27. Let’s Cook
“Cecily is a picky eater.”
Nigel explained to me.
“So… she has a lot of likes and dislikes? It may be troublesome, but for a child, isn’t that only natural? Among children, I think it’s unavoidable for them to have a lot of likes and dislikes.”
“Well, there’s that…”
Nigel still seemed unsatisfied.
“Cecily-chan, what is it that you dislike?”
“Bitter-tasting leaf!”
That was terribly abstract…
“Cecily dislikes vegetables…”
“Vegetables? Bitter-tasting leaf… maybe, cabbage?”
“Yes, cabbage is one of them.”
“Cecily is also not good with the orange, hard, one!”
Orange and hard… carrots?
Nigel stared at Cecily and heaved a sigh.
“Cecily doesn’t just dislike one or two things—she can’t eat any vegetable.”
Well, that’s just not good!
To dislike vegetables in general… what about her nutrition!? Moreover, Cecily was still a child! For her to have developed such a habit as a child, I worried for when she’d turned into an adult.
“Cecily-chan, if you don’t eat vegetables, you will not grow tall. Is that okay?”
“It’s okay! After all, Cecily has been doing just fine until now!”
Cecily clung to Nigel’s clothes.
That wasn’t good… it seemed that it’d be difficult to move Cecily’s heart through persuasion alone.
“Nigel, for today’s lunch, would you please allow me?”
“Does Eliane cook?”
I nodded.
“That’s fine, but Eliane, can you actually cook?”
“Ara, back in my former kingdom, cooking used to be my hobby? I have a good grasp on it, so leave it to me.”
I proudly hit my chest.
Nigel muttered to himself. “Why was the saint cooking in the first place?”
—Thus.
I was allowed to help make lunch for Nigel and the others.
“Wow! What a large kitchen!”
I entered the kitchen and unintentionally screamed.
Clean floors and walls!
The equipment was also in full set—I wanted to use all of them!
There was a wide selection of ingredients—such as vegetables and meats, my arms—they were tingling!
“I’ve heard about you from His Highness, but what is it that you intent to achieve?”
One of the chefs asked me such.
For some reason, he came off as arrogant to me—could he be the head chef?
“I want Cecily-chan to eat vegetables.”
“Her Highness? Just give up.” The chef waved his hand.
“Until now, many chefs have tried to overcome Cecily’s dislike of vegetables, but as always, it leads to nothing.”
“Is it that difficult?
“No matter how delicious the food is, Her Highness Cecily just wouldn’t have a taste. His Majesty even got angry in the past and tried to force her to eat some, but she cried and His Majesty let her off. Ever since that incident, no one has ever dared serve vegetables to Her Highness Cecily.”
The chef shrugged.
Muu… quite a stubborn lady she was!
However.
“Were the vegetables served as they are?”
“…? Of course?”
As I thought.
It was a bad idea to serve a dish which screamed, ‘Vegetables!’ to a child who disliked vegetables.
It was necessary to devise a way to make the vegetables not appear like vegetables.
“Excuse me… carrots, onions, peppers—do you have any minced meat?”
“Of course, here it is…”
I took the ingredients from the chef and spread them across the cutting board.
Okay! I shall start right away!
I wore an apron.
I rolled up my sleeves and started cooking right away.
“First, chop the vegetables…”
I finely chopped the carrots and onions.
It reminded me of when I was in my former kingdom.
That was quite a harsh time, but I was able to forget all my hardships whenever I was cooking.
“Mix them with the minced meat…”
In a silver bowl, the chopped vegetables, minced meat, and bread crumbs were mixed together. Lastly, I added some eggs.
Afterwards, I sprinkled it with salt and pepper…
“Knead! Knead! Knead!”
I kneaded it with my bare hands until they were all mixed together.
Hmm, what an effective stress releasing method!
The trick was to imagine the faces of annoying people—for me, they were Prince Claude and Leticia, the fake saint.
Soon, the minced meat, which had been mixed finely, was shaped into a small oval.
Jiiish—
—when I put the mixture on a frying pan covered with oil, I heard a crisp sound.
Shortly after, a delicious scent wafted. I just wanted to eat it now!
“Only the sauce is left… I shall make it separately.”
Actually, I’d like to garnish the plate with vegetables to add more color, but if I did that, Cecily-chan might get wary. I had to endure…
I wondered if it would be okay to use french fries made by another chef.
