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Flash Fic Redux - Kitchen Monsters

Hello, I'm Gordon Ramsey IX, and welcome to the season premiere of Kitchen Monsters. This season, we're going to explore the Ardolu Sector's dangerous delicacies. As always, I'm joined by my faithful sous chef and animal wrangler, Clive Irwin.

Our appetizer course for tonight is deep fried Frutaxian medusae with a cream sherry aperitif and a spicy pomodoro dipping sauce. Now, the Frutaxian medusa bears a not-insignificant resemblance, structurally, to sea anemones on Earth. They multiply rapidly when outside the heavy gravity well of Frutaxi 2, which might explain why they were deployed against Southern Europe and North Africa during the Biohorror Wars. Yet they fry up remarkably well, almost like a crunchier version of calamari. So, first, we need to flip the medusa over and blanch the nematocysts on the crown. Just like that, thank you, Clive. We need to blanch them in a strong red wine vinegar solution, at least 20% acidity, for about five minutes. In Spain and Portugal, they like to use Madeira. I'm more partial to a strong port. After we blanch the crowns, we bring the medusa over to the egg wash batter...

(commercial break)

For our main course, we're making Deng-Kai slime devil Wellington with crackling and beer-braised ribs. Slime devils are absolutely vicious creatures. They're often mistaken as predators, but they're actually opportunistic omnivores, not dissimilar to pigs on Earth. And like pigs, you can use virtually the entire animal for a whole meal. The mucosa on the slime devil's skin are incredibly toxic, which is why you're seeing Clive skinning this one with elbow length gloves. Once the skin is removed and briefly washed in a lye solution, then rinsed in white vinegar, we can slice it up and drop the slices right into the deep fryer. With the ribs, I find an Imperial Russian stout to be the best base...

(commercial break)

Our dessert course for this evening is a New York-style cheesecake made with Klesporal haunter cream cheese. Now, Klesporal haunters are highly predatory, but they thrive best in a slightly lower oxygen environment, which is why you find them on Earth in higher altitudes like the Rockies, the Alps, the Carpathians, and the Urals. Haunter venom is more soporific than toxic. Instead of a neurotoxin, it's lipid based, which causes a fat embolism in humans. However, because of those soporific qualities, the venom can be made into a cream cheese. It's not unlike mad honey, and it's very flavorful, particularly when mixed with fruit flavors, though oddly not with chocolate...  

(Originally written on r/humansarespaceorcs)

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