Monarch of Solitude: Daily Quest System

With the barn project managed by Kamiya, Rino quickly finished penning down all the fancy recipes he knew from the reward he claimed. Writing everything down took two days. Rino included detailed instructions with basic illustrations and design plans for specific cooking utensils that had to be used.

A good example of something that the culinary experts of this world did not have yet was a mortar and pestle. Nobody thought about the concept of crushing or pounding spices together. Bitter leaves could be pounded for juice and used as a flavour emphasiser in soups. The paste was handy for making original sauces and improves the texture of the gravy.

Ignoring the lack of culinary creativity in their culture, Rino shipped all twenty-four volumes of advanced culinary recipes to Kragami. The grindstone that they still have not figured out how to automate using kinetic energy was the most important thing. Rino designed a regular stone press that had to be turned manually. It was easier to crush rice, wheat and corn using that stone roller even the weakest skeleton could move than think of a way to spin the two-ton stone plate on top of each other without touching.

Mounting the two-ton stone plate wasn't an issue now that they had magic to assist. However, the grains were simply too small, and even if Rino lowered it further, the grains that entered the stone plate funnel did not often make it into the gap. Those that did never came out as powder.

They were missing something, but Rino didn't know where to begin. All he did in this world was to reinvent the wheel. However, this particular wheel simply didn't work. Maybe he was doing this wrong trying to invent the wheel when he was given a swamp to walk on.

Whichever the case, he left the research and development to more capable hands. Rino found himself racing out for a new sketchpad and drew with a carved charcoal, his latest invention.

There was a reason why he insisted on something with wings, something with fur, something or meat and something that produced milk. The first three were part of his side quest, but the last was something Rino wanted to indulge in.

Rino suffered from lactose intolerance in his previous world, even if that never stopped him from eating his cheeses or garlic toast. He also preferred white sauce to pesto sauce for his ribbon pasta, and it was something Rino wanted to gorge himself silly now that he did not suffer from lactose intolerance.

Chilled milk cream was also a delicacy that only the royal family and magicians could enjoy all year round. The common folks and nobles had to put up with well-chilled fruits instead because ice magic was a very rare thing to come across. In addition to requiring dual elements of water and air, the magician must have impeccable control. 

Simply put, there weren't that many in the empire. Hence, Rino was one of the magicians who could freely create ice that everyone wanted to exploit during summers.

That brought back memories, and the lich looked at his paper. The rough design was now complete!

The nanny goat he kidnapped from the rocky mountains was pregnant, but she wasn't heavily pregnant. It would still take a while before Rino could enjoy any milk or dairy at all. 

Apart from the basic necessities like buckets for milking, there was one rather important invention that Rino needed to make his butter. Butter was something that could be universal in the language of cooking. If you had no oil or animal fat? Use butter. Heck, anything cooked with butter tasted better in general. There was no such thing as too much butter. If it wasn't so expensive, everyone would use it liberally.

The concept of the churn Rino designed to make butter was fairly straightforward. In the milk that animals produced, there was the liquid and cream. Cream curdled from milk was used to make cheese and butter, while the buttermilk was for drinking, making chilled cream and cooking white sauce. Actually, Rino remembered many recipes involving buttermilk in his advanced cooking recipe. It could also be made into yoghurt, cream and even added to boring boiled potatoes and mashed for a smoother flavour.

The way to separate the two liquids in raw milk was to let it chill and allow the cream to rise to the top. Then, the cream was scooped out and separated from the buttermilk and added to a barrel with a plunger that the milkmaid would work to turn the cream into clumps of butter for moulding and packaging.

There were many ways to churn butter, and Rino sketched every design he could think of, from a rocking chair churn to one that used manual pedalling to turn. The unusual vertical churn swing was also included, even if RIno had no idea how effective that would be when they started draining the excess water from the salted butter.

Honestly, if Rino was given a choice to choose his favourite design regardless of effectiveness, it had to be the spinning top concept where a rope was wound around the barrel and pulled at a high speed so that the barrel spins on its axis without needing much physical labour. It was also fun to watch the barrel go at top speed if they painted it with different colours. The children would most likely be impressed, and maybe the fairies might find it amusing. It tamed two cats with one fish, and RIno liked it.

Now that he had his potential butter churn designs, it was time to start designing the cheese baths. Rino did not know what happened behind the scenes in cheese factories, but he knew that his chef always bought cheeses by the wheels. The chef sometimes made his own, but he claimed that aged cheese was usually better.

Making cheese was easier than making butter. All Rino needed was the barrel of vinegar that Kragami made in Cypress County and some salt that could be easily mined from the mountains.

The tricky part was boiling the goat milk and letting it simmer at a constant temperature. The lich heard that if done wrong, the milk would spoil, and the cheese would not be successful. Either that or it would taste awful. If possible, Rino wanted to avoid that from happening.

Runes should be used to control the fire temperature output, but that design for the milk's clay tub will take some trial and error. Finalising his prototype cheese bathtub, Rino called for his earth gnome engineers. They had much to discuss before the night was over.

"Soured milk? Are you sure that's wise?" Bink made a face, and even Deezer appeared hesitant. Milk was awful as it was. Drinking sour milk might be a lot worse, and neither earth gnomes were convinced it was a good thing.

"It goes well with powdered wheat baked in fire and topped with smoked meat," Rino replied.

If there was one thing he missed tremendously from his previous world, it was pizza. Although Rino did not have all the different kinds of cheese in this world, cheese was still cheese, and the lich wasn't choosey. His favourite pizza was topped with smoked sausage and paprika. A drizzle of basil leaves and modestly sprinkled parmesan made him drool.

Watching how Rino was dazed as he went down the memory alley, the earth gnomes could not help but be a little more cautious and enthusiastic about designing the cheese baths and experimenting with temperature controls.

On the other hand, the thing called butter sounded extremely convenient. Unlike animal fat that was difficult to store, butter could be sliced and kept in one block at a lowered temperature. When heated, it would melt into oil and fats that could prevent cooked meat from sticking and charring on the surface of the pots and pans. 

"Which design should we try making?" Bink pulled everyone back on track.

Turning to the pages to describe the different butter churn designs, Rino let them know his favourite churn design.

"I have never seen this work before, but I thought it would be fun to have something to amuse the villagers while they make butter."

Not entirely convinced that Rino's spinning top butter churn barrel was the best design but not wanting to reject their boss' idea outrightly, Bink probed for more details with Deezer backing him up.

"How will you rewind the rope?"

"How far does the rope reach?"

"Will the dye colours affect the taste of the butter?"

"Is it going to be difficult to mount it on the axle?"

After ten minutes of endless questions, Rino finally got the hint and accepted that maybe the spinning top churn idea wasn't the best. He kept quiet as the engineers looked through the rest of his sketchpad.

Deezer marked several things while Bink redrew them onto a blank piece of paper until they finished looking through everything to decide.

Rino watched as they drew a new design based on his initial ideas after discussing the pros and cons among themselves.

"My lord, what do you think about using the waterwheel to power your spinning top butter churn design?"

Lighting up like a star, Rino nodded quickly. All hail automation!

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