Chapter 199

“Alright, you seem pretty confident. Do you really think this dish is going to be that delicious?”

Arisa thought to herself as she stared at the cockatrice thigh confit placed in front of her.

But the problem was, regardless of how confident she was, the dish didn’t seem all that tasty to her.

Of course, it wasn’t because Liche’s cooking was bad.

In fact, after eating Liche’s cooking over the past few days, she had painfully realized just how skilled Liche was.

Among all the people she had met, Liche’s cooking skills were easily in the top two.

Even though she had taken a break for the past three days, aside from that, she had been eating cockatrice breast steak almost every day for nearly a week.

No matter how delicious a dish is, eating it continuously will eventually make you sick of it.

“But…”

Even so, she couldn’t possibly say that to Liche, who was sitting there with such a triumphant expression.

“Right. No matter how this dish actually tastes, I’ll just tell her it’s delicious.”

So, what came to her mind was a little white lie.

Well, it wasn’t entirely a lie since Liche’s cooking was genuinely delicious, except for the fact that she was currently sick of cockatrice steak.

In the end, Arisa decided to express that it was delicious, even if it was a lie, and solemnly cut a piece of the confit.

*Swish swish*

*Gulp*

She slowly put the meat, which she had grown completely sick of after eating it all week, into her mouth, trying to manage her expression, though not entirely successfully.

*Haaah*

…

*Munch munch*

*Crunch!*

*Crunch!*

“…Crunch? This texture…?”

As she chewed the meat in her mouth, she felt the crispy texture of the cockatrice’s skin.

The steak made from cockatrice breast also had skin, but it was quite different from the skin on this confit.

The skin on the steak had some crispy parts, but that was only in certain areas.

It was only the parts that were directly in contact with the pan or the edges that crisped up quickly.

Overall, it didn’t have a crispy texture but rather a sticky, chewy texture from the half-melted collagen.

But the skin on this confit was crispy all over.

No, it was beyond crispy—it was crunchy.

It was so crunchy that it felt like it had been deep-fried to a crisp.

The reason lay in the cooking method of the confit.

The confit was first slowly cooked in oil at a low temperature, then briefly seared over high heat to add a Maillard reaction to the surface.

This ensured that the Maillard reaction occurred sufficiently on the surface without overcooking the inside.

As a result, the surface of the meat was directly exposed to high heat.

Moreover, after being marinated in oil for a long time, the surface was soaked in oil, and since it wasn’t wiped off before searing, it inevitably absorbed all that heat.

Thus, it became much crispier than with ordinary cooking methods.

Arisa was slightly taken aback by the unexpectedly crispy texture of the skin.

But that was her mistake.

If she was going to be surprised by that, there were several more levels of surprise waiting for her as she tasted the confit.

And soon, the second surprise came as the crunchy skin broke apart.

*Whoosh*

Just as the cockatrice’s skin crumbled in her mouth, an intensely sweet aroma spread as if a gust of wind had blown through her mouth.

It was the fragrant scent of various spices like pepper and herbs that Liche had used while cooking the confit.

Normally, marinating meat with herbs for just an hour would be enough to remove any gaminess.

But Liche had spent an entire day marinating this confit.

And it wasn’t just any ordinary marinade—it was an ultra-concentrated flavor oil, refined and condensed repeatedly during the improvement process.

The aroma was more fragrant than any meat dish she had ever tasted.

Even more so than the sous-vide steak Kurt had served her.

It wasn’t that Liche’s cooking skills had surpassed Kurt’s.

It was simply due to the inherent limitations of the two cooking methods: sous-vide and confit.

Sous-vide involves immersing meat in liquid and cooking it at a low temperature for a long time to evenly distribute heat throughout the meat, creating a uniform texture.

At first glance, sous-vide and confit seem quite similar.

But there’s a big difference: sous-vide requires water and vacuum-sealed bags, while confit requires a large amount of oil.

Sous-vide isolates the meat from external contaminants through vacuum sealing.

