Chapter 330: Chicken Marrow Bamboo Shoots (Edited)

Boom!

The small package made a noise as it fell onto the table. Hermione approached to take a look and discovered that it contained hundreds of chicken feet.

Upon seeing those bloody chicken feet, Hermione couldn't help but shudder and feel a certain disgust.

"Good girl, go sit over there," Tom instructed Hermione, pointing to a spot where she could sit while he finished his work. The Room of Requirement had generated an open kitchen, with half of the space dedicated to the kitchen area and the other half to a dining area. The kitchen part had a clean work table, a stove, and various cooking utensils, while the dining area only had a small round table and two chairs.

Hermione sat at the round table and could clearly observe Tom's movements.

"I'm not going to eat chicken feet," Hermione said defiantly to Tom. She couldn't understand why someone would collect chicken feet to eat them—it seemed disgusting to her! Even having had experiences with dark dishes like British cuisine, she found it difficult to accept the use of chicken feet as food.

Tom ignored her. He took out a very tender and long bamboo shoot, which still seemed covered in dew. All the ingredients had been obtained from Hogwarts' kitchen, and Tom didn't know how the house-elves had managed to bring them, but with just a request, they had flown to bring him all the fresh ingredients, as if they had just been harvested.

Probably, only Hogwarts could gather ingredients so quickly in the United Kingdom. In other places, even gathering hundreds of chicken feet would require going to a slaughterhouse or an Asian supermarket in a big city.

"If you can, I'd like you to clean these shoots, wash them, and then remove the core," Tom asked Hermione.

Hermione stood up from her seat and took out her magic wand. "Aqua Eructo!" Hermione pronounced, and a stream of water gushed from the tip of her wand, cleaning the surface of the bamboo. Then she used a "Ventus" spell and created a small whirlwind at the tip of her wand, easily emptying the core of the bamboo shoots.

Meanwhile, Tom took his wand and aimed it at the chicken feet bones, saying, "Reducto!" Under the effect of his spell, the chicken feet bones broke into several pieces, revealing the dark red marrow inside. Once the bones were broken, Tom had to carefully scrape the marrow from the bones into a small dish. For anyone else, this process could take hours, but Tom simply waved his wand and did it in an instant.

The marrow extracted from hundreds of bones only filled a small dish.

Tom mixed the chicken marrow with egg whites and salt to improve its texture, then took a plastic bag and filled it with the mixture. At this point, the two of them had completed the most complicated part of the preparation in less than five minutes.

Once the chicken marrow was ready, Tom took out a bowl of minced meat seasoned with eggs, salt, and pepper. Now he just had to stuff the empty bamboo shoots made by Hermione with the minced meat and then use a wooden stick to make a small hole in the middle of the minced meat to fill it with the chicken marrow. In this way, they had completed the main task in less than five minutes working together.

The bamboo shoot still looked like a bamboo shoot on the outside, but the inside was filled with chicken meat, giving it a layered appearance.

At that moment, a bowl of yellow, transparent liquid suddenly appeared on Tom's table, emitting a delicious aroma.

It was the pure chicken sauce that he had asked the house-elves to prepare for him. It wasn't too complicated, but it required some time: placing an upside-down bowl over a large plate, placing cut chicken pieces and seasonings around it, and then steaming it in the oven. Due to the difference in internal and external pressure, the chicken broth had condensed into the bowl without adding a single drop of water.

Even with the use of magic, making this chicken broth took a long time.

Tom poured the chicken broth over the bamboo shoots. He wanted to use the chicken broth to steam the shoots. Looking around, he saw a device similar to an oven, but there were no buttons like those on a Muggle oven.

As Tom approached the "oven" holding the plate, a voice came from inside.

"I am the Universal Cooker. Do you want to steam or roast? I can also refrigerate your dishes. I can do anything, just ask."

Tom was startled and almost dropped the plate. But now that the device had spoken, he spared himself the effort of studying it.

