, layer on the onions first, followed by a piece of Salken. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. I covered the Salken with shiitake mushrooms, carrots, pepper and enoki mushrooms, topped everything with a seasoning made with miso, sugar, sake and mirin. As a final touch, a small square of butter tucked into the middle of the vegetables before wrapping the whole thing up in a neat packet.

Portions designated for my big eater familiars contained much larger pieces of fish.

The Foil Grilled Tyrant Fish with Lemon-Butter-Soy Sauce was prepared pretty much the same way as the Salken Foil Grilled except for the seasoning. The Tyrant Fish would be grilled with only butter, salt, pepper and various vegetables. It’s more delicious to sprinkle on the lemon juice and soy sauce over the fish once it’s done cooking [Z1].

Now that all the prep work was done, let’s go and enjoy our seafood barbecue in our huge seaside garden.

 

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“Is it ready yet?”

Fer, how many times are you going to ask that?

“Just a little bit more.”

All three of my familiars were currently staring at the barbecue grill.

[6] At this moment, I have several different things on the grill: Yellow Scallops, Big Hard Clam, Vermillion Shrimp, and Bronze King Crab.

Finally, one of the Yellow Scallops [5] popped open, showing its meaty flesh. [2] Other scallops began to pop open too. Uwaah, everything looks so good.

I got ready with my soy sauce and pour a bit of it on every opened shell.

“Yosh, it’s ready!”

With tongs and a pair of chopsticks. I quickly picked up the Yellow Scallops and scraped out the edible insides onto plates.

“Umu, it tasted better than the ones from yesterday’s stalls.”

“Aa, grilling over a fire gives it a different feel, na.”

“Aruji~ it’s yummy~”

Fufufufufu, I know, right? Right?

It’s all thanks to this almighty seasoning called the Soy Sauce! This incredible sauce that only I, Mukouda, could access in this world! Hehehe… [Z2]

The mighty soy sauce will make anything delicious!

Speaking of which, I want to have a taste of my cooking too.

Hmm, these Yellow Scallops didn’t look that much different from the regular scallops in my world. [6] The flesh was plump and succulent. I can’t wait to put one in my mouth.

“Delish!!!”

Yummy! Chewy! The mellow taste of the ocean enhanced by soy sauce!

This is the taste of happiness! I’m so happy I lived long enough to eat this!

Ha…

After eating my share of the scallops, I noticed that the shrimp and crabs were almost done. All I’ve done was dust some salt on the outside of the Vermillion Shrimp for a Salt Grill. As for the Bronze King Crab, fufufu, no other additional thing was needed aside from putting them onto the grill and keeping an eye on the lot.

“Well, these are about done too, want to eat them now?”

A chorus of ‘Yeah!’ erupted from my cute familiars. [5]

The Salt Crust Grill technique meant that even the shell could be eaten. However, I still had to take the meat out of the Bronze King Crab legs for my familiars, so out came the tongs and scissors. Personally, I don’t like eating the shrimp shells, but Fer and the rest found the shell very crispy and tasty. Eh, maybe I’ll have a nibble at the tail end later.

[6] While I was cutting meat out of the crab legs, the Giant Hard Clams popped open. So, I had Sui dispense the soy sauce while I continue to cut out the meat. By the time I finished, my lovely Sui had moved all the insides of the Giant Hard Clams into a bowl. She had sneaked one, but I pretended I didn’t see anything and allocated out the Giant Hard Clam meat onto their plates.

After serving out these barbecue treats to my hungry familiars, I settled down to enjoy my Vermillion Shrimp. [6] Oooh, it’s huge! One of these would cost quite a lot back home. I quickly cracked the shrimp shell open, licking the salt from my fingers as I got the delicious shrimp out. The bouncy texture. The glistening flesh! Aaahh!

I could not resist any longer and popped it whole into my mouth.

Ooooh! Sweet! Juicy! Plump! What a gorgeous mouthfeel~

[6] I could feel my cheeks melting into a dopey grin.

Shrimps are the best! Giant prawns are the best! Too delicious~

[6] Oho, but the best is yet to come.

Bronze King Crab!

[6] If giant prawns are expensive, King Crabs are ridiculously expensive!

[6] It’s a miracle I haven’t sneaked one into my mouth while cutting them open for my familiars earlier. I’ve cooked them as is without any seasoning or condiment, and now I’m going to eat them. Heheheh.

I picked one joint of the leg, the side of which had been cut through with scissors. The meat slid out easily with a push of my chopsticks. Woah, plump, red and glistening. I quickly slurped it into my mouth.

Howaaahhh…

The taste of crab is spreading through my mouth~

Why is crab so delicious?

