Andrea noticed the two girls acting somewhat awkward, so she patted Yasenia's back twice and separated from the deep kiss. She chuckled and smiled. "Love, didn't you want to teach Katarina and Kaleina? Go on, I'll return with the others."
Yasenia looked at Andrea reluctantly. Inside her, two powerful forces were fighting a strong battle. 'Do I drag my Darling to the room and suck her dry, or do I teach my babies…'
Her struggles eventually ended with her motherly side winning. "...Okay." She kissed Andrea's chin and smiled. "Tonight, you are not sleeping~. Hehe."
Andrea was then pushed out, leaving a certain part of her body uncomfortably stiff.
Meanwhile, Yasenia approached her two daughters and grinned. "Let's go! Today I'll teach you how to make your Mama Andrea's favorite dish!"
Their eyes shone with curiosity, and they followed Yasenia to the massive refrigerator at the end of the room. Katarina was puzzled. "You have food in there? Isn't it better to keep it in your ring?"
"It depends," Yasenia explained. "Most items are best kept fresh. However, cooling them down first will enhance the flavor of some foods. Today's dish is one of such items."
Opening the large metal door, a wave of cold air hit them. Yasenia walked inside without caring about that and pointed at a large chunk of meat. "That is what we are cooking today."
Looking at the large meat slab, Kaleina and Katarina frowned. "I…" Kaleina dragged her words. "Um… I can't tell what piece of meat this is."
"Hm?" Yasenia blinked. "You really can't? Try sniffing it. Although being frozen hides the scent, you two should be more than able to tell the smell apart."
Katarina looked at Yasenia strangely. "Mommy… Can you really tell apart ingredients from smell? There are millions of ingredients. Not every single one can have a unique scent, right?"
Yasenia crossed her arms, thoughtful. "Well, until now, I have not found two ingredients that smell the same. Extremely similar, I've found many, but there is always a hint of something that leaks its origin. More often than not, it is related to the attributes the beast had when alive."
Kaleina sniffed and shook her head. "I can't tell. What is this, Mommy?"
Katarina was the same, so Yasenia answered them. "This is a piece of a Star Beast. A [Dust Moon Stripped Star Whale]. We found a herd while traveling here and hunted a few. I have a few million pounds of this meat. Enough for a lifetime, haha."
Katarina almost choked. "How many did you hunt?"
Yasenia shook her head. "Not many. They were very big, as big as Mommy is in her Dragon Form… Well, that's for the mature ones. The ones we hunted at that time were only mountain-sized. We found seven of them drifting alone and caught them before they fled the place. After all, their strongest members were too powerful for us back then."
"Oh." Both daughters nodded with awed expressions.
Yasenia chuckled. "Don't worry, I can share a bit of the meat. Either way, it's time to cook this precious piece of meat~."
She used her energy to make it float and then divided it in the middle so that it could fit through the three-meter-tall heavy door. Once outside, Yasenia explained. "Being a Star and Moon attributed beast, the meat feeds on the freezing temperature inside that refrigerator. It makes it juicier once you cook it later."
"How did Mommy know that refrigerator had such meats? It's your first time in this kitchen, right?"
Yasenia chuckled. "Baby. Have you forgotten that your Mommy is not a mortal?"
"Ah." Kaleina felt a bit silly for asking. Yasenia probably spotted it the first time she swept the place with her spiritual sense.
"Either way, this meat can be cooked with many techniques. However, you are prohibited from using fire and heat! That will only ruin it."
Kaleina was confused. "Huh? I have never cooked without heat."
Yasenia paused and looked at Katarina. "Have you ever done that, baby?"
Katarina shook her head honestly. Seeing how both her daughters were unaware of the techniques needed for cooking in cold weather, Yasenia went over them. "To cook without heat, you need to use extreme cold. These techniques can only work on certain ingredients, so you must be careful or you will ruin your dish. It is a very bad one for improvising, but an excellent technique if you have practiced a dish."
Katarina approached and saw Yasenia approach a set of knives and take a large one. It was around 40 centimeters long, closer to a short sword than a kitchen knife. "First, we'll slice the meat into portions. It is very cold and hard, so the knife must be able to slice through the hard surface easily. For that, use your energy and coat the tool with a warm temperature to loosen the frost. Not too hot, though. The balance must be just right."
A gentle energy enveloped Yasenia's hand, flowing around the knife and seeping into it. Katarina and Kaleina looked at Yasenia's energy manipulation with wide-open mouths. It felt as if their mother was manipulating the source of the energy itself to make it obey her. The sheer raw manipulation ability needed to make it look so natural was off the charts.
"Wow…"
"So pretty…"
Yasenia smiled softly and gave them a few hints about how to achieve this. Many of her words were slightly confusing for the two girls, but they kept them to heart for the future.
After coating the knife, Yasenia began slicing the meat. She cut through some tendons and fat, cleaning the large slab of meat. Then, she opened it in the middle and spread it out, unfolding it into a large meat carpet.
