Super Paper Mario: Saffron & Dyllis Super Show: Complete!

 At 95 recipes, our second and even bigger challenge is complete! Unlike the cooking mama challenge, we got to cook our own way. But instead, designing recipes according to our best approximation of the somewhat whimsical in-game ingredients.

Things I learned:

- There's a solution for everything! Electricity? Poison? Stars? We can cook it!

- Some mushrooms are better than others...

- ...but I still dont really like them.

- You can actually eat horsetail, you just can't find any.

- Several ways to set a pudding!

- Mario does not get enough vitamin b-12 in his diet.

- Portobello is the worst mushroom, oyster is the best mushroom.

- No seriously, i'm so done with mushrooms!!!

Total Ratings:

*            x 6

**          x 7

***        x 27

****      x 32

*****    x 23

Average score: 3.62

Favourite Recipe:

#85 Megaton Dinner
Toss up between this and the mango pudding! This one won me over because I thought a pow block was just the most ridiculous thing to attempt out of this whole list, and I took a chance on a silly idea i had - one that forced me to buy spam for the first time ever and try cooking something i'd never eaten before. And I just think I smashed the brief, and what's more i'm a total convert! I even bought another can of spam to make something like this again later.

Least Favourite Recipe:

#52 Volcano Shroom

I'll admit my execution of this was poor, trying to get a quick and simple version of a cheese-stuffed mushroom... I thought it would be pretty simple and i'd get a simple spicy grilled cheese on a vegetable. Instead I got dehydrated cheese on a wet sponge.

My bad.

Special thanks:

Special thanks to the following resources:

mariowiki.com
Tobi who has volunteered to compute the scores in spreadsheet forever.

My lovely family who made the best looking store-bought gingerbread house ever, and put up with a few of my weird mushroom cakes and stews!

Super Paper Mario: Saffron & Dyllis Super Show #95: Mistake

 Mistake is not a real recipe! It's what happens when you cook any incorrect combination of ingredients. Initially I was saving this for when I needed a do-over. But you know me, I have a tendency to roll with the punches.

So instead I thought it might be fun as a lil' bonus to just cook something that somewhat resembles the sprite, and really make whatever I was feeling like making anyway! So here's what ive got to work with. A whole sea bass, a bag of chopped kale and some pre-made sweet potato mash (to save me some effort)

I've been wanting to try making "crispy seaweed" style kale, and now is the perfect time. Ideally you should shred it up a lot thinner, but its just to make a lump of green so im not too fussed. I sprinkle on a tablespoon of sugar, give it a few grinds of salt and drizzle it in some sesame oil.

Now i wanna put a lil somethin' to season the sea bass. I'll crisp it up with a mixture of chilli and olive oils, shove a bit of african chilli relish in the cavities, and sprinkle some paprika salt on at the end!

Oops! trying to do the kale alongside the fish might be a little hasty, i guess we should do this low and slow as its cooking very unevenly. Oh well, mistakes for the mistake god!

Fortunately the sweet potato mash is just a simple job in the microwave, cant mess that up!

Looking good all cooked, but you know what we didnt come here to show off an appetising whole fish... lets see dem bones!!

***

Not much of a mistake! I don't know if its something about the investment but a whole grilled fish just tastes so much better than I always expect even with quite simple seasoning. I also really liked the flavours of the (unevenly) crispy kale. However, like most people, i dont really enjoy the part where im sat picking bones out of my meal the whole time. Also the sweet potato mash was decent but it didnt really go with the other components very well.

Super Paper Mario: Saffron & Dyllis Super Show #94: Trial Stew

 Trial Stew is made from COUPLE'S CAKE and POISON SHROOM

Here we are, straight after the last recipe! We've got the rest of the mushrooms, ive thrown in some chopped ginger and wasabi for the full poison shroom experience. Now for the couples cake... wait, the couples cake? Remember that?

I ate it all a while back. But the couple's cake was made from the snow bunny recipes, which in turn were made from turtley leaf, pink apple, and ice storms. Sounds horrifying, but what if we just pick out the most stew-friendly interpretations of that...? Instead of an apple ice cream with mint leaves, we've got some plain cream, fresh apple and a bay leaf! Thats starting to sound... well, better...

I also kind of wanted to bulk this stew up into a proper meal, so i also bought a bunch of beef and a celeriac root! I've tipped the mushroom mix into a bowl for a moment so i can give these a proper browning and make sure the meat is cooked through. (Also if you don't know, a celeriac root is basically like a turnip that tastes like celery.)

Next we add in the apple and bay leaf, then we can add back in the rest of the ingredients and some hot water... and of course the cream!

Hmm, this is tasting a bit plain so far, so im going to throw in a vegetable stock cube and some pepper just in case. Trial stew indeed! What have i created?

****

Oh! Its actually good. Ultimately ive just rounded it out into a creamy beef, veg and mushroom stew, with some slightly unorthodox but not too outlandish additions that go together just fine. I feel like you could simplify the recipe, like replace apple and wasabi with mustard and get a similar flavour for less work. Trial passed!

Super Paper Mario: Saffron & Dyllis Super Show #93: Dangerous Delight

 Dangerous Delight is made from POISON SHROOM.

As we've covered before, poison is alcohol! alcohol is an poison. So we have leftover sake, and we have a mix of mushrooms. I'll pick out the shiitake ones for this cause they have a fairly classic mushroom look, and we've got kind of a japanese theme happening here.

Just gonna soak all of this in soy sauce and sake first. Then i'll just fry them whole.

This is more spring onion than I need, but I love to freeze half of it chopped, then you can easily put a pinch of it in instant noodles or soups.

Are you wondering why im using such a massive pan to fry these? What will I do with the rest of them... well the answer is this will flow straight into the next recipe. Since this one just depicts a small plate of mushroom, and im sick of eating plates of mushrooms, im just gonna do it as like, a lil' appetiser dish.

**

If there's one thing we've learned is that presenting mushrooms ain't that easy, they just kind of end up as a small brown rag on your plate, so here's just my best go of it, using ginger for spikes and dots of wasabi. Anyway, these were just ok. just a floppy seasoned mushroom. The wasabi was kinda nice. But I think shiitake really shines when its there to flavour a larger dish... which we'll get to next recipe....

Super Paper Mario: Saffron & Dyllis Super Show #92: Heavy Meal

 Heavy Meal is made from HONEY JAR and HONEY CANDY

So double honey, and it just looks like a layered pile of wiggly drippy.... yes ive got it! Baclava!

Ive got all sorts of nuts in my cupboard: pistachios, walnuts, and a mixed bag with more walnuts, cashews and hazelnuts. I'm taking a handful of each and chopping them up into nice little crumbs!

Now to get that wiggly edge i'm going to attempt to cut this store bought filo pastry with a cookie cutter- easier said than done as it is NOT made for this, the pastry is extremely paper-like.

it says to butter in between every other thin layer of the pastry? is that necessary for pre-made stuff? I dunno but we'll find out, its a heavy meal anyway. I have some butter i melted in the microwave for a few seconds.

we layer in lots of filo sheets and nuts and a drizzle of honey in each nut layer... the sheet cutting is very rough but honestly? it wont matter that much as it just has to look all wobbly slobbly

then we put them in the oven to bake! it says 20min on high and 30min on low or something, ill just take them out when they look brown and crispy. Meanwhile we need MORE syrup to drizzle on top after cooking. Normally in baclava you make a typical middle-eastern sweet flavour with orange blossom, cardamom etc but i happen to have some gingerbread syrup (for drinks) handy, so i mix the remainder of the honey with the rest of the melted butter and water it down with the gingerbread syrup!

It's brown and crispy! On goes the syrup and then we let it cool, and HOPEFULLY in spite of being mega sticky, itll come out of this silicone muffin mould just fine...?

spoiler: it did! and heres a nice cross-section because i think its turned out rather well.

*****

I made a big baclava! This stuff is normally meant to be in smaller pieces so what ive done is made... a real heavy meal!! The gingerbread syrup worked great adding that complexity of flavour, while being slightly different from the traditional recipe. Really like this, i think it tastes fresher than store-bought too.

Super Paper Mario: Saffron & Dyllis Super Show #91: Odd Dinner

 Odd Dinner is made from POISON SHROOM and FRIED SHROOM PLATE

We've done fried shrooms and we can do them again... and for the poison... i'm picking red wine today. Not doubling up on mushrooms but we've got a big bunch of chestnut mushrooms.

For the unusual look of the sprite we need something black... now, ive never been a fan of mushrooms yet i've been shrooming it up all over this challenge. However I DO draw the line at olives, I can't stomach them, I really cant, so instead of the obvious choice of black olives, im going to do some black beans, and a dome of rice underneath. I've soaked the beans and then steamed them, and a batch of medium grain rice well in advance.

chopping some onions, garlic, and then just halving the mushrooms cause i kinda want them to be chunky and noticeable.

here they are frying away in some butter

Then we add a good amount of red wine, a little splash of balsamic vinegar (maybe not necessary? idk) and plenty of pepper! we love pepper in this house.

And then, my weird go-to sauce trick, some instant gravy.. it adds some salt and umami but it also thickens up the sauce real good.

a bit of gravy and hot water later and its looking like some stewed mushrooms

NOW to add a little class, im stuffing the beans and rice in a little container, and microwaving them because i prepared them earlier today so they're cold.. then we can turn it upside down and we'll have a... an odd dinner...

****

Maybe im just friggin starving but this was nice yeah. I know this is sort of a loose interