Delicious in Dungeon #61: Local Cuisine From Someone's Hometown

Who's home cuisine is this? Is there any point in keeping it a secret? I... don't know. I don't think its really a spoiler, but maybe it seems like one? So I thought id be nice.

buongiorno we are making some authentic italian food according to 1 dwarf who lives in a dungeon

OK first of all the key ingredient, roasted pork. Research seems to suggest they make "chashu" style pork, which is pork belly slow roasted in a sort of bbq style marinade.

First I have to remove the rind i guess. Its got this kind of hard skin layer on one side. I just kind of had to saw it sideways for what seemed like an eternity.

Next, im rubbing on some chilli flakes, powdered ginger, brown sugar, soy sauce and cooking sake. You could marinate this for a while but im not a restaurant i dont care

I couldn't find any cooking twine at the shops (does nobody practice food bondage no more?) so ive tried to roll it up and wrap it really tight with foil and stick it in a loaf tin. I think you are also supposed to sear the pork for proper chashu, but knowing my oven pork tends to get burnt pretty quickly on the outside and i dont like a light touch on the inside so im just gonna roast it straight up. 

Alright the roasts been roasting in the oven for some time, nows a good time to start on the rest of the dish. The... the "pasta". The spaghet. This is why I don't call spaghetti "noodles". We've got traditional italian ingredients like ramen noodles, bean sprouts, cabbage, spring onion, egg and garlic.

First ill get the soft boiled egg out the way. I remember being told you shouldnt boil an egg in a soup, something about eggshell contaminants or something? Dunno if true but here we are. 7 mins and then it can cool off while we do the other stuff.

For the broth i've got this fancy chicken stock I oughtta finish up, as well as some miso paste.

Adding a big fistful of these hotpot/ramen noodles and hot water. These noodles take ages but they are designed for a nice slow cooked broth.

While thats all going on, I rinse the beansprouts and fry them up.

When they've shrank a bit I can chop the pak choi (leafy cabbage) and fry that a bit too. Hmm... am I forgetting something...? 

?!!?!?! I ALMOST FORGOT THE ROAST!!! Its looking ok though. Will it stay together when I slice it? Well we will find out soon.

Since its very juicy im going to add some of the pork fat juice into the broth as well.

Once the noodles are done we can start assembling everything and emptying the pan so we cna cook up the final touches - some of those chopped spring onions and a couple cloves of crushed garlic!

**

Well it looks pretty cool. But... its criminally underseasoned. Despite all that garlic, which is kinda nice, it kind of has that sickly taste of pork fat a bit too strongly. Maybe I really should have seared it or cooked it uncovered for longer. I also should have used even more seasoning in the first place, I was a bit light on it because it was a faff trying to roll the meat up. I guess the vegetables also dont really add much of a pop of sweet or sour either. Maybe im just spoiled on restaurant quality noodles because I thought this would be an easy winner. I feel very full now.

Delicious in Dungeon #58: Green Dragon Acqua Pazza

A green dragon! Don't worry, its not a very big one.

Instead of a big roast up this time, we have... a seafood dish?? Yep that's right.

,

The dragon meat is cooked in wyvern's fire and apparantly tastes like a chimney stack.. i wont go that far but ill get some smoked duck breast for the meat. And for nightmares, last time we used clams but I couldn't easily find any so I got mussels, though they come in a garlic sauce... and to round that out we got some squid ink spaghetti and seaweed salt.

This recipe doesn't contain pasta, but i don't feel like eating plain meat with nothing else, so im adding a bit for the base. Plus the whole dish is boiled in sea water, which i'm also not going to do to the pre-cooked meats we have. We're really making do here. Anyway, adding a little too much salt to the pasta water instead, for the sea water. goody.

This dragon breast is already smoked, but I want to sear it a bit so its warm and tasty.

I swear i didn't do anything to this spaghetti! It just seems to be falling apart on its own. Well, unless it was the salt water? It was a really cheap discounted pack though.