"At 95 degrees, steam for thirty minutes," Tom ordered, regaining his composure. The oven opened by itself, revealing a tray inside. Tom placed the plate with the bamboo shoots on the tray, and the oven started heating up automatically.

"This oven seems much better than the ovens at my house," Hermione said as she approached and closely observed the multifunctional oven. "I don't see any power cords or anything like that—it seems to be powered by magic."

This small oven had oven, steamer, and refrigerator functions all at once, in addition to being intelligent. It's no wonder Hermione found it practical.

"Then I will look for an opportunity to learn how to do this," said Tom, thinking about the Jade Tablet of Menes he had in his hand, and feeling that it wouldn't be a problem to manufacture such an alchemical artifact.

"A refrigerator! I want a refrigerator!" Hermione suddenly became excited. Hogwarts was great, but it had one deficiency: Muggle technological artifacts were useless there, and all electronic devices didn't work, even watches had to be mechanical.

This meant that Hermione hadn't seen a refrigerator for three years of her student life and could only enjoy a cold meal when she returned home for vacations.

"And it would be great if it could also make ice cream and all kinds of desserts..." Hermione licked her lips, really missing ice cream. "And it should also be able to heat things up, sometimes it gets cold waking up in winter..."

Tom: ...

So, Miss, you want an alchemical object that can heat, cool, and make desserts by itself? Well, let's talk about it. I will go and learn a freezing enchantment, and then you let me stay in your dormitory, how about that?

I can heat (body temperature), cool (freezing spell), and make desserts.

Although Tom mocked her a bit, after thinking about it for a while, he realized that it might actually be feasible. In the end, it was just a matter of transferring heat from one place to another. As for making desserts, he could take a modular approach. He decided to try it later.

Thirty minutes later, Tom took out the steamed bamboo shoots. Due to the low temperature used, the jade shoots maintained their characteristic crisp texture.

Tom removed the bamboo shoots from the plate, sliced them thinly with a few cuts, arranged them on a dish, and covered them with the chicken sauce, and the chicken marrow bamboo shoots were ready.

After being steamed, the chicken marrow-filled bamboo shoots no longer exuded the aroma of the chicken sauce. They lay quietly on the plate, resembling fruits: a pink core, white meat, and pale yellow skin, not much different from fruits.

Hermione took a slice and chewed it in her mouth. As it entered her mouth, she felt the smooth yet crunchy texture of the bamboo shoot and the minced meat soaked in the chicken sauce. Her teeth met it and exploded, allowing the flavor to fill her mouth. The inner core of chicken marrow was tender and smooth, like eating foie gras.

"Delicious!" Hermione's eyes widened.

She couldn't resist and took another slice and ate it...

Piece by piece, Hermione finished almost half of the plate of chicken marrow bamboo shoots. Only then did she realize that Tom hadn't even tasted one.

Hermione instantly blushed—this wasn't very elegant, her eating appearance was so unattractive, would Tom make fun of her? She discreetly glanced at Tom and discovered that he didn't even care about the snack plate, he was just looking at her with a silly smile on his face.

His unwavering gaze made Hermione feel slightly uncomfortable.

Hermione wanted to slap him on the head and tell him to stop staring, but she didn't dare to do it. She could only ask with a tone of embarrassment, "What's wrong? Do I have something on my face?"

Tom pulled a chair closer to her. "Have you ever heard the expression 'appetizing'?"

...

After enjoying an additional snack, Tom and Hermione left the Room of Requirement. Although it was just a common but clever snack, it managed to dissipate the layer of dark clouds that weighed on them. Tom and Hermione returned to the Ravenclaw Tower following their usual route. On that path, they would pass by the Gryffindor common room, and along the corridor, they would sometimes hear the song of the Fat Lady, the entrance portrait of the Gryffindor common room.

But today, there were no songs from the Fat Lady in that corridor; instead, there were many whispers from the young wizards. The hallway that used to be spacious was filled with Gryffindor House students.

Hermione looked at the students in the hallway, curious, muttering to herself, "Why aren't they going in? Is the entrance to the common room blocked?"

