Chapter 019: Japanese Kuroge Wagyu Beef
Re-Translated by Gumihou
Please read this at kitchennovel dot com
“Fer, let’s camp here for the night,”
“Umu,” [5]
[6] We settled down and I opened up [Net Super].
“By the way, since I earned a lot of money from Fer’s catch the other day, I want to treat you to some food from the Other World, what would you like?”
“Food from another world. Hmm, I want meat.”
As expected.
Well, since Fer looked kind of eager, I guess I should get something that could be eaten right away. [5] Let’s pick out some standard izakaya side dishes. Such as Tatsuta-style Fried Chicken [8], meatballs and some Menchi-Katsu [9], which is basically breaded and deep-fried Salisbury Steaks. I also got him actual Salisbury Steaks (we call them Hambaagu in Japan), breaded and deep-fried pork chops as well as the standard chicken Karaage.
[6] In short, it’s a smorgasbord of junk food.
Alright, let’s put everything into the cart.
“O-oi, wh-where is the food?”
[6] “Ugh, eww, Fer you just drooled on my shoulder!”
Fer ignored me, his nose almost touching the glowing [Net Super] screen. His drool now dripping on my pants. Ah well, let’s settle his food first. I randomly ordered several items off the menu, everything came up to 4 silver and 7 bronze coins.
I deposited 5 gold coins into [Net Super] and pressed the checkout button. Soon after that, a cardboard box appeared. [5]
“Oho, everything’s still warm. This is wonderful!” [6] It’s even better than ordering takeout.
Before Fer’s huge eyes, I opened up the boxes of goodies and arranged the food in an aesthetically pleasing manner on my largest plate.
“Alright, there you go. Other World Fast Food Combo Set!”
As soon as I gave the okay, Fer dove into the food. [6] He just shoved his muzzle into the food and chomped away. I thought I ordered quite a lot of food but it was disappearing very quickly before my very eyes.
I had better prepare more.
Looking through [Net Super] again, I bought a packet of Arabiki Sausages [10] as well as whole roast pork (vacuum packed). I served the Japanese style roast pork straight out of the packet for Fer. [6] Normally, I’d slice it up for myself as rice or ramen toppings, but I guess Fer wouldn’t mind chomping down the whole thing. As for the Arabiki Sausages, I ripped open the plastic packet open and lightly grilled them over a frying pan before serving.
[6] I sneaked one of the sausages. Hoho, the way it snapped under my teeth is really satisfying.
[6] “Umu, these Other World meats are small, but good,” commented Fer as he threw one of the Arabiki sausages into his mouth. Snap!
[6] I smiled as I looked through [Net Super] again. We come to the main reason why I recklessly deposited 5 gold coins into the slot.
[6] “Nuu, what are you cooking now?”
[4] “Fufufu. Thanks to Fer, I now have access to all kinds of meat in this world. The flavour was all very good and I have no complaints, but there’s one best quality meat in Japan that can’t be found here.”
[6] “Hmm? A special Other World meat?”
[4] “That’s right, I’m talking about Japan’s National Treasure. The Kuroge Wagyu Beef! Extra-large! Ahahaha! Let’s splurge, let’s splurge!”
With a flourish, I placed the premium thick cut Kuroge Wagyu Steak onto Fer’s plate.
“… it’s small,”
“Hey! Don’t complain, I gave you the extra-large cut, 350grams. This meat cost 1 silver and 5 bronze coins per 250 grams you know? Moreover, I got the brisket, which is the cheaper cut compared to the sirloin or kami-forbid, the tenderloin [11].”
“Nuu, fine,” Fer delicately picked up the meat and chomped. “Sooooffft~~”
[6] “Fufufu,” the look of bliss on Fer’s face.
“Delicious! Why is it so tender and delicious?” Fer licked his chops and sighed, “What animal is this?”
“Ah, that’s right. It’s an animal called a cow from my country. It’s been specially bred to be delicious.”
“Oh? The people in your world raise animals for their meat?”
“Eh? The people here don’t raise livestock?”
“There’s no need. Monsters are everywhere here, more than enough meat to go around through hunting.”
“I see,” I placed a couple more pieces of 350g steaks onto the pan. This time I’m planning to use the Steak Soy Sauce to flavour it. I bought 10 more pieces of the 350g steaks and cooked them in Garlic, Daikon Oroshi, Onion as well as Butter flavour one after another for Fer as we talked.
“Fumu, to think that the people in your world would go as far as to grow animals for food. I take it the people there are quite obsessed with eating?”
