Chapter 194: Orange Chicken

Kaelen smiled, separating the segments of the yellow fruit, picking out the seeds before feeding the father with his two sons one segment each.

The fruit segment radiated a fresh scent the moment it entered the mouth. The three people took a bite, causing the fruit juice to immediately burst out. A sweet-sour flavor immediately spread inside their mouths, giving an indescribably relaxing feeling.

Kaelen also peeled a segment for himself, putting it into his mouth to eat. Fruit trees grown inside the space indeed had a much more delicious flavor compared to those grown outside. Sane mumbled: "Kaelen, what fruit is this, it tastes really delicious."

"This is an orange. The scent is very similar to the Fiend grass I use for bathing, right? You have never eaten an orange but you have eaten orange chicken already. Let me cook this dish tonight, alright?"

Sane had his two eyes light up, intending to nod but then hurriedly shaking his head: "You are still injured, do not go to the kitchen anymore. If these fruits remain, we can eat them anytime."

Kaelen smiled, saying: "Then I just need to guide everyone to make it."

He picked up the orange seeds, selecting the two seeds with the best quality to bring outside the room door. He walked to the middle of the guest house courtyard, planting these two orange seeds down, each seed spacing about five meters apart. After covering them with soil, Kaelen turned back to tell Finnick:

"Finnick, show your Divine Energy for your older brother to see~"

Finnick enthusiastically ran over, squatting between the two orange seeds, closing his eyes. The boy’s Divine Energy branched out the moment it emerged, falling onto the two orange seeds simultaneously. From the positions of the two orange seeds, two saplings began to sprout, putting forth shoots, blooming flowers, bearing fruits. Small fruits turned into large green fruits, then gradually turning yellow.

The fragrance had spread across half the tribe at this time, causing the Crimson Warriors to involuntarily sniff. The guarding beastman outside the guest housing area could not help but drool profusely, speaking miserably to his teammate: "What are this bunch of Crimson people cooking again? I am dying of craving!"

His teammate scratched his head in confusion, saying: "I find it does not smell like food but like flowers... This scent is somewhat similar to the scent on that Crimson Priest, I think."

Outside the housing area, a few people in the Golden Lion tribe had also run over, competing with each other to catch a whiff of the fragrance.

The ripening process ended, causing Finnick to stagger slightly. The boy did not expect that merely ripening two trees would consume so much Magical Energy. Kaelen smiled, nodding, showing a very satisfied expression:

"Not bad. Orange trees grown from seeds take about five to ten years to bear fruits, so you taking half an hour to ripen them is indeed not bad. It seems your strength has increased quite a bit recently."

Kaelen rubbed Finnick’s head, then waving his hand to plant all the ten remaining orange seeds. He lightly flicked his hand, prompting all the orange seeds to quickly sprout, breaking the ground to emerge. The time taken was only about ten minutes, making Finnick watch with endless admiration.

Kaelen shouted loudly: "Everyone, hurry out to pick the fruits. Pick all these yellow-colored fruits down, remembering not to let the flowers along with the green fruits fall!"

The group of Warriors immediately cheered, beginning to look for baskets and hampers to go out to pick oranges. Oranges nurtured inside the space produced quite good seeds, all twelve orange trees being heavily laden with fruits. The oranges were also big, round, juicy, their sizes being extremely uniform.

The Warriors finished harvesting, lifting the baskets themselves to estimate the weight. A warrior spoke joyfully: "Priest, this batch must be over seven hundred kilograms!"

Kaelen nodded in satisfaction. Twelve orange trees only needed to be cared for well, not letting them get pests or diseases, then every season would yield a production from four hundred to seven hundred kilograms. It was a pity that the trees were grown using Divine Energy so they could not be grafted or propagated, otherwise the production might even be higher.

After distributing one orange for each person to try eating, Kaelen waved his hand, saying: "Carry half to Chief Leon’s place, leaving the rest for us to eat. Conveniently exchange for two hundred wild chicken thighs for me, if there is not enough then temporarily taking fifty chickens is also fine."

If they were in the previous tribe, two hundred chicken thighs would be available with just a cough. As for this place, everyone had to go hunting, not knowing whether there were enough chicken thighs for them to exchange.

Fortunately the Golden Lion tribe treated guests today so they hunted quite a lot of chickens, allowing the Crimson Warriors to exchange for one hundred eighty pieces. Although lacking twenty pieces, the difference was not much, not reaching the point of not having enough to eat.

The ingredients for making orange chicken under conditions with full spices for one serving included: 500g of chicken thighs or chicken breast, 2 yellow oranges, one green onion stalk, one small ginger root, one-third tablespoon of onion powder along with garlic powder, 60g of cornstarch, 5g of baking powder, one egg white, one tablespoon of soy sauce, one-third tablespoon of sesame oil, 40ml of cooking oil. In addition, there were also a little bit of each of salt, sugar, MSG.

Under the current lacking conditions, Kaelen only had chicken thighs, yellow oranges, green onions, garlic, wild ginger, cornstarch alongside fish sauce inside Ryder’s space, chicken eggs, sorghum sugar, and salt.

