Adrian just nodded.
He triggered his dungeon storage and a heavy cast-iron pot popped out of thin air like usual.
Claire grabbed it and slammed it over the hot stones around her fire pit. She grabbed a big jug of fresh river water next and just dumped most of it right into the pot.
Then she tossed in a small pinch of salt along with a few whole spices.
While Claire handled her rice, Aria and Serena started making their moves too.
Serena didn’t even ask for a new pan. She just grabbed her heavy iron skillet and wiped it clean with a rag before dropping it directly over her blazing fire pit.
Adrian watched her wipe out all those flavor-packed meat juices from the skillet and let out a painful sigh.
’What a waste...’ he thought to himself.
She dropped a thick knob of butter right into the center of the hot skillet. She didn’t stop there though. She grabbed a small bottle and added a splash of peanut oil straight into the melting butter.
Peanut oil was abundant on this continent and mixing it with the butter bumped the smoking point up so her butter wouldn’t just burn.
While the butter and oil heated up together Serena carefully sprinkled a layer of coarse salt and crushed black pepper over her raw steak.
Adrian looked over at Aria to see what she was doing.
The kid was already incredibly busy.
She tossed a block of butter into her hot pot before throwing a handful of whole raw tomatoes right into the melting fat. And instead of using a knife like a normal person she just used her telekinesis to crush the tomatoes directly inside the iron pot.
With the help of telekinesis, she instantly turned everything into a thick paste.
Then she threw in some raw cinnamon and grated ginger. She added a bunch of crushed black pepper right after that.
Adrian just looked at the ingredients she was adding and knew exactly what she was going for.
She was totally doing the fusion recipe. It was the traditional brown gravy mixed with the crushed tomato puree.
Adrian turned his attention back to Serena.
Cooking a good steak actually took a shit ton of focus and he wanted to make sure she didn’t ruin it by accident this time around.
He watched closely as Serena grabbed the seasoned raw meat with a pair of metal tongs. She carefully laid the steak right into the center of the blazing hot oil.
The oil started popping and sizzling the second the meat hit the hot pan.
Serena let out a gasp and jumped back to avoid the spitting oil. She didn’t give up though. She just gritted her teeth and grabbed the tongs tighter before stepping right back up to the skillet.
A few drops of hot oil hit her hands and made her wince but she held her ground.
She tilted the skillet a bit so all the fat pooled at the bottom.
Then she started scooping up the foaming butter and poured it right over the top of the raw steak to constantly baste it.
After exactly forty-five seconds she used her tongs to flip the meat over.
It had a gorgeous dark brown crust.
She immediately went right back to basting the other side with the hot butter.
Adrian just watched her work and gave a nod of approval.
He honestly expected the three of them to constantly bother him for help or double check their measurements every two seconds. But the only one who actually needed his help during the practice round was Aria since she was way too young to be properly chopping vegetables.
She might be a way stronger mage than him, but he wasn’t about to take chances with a kid holding a kitchen knife. Especially not his own daughter.
But Aria had completely bypassed that problem with telekinesis anyway.
He walked over to her station and watched her stir the bubbling red gravy. She didn’t even need to ask him to cut anything. She was just using her incredibly precise telekinesis crush the tomatoes and mash them directly inside the boiling pot on her own.
It was wildly efficient and it basically meant Adrian didn’t have any actual work left to do.
Adrian just stood in the middle of the camp with his arms crossed while watching them focus on their food.
He let out a small laugh.
He honestly felt weirdly proud of how well they were handling this since he fully expected to eat absolute garbage tonight. But all three of them were actually doing a great job. The smell of the cooking steak and spiced rice and bubbling curry was genuinely making his mouth water.
Then he noticed something was off.
He frowned and walked right back over to Aria’s station.
"Aria, aren’t you going to put any actual vegetables in the curry?" he asked.
She hadn’t added any during her practice runs since she was only testing out the bases. But this wasn’t a practice run anymore.
Aria immediately looked up at him.
She opened her mouth before slowly closing it. She turned to stare down at her pot before letting out a massive pout.
"I forgot..."
Adrian just blinked twice.
"You forgot?"
Aria nodded slowly and looked around her. There wasn’t a single extra ingredient sitting on her table since she never actually prepped for this part of the recipe.
She looked back up at Adrian with wide and panicked eyes.
"What can I even put in this curry so I don’t mess the whole thing up?" she asked frantically. "The base is mostly done!"
Adrian looked down into the boiling red curry and thought about it for a second.
"Well," Adrian instructed. "First add in some water. We gotta thin this out a bit so that the new stuff we add will have enough time to cook while the gravy thickens back up."
Aria grabbed a wooden cup and dumped some water straight into the pot.