CHAPTER 192: CHAPTER 192: GLUTINOUS RICE CAKE

When the Spring Market begins, Eric will return; by then, he can bring some more sugar for these straightforward Ox-Head people.

Because sugar cannot be used for trading yet, they didn’t bring much. Eric liked to use sugar to make caramel sauce when cooking, so he only brought one tube.

Since the Ox-Head tribe liked sweets, to repay them, Eric planned to make a few authentic Vietnamese cakes to treat them.

Arriving at the home of the "food tycoon", naturally, there was no shortage of glutinous rice and mung beans. He eagerly rubbed his hands, planning to show off his skills by making fried mung bean cakes and fragrant soft glutinous rice cakes.

The Ox-Head tribe didn’t have steaming techniques in cooking, so naturally, they didn’t have steamers either. Fortunately, Joseph, a skillful Dwarf, was with them; he used wooden boards and straw to weave several large steamers.

After finishing these tasks, Joseph conveniently started weaving large baskets to filter water tomorrow.

The wind was strong today. Eric wanted to grind wheat flour, so he did it right in the kitchen; after all, the room built by the Ox-Head tribe had a large space, and the kitchen wasn’t small either.

Kevin actively raised his hand, taking on the task of grinding wheat flour. Eric also found him a few bags of glutinous rice from the food pile and told him to grind them into flour as well.

There were many people today, and the Ox-Head tribe’s appetite was even larger than the Snow Wolf people’s. Each wooden house only had one or two basins. Although the Ox-Head tribe’s specialized basins were nearly the size of a round bathtub, they still weren’t enough.

Balu then gathered the basins from several nearby unoccupied wooden houses, stacked them up, and hugged them over; this time it would definitely be enough.

Before coming here, Eric had planned to proof the dough, so he brought homemade yeast. Waiting for Kevin to finish grinding the wheat flour, he immediately started kneading and proofing the dough.

A large wooden basin could knead one hundred pounds of dough at once, only Eric was a bit too weak for it. Michael, the only one who had learned it, wasn’t here, so Max took over the task.

Max was very good at fighting magic beasts, but kneading dough was a bit difficult. He looked awkwardly at his hands covered in dough, looking towards Eric for help.

Eric was laughing beside him until he leaned back and forth:

"Ha ha ha, Max, even you have a day like this, ha ha!"

Max had always been all-powerful, yet there was a time he was helpless like this. His handsome face was also smudged with flour, looking extremely funny; Eric found it very hard to suppress his laughter.

Thomas, seeing his son’s awkward appearance, was even more delighted, having absolutely no intention of lending a hand.

Kevin, who was grinding flour nearby, also leaned over, took a look, and burst out laughing. Afraid of being beaten, he hurriedly hid back at the stone mill to continue working, pretending nothing happened, only his shoulders kept shaking ceaselessly.

Their laughter made the others curious too, and they all poked their heads out to watch.

Tu couldn’t help laughing and said:

"Kneading dough is even harder than hunting. I really admire my wife for how she manages to turn them into baked cakes."

Balu enthusiastically raised his hand, then pulled an empty basin over:

"I know how to knead dough; the little chief should have said so earlier."

Saying that, he poured flour into the basin, leisurely added water, first stirred it into crumbs, then used force to knead it into a large ball of dough. His movements were skilled; one look and you knew he was someone who kneaded dough often.

It was just that the scene of a reddish-brown Ox-Head person, squatting with a large body to knead dough, looked peculiar no matter how you looked at it.

Eric couldn’t help but applaud him. In comparison, Max’s tragic state was a bit unbearable to look at directly. He found a thin wooden board and helped Max scrape all the dough off his hands.

His hands were finally free. Max let out a long sigh of relief, helplessly glancing at Eric with a reproachful look, making Eric rarely feel a bit guilty, but only a bit.

This time with Balu beside him, Max watched his movements out of the corner of his eye, his hands learning how to apply force so it wouldn’t stick, and finally, he managed to knead a round ball of dough.

Eric immediately applauded warmly, flattering:

"The dough Max kneaded is still the roundest! Look at this dough ball, how smooth it is!"

"Tch." Thomas let out a scoff.

Tu walked over to Kevin; by this time Kevin had started grinding glutinous rice flour. He watched Kevin put each grain of glutinous rice in and grind out smooth flour, his curiosity rising.

"I know wheat flour can make cakes, can glutinous rice do that too?"

Eric shook his head:

"Glutinous rice is very sticky; it can’t make bread, but it can make other things. It can make soft sticky rice cakes, or fried mung bean cakes, sesame fried balls, floating cakes, sweet soup with floating dumplings... So many things!"

Seeing the bewildered and questioning look of the Ox-Head tribe, compassion rose in his heart. Sitting on such a pile of food yet having such poor cooking skills, wasn’t this another kind of pitifulness?

It must be known that in his past life, when he saw foreigners throwing away delicious offal, heads, and feet, he felt the other party was so wasteful.

Now coming to another world with even simpler cooking techniques, the genes of a food-loving nation in Eric made him occasionally feel very regretful.

Having such good ingredients but making such unpalatable food, the ingredients probably wouldn’t rest in peace.

Glutinous rice flour didn’t need much kneading; Eric could do it himself. Moreover, dough for sticky rice cakes and fried cakes needed just the right elasticity; it was still safer for him to do it himself.

It wasn’t easy to explain in words, so Eric started doing it directly. He slowly added warm water to the glutinous rice flour, kneading it into a smooth, pliable mass. At the same time, he put a pot of water on the stove and put the peeled mung beans in to steam.

After finishing these tasks, Eric planned to steam the pumpkin first; it just happened to increase the room temperature so the wheat dough would rise faster.

Picking up the cleaver, he intended to cut the pumpkin into pieces. Kiet saw this and took the knife from his hand:

"Let me, it’s very hard, a beast cub definitely can’t cut it, be careful or you’ll chop your hand."

Kiet raised his fist, punched the pumpkin causing it to crack open, scooped out all the seeds inside and placed them on the plate Eric handed over, then used the cleaver to cut the pumpkin into pieces.

A fire was lit in the middle of the room, and an iron pot was placed on top.

Eric arranged the pumpkin in the steamer one by one. Soon, white steam rose in the room; the kitchen looked like a fairyland. Within that steam, there was also the faint nutty aroma of ripening mung beans.

"You really know a lot. This tool isn’t bad; can food be cooked like this too?" Tu patted the steamer, asking with admiration.

"This is a steamer; it can utilize steam to cook food." Eric explained.

The Ox-Head tribe wore the exact same bewildered expression, looking at him in unison. Eric patted his forehead, deciding to just do it first and talk later; they would know once they saw it.

Proofing the wheat dough needed some time. Eric decided to use this time to prepare the savory dishes first.

The python meat had been processed by the warriors and piled up outside. If Eric hadn’t seen the python, he wouldn’t have associated these pieces of meat with a snake at all.

The fresh red meat looked very new. Even after being outside for so long, it hadn’t congealed; the muscle fibers were distinct, and it even quivered rhythmically as if it were still alive.

Eric looked at the meat, feeling troubled.

This was his first time eating snake meat; he didn’t know where to start. Luckily, this meat didn’t look too bizarre, so he would just treat it like the meat of ordinary magic beasts.

With so many people, making stir-fry was quite troublesome, so he would just grill it for speed. Eric cut the snake meat into square cubes and directed the tribesmen to sharpen bamboo skewers.

The bamboo skewers beastmen used naturally had to be a bit longer; otherwise, if they were like the small skewers he used to eat, they wouldn’t even be enough for a Snow Wolf person to finish in one bite.