Thus, while sous-vide infuses the meat with the flavors of the spices in the vacuum bag, the vacuum sealing limits how deeply the flavors can penetrate.

In other words, the lack of a medium prevents the spices from fully infusing into the meat.

But confit is different.

The meat is surrounded by oil that continuously releases the aroma of the spices, allowing the flavors to transfer more effectively through the oil.

The result was a bomb of flavor that exploded in her mouth with a violently enchanting and appetite-stimulating aroma.

“What… what is this…! This sweet aroma…! Even though I’m eating meat, it makes me want to eat even more meat!”

As a result, Arisa couldn’t help but shiver at the aroma of the confit swirling in her mouth.

She got goosebumps.

Because the aroma was that astonishing.

The appetite-stimulating aroma made her jaw move unconsciously as she chewed, and she realized that the flavor wasn’t just on the surface—it had penetrated deep into the meat.

This was clearly something only nobles could eat…

No, could even nobles eat something like this?

Could even royalty have tasted something this exquisite?

It was so luxurious and refined that the word “luxurious” might not even be enough.

Unlike dishes that recklessly pour in expensive spices just to show off wealth, ruining the natural flavor of the food, Liche’s confit was truly moving.

“I’m sure the chicken steak is completely ruined by now…”

And in the face of the emotion evoked by the confit, Arisa had to admit that she had completely fallen for the confit Liche had made.

Her brain was rejecting the idea of eating cockatrice meat, but the intense aroma bursting from the confit was forcibly shaking her stomach and sending signals to her brain.

This wasn’t just persuasion or coaxing—it was almost like coercion.

*Growl*

Before her brain could decide that the dish was delicious, her stomach had already reacted.

As a result, Arisa, who had reluctantly put the confit in her mouth, began to frantically savor the flavor of the dish.

*Munch munch*

The more she chewed, the more the aroma of the various spices used in the confit naturally resonated from within the meat, as if claiming that the original flavor of the meat itself.

Moreover, the meat was unbelievably moist and tender for something cooked in a pan, making her doubt if this was really the same cockatrice meat she had been eating just a few days ago.

“Wait… moist and tender…?”

As she continued to put the confit in her mouth, Arisa soon encountered another secret of the dish and couldn’t help but be shocked once more.

“Because of the intense aroma, I didn’t notice until now… but this meat is evenly cooked on all sides…! How!?”

It was as if she was eating a luxuriously smoked ham—uniformly, and even more tender and moist, the meat tore apart in her mouth.

Surprised, she poked a piece of meat with her fork and confirmed the unnervingly uniform cross-section of the meat.

Of course, it was natural.

Like sous-vide, Liche’s confit also involved surrounding the meat with liquid and cooking it at a low temperature for a long time until the heat penetrated the interior.

Thus, it was only natural that the entire surface and interior of the meat were cooked to the same level.

After all, the reason she had discovered the confit cooking method was to catch up to the dish Kurt had made that day.

While the confit method couldn’t match the moisture of sous-vide, the tenderness and even cooking of the meat were in no way inferior to the dish Kurt had made that day.

As she marveled at the evenly cooked meat, Arisa also felt a sense of dissonance.

Soon, she realized the source of that dissonance and couldn’t help but be shocked once more.

“This is unbelievable! This is just like the steak Kurt made that time…!”

…

And so, the two of them ate in silence.

No, it was as if they had forgotten how to speak.

The only sounds were the clinking of forks and the munching of meat.

After finishing every last bite on the plate, the two of them let out a sigh as if releasing a breath they had been holding.

“Really… this is the best dish you’ve ever made.”

“Phew… I’ve never had chicken steak this delicious before. Even back home, I never had anything this tasty…”

“Hehe. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

Despite their high praise, Liche simply smiled quietly, unlike her usual obsessive demeanor when trying to catch up to Kurt.

Her calm, smiling face no longer showed any trace of obsession with Kurt.

It was as if she had shed all her obsession with him.