>>5236780Now in the kitchen, you take the lid off a pot at the back of the stove to reveal a steadily-simmering pot of bone broth.
"Ahhh... looks wonderful!"
"It looks disgusting. Aren't those the bones leftover from our meal with the Oni sisters?"
"Indeed they are! And they make a wonderful soup base, with a little preparation."
Lifting the pot up, you put it to the side and remove the spent bones, tossing them aside for Princess, who immediately swallows them whole.
You'd be worried about her choking, but they dissolve within like thirty seconds, from what you can tell.
"Alright, let's get this ring on here..."
Using a metal locking ring, you secure several layers of cheese cloth to a second, identical pot and, after manually skimming off any scum from the top, pour the rest of the soup through the cloth to filter it.
What's left is a clean, albeit somewhat murky-looking soup base. To clear it up, you place the stock in a sink full of icy water, and after it's cool enough, crack a couple of eggs into the base and mix them in thoroughly.
Next, you heat the base back up until the egg proteins cook up, trapping all the fine particles left in the stock. Now it's nice and clear!
"Oh, wow. It looks a lot better now, actually... and it smells great!" Cylia comments.
"Don't drool into the stock." You reprimand. "Now, mix up two tablespoons of vegetable starch with the warm water over there, would you?"
"This white powder?" She asks, picking up the wrong container and turning it over.
"No, that's baking soda. The one next to it! Look, i wrote "cornstarch" on the side."
"David... this is completely illegible."
"It's called CURSIVE and if i had to learn how to write it, you've got to learn how to read it. Shouldn't your implant be compensating for that, anyways?"
"I think even our implants have their limits..."
"Whatever, just mix it up, would you?"
While Cylia is busy with that, you use a modified sonicator pen to cut open the top of a dodo egg and insert the single blade of what is essentially a fancy, food-grade concrete mixing paddle.
With the blade inserted, you add some light spices and a bit of MSG in place of salt. After that, you blend it just a bit to break up the whites and yolks without thoroughly mixing them.
"Cylia! You done over there? I got the pot warmed up already, and the egg's ready to go."
"Huh..? Ah, yeah! Just... hold on, gimme a second..."
"Cyl? What are you doing over there?"
As it turns out, she's playing with the starch. ALL of your starch, actually.
"...Cyyyyyliaaaa. Are you making oobleck over there?"
"Uh... I don't know what that is, but even if i did, i admit to nothing."
"It's fine, i can just dry it out again. Kandurian wafers are like ninety five percent starch anyways, so..."
"Oh. Good! Ehem. H-Here's your starch water."
"Thank you very much!"
To the starchy water, you add a bunch of liquid orange dye to really give the color some pop before mixing it into the soup stock, thickening it up.