“Alright! Done!”
After I prepared the dish to match the exact number of people who were going to eat, I exclaimed such.
The man who seemed to be the head chef only sent a curious glance at my way.
“Young lady, this is…”
“Yes, a hamburger steak.”
I explained to the chef.
“A hamburger steak? Did you give up upon feeding Her Highness Cecily vegetables?”
“Tsk tsk—that’s very naïve of you. It’s not just a hamburger steak—it’s a ‘Vegetable Hamburg Steak’.”
“What—!?”
Indeed.
At a glance, it seemed like a mere delicious hamburger steak.
However, in reality, it was a hamburger steak abundant with vegetables! Carrots and onions were mixed in with the minced meat!
“It doesn’t look that way at all! It was also pretty quick to make! Is it really fine to serve this?”
“Fufufu, it’s because I often used to cook hamburger steak before. As such, I know a fast method for making it.”
“I see… but, is it really possible feed Her Highness Cecily this? Aren’t you basically deceiving her? How about trying to make her eat vegetables as they are? It seems that she’ll notice them right away…”
“I’m sure it’ll be alright, don’t worry.”
I was confident.
“Well, I’ve prepared other dishes. I’m going to take them to the dinning hall right away. Since I’m curious, I’ll follow you.”
“I’ll be in your care.”
The waiters placed the dishes on the serving cart one after another.
I also helped with that—finally, the dishes were brought to Nigel and the others.
After entering the dinning hall, I said the opening line.
“Sorry for the wait—!”
***T/N: They-… they need a Saint to figure out that they can mince vegetables into tiny little pieces and stuff it into sth else to disguise the fact that’s it’s vegetable…
You can find these meat tasting vegetable dishes in many Chinese vegetarian restaurants.
Some dishes are made from vegetables alone but some even taste like meat.
Just so you guys know, raw carrots may be slightly bitter, but once you stir fry them properly, they’re quite sweet and are often used to sweeten dishes in Chinese cuisine.
Also, boiled broccoli may be bland and tasteless, which is rather disgusting to eat, but properly cut and stir fried broccoli is quite delicious and tasty. Broccoli and cauliflower and various other vegetables are often used in Chinese cuisine.
“How about trying to make her eat vegetables as they are?” Spoken like a person who never had to take care of a child
Won’t work on my cousin.. He dissects the food itself and remove the veggies from the meat. Even if the food was chopped to tiny bits. Tnx for the chapter.
Uff, you reminded me of my son scraping cheese from the cheese burger…
Just to notify, the links for previous and next chapter aren’t set up, from chapter 24 to here (though chapter 24 has a working “previous” button).
Thanks for the chapter! Awesome translation! God bless you!
There’s a cookbook for mom’s called Deceptively Delicious that’s all about various ways of sneaking pureed and minced vegetable into your kids meals. My sister makes muffins and other baked goods for her 5 year old, with various ingredients like pumpkin, sweet potato, zucchini, banana, blue berry (not all at once). She sneaks kale and spinach into her pasta sauces, and pureed cauliflower in with the baked mac and cheese. Lot’s of Mothers do this, rather than fight with small children at every meal, just hide the vegetables and wait until they are teenager and watch the surprised pikachu face they make when you tell them they have been eating their veggies with every meal for over 10 years now. At that point they should be old enough to know to eat their veggies on their own even if they still don’t like them, or smart enough to know how to make them tasty enough to eat following your example.
Thanks for the chapter…
Kneading while imagining annoying people faces eh… That seem effective, I think I will try that the next time I’m chopping some firewood.
please remember to do it safely since axe can start to live in your hands when you do it
You forgot to tag this to Banished Saintess–it’s marked as Uncategorized.
Thanks for pointing it out!
Thanks for the chapter…
Kneading while imagining annoying people faces eh… That seem effective, I think I will try that the next time I’m chopping some firewood.
It seems more like they thought as disgraceful to deceive her, that’s why they only tried complete vegetables.
There’s probably also the notion of “Royalty mustn’t pride itself in avoiding the entire stuff”
I’m sure someone out there appreciates the “honor” the chefs demonstrate by trying to be honest about the presentation of vegetables, but since they know the importance of balanced nutrition, they fail for essentially damning the Princess to a troubled adulthood (to put it mildly) because of it.