“Un, I guess that’s true. Our world definitely doesn’t hold back when it comes to food. In fact, it’s possible to categorise food according to different country’s speciality.”
[6] “Hmm, so you have to travel a lot to eat different things?”
“No, not really. Because people are so obsessed with food, we have shops and restaurants that serve specialities from other countries. Even without travelling the world, it’s possible to sample the world’s cuisine in a single city.” [1] That’s right, from B-class junk food to high-class French cuisine, Tokyo has it all. I can eat whatever I like (as long as I have the money) even without going overseas.
“I see, so that’s why your cooking is so uniquely delicious.”
“Well, I have to credit [Net Super] for that.” Without access to food company’s cutting edge products and speciality ingredients, we would not be able to enjoy simple things like rice, let alone the Premium National Treasure Kuroge Wagyu Beef.
“Umu, it’s all very delicious. Hmm, I had thought of this before, but I get the feeling that I become more energetic after eating the food you make. In fact, I feel like I could take on that Ancient Dragon that I once fought to a draw with.”
“Eh? What was that?”
[6] Wait, come to think of it. Didn’t I experience this before with the [Iron Will] party?
Energetic?
Don’t tell me…
“[Appraisal]!”
[Name] Fer
[Age] 1014
[Race] Fenrir
[Level] 906
[Stamina] 9843 (+5118)
[Magic Powers] 9481 (+4550)
[Attack Powers] 9036 (+4518)
[Defence Powers] 9765 (+4394)
[Agility] 9684 (+4551)
[Skill] Wind Magic | Fire Magic | Water Magic | Earth Magic | Ice Magic | Lightning Magic
Sacred Magic | Barrier Magic | Claw Slash | Physical Strengthening | Physical Attack Resistance
Magic Attack Resistance | Magic Powers Consumption Reduction | Appraisal
[Blessings] Wind Goddess Ninril
“… …” my- my eyes… surely there’s something wrong with my eyes??!!!
All five stats raised by 50%!!
The food! The [Net Super] junk food! The whole Roast Pork! [6] The 11 pieces of extra-large A5 National Treasure Wagyu steaks!!
No, no, no, wait. Don’t panic yet. If I remember correctly, all the buffs are temporary. That’s right, all I have to do is make sure Fer doesn’t do anything crazy for the next 15 minutes. Maybe 30 minutes…
Everything should be back to normal by morning, right? Right.
“Oi, it’s a waste to sit around when my body is so full of energy. I’m going hunting.”
“W-wait! Wait, wait, wait, wait! What about me? What do I do if a monster attacks me?!” It’s already dark now, I don’t want to be left alone in the jungle and become monster food!
“Nu, I shall create a barrier around you. Humph, with my current power, not even Dragon Breath could penetrate it.”
[4] “D-dragon Breath? Are you for real-”
“Well, I shall be going now. Be back soon,” with that, Fer leapt away from the camp, leaving me in total darkness.
“He’s gone…” Ugh, I hadn’t really noticed it before, but Fer has the ability to shine in the dark. Which is kind of convenient, [6] but of no help to me since my source of light has gone hunting! [5]
“Haa, at least I have the [Net Super] for this kind of things,” I summoned the [Net Super] and bought a camping lamp along with some spare batteries. With a source of light available, things did not look too bad. “I guess he’s going to take some time to work off that energy, huh?”
Having nothing better to do, I looked through the bento section of [Net Super]. Unlike Fer, I can’t stand all the meat, meat, meat meals we had been having so far and wanted something different. Finally, I chose a Makunouchi-Bento [12] with pickles, vegetables, eggrolls, and more importantly, no meat. I also picked out a canned coffee just because I wanted it.
It’s the brand I drink every day back in Japan.
“Haa, the bento is a little cold, but it’s still good. The canned coffee is good too,” [6] A vague feeling of normalcy returned to me as I snapped the wooden chopsticks apart and popped open the canned coffee. Here was everything that shouldn’t exist in this fantasy world. I’m pretty lucky to have access to all these even now, I thought, as I leaned back against a broken bit of leftover wall in my cloak.
Better try and catch some sleep.
… that’s right, I have access to all kinds of Japanese products, stranded though I was in this fantasy world.
…
Speaking of Japanese products…
I quickly summoned [Net Super] again and perused the Home Products category.
“Ohohoho! Ou! Pillows! Futon! Space blanket [13]!” I happily picked out all these things, silently thanking Fer for helping me earn enough money to buy all of these.
