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MAGNOLIA
Making A Sauce From Scratch
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Well, a pasta dish would be reasonably simple enough. Hopefully. The Clan's Chef had appointed herself to be in charge of the sauce, since she had... reasonable faith that the pastry chef would at least know the basics of making pasta.
(Well... at least she had assigned the job of picking out a suitable wine pairing to
her. Magnolia shuddered at the memory of that Skydancer standing near a pot of steamed rice and somehow turning it into
purple sludge by
standing near it. Yikes. Why had
she even been chosen for the cooking competition, anyway?)
Aaaanyway. She had with her a reasonably large wok, and started off by pouring normal
olive oil into it. Once it was sufficiently hot, she added the prepared onions and poked them a bit with her spatula until they were decently caramelised. She then added the shallots and garlic and started stirring more, since garlic had a tendency to stick to the surface of the wok when it was being cooked. When she was satisfied, she then added various herbs like parsley and a couple of other secret ingredients, then added in the fresh clams that she had made Yrene clean that morning (otherwise what was a sous chef for?). Once she was... reasonably satisfied, she added in an entire bottle's worth of
white wine (technically hand-pressed, but it had also been really cheap) and stirred it. While waiting for the alcohol to boil off, she quickly got ready with tongs and started fishing out the cooked clams and placed them into a separate box.
When she was confident that the alcohol was gone and only the flavours of the wine was left, Magnolia strained the contents of the wok into her favourite strainer. Voila, sauce done, complete with intense flavours. Now... time to check on Yrene.
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YRENE
Pasta & Bread
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Yrene could
feel Magnolia's slight condescension from where the Coatl was puttering around making the sauce, and held herself back from rolling her eyes. Seriously.
She took her milled flour (made from the finest
Heavy Grainbasket, of course), and made a 'nest' on her clean marble countertop before cracking an egg and adding it to the centre. Then, she added
olive oil and a tiny bit of salt, before mixing it all together. Yrene then shaped it into a ball and let the dough rest for about half an hour. Magnolia was having great success over on that corner.
During the half an hour, she started picking out the best
baguette on offer. Yes, it technically wasn't Italian, but hey, if it soaked up the sauce nicely, then if it worked, it worked.
Right, right. Back to the dough. She used a rolling pin to flatten the dough and started running it through the pasta maker multiple times until she got her desired thickness, then laid the pieces out onto a lightly floured baking sheet. She sprinkled the dough with flour, folded it in half, and began cutting the pasta.
Next up... she filled a pot with heavily salted water and then turned her own stove on. Once the water boiled, she started cooking the pasta. A minute later, she was done, and... oh, good, Magnolia was done too. Yrene took the pasta out of the boiling water and placed it onto a couple of serving plates, then headed over with it for her to pour the sauce on.
Magnolia eyed the test sample of linguine critically and poked it with a fork. Well, it looked decent enough. She and Yrene quickly worked to plate the pasta with the sauce, a couple of clams, and garnishing.
"I feel like we're missing something," Yrene finally commented. "It's not the bread, is it?"
"No," Magnolia shook her head as she grabbed extra virgin olive oil to decorate the plate. "Slice the baguette into thicker chunks - so it doesn't go stale - and fill a couple of sauceplates with balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil."
Yrene once again held back the urge to roll her eyes. She
knew her stuff. Seriously.
"Is it the wine pairing?" Yrene hazarded a guess, and for once, she got the vindication of seeing Magnolia stiffen completely as she turned pale.
"...oh no."
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AVA
Somehow Hasn't Been Banned From the Kitchen
Talon-Pressed Wine Pairing
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"I am well aware of my...
less than stellar reputation in the kitchen," Ava's voice carried the tiniest bit of annoyance as she glanced at the dragon selling the wines. "Rest assured that
I am not the one cooking; I am just providing the wine pairings. Now, where are your wine pairings for spaghetti alle vongole? Preferably a light-bodied white wine and it being talon-pressed."
The irony of her being a mafia boss who moonlighted as a major food critic and occasional sommelier (under a pseudonym) and was able to tell a mystery wine' vintage and grape type almost instantly from tasting a sip, yet could not actually
use that wine in the kitchen in any way, shape, or form, was not lost on her.
"Yes, yes," the dragon quickly hurried away to his cellar, and she found herself staring at the clock once again. The competition had probably already started, and here she was, stuck in a high-end wine shop trying to cheat the system (well, it technically wasn't cheating since the rules never specified that the
chefs had to had talon-pressed the wine, nor that the wines had to originate from the chefs themselves, but... whatever).
Five minutes later (according to the clock; but it felt more like an eternity, during which she had perused the wines on display), the dragon hurried back out holding two white wines. Ava quickly scanned the vintages and labels, and...
"The one on the left," she all but snapped, then internally winced. She normally had much better control over her emotions than
this.
"Try not to burn down the kitchen, yes?" the dragon smirked as he started up the cashier machine. Ava merely took out the treasure from her purse and slammed it on the counter.
"Keep the change," she snapped, before grabbing the wine, stepping out of the shop and taking off into the skies in one swift motion.
"Finally," Magnolia sighed upon seeing Ava rush into the competition area. "What took you so long?"
Ava didn't deign to answer that; instead she just cautiously placed the wine bottle onto the table and grabbed the appropriate wine glasses.
"Since you're here, and we're done, you could probably-" Yrene paused. "Sorry, I mean, you could go and see what the other contestants are doing."
Translation: Please go sabotage the other contestants by standing near them so we can win, but try not to burn down the kitchen.
"What happened to 'not trying to burn the kitchen down'?" Magnolia asked. Ava merely shrugged in her direction.
"As long as the kitchen hasn't spontaneously erupted into rainbow flames by the end of the day, I... am not sure that the judges care."