To Cook a Stag (Solo)

by **Makia Ezio** on May 4th, 2012, 5:50 pm

TimeStamp: Spring, Day 50, 512. 14:00 p.m.

Makia had finished preparing her first kill of the season for the kitchen a few days ago, and she thought now would be a great time to cook it, having nothing to do. She grabbed her cook/chef toolkit out form her chest and called Trean who silently flew over and perched on her shoulder. She winced as the birds talons cut into her skin, but shrugged it off, being used to the pain of his claws. She placed the pouch of salt and seasonings into her pack, and hilted the cooking knife through her belt, were her slicing knife usually was. Then she, with Trean on her shoulder, walked out her home and down to the kitchen.
Upon entering she nodded to Chef Davoid, who returned the nod and went back to whatever he was doing before Makia entered. She walked back into one of the coolrooms of the kitchen and found her buck back where she placed it a few days ago. It was obvious that cooks had already begun digging into her kill, she smiled in triumph. Using her cooking knife she stripped off a large piece of venison from the deer’s rib area and retrieved some thin sliced thigh that she had frozen and thawed earlier today.
Trean, usually being a well-mannered bird was getting restless from the surrounding food, wanting, but knowing it wasn’t allowed, to steal some delicacies. Makia exited the coolroom and placed her choice meat on one of the many counters occupying the space of the kitchen. She cut off a small piece of the raw meat and threw it up to Trean, who skillfully caught the meat in his beak and swallowed it whole.
Starting with the thigh, Makia placed the thin strips, evenly distributed, across a thick metal rack. She then sprinkled some salt onto each to strip to quicken the drying process and placed the rack into the oven and lit fire to a small amount of coal to power the oven. She hoped this would work fine and the outcome would be the tender jerky that she expected.
While keeping an eye on the baking meat she began to cook the rib meat. First she extracted a bit of deer meat, from the same deer she is cooking, out of a leather bag, melted it and used it for lubrication of the griddle she was to use. Then while waiting for the pan to heat up on the stove, she cut the venison into small, meal sized pieces, about four in total. She placed one piece of meat on the griddle at a time, to be able to concentrate better on each piece of meat, and allow herself to spread out the cooking time to be finished when her jerky was done. She pulled an elongated double bladed knife from a nearby drawer to use to pick up, flip and examine the meat while it’s hot. Soon the fat began to bubble and pop and Makia patiently waited for the right time to flip the meat.
For the next two hours Makia cooked the meat to the best she could possibly make it at her skill level. She cooked each two pieces of meat to medium-rare, her favorite, and the other two to well-done, her mother’s favorite. While she was cooking she had decided to take the freshly killed and cooked meat to her mother and have a nice dinner.
When they were finished cooking, Makia placed eat piece of stag meat on a stone slab and retrieved the jerky from the oven. To Makia disappointment the jerky came out a little dry, and some pieces were a tiny bit burned, but otherwise they were well done. She laid the jerky alongside the steak and went in search for a well suited marinate for each pleasantry.
In the pantry she found numerous amounts of sauces in glass bottles, with small labels written on them. Browsing through each one she found a teriyaki flavored sauce, and an orange sauce. She brought both back to the counter and carefully spread the jerky with the teriyaki and the steak with the orange. Then she placed tied the jerky into a bundle with some strong string, and placed both the jerky an the stag steak into a small leather pouch, which she would clean and return to the kitchen tomorrow.
Soon after she headed out to her mother’s house, with Trean flying above her.