Tom didn't respond; he had a general idea of what was happening. He made his way through the crowd and reached the entrance to the common room. What he saw there was that the Fat Lady, who used to be there, had disappeared. Her portrait was torn apart, with fragments scattered on the floor, and a large piece of canvas was missing.

The scene at the entrance to the common room leaked among the young wizards in the front row, and at the same time, a chilling panic spread. As more people became aware of the situation, the scene grew increasingly chaotic.

As he listened to the buzzing in his ears becoming louder and louder, with the echo resonating in the wide hallway, Tom took a deep breath and shouted with all his might to the clustered young wizards in the hallway, "Silence!"

This shout momentarily silenced all the students. They stopped whispering and looked towards the source of the sound. Although Tom's shout had an effect, it only lasted for an instant; that moment of silence could be broken in the next second.

Tom knew he had to say something immediately, and luckily, Hermione was by his side.

Seeing that Tom seemed to want to say something, Hermione cooperatively took out her wand and aimed it at Tom's throat, saying, "Sonorus!"

Tom's voice suddenly became loud enough to resonate throughout the floor.

"The entrance to the common room is blocked..."

The sound was so loud that some students near Tom couldn't help but cover their ears. It was so loud that Tom himself felt uncomfortable, and Hermione, who was closer, even felt her eardrums about to burst.

However, this loud voice managed to reach the ears of every single young wizard present, making them stop and listen in silence.

"...Professor Dumbledore will come soon, and the problem will be resolved. Everyone can go to the Great Hall first, which is spacious enough and has enough seating."

First, Tom brought out the large banner of Dumbledore to alleviate the anxiety of the young wizards, then he assured them that the problem was not serious, calming them down, and finally proposed a suggestion that seemed reasonable. Step by step, he was guiding the students to follow his train of thought.

He could be called a master of rhythm.

"What's happening with the common room door?" a voice broke the silence. Percy, standing behind the crowd, shouted loudly, "I'm the male Prefect, let me..."

"Someone tried to enter the Gryffindor common room. They have damaged the Fat Lady's portrait."

The young wizards present held their breath.

"I knew it! It's Sirius Black! He's here!" A Gryffindor student, familiar to Tom but whose name he couldn't recall, shouted loudly, quickly pulling out a newspaper from his robe and waving it. "It was reported in the newspaper earlier, someone saw him in the village of Hogsmeade."

Upon hearing the name Hogsmeade, many people were stunned. It was a village very close to Hogwarts. If Sirius Black was there, it meant that he had already come close to Hogwarts.

Although his appearance here today was a little unbelievable, it was theoretically possible.

"Nothing has happened!" Tom roared again, shaking everyone's eardrums. "Sirius is just an ordinary wizard; we have Dumbledore, we have four Heads of Houses, we have so many trustworthy professors, even Professor Newt Scamander, who thwarted Grindelwald. Sirius will never be a threat to us all!"

Newt, who had just run up, also heard Tom's words. He smiled awkwardly at Professor McGonagall, who was ahead of him. After all, Tom Yodel had mentioned many people, and only he and Dumbledore were specifically mentioned.

One by one, the names resonated in the ears of the young wizards. Upon hearing these comforting names, they suddenly realized that there wasn't much to worry about Sirius Black. Even if he was powerful, could he be more powerful than Professor Dumbledore?

So, they calmed down completely and made their way silently and orderly towards the Great Hall. Hermione pointed her wand at Tom's throat again, saying, "Quietus."

"Thanks for the amplifying voice spell," Tom said, regaining his normal voice. Because he had just shouted for a while, his voice now sounded a bit hoarse.

Hermione extended her index finger and placed it on Tom's lips. "Shhh... rest your voice, I'll go get you a cup of tea."

At that moment, the first wizards descended the stairs and encountered Professor McGonagall.

Percy stepped forward but was interrupted by Professor McGonagall.

"Lead the students to the Great Hall," she announced sternly. At the same time, she looked at a certain position on the upper floor, where a young wizard named Tom was standing.