While the spaghetti is draining, we can heat the mussels as well. They came in a sauce, which is probably nicer than just salt flavour.

Pouring some of the sauce straight on the pasta and then ill arrange some mussels on the plate.

For a final touch, ill season it with seaweed salt for the seawater flavour (unenthusiastically) and I also have some bonito flakes, those are seafoody and smoky!

*

Well, at least it doesn't taste like seawater and chimney smoke. It's actually fine, I guess.. It tastes like mussels and smoked meat, two things I don't particularly go out of my way for. I was also disappointed that the spaghetti fell apart into little bits, making it annoying to eat. The duck was nice, but the added salt and overall seafood flavour didnt do much for it. I don't think its bad, but I don't like it.

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.

Stardew Valley #80: Squid Ink Ravioli

Ingredients: Squid Ink, Wheat Flour, Tomato

Item Description: Temporarily protects from debuffs.

We have squid ink! Well cuttlefish ink, basically the same. We have tomato in liquid form. I also didn't want to make my own ravioli, so I decided to get some. There was somewhat limited options of flavours, so I just had to follow my heart on what I thought might be acceptable to pair with seafood flavours. 

First lets make a strong start, frying up some garlic in olive oil. Is 3 cloves too much? Who cares, garlic.

While it burns browns I will decide on a bit of seasoning, ive got lemon pepper and chilli flakes. Probably best to put these in later but ill probably forget so maybe now is ok. Cooking.

Damn this ink is thicker than I thought! I don't know what I expected, but its a full on paste. I will just put enough in to make it black. We've also got tomato passata and white wine in now. A classic seafood pasta flavour imo.

Now we just gotta cook this pasta, very fast just 4 mins. Yeah sorry my hob is dirty needs a clean again, always needs a clean.

Meanwhile yep! Well it looks quite grey in the photo because its blown out, looks darker irl. It's already got a great consistency thanks to the ingredients so its ready to go.

Don't forget to drain the water out the ravioli. 

And geeeeeeently stir in the sauce, trying not to break the raviolis.

****

It's overpoweringly garlicky! Very zingy, very nice. The black colour makes it hard for my brain to process the tomato flavour. Its very pleasant. The squash and cheese filling is ok, but something like crayfish or pork might have been even better. With the power of the garlic, im not sure if the ink adds any subtle flavour of its own. But I have a ton of it left, maybe I should make a paella with it? Oh and does it protect from debuffs? Well its full of allicin and vitamin C, so... yeah...?

Stardew Valley #30: Spaghetti

Ingredients: Wheat Flour, Tomato

Item Description: An old favorite.

Spaghetti time! I'm going to be real with you boo, "spaghetti" isnt very specific. Since its got tomato, you could probably interperet it as just pomodoro/tomato sauce. But to me, a classic spaghetti is a tomatoey beef bolognese. And I have the ingredients for that so i'm gonna make it.

Haven't used my veg chopper in a while! Saves a bit of time in dicing things, plus you gotta slam it dramatically.

Got a lot of pink onion (maybe too much?), garlic, and carrot.

Then we can throw in the beef and cook it dry till its brown.

Now the beauty of Spag Bol, you can just throw in whatever you feel like as long as its roughly along the lines of meat, tomato, wine, umami, sugar, italian herbs, and tomato. I have way too much stuff in my kitchen so we're taking full advantage. I've got celery salt, pepper, worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, tomato concentrate, red wine, balsamic vinegar, jalapeno sauce, basil and oregano.

Its looking brown and sauced up, now we can add the tinned tomatoes and leave it to simmer for a while.

I could have also bought some fresh tomatoes to really lean in to the tomato aspect, but i didn't.

Don't forget the spaghetti! You can't spell spaghetti without... get it

When the spaghetti is done the rest should be... good enough for a weeknight yknow.

*****

I dunno if im just hungry but this is one of my better bologneses! i mean its still a pretty standard, "classic" spagbol but ive had ones that came out slightly blander or less well balanced in previous challenges. Perhaps the lesson is 2 large onions is the right amount?