"Done~."
Yasenia's words snapped the two girls out of their reverie. Kaleina looked at Yasenia as if she were a monster. "Mommy, can you not be so good at everything? It makes others feel inadequate to even be alive."
Yasenia burst into laughter. "I am bad at plenty of things. Compared to your mothers, I am blessed that I can at least do some cooking. Otherwise, I'd be a brute without any professional affinity."
Katarina giggled. "Isn't Mama Cecile like that?"
Yasenia blinked twice and coughed. "You misunderstood your mother, Katarina. She is an extremely good hunter. For that, she has studied how beasts act and thousands of beast collections. Her knowledge runs so deep that she could track almost anyone or anything."
Katarina's eyes widened faintly. "Really? I always thought Mama Cecile was a battle-loving person without many other specialties."
Kaleina saw Yasenia's sweating face and burst into laughter.
"Ahem. Let's move on…" Yasenia added. "Also, don't tell your mother that you thought that about her unless you want—"
"I already heard." Cecile's cold and elegant voice echoed in the room, making Katarina start sweating.
"M-Mama."
"We'll talk later, young woman. Now, refocus on the lesson with your mother."
"O-Okay…"
Yasenia chuckled and continued her explanation on how to cook the meat. "Now that we've managed to slice the meat, we will start the cold cooking process." She moved to the side and approached a set of frying pans. "To cook meat, at least when it is good-quality meat, you need to learn how to use its own grease. Also, layering their surface with the appropriate condiments is fundamental to bringing out its rich flavor."
They saw Yasenia turning on a flame, puzzling them. "Weren't you cooking with cold? Why are you turning on the heat?"
"Heat?" Yasenia smiled and told them. "Feel the temperature around it."
Both of them did so, and they quickly realized the oddity in the bluish-green flames. "They are… cold flames?"
"Indeed." Yasenia nodded.
Kaleina asked, puzzled. "Then, what's the difference from cooking with heat? Isn't it just the same but with a cold flame instead of a hot one?"
"That would be the case if ingredients melted under the cold of the flames. Cooling down ingredients makes them stiff, not the opposite. Therefore, you can't really melt the grease and oil to cook with them."
Yasenia placed the frying pan on the cold flames, and soon, a layer of frost started appearing on top of it. Yasenia took a bottle with nothing inside and waited for a little while.
"This bottle contains condensed frying air."
"Frying… air?" Katarina looked at Yasenia strangely.
The dragoness chuckled. "Yes. Look."
She leaned the bottle over the freezing pan and poured the "air" inside. When the air came into contact with the coldness emanating from the special pan, it liquified in the air and created a small cloud above it. From the cloud, liquid droplets began falling and layering the frying pan with a dense liquid.
The eyes of the two girls opened wide. "What?"
"You thought I was deceiving you?"
Hearing Yasenia's teasing words, both girls blushed. They truly thought that Yasenia was messing with them. The dragoness chuckled. "Don't worry, I was also skeptical when I heard about it for the first time. Still, I didn't discard it as ramblings of a lunatic. Now, I am quite good at cold cooking."
She picked a filet of the Star Whale meat and moved to the side while that cloud condensed. Both girls gave one last look at that cloud and followed behind Yasenia. "I am controlling that cloud with energy so that it doesn't drift away. Remember to do so yourself."
Once they arrived at the side, they saw four rows of condiments arranged in front of them. "There are millions of condiments. I use these myself for most things. Only if I am trying to impress someone with a particular dish do I change my base condiments." The dragoness's tail flicked and smiled gently. "For home-cooking, I use these. It gives the food that homely flavor and calming essence. They are also delicious."
Yasenia used her energy, and five transparent bottles with herbs and powders inside floated up. Then, she stretched her long and elegant fingers, grasping them one by one and coating the filet on the plate. She was not stingy at all, surprising both girls again.
Kaleina tilted her head. "Won't this kill the meat's flavor?"
"Don't worry. The flavors of these are much less concentrated. They are a special mix I made myself, so the usual measures can't really be taken as a reference for them."
"Oh." The girls were again impressed. To think that Yasenia even created her own special condiments.
After coating the meat, she picked it with metal pincers and returned it to the frying pan. The cloud had disappeared, leaving a lake of a silvery substance. Then, without a shred of hesitation, Yasenia used that to cook the meat.
The grease came in later. She took a chunk and used a bit of heat to melt it. Then, with the melted grease, she coated a brush and the surface as she cooked it in the cold substance.
Katarina asked. "When does the different step compared to heat cooking happen?"
"Now." Yasenia chuckled and, suddenly, everything in the pan froze solid. Both girls were confused while Yasenia took a cover and sealed the contents. "Now, we wait for 10 minutes while it rests in the spontaneous freezing zone. After that, you need to leave it outside and let it heat up to ambient temperature. The meat will be ready by then."