Chapter 57: Rendering Fat
She already had a large jar of sea salt in her hand, but tomorrow she still wanted to go to the seaside to get another jar, so that for a long time, she wouldn’t have to always run over there.
Secondly, she needed to teach the beastmen how to make fire as soon as possible.
After all, she couldn’t always have her go wherever and the beastmen follow wherever just for a bite to eat.
Moreover, sometimes she wanted a bit of quiet private eating space.
Third, when she had time, she wanted to wander around the nearby woods to see if she could find some other ingredients.
Eating meat every day was really tiring.
Even with fruit, the fruit was all sweet, and eating too much would also tire her. She now immensely missed the taste of noodles, steamed buns, and fried dough sticks from the little diners at the entrance of her internship unit.
Thinking of these things, Su Ran quickly dug out the two stone jars in her hand.
She rinsed the stone jars with clean water twice, suddenly remembering the green soap fruit pits left over from the ones she collected today.
She pulled a fruit pit out of her pocket, crushed the fruit pit on a stone, put it in a wooden bowl and stirred it into foam, then poured it into the two stone jars.
Washing the stone jars with soapy water that had a cleaning effect would definitely be better than just rinsing with clean water.
After cleaning the two stone jars, Su Ran, as usual, filled them with clean water, threw in a handful of grass, and waited to see the changes in the green grass.
Then she stood up and stretched a big lazy yawn.
The sun overhead had already slanted to the west, and the evening cool breeze gradually picked up a bit.
Taking advantage of this time, she strung up all the beast meat that the beastmen had exchanged for, which she brought back from the seaside, into large skewers and roasted them over the fire.
This would be tonight’s staple food.
Then she placed the scallops, crabs, and oysters that the werewolf had picked up on the stones surrounding the campfire and slowly roasted them until cooked.
But she kept one crab and a few scallops, and there was still some kelp left in the basket; she planned to make some kelp soup to drink later.
After doing these things, she sat on the ground and selected a piece of wood to start carving a spoon.
She needed to make a large soup ladle, a small spoon, and a large strainer, otherwise there would be no usable tools when refining oil later.
Su Ran sat on the ground seriously carving the spoon, and before long, she heard the sound of wings flapping overhead.
Without turning her head, she could guess that Gray had returned.
The werewolf landed on the river beach in a good mood.
It carried a white-headed sheep in one hand, walked over lightly, wagged its tail, leaned down to rub its face against Su Ran, then went to the river to clean the prey.
As usual, it put the peeled white-headed sheep hide in the river for Su Ran, then carried the processed white-headed sheep and the left-behind internal organs back to the campfire, placing them on the sweet leaf vein tree leaves laid on the ground.
And just as it was about to skewer the whole white-headed sheep onto a branch, Su Ran stopped its action.
“This white-headed sheep isn’t for roasting to eat~”
“Woo?”
A puzzled expression appeared in the werewolf’s pair of green eyes.
Su Ran smiled at it, then took out a scallop knife and the large wooden basin nearby to start cutting the meat.
The meat quality of the white-headed sheep was visibly tender and fatty.
From the hindquarters to the belly, it was almost all a thick layer of fat, with only the back and neck having obvious lean meat.
But Su Ran also found it very peculiar.
Although the meat on the white-headed sheep looked extremely fatty, when eaten, these fats still had some fibrous texture and wouldn’t be the kind that made one tired after one bite.
She cut off all the fat from the white-headed sheep, then cut it into small pieces.
The stone pot already had a pot of water boiling ahead of time; she poured the large basin of fat into the pot to blanch it once, rinsed it clean, blanched it a second time, then began refining oil.
Refining oil wasn’t difficult for Su Ran.
From childhood to adulthood, every New Year, the family would buy a slab of pork fat to render themselves.
But now she didn’t have seasonings like green onion or ginger to remove the gaminess, but fortunately, the meat quality of the white-headed sheep didn’t have any particularly strong off-flavors when eaten, which could be ignored.
After brushing the stone pot clean, Su Ran ladled in two bowls of water, then poured in the blanched fat.
This stone conducted heat much faster than Su Ran had imagined; in just a few minutes, white steam began rising from the pot as the moisture in the fat evaporated out.
And as time passed, the white steam in the pot steamed even more vigorously.
Su Ran stirred it with the large soup ladle she had just carved, and the aroma of boiled meat began to waft out.
At that moment, a pair of bony but slightly rough large hands touched Su Ran’s arm; she turned her head and couldn’t help but be stunned.
She saw the werewolf at this moment with its eyes wide round, ear tips tensed straight, the tail behind circling around its pair of large feet squatting on the ground, pressed tightly.
Its eyes were filled with tension and worry. Looking at the stone pot enveloped in billowing white smoke, it muttered to Su Ran: “Ran Ran? Woo…”
And the large hand grabbing Su Ran’s arm seemed ready at any moment to yank her away from the stone pot.
It wasn’t until a few minutes later that the white water vapor in the stone pot gradually decreased, and slowly a toasty meat aroma began to emanate from the stone pot.
Gray sniffed its nose tip, seeing Su Ran still unmoved, and the palm gripping her arm slowly relaxed a bit.
Seeing it was about right, Su Ran fished out a piece of golden-fried greaves from the pot, picked it up with chopsticks, blew on it by her mouth, and handed it to Gray, who had gone from full of tension in its eyes to full of anticipation.
She shook the chopsticks, looking at Gray and saying: “Gray, this is greaves~”
Gray’s gaze followed the chopsticks in Su Ran’s hand, turned its ears, and repeated: “Greaves~”
“This is oil~~” Su Ran pointed again to the half-pot of mutton fat already rendered in the stone pot.
“Woo?” The werewolf tilted its head, its gaze circling between the greaves on the chopsticks and the mutton fat in the pot, seemingly analyzing the difference between these two things both containing “oil.”
“Greaves~, oil~” Su Ran pointed to the two things again, repeating to the werewolf.
Gray’s pair of light green eyes stared at her for two seconds, its tail under it swished back and forth, then it opened its mouth: “Greaves, oil!”
“Right!”
Su Ran nodded, then brought the chopsticks with the greaves to the werewolf’s mouth: “Try it!”
Seeing Su Ran nod, the werewolf also showed a big smile.
It opened its mouth to take the greaves Su Ran offered, chewed twice, suddenly straightened its back, shook the wings behind it, then showed a blissful expression.
Su Ran heard the “crunch crunch” sounds from the werewolf chewing, and couldn’t help but have saliva secrete in her mouth.
But looking at the nearly complete pot of mutton fat, she hurriedly pulled out the firewood from under the stone pot to cool the oil in the pot first.
Then she couldn’t resist picking up a piece of greaves, blew on it, and put it in her own mouth…
Babies, not in great shape today, just one chapter oh~