Fufufu, camping has become so much more comfortable now.
“Yosh. With Fer’s barrier over me and a nice futon to tuck into, I will sleep well today!”
[Gumihou: Ah, futon is wonderful ~]
[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] Tatsuta-stye Fried Chicken: Similar to Karaage, it’s marinated in soy sauce seasoning before deep frying. However, where Karaage uses wheat flour, Tatsuta-style uses potato starch (katakuriko)
https://uncutrecipes.com/EN-Recipes-Japanese/Tatsuta-age-Japanese-Fried-Chicken.html
[9] Menchi Katsu – Literally Minced Meat Breaded Deep Fry, lol. More vernacularly known as Ground Meat Cutlet. It’s basically a deep-fried Salisbury Steak with the sauce on the side.
[10] Arabiki Sausage
http://kitchenforager.blogspot.com/2008/12/arabiki.html
[11] Steaks – In the original text, the author used ‘thigh meat’, possibly mistakenly thinking that thigh = delicious.
From the cooking description, Mukouda-san was probably making steaks via brisket meat instead. Also cheap, but contains more fat than thigh meat.
While leg meat could be cooked as steaks (chicken fried steaks etc). It has to be tenderized first, either through pounding or other methods. It is also known as round steaks but to cook it as a delicious steak you’ll have to process it first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLgn00bbDzA
[12] Makunouchi-Bento – Lunch box meal with rice and several side dishes. There’s no fixed rule about the side dishes, but it’s typically pickles, fish or meat, assorted vegetables, eggs and other items. It’s usually more expensive than other types of bento in the same stand.
https://www.japanese-wiki-corpus.org/culture/Makunouchi-Bento.html
[13] Space Blanket – Also known as emergency Blanket or Mylar Blanket or Safety Blanket. It is designed to help prevent heat loss and is usually packed as part of a camping trip item. It’s cheap and is normally spread out on the ground under your futon or camp bed to maintain body heat.
It’s not advisable to drape the space blanket over your naked self because it’s crinkly and noisy and made of metal. Generally goes under the bed or maybe over your clothes or blanket/camp bed.
I used this when I was in Japan during winter, and didn’t want to waste money on electricity bills. It works beautifully.
Thanks for the treat.
Finding the next chapter has become overly difficult and tiresome… Have to drop. The next button taking me hundreds of chapters into the future quickly spoils several story elements.
I’m sorry this happens to you, thanks for letting me know and hope you have a good day
If wagyu beef had the delectable softness and “al dente” tenderness of the tiny piece of pork in some pork chops. I am talking about the tiny semi-circular or semi-random shaped tiny piece in a “T-bone” pork chop. One side of the chop has the tiny piece of darkish fine-grained meat in the corner of the “T” of the smaller side of the pork chop. Not always is this piece tender as it also depends where the “T-bone chop” is taken from. Another name for the entire small thin meat section is pork tenderloin. However, not all parts of the pork tenderloin are like this al dente piece that is the best part of the pork tenderloin. When broiling with my favorite diluted soy sauce/ginger/garlic mix, the chop comes out acceptably tender although the big white meat portion is always chewy. But the tiny piece is my favorite and I will mash it with my tongue and chew it occasionally. It is definitely solid meat unlike fatty wagyu.
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I much prefer this part of the bigger pork tenderloin as compared to wagyu.
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It’s been a long time since I had the pork soft meat “al dente” version that I could mash with my tongue on the roof of my mouth. It’s not that I’m unwilling to cook it, but my method of lower heat broiling also involved the use of aluminum foil. A lot of people broil with high heat, but I use lower heat and more time because I want to lightly caramelize the two sides of the chop without burning. The use of foil helps keep the juices and marinade close to the chop. But I stopped using foil in cooking whenever it can touch food after some alzheimer study showed that those people typically had higher deposits of aluminum in the brain.
Ugh, yes. Foil cooking is out now. I used to do it now and then, it’s such a good medium for heat and locking in the juices.
I haven’t tried making grilled pork chops mostly because the meat is expensive and I’m not really interested in steak type food aside from beef.
Maybe one day.
For some strange personal palate reason, I dislike wagyu even though other people claim to love it. To me, it just feels like extra fatty beef. I don’t like fat and will even trim the fat off on the edges. I’ve seen youtube videos of reviewers eating cut pieces of beef with all the fat left on the edges.
For me, the texture of wagyu is the problem.
It’s too soft. I prefer to chew meat not drink it.
So, a drinkably soft meat is…eurrghh