Adrian opened his dungeon storage while she did that and pulled out a bunch of pre-peeled baby potatoes and handed them over to her. Then he grabbed some fresh carrots that were chopped up into thick chunks from his dungeon too. He made sure they were cut to roughly the same size as the potatoes so everything cooked at the same speed.
He pulled a massive chunk of raw beef from his storage. He tossed all the chopped vegetables into an empty wooden bowl and passed it over to Aria. Then he picked up a kitchen knife to prep the meat himself.
He stopped for a second and glanced down at the kid.
"So tell me," Adrian said. "How big should the cuts for this meat be?"
Aria looked down at the raw potatoes and carrots sitting inside the bowl. She looked back at her own pot of diluted red curry and thought about it for a second.
"Exactly the same size as those carrots," she finally said while looking back up at him.
Adrian gave a nod.
He started chopping the beef down into thick and even cubes. He scooped the pieces up the second he finished cutting and just looked at her.
"Well what are you waiting for?" he asked. "Throw the vegetables in."
Aria just nodded and dumped all the potatoes and carrots right into the boiling water.
Adrian just tossed the cubed beef in right after.
He pointed at a wooden ladle sitting nearby.
"Now just stir it a bit and let the whole thing simmer," he instructed. "All those natural flavors from the vegetables and the beef fat are going to slowly infuse right into the curry base."
He crossed his arms over his chest.
"You really should have done this way earlier in the process," Adrian told her bluntly. "But it isn’t a massive issue right now since curry is just curry. You don’t always have to do things in the exact perfect order for it to taste good. It will still end up tasting pretty damn decent so you don’t need to stress over this."
He gave her a quick pat on the head.
"You’re doing great," he told her.
Aria nodded slowly though she really didn’t look convinced by that at all.
Time passed and a few minutes later the actual cooking phase was officially over.
Adrian looked over at Serena’s station. She had already pulled all her meat off the fire and left it to rest on a wooden cutting board. Claire also pulled her heavy iron pots away from the hot flames to finish her rice. Aria just used her magic to float her curry pot right off the fire.
Adrian headed over to Claire’s station first.
He picked up a clean spoon and scooped a bite of the steaming rice and put it in his mouth. He chewed for a second before nodding slowly.
"You actually cooked this perfectly," he told her. "I can smell the whole spices and taste the exact amount of salt you put in there. The water ratio is spot on."
Claire let out a massive sigh of relief.
Adrian moved over to Serena’s cutting board next.
She ended up cooking five separate steaks. He looked down at the meat and saw that every single cut looked pretty much identical. The dark brown crust looked completely consistent across all five pieces of meat.
He pulled out his knife and sliced a tiny sliver off the very end of the first steak to pop it into his mouth.
It actually tasted great.
But the end piece of a steak was a terrible way to judge how well it was actually cooked. He needed to check the center part.
He sliced the whole steak down into even strips and grabbed a thick piece right from the middle.
The center was slightly raw and pink. It honestly looked perfect. The entire thing was a super juicy medium rare.
He gave a nod of approval.
He quickly sliced into the other four steaks just to see if she managed to keep that consistency going for all of them. To his surprise every single one was completely spot on.
Adrian gave her a firm nod.
Serena watched a small proud smile form on his face. She knew she totally nailed it just from that tiny reaction. She smiled back as her racing heart finally calmed down.
Adrian walked right back over to Aria’s station.
He picked up a spoon to grab a quick taste of the thick red gravy.
He gave another approving nod.
"Yeah this is pretty much perfect too," he admitted.
He actually laughed a bit as he looked at the three girls standing by the fire.
"I’ll be honest here. I fully expected at least one of you to screw this up on the first try," he told them flatly. "But you all did a seriously good job."
He stepped back and cracked his knuckles.
"And since you guys managed to make some really good individual dishes," he announced. "Let me show you one of the best way to pair all this stuff together."
He reached right into his spatial ring.
He pulled out a type of ceramic bowl none of the girls had ever seen before. It was just a wide and shallow pasta bowl from Earth.
He picked up a serving spoon.
He grabbed a huge scoop of Claire’s spiced rice and packed it flat against the bottom of the bowl. Then he picked up Serena’s sliced steak. He carefully fanned the meat strips out over the rice so they looked like a line of falling dominos.
Once the meat was plated he grabbed Aria’s wooden ladle.
He scooped up a massive amount of the thick red curry and poured it directly over the steak and rice. But he made sure he only poured the gravy part though.
He went back in for another scoop but this time he dug deep into the bottom of the pot to grab a bunch of the boiled potatoes, carrots, and beef. He pulled a smaller wooden bowl out of his dungeon storage and dumped the meat and vegetable mix right into it.