Just that much was enough. Kaelen told everyone to rub cogon grass ash on for about ten minutes to eliminate the bad odor, then bringing them to wash clean. After washing the chicken thighs clean, they chopped the chicken thighs into three bite-sized pieces, marinating the chicken with one-half tablespoon of salt, garlic juice, onion juice, cornstarch, and egg white.

They placed the marinated chicken meat basin into a cool water basin, leaving it for about half an hour.

During the time of marinating the chicken, everyone took the opportunity to squeeze orange juice. With one hundred eighty chicken thighs, they needed about one hundred fifty oranges.

"Wash the oranges clean to wipe them dry, then peeling the skin thinly like this." Kaelen modeled peeling the skin of an orange. The reason for needing to peel the orange skin was because he still wanted to utilize this orange skin portion to make many other things.

"After finishing peeling, everyone will cut the oranges in half to squeeze out the juice. We will filter out the orange seeds along with the orange pulps, only taking the juice portion. Everyone remember to squeeze gently, not letting the orange seeds be crushed, otherwise it will be very bitter. Remember to put the squeezed orange peels neatly away, I still need to use them."

"Scrape the ginger skin to mince it, chopping the green onions finely. The marinated chicken meat is also roughly done, let us bring it out to fry now."

The two people in charge of frying chicken immediately placed the pans on the stove, heating the lard with medium fire. They put the chicken in to fry when the oil was hot, flipping both sides evenly to fry the chicken golden crispy on low fire. They picked the chicken out onto a plate after frying for about 10 - 15 minutes.

Using the pan that just fried the chicken, they added ginger to stir-fry until fragrant for about 1 minute on low fire.

Next, they put the golden-fried chicken in to stir evenly for about 1 minute, then pouring the previously squeezed orange juice in. They added a little salt alongside five tablespoons of sugar, simmering the chicken on low fire for about 10 minutes. (If cooking 1 serving consisting of 500g of chicken meat, add 1 tablespoon of sugar, adjusting according to taste).

The chicken after being simmered for 10 minutes on low fire had its water reduced, its sauce thickening, prompting them to season the spices again to taste. Finally, they sprinkled a little chopped green onions on top, then turning off the stove. They picked the chicken out onto plates to eat with hot rice.

This rice was of course from the amount of white rice that Kaelen gave to Ryder to store before leaving the tribe. After Kaelen requested, Nova had rummaged inside the stone cave to drag them out. As for the seeds that Ryder stored previously, they had all grown lushly overgrown, Nova momentarily not knowing how to distinguish which type was which.

The space master being Ryder had fallen soundly asleep, therefore no one brought Finnick in to identify them.

Everyone was impatient to the point of being unable to wait to act on the hot orange chicken dish after the rice was served out.

The orange chicken had a beautiful glossy yellow color, its flavor being delicious, rich, its crispy outer crust combining with the mild sweet-sour taste of the orange to create an extremely unique, novel dish!

Everyone ate to the point of their mouths and limbs becoming completely greasy. Everyone ate so full to the point of tilting their necks up to the sky to burp continuously.

"Damn it, this is what food for people to eat is like! This is the first time I have eaten this full since the day we set foot on the Eastern continent!" A beastman rubbed his stomach, sighing in satisfaction.

His teammate sitting next to him also said: "Is there any dish the Priest taught us to make that is not delicious. Hey, do you see the group hiding outside there? I guess their saliva has already flowed into puddles."

"Hehe, I am already used to this scene. We used to also cling onto the wall of the dining kitchen in the tribe before, our appearance being exactly like now."

"Hehe, perhaps even worse. There are more cooking ingredients in the tribe than here anyway. Thinking about it, I miss home so much..."

"I also miss everyone in the tribe, not knowing how they are doing? I do not know if Susan would cry her eyes out if she knew I went missing..."

The beastman nearby kicked him once: "It is not completely dark yet but you are already sitting there dreaming! If Susan had feelings for you, she would have accepted your pursuit a long time ago, not reaching the point of taking a detour upon seeing you!"

The beastman who was just kicked scrambled to get up, baring his teeth, glaring his eyes: "She is just shy, being shy, do you understand?!"

The two overly energetic guys immediately transformed into beast forms, beginning to bite each other. The Sub-Beast nearby smirked: "I see you two are actually a perfect match for each other, looking at the posture you biting his nape, does it look any different from a male tiger mating with a female tiger?"

The beastman biting his teammate’s nape stiffened his entire body, the teammate underneath also forgetting to struggle. The two Striped Tiger beastmen looked at each other once, immediately jumping far away, standing at least ten meters apart. The two people roared at the face of that Sub-Beast:

"I see we should not let you interact with the Golden Lion tribe’s Sub-Beasts anymore!!! Do you want to listen again to see what you just said?!!"

The Sub-Beast who just spoke alongside everyone in the tribe all slapped their thighs, laughing uproariously, this lively atmosphere being somewhat similar to their gatherings when they were still in the tribe.

Aaron secretly breathed a sigh of relief, his gaze glancing towards the four ash urns placed not far away.

Although all team members acted normal, Aaron knew, it was only until this moment, when being in front of the Chief alongside the Priest, that they could shake off the gnawing sorrow in their hearts...