42nd of Searing, 4622
It is midday of Venadas, with wispy clouds on the horizon and the glimmering of ivory light. It was an excellent time to start cooking for himself & Alistair. With each passing day, Jared’s skills in the culinary arts improve & various concepts and ideas continue to follow from the petty thief’s mind.
As much as Jared hates to admit it, the Alistian rogue had the talent to cook more than his larceny skills and was limited by the available resources, experience & imagination, which is far more practical for daily living. At any rate, the amber-eyed thief had a complete meal set for today, something a bit more hearty.
A serving of apple & fennel salad with some radishes, hard cheese & walnuts paired with a simple olive oil dressing would be a good start, with the bulk of the remaining meal comprised of creamy garlic & mushroom penne pasta with shredded seared salmon. A simple meal on the surface of things but requires some patience as making everything from scratch consumes a large portion of the day, which Jared didn’t mind since it was a way to distract himself from the hardships of life.
“Alright, let's take a moment to set up everything; Mi za plas, I think that was the term used by a few cooks back at home….”
With that out of the way, Jared begins to prepare his workstation. First, gathering all the necessary materials to complete his cooking expedition for today’s meals. Jared starts by washing all of his vegetables & herbs to remove any excess dirt that may have lingered and drowning out possible insects & pests that could be hiding in every nook & cranny.
Once his fresh goods were cleaned, measuring out the required dry & liquid ingredients came next. Then, finally, taking a moment to pull out some bound parchments he collected over the years from borrowing from various taverns & cooks alike.
“Let’s see, for 1 pound of graganelli I would need: 4x eggs, 1x once of oil, 1 pound of wheat flour & a pinch of salt.”
Sifting through his ‘borrowed’ notes, Jared takes the time to measure ingredients with the available tools he has on hand & doing his best to translate the written recipe over to a physical construct.
Making pasta dough was simple enough; all it was mounding the flour with a well in the centre for the liquid ingredients to nestle in. Once Jared assembled all the parts, the amber-eyed rogue whisked the eggs, oil & salt into a homogenous solution. Next, it was time to knead the dough, which would only take a couple of minutes at most as a result should be dough with a relatively smooth surface with a fair amount of elasticity. Still, the dough was not ready to be converted to penne as the dough is too tender after being kneaded and would require some time for dough to rest.
Jared sets the dough off to the side, allowing the gluten to rest as further agitation would make the dough dense at the end. Meanwhile, Jared took a moment to pull out some salted salmon he had acquired the previous day.
While the pan begins to warm up, the petty thief adds a small amount of olive oil over the pieces of salted salmon before transferring it onto the pan, which begins to hiss and sizzle; it is paramount to observe the fish’s mildly pinkish hues would start to dull and transition to a more coral tone which would generally indicate that the salmon was ready to be taken off the flame as the residual heat would continue to cook the white meat after a short period.
Moving on to making the creamy garlic & mushroom sauce that would cover and coat the penne pasta; the light-hearted scoundrel begins his work by cracking the bulb of the garlic before crushing the cloves with the side of the blade as it was easier to remove the flesh from the skin when it is frayed to which he begins to mince the few cloves into a fine mesh before sitting to the side in a small bowl.
Wiping his stainless steel chef knife, Jared takes to slice his white common button mushrooms into thin slices before placing them in another separate bowl and washing his knife with some clean water.
“Okay, I think the dough has rested enough now.”
Pulling his attention back onto the rested dough, the apprentice chef takes a bit of flour & dusts the surface of his workbench to prevent the dough from adhering to the wooden bench. Next, take a wooden gnocchi board and coat the surface with flour. Next, Jared beings to roll out the dough into thin, rectangular layers of pasta sheets before stacking them into sheets of five and cutting them into small squares; which he would place a sheet on the gnocchi board in a diamond position before rolling it from one end to the opposite end to make his handmade penne pasta.
It would take a little time to make sufficient graganelli, but they can be stored for later consumption, taking only what was needed to feed two people. Jared takes a moment to set a pot of salted water before adding his freshly handmade graganelli into the pot. A small amount of olive oil was added to the mix before waiting a couple of minutes for the pot to reach a roiling boil, to which he would constantly stir to prevent the pasta from sticking to itself.
On occasion, the thief would take a single pasta out of the pot and cool it down with his breath before biting into it to check if the consistency was firm but not too soggy and once that, the petty thief made the assessment. Then, Jared would take the pasta pot and separate the pasta water into another pot before placing his freshly cooked pasta in cold water to prevent it from further cooking.
Assembling the main course was simple enough; in a medium-sized saucepan, Jared would melt some butter along with minced garlic & sliced mushrooms until the butter turned golden brown hues, the garlic translucent & mushrooms tiny and brown. Once all the flavours have deepened in producing brown, earthy & nutty aromas, the thief begins to add a pint of milk with a few spoonfuls of flour; Agaiting, the solution as the heat, thickens the cream into a semi-viscous form enough to be able to drag a wooden spoon through the dish without it recollecting itself in a swift pace.
“Alright, let the pasta rest and move on to the salad. Should be too long until everything is assembled.”
Slightly proud of what kinds of meals he can achieve, Jared couldn’t help but smile, taking a moment to remove his face cloth that drapes over his jaw & mouth as the heat of cooking and moving draws out sweat. Currently, in solitude, Jared doesn’t mind having his face revealed; He is conscious of the scars he attained through the many years of his youth. While each scar & wound leaves a mark of experience, they are also a reminder of minor disfigurements.
Shaking his head for a moment, Jared takes a moment to recollect his thoughts and readies himself to make the apple & fennel salad. A lovely pairing from his experience as the apples, especially those of the granny smith varieties, tend to have a sharp, acidic & refreshing flavour with little to no sweetness, and the fennel would add mild anise & verdant note.
Preparing a salad was simple enough, Starting with washing his fruits & vegetables and washing away the excess soil & pest that might be hiding. From there, it simply chopped the apples at a straight angle about half an inch away from the core and repeated the motion until there were enough wedges. Next, Jared dumped the pieces into a bowl of water & lemon juice to prevent them from turning brown too quickly.
As for the fennel bulb, trimming the top & base of the root vegetable is easy enough & Jared can later use the removed sections for vegetable stock purposes. Then, with the main bulb still intact, Jared slices the bulb in half and makes a ‘V’ cut at the bulb's base to remove the unwanted root core though Jared can also use it for stock creation purposes. From there, Jared would thinly slice the segments of the fennel bulb before adding it to the large bowl for salad tossing purposes.
Once the bulk of the salad has been made, the amber-eyed Alistian man would take a few moments to slice up some red radishes thinly, grate some hard, slightly crystalised cheese and crush some walnuts before mixing them with the salad bowl and giving it a quick mix and distribute everything evenly.
Before everything could be served, Jared took a moment to make the olive oil dressing by adding olive oil, lemon juice, salt & pepper before whisking and drizzling a generous amount of the sauce onto the salad.
“Finally, the cooking is done, and now it is time to eat after a long day of work.”
Taking a seat at the dinner table, Jared starts to collect his hearty meal, enjoying the remaining light as the afternoon wanes and the time to work draws near.