Hmmf, hmmf, hmmf.

Let’s try crab with a little soy sauce.

As expected of the power of soy sauce! Yummy~

[6] Then, my eyes went to the crab shell that had been set aside on the less hot bit of the grill. The body of the King Crab is not very good, but what about the crab miso [9]? I’ve placed the body of the crab upside down on the grill with a little water and let the brains, guts and fat simmer over low fire into a brown sludge.

[6] Don’t look down on this brown sludge, it’s actually a great delicacy, you know?!

I took one of the leg meat and dipped it into the Crab Miso and brought it to my mouth. “Unbelievable!!!”

“Nn? What’s that? You seemed to be eating something delicious. Give it over.”

“I want some too!”

“Sui too~”

“Of course, of course,” [7] ahh, I have to share my Crab Miso, but it’s alright. I set one crab shell in front of everyone.

“Ooh? I’ve never had anything quite like this before. It’s rather rich and delicious, isn’t it?”

“Un, very delish, na.”

Sui didn’t seem to like it, so Fer ate her share too. Ah, well, perhaps Sui still has a child’s palate?

Oh, but all this Crab Miso is making me craving something.

Beer!

To properly enjoy Crab Miso, one must have beer!

I quickly got onto [Net Super] and bought one of Company A’s new product. It promises to be a beer that’s ‘rich in flavour and balances well with seafood barbecue’.

Ahhh!

[6] With a beer in one hand and a crab leg in other, how much more luxurious can life get?

[6] While sipping the beer, I moved the larger foil-wrapped fish onto the cool side of the grill and moved fresh foil-wrapped fish onto the hot part. Barbecue is all about timing and fire control after all.

[6] Soon, a nice buttery smell began to permeate the air.

I began to open up the packets. I served the Foil Grilled Salken straightaway. As for the Foil Grilled Tyrant Fish, a quick sprinkle of lemon juice and soy sauce later, it was ready to be eaten.

“Umu, this is also very good.”

[6] Always a pleasure.

“The sweet and salty fish is good. The sour fish is refreshing.”

[6] Eloquent as always, Dora-chan.

“This fishie is delicious~”

[6] Ah, as expected, Sui-tan is the cutest~

I’m glad to see that both types of foil grilled were so well received.

[6] I’m partly full already, but seeing them eat so deliciously, even my mouth started to water.

Let’s see, let’s see. I opened up my standard sized Foil Grilled Salken and forked some for taste. Ooof, the gentle taste of miso goes really well with the robust and oily flesh of the salmon~ It makes me want rice! [6] I want to alternately stuff my face with this oily fish and the fluffy Japanese rice!

The vegetables inside the foil had absorbed most of the good fish oil and carried with it the irresistible aroma of fresh oily fish. Delicious! I’m running out of ways to say delicious!

Let’s try the legendary Tyrant Fish next.

Nyahah!

How could fish be anything but delicious when paired with butter, lemon and soy sauce? Too delicious! Too amazing!

Seafood barbecue is the best!

Let’s enjoy our barbecue days to the fullest!

 

[Zzonkedd 1: Really? Would it really be better to sprinkle after cooking?] [Gumihou: Perhaps, this might be especially true for the lemon juice. Lemon juice could ‘cook’ fish before it even go onto the grill, maybe even overcooking it or be denatured by the grilling process. Who knows? However I’ve seen people stuff fish with lemon slices before baking them, so this is probably just a preference thing]

 

[Zzonkedd 2: He’s acting like a bit of a dick here lol] [Gumihou: Well, soy sauce is like the ultimate sauce among Japanese and Chinese. Where the French has different sauces for different types of proteins, we only use ‘soy sauce’. Of course, there are different kinds of soy sauce in the world. In fact, when Gumihou went overseas to study, she brought a bottle of local soy sauce with her…]

 

[1] Structural Change: Combine 2 paragraphs

[2] Structural Change: Combine 3 paragraphs

[3] Structural Change: Combine paragraph & dialogue

[4] Structural Change: Change passive sentence to dialogue

[5] Delete Repetitive or Pointless Information

[6] Additional Information for Aesthetic Purpose

[7] Add Dialogue Tag

[8] Crab legs – If the ‘Bronze Crab’ are anything like the Alaskan King Crabs, the meat would be mostly in the legs with a relatively small body. The body isn’t tasty, according to Gordon Ramsey. Breaking it off and grilling individual parts is a good idea. If you want to cook the crab whole, steaming is the better option.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6ff-ShY5Bw

[9] Crab Miso – Is actually crab brains and maybe guts or fat, lol

 

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