Delicious in Dungeon #69: Egg and Carrot Mush

Our final meat is all done! Now the penultimate recipe, a simple babymode food for eepy baby princesses

like that! This is supposedly a good meal for delicate stomachs, which checks out because i might be about to do the FODMAP diet myself and these are low-fodmap foods indeed.

I guess its just eggs and carrot. I saw a similar dish called ninjin shirishiri, its scrambled egg and shredded carrot, sometimes seasoned with sesame seeds. Sounds like a plan!

Going to town on the carrot with my julienne peeler, and then making sure the strips are a good bite-size length.

Then i can beat the eggs with seasoning. Just some of my paprika salt and mixed peppercorns. I'll add the sesame in at the end.

Frying the carrots with a bit of butter. I guess if you worry about dairy you can use vegetable oil.

After the carrots are softened I pour in the eggs and sprinkle some sesame seeds, I gotta keep it moving around the pan with a spatula to scramble the eggs.

***

Tasty! simple! A little bit bland though. Definitely a good idea if you're feeling so delicate, but im feeling like... wheres the rest of the stir fry?

Delicious in Dungeon #36: Barometz Balut (Or Barometz Chops)

Barometz is a weird one... a plant that grows a lamb-like fruit. An unusually peaceful monster, but its a little unsettling somehow.

So this recipes another misleadingly named one. It's only "balut" in the sense that its meant to be a kind of embrionic lamb... really what this dish is, is lamb chops in tomato sauce.

Since its actually a plant with the appearance of a beast, I thought it be cool to source some imitation lamb made from plants! Big tesco had just what I needed, I guess this country aint so bad sometimes... Anyway for the sprouts garnish we also got some bean sprouts, for the fruit innards we have chopped tomatoes, and then we've got garlic, wine, and salt & pepper seasonings.

First im frying up the lamb steaks and sprouts... they were in the freezer so we're gonna need to thaw them then cook off all that excess water. Im also gonna cook the in this lime & avocado oil, add a little bit more flavour to the sprouts especially.

Meanwhile, since I bought tinned tomatoes theres not really much other work to do! Just peel some cloves of garlic to crush.

While its cooking i can add some salt and pepper, and then ill add a bit more to the tomato sauce as well.

That's looking nicely browned and dry! We can put these to one side and cook the rest of the stuff.

In goes the chopped tomatoes, garlic and red wine.

And then we cook it until... I dunno really? I guess its just a bit thicker and the tomato and garlic smells cooked?

****

I liked how easy it was to make... Did the barometz taste like crab? No! It tasted more like... soy mince with mint and parsley, the real reason why its been labelled as imitation lamb! But the minty herb flavourings do go well with the tomato and garlic, giving it a vaguely moroccan/greek style flavour. It tasted good, but not quite peak, maybe a more enhanced tomato sauce with more complexity would have added more?

Delicious in Dungeon #30: "Memories of the Fifth Floor" Pilaf

 There's something lurking in the corridor.. tricking us into using up our leftovers..

So... unlike some of the previous grouped up meals, I really want to split these next 3 recipes up. They just seem complex and standalone enough to do each one justice.

I've got some leftover rice (its sushi rice actually with a little seasoning already), some grated mandrake and chopped mushrooms from the freezer, and cockatrice - but wait, its not breast meat this time, its from the snake part! I can't get snakemeat but I got tuna steak.

I guess i'm allowed to do what I want with the spices. I wanna do something that says "pilaf" but not just curry rice... I'm following my heart and using star anise, cardamom, dried coriander, salt & pepper. And some butter to cook it all in. No garlic!? That's right, no garlic or onion, I want to try letting these other flavours shine instead.

Once the cockatrice snake (tuna) is starting to cook I'll add the veg. I think I was too hasty though, I should have defrosted the tuna  and cooked it patiently as its actually taking a while to cook and im just stabbing it into pieces with my spatula instead of letting it flake naturally, while my frozen veg are cooking fast.

Oh I just had a thought!? I've not added any heat really. I don't want it to be "a spicy dish" so ill just dump in some mild chilli powder, ive got loads of this stuff.

I'm adding warm water occasionally as its browning a little too well on the outside, we need the tuna to be fully cooked and then we can add the rice at the end.

As you can see, the rice is picking up all the spices well. My arm is getting tired from stirring it around!

*****

It's so comforting, spicy and woody. I went and selected flavours based on what I was craving that day, and it really hit the spot! I'm not normally a fan of mushrooms but even though they made a big impact on the flavour, the way they paired with the anise and coriander and tuna just really worked.

Delicious in Dungeon #27: Cockatrice Stone-Baked Mother-And-Child Dish with Starchy Sauce

The dungeon's "cleaners" really blur the line between magic and monster, these microscopic mites repair the dungeon according to the whims of the dungeon lord.

Anyway today we're eating a brick I guess.

Coz its a fridayy and i have to work, i'm cooking up the grains ahead of time. These are the same barley grains from the porridge recipe , which was a while ago now. But yeah, they keep.

And then we have a TON of leftovers. Cockatrice rib meat (minced), mashed dryad fruit, grated mandrake, depetrification herb, leafy greens (from my planter), and harpy eggs. Filling!!

Here's the cooked up barley, good to get that out of the way for now.

Throwing the meat straight on with some veg oil, and the recipe just says "seasoning: to taste" so I guess its a choose your own adventure today. Since this is sort of inspired by oyakodon, I'm going to try using some japanese 7-spice mix (shichimi togarashi) the warm pepperyness should go well with the pumpkiny flavours. And also some salt. I dunnoooo

Using the rest of the defrosted dryad and half of the (still frozen) mandrake. Maybe I should have used less, this is gonna be so much stuffffff

And for the freshies, just a bit of the depetrification herb and all those leaves sliced up. They just sort of re-grew in my planter, so I hope they are kale. They look like kale I think? They taste like.... leaf.

We can just sautee this for a while. There's so muuuuch.

OK now for the real hook of the recipe. I wanted to imitate the "edible hollow brick bowl" made out of dungeon cleaner secretions. At first I thought about a loaf of bread or something... but then I had a brainwave: simple pastry!? So i've got my conveniently sized loaf tin, and some pre-made rolled shortcrust pastry.

Now, I don't really have a plan for this... i need the baking paper to stop it sticking to the pan or else I won't be able to take it out. But how do I, like...

Wait, I have an idea!! If i blind bake it outside of the pan first, and then when its firmed up a bit i switch it back inside, and then it.. wont stick or collapse...? Is this... an idea...?

While we find out, time to taste test the cooked uh... pulp. Its very orange, hard to believe theres meat in there. It smells like pumpkin pie, which is a bit unsettling for a savory dish. On taste test though... its good!

I don't know what an "egg sauce" is, but it just says its made with "harpy egg" so ill just mix up egg?

Actually I looked it up, its some whole japanese raw egg sauce with lemon, miso, and some other stuff. I'm not going to eat raw egg tonight so im going to use some of this "yuzu salad dressing" to flavour it, and then pour it on top and let it cook with the rest of the um... the... brick.

Oven check! We've got it where we want it, I think. Its hopefully just flexible enough to sort of fit inside the tin.

Yeah! Ok its a little rustic. I could have trimmed the edges and tried to shape it more closely but I didn't want to risk what little structure we have. It's definitely not watertight, and probably way too weak to hold the insane weight of all the fillings, so I doubt we can pop it out of the tin in the end.

But, you know... if this was a viable idea, don't you think the french would have invented this already?

Anyway, it's a brick shaped meal, so I have won. Here's the egg "sauce" on top, its seeping straight through the layers, I guess it might have been better off if I just cracked an egg straight on top. In the oven it goes until everything heated back up, and the egg is lightly cooked.

I hope this is good because theres gonna be a LOT of leftovers.

****

I like it! The egg seeped right through so there was zero chance of it coming out of the pan in one piece. The flavours are surprisingly comforting and nothing clashes, with the juicy meat and the egg really coming through. It kind of tastes... a bit like a sausage roll actually... It's lacking a little something though, it could use an extra sauce, something tangy and bitter, like mustard or cranberry..? Though it was a successfully edible experiment, I feel it strayed extremely far from the flavour concept of oyakodon or ankake that seemingly inspired the dish.

And it's mighty filling! I managed to eat about 1/3 of the brick. As you can see, the pan will be ok.

Delicious in Dungeon #20: Let's Cut The Red Dragon Cutlets

A deceptive recipe - these cutlets are FOR cutting the red dragon, the red dragon hasn't been cut yet!

It's still at large.. somewhere nearby... so what are we cooking today?

It's the leftover giant frog thigh! And we're going to coat it in breadcrumbs and fry it, served on a bed of sautee'd onion in wine sauce.

Heating my mini-fryer. Please excuse the mess of dishes, its been a busy damn day. I'm so tired i don't even want to do this recipe right now but I defrosted the meat already so we're locked in. We can do this.

I drained off the excess moisture from the frog thigh (theres a lot, has someone been injecting these frogs?) and we season them with salt & pepper and dust them with flower. I'm doing the worlds sloppiest job by just doing it all in a plastic ice cream tub. It ain't stupid if it just about works ok.

Senshi doesn't use egg in this recipe, but I did coat it in egg next as a binding agent to make it easier (and forgot to take a picture) and then coated it in breadcrumbs. Because it's not a breast fillet its a bunch of de-boned thighs, the meat is all loosely connected lumps we've kinda rolled up and tucked together, so I have to do this carefully to try and keep in a rough cutlet shape.

The recipe has a bit of butter in the sauce, but i still have this leftover lard from something and I actually think itll go alright in this dish.

Meanwhile the chicken is frying away! We started this early because I have to do them one at a time in my dinky fryer. Lets give it a bit longer, these fillets are so thick.

Sliced onions and a clove of crushed garlic go in the frying pan with the lard! This might also help cut through the sometimes-nauseating smell of the deep fryer.

Once thats browning nicely I add a pinch of sugar, a drizzle of soy sauce and a splash of red wine and cook it until its reduced into a wet pile of onions.

Yeah, like that! Once the cutlets are all done it's time to plate up! 

*****

I was so tired hungry maybe I would have eaten anything but... I think this worked out perfectly.  I was just relieved the cutlets weren't raw in the middle. I hadn't prepared for the mysterious garnishes pictured in the final image, so I grabbed some carrot greens from my garden. The red wine onions worked so well as a flavourful companion that I didn't add any other sauces! I still think maybe breast meat works better for cutlets, but... well, maybe not frog ones?  I was so tired when I made this today... but next recipe i'll be ready to kick a dragon's ass!