The Villainess Is My Cute Daughter

This time, he didn’t really need to explain anything, and the soldiers nodded quickly and they also immediately got to work peeling.

Adrian then finally looked at the last group, which was exactly ten more people.

"You guys. I want you to make a really thick, stiff dough using the cheap wheat flour, clean water, and some salt."

He pulled out a massive bag of fine salt from his storage.

"Don’t put too much salt in the mix. I only need a very little bit of salt. Like, okay, not too little either. Just... Okay you know what, I’ll take care of the exact salt measurements. Just mix the dough and make sure that it is kneaded properly."

The guys nodded firmly.

Adrian immediately brought out three extremely huge, clean pots from his storage and casually gave one for each of groups.

And for this third group, he emptied two massive sacks of wheat flour directly into the pot and added a precise amount of clean water along with a good amount of salt. All measurements were theoretically perfect thanks to his system’s help.

"Now. Do the dough mixing yourselves. Use a clean wooden stick to mix the thing together first. And then split it evenly into smaller pieces and individually mix them with your bare hands. By mix, I mean knead them on boards."

He casually handed them multiple large, flat wooden boards that they could use to knead the dough. And he also properly placed multiple flat stones on the ground that they could comfortably place these plates on, to use as prep tables.

And then he finally walked back over to Aria, Claire, and Serena.

"Let’s wait for twenty minutes or so for them to finish all the prep work, and then we can finally get to work."

He grinned at them.

"Are you three ready to cook?"

The three of them nodded, but Serena was the only one who looked a little doubtful.

"Why exactly do you need us when you already have thirty soldiers working for you?"

Adrian just shrugged casually.

"Well. I just legitimately like your company and I like talking to you guys. So I just randomly thought, instead of just cooking in silence with the soldiers for hours, why not talk to the people I like spending time with?"

In his mind, it didn’t really sound bad or anything suspicious.

But this incredibly honest, casual admission just made both Claire and Serena simultaneously flush a bright, rosy red.

Adrian then looked at the tired soldiers and just stood there patiently waiting for them to finish all the cutting preparations.

Once the piles of diced onions and cubed potatoes were finally done, he walked over to the two large, deep iron pots resting over the massive fire pits. He got the roaring fire going underneath them with a quick burst of fire magic from Aria, and he tossed in a very generous amount of pork lard into both pots.

The heat quickly heated up the metal, and the lard began to sizzle and melt down into a shimmering pool of liquid fat.

"Okay!" Adrian yelled over the crackling fire. "Bring me the onions!"

The soldiers quickly hauled over the massive pot of perfectly sliced onions and dumped them straight into the bubbling lard.

The loud, aggressive hiss of the wet onions hitting the hot fat echoed across the kitchen tent. A thick, fragrant steam immediately shot up into the air.

And this specific step was exactly where the culinary magic began.

To make something perfect with no spices and no meat, Adrian had to rely entirely on his cooking technique and the hidden umami naturally found in onions. It was a very little amount, but when concentrated, it was a very good way of introducing the umami flavours into the dish.

This specific dish took those incredibly simple ingredients and elevated them into a luxurious, texturally brilliant meal that would genuinely make a starving army weep tears of joy.

He grabbed a massive wooden paddle; which literally looked more like a boat oar than a cooking spoon, and he started stirring.

"The secret flavor base is the slow caramelization," Adrian explained casually to Claire, Serena, and Aria as he stirred the whole thing slowly. "Without any meat stock or expensive spices, we must slowly caramelize these onions. By cooking the onions down low and slow until they are a deep, dark brown color, they transform. They lose their harsh sharpness and become sweet, highly savory, and incredibly rich. This dark caramelized onion fat basically becomes the perfect substitute for a meat broth."

It took a massive amount of time. Heating that much pork lard in a one meter pot took time, and dropping in hundreds of pounds of chopped onions dropped the core temperature of the pot instantly. It took Adrian nearly an hour of constant churning just to get all that onion stuff to brown properly without burning on the bottom.

But once they were a deep, jammy brown, the smell wafting from the pots was absolutely incredible. It didn’t smell like cheap boiled rations. It smelled very, very different. Rich could be used to describe it too.

Adrian turned to look at Claire who was taking care of the stirring in the other pot and smiled, "Good job."

Claire nodded as she continued putting in the work while Serena and Aria stood there watching. Adrian didn’t exactly give them any work to do yet.

"Now! Bring me the dry rice!"

The soldiers dumped the massive sacks of raw white rice directly into the bubbling lard and caramelized onions.

Adrian stirred again and this time, he got Serena’s help too. Claire was much stronger than him physically so she could take care of the whole thing.

He could get the soldiers to do it but he felt a little productive today. On top of that, they were busy rolling the dough at the moment so there was no point in disturbing their flow.

"We will be toasting the raw grains,"

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