Delicious in Dungeon #62: Desire?

 A substance wrapped in a feeling wrapped in a demon.

That's desire, I guess...? How do we cook that?

The sweetness of honey can represent desire, the substance of an apple is a popular metaphor for the forbidden insights, and the demon? Well I managed to get mouflon mince patties, thats a baphomet looking animal if I ever saw one. If you've read the manga, you might remember some relevant motifs but I won't go into all that.

I'll chop the apple up into decent sized cubes, so we can fit the meat around it easier. Plus I don't want to eat the apple core.

a dollop of honey goes in the middle, and I guess I will probably need both patties to wrap it all the way around.

Nice! But... kinda cursed.

Wrapped it up into a ball and its ready to go in the oven. I guess i have to bake the remaining apple as well since it touched the raw meat.

Its looking fairly cooked but juicy, ill open up the wrapper to brown the outside a bit. Makes it a bit more appetising.

*

Hrmm.. this meat it kinda... it kinda tastes a lot like kidney meat... that pungent gamey flavour really doesn't go well with the sickly-sweet apple and honey combo. It's a nauseating pairing to be sure, maybe i'm not cut out to be a demon. Hope im not cursed.

Delicious in Dungeon #32: Sweet Dryad

 The last of the fifth floor throwback trilogy!

So what was that creature stalking us? well it was just a damn fool shapeshifter. I shifted its shape flat-wards.

So for sweet dryad, I don't really know exactly what those are... but for me what springs to mind is a fruit-filled cookie! (Well also a greek roxakia but I don't know how to make those.) Cookies! cookies! cookies!

I'm using a simple sugar cookie recipe I found online. Its got flour, a little baking powder, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract!

Ah... I wish I had read ahead... it wanted me to whip the butter and sugar together in my mixer.. and i just filled the big bowl with the dry ingredients... DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, it was VERY RISKY to mix in a bowl this small, I had to use my advanced super strength gamer grip!

Now we can combine it all together, with an egg and the vanilla extract.

The mixer will turn it into some sort of scary looking crumble, but then you just take the whisks out and get your hands in to knead it back together...

Et voila! We have some good looking cookie dough! Let's put that in the fridge to chill while we do the next part.

So... I know previously we used pumpkin for the dryad fruit. But... I simply had something else in mind. I thought it would be really cool to use some tinned figs. Figs feel like such a medieval fantasy fruit to me, I dunno why. I've started by draining the syrup out, we want a mash thats not going to leak out of the cookie. I can use the syrup in some mixed drinks maybe?

The figs go in my blending cup and we add some SPICES! The obvious answer is still christmas style spices, so i've got ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice.

Success! The figs and spices have blended into a thick jammy paste.

Now we preheat the oven and shape the cookies.

As you can see, I've just sort of shaped them by hand, rolling them into a ball and pressing a bucket shape with my knuckles.

And put a spoonful of the dryad fruit mush in each. Sure it looks pretty good now, but when the cookies heat up... I don't know how much they will melt. I've made them a bit taller than they need to be, but it remains to be seen whether theyll melt into a a mixed up pile or not.

Well that's not too bad! The dough has spread out while the fruit has stayed firmly in place. I could spread it out a little bit with the back of a spoon I guess, but I'm pretty happy with it anyway.

*****

These are delicious! Its sugary, buttery, sweet and festive. It's a combination of pretty standard cookie flavours, but being home-baked makes even the simplest cookie feel special. And its a perfect pairing with a hot cup of tea.

Delicious in Dungeon #19: Tentacle Gnocci

 First tentacles, now giant tentacle-proof frogs!

With gross tongues...

I strongly considered ordering some actual frogs legs, but I think they'll be difficult to use for the purpose of the upcoming recipes so we've got chicken thigh as a nice replacement for frog thigh, so its still a bit more dark meat-y and interesting. I also didn't want to get plantain flour and make gnocchi from scratch, so instead im just getting some regular potato gnocchi and adding sautee'd plantain chunks to the mix.

The main flavour is gonna come from from a decent amount of chopped garlic and red chilli. This and some olive oil will effectively be our "sauce".

Here's the tentacles, chopped into quarter disks.

That was a big pack of thighs, im just chopping 4 small fillets from that, though its already quite a bit I guess.

And im just banging it all in the pan! You probably shouldn't crowd a pan like this but uhh im lazy and I don't care.

We can add a bit of salt as well, nothing in here so far is especially salty.

Boiled and drained the pre-made gnocchi, it only needs a couple minutes. It was so fast I almost forgot to photograph it, hence why its all steamy in my colander.

Once everythings cooked im tossing in the gnocchi to mix with the flavours, add a splash of extra oil, and hope maybe i can sear it a little bit without mashing it up too much...

*****

As you can see I did bludgeon the gnocchi and plantain a lot and didnt manage to sear much as it was sticking to the pan constantly. I should have used one of my better pans but it was in the wash... Presentation aside its super tasty. Hard to go wrong with chicken, garlic, pasta and plantain, thats 4 ingredients that go with almost anything. It has a light and comforting flavour. Its also pleasantly hot.

Delicious in Dungeon #18: Tentacle and Kelpie Stew, Prepared with Undine

Typical... I go to get some water and there's an undine in the basin instead...

It's not much on its own, but we've built up a good amount of resources to combine with this.

We've got some leftover kelpie meat, tentacles, and the bottled undine... and then some stew regulars: onion, carrot and potato. And some "brown sauce" I wanted to add a bit of a caribbean twist to go with the plantains because the meat won't make for much of a gravy, so i got some reggae reggae (jerk bbq) sauce.

Chopping up the tentacles, i'll cook them with the meat first. I think a crispy outer layer will help when they get stewed.

Chopping all the vegetables and putting them to one side for now..

The meats a bit of a pain... theres odd shaped bones in it with bits of meat firmly attached, so ive split it into chunks but then im going to stew the bone bits in as well... i must remember to take them out at the end..

Once the meat (which i've seasoned with seaweed salt- because its kelpie!) and plantains have started to seal we should probably brown the onions too...

Oh, and it says to sautee the carrots as well. At this rate everythings gonna be all mushy except the potatoes... as you can see the meat is dry as hell, theres no jus to make gravy, so good thing we had....

Our flavourful bbq sauce! 

And some added salt & pepper since its on the recipe.

Finally, we can add the potatoes and the undine - it tastes subtly different from my tap water... I guess it's got more mana?

And we can leave it to STEW DOWN for like 40 mins until the potatoes are tender. Oh, and I won't forget to take out those bones!

*****

It's amazing. Autumn is really setting in so a stew like this really hits the spot. The flavour of the bbq sauce, the meaty kelpie and the fruity sweet tentacles go together so well. Jerk is quite cinnamon-y so it might not be to everyones stew tastes... but if you like one thats a bit different.. its fruity and sweet but not excessively, its sour and got a very warming kick to it. This will recover your mana and your mood.

Delicious in Dungeon #17: Tentacles with Vinegar

 Watch out for tentacles, they'll sting ya!

We'll have to carefully chop some chunks off and let them ripen...

Oooh don't these look good? They're not bananas btw, I decided to do something a bit more interesting and order some plantains from an indian grocery. These look huge, and because they are tougher and starchier than bananas, you actually want them to look at least this brown and patchy before you use them.

Senshi says to score them like this to help peel them.. it doesnt really help much, but they arent that hard to peel.

And now for the bit I didn't really wanna do but I got to... ive made a salt & vinegar mix and will brush them with it... its to get rid of the tentacle's sting...

**

It's perfectly ripe and tastes great!!! But... it would be better without the salt and vinegar. And cooking it will REALLY bring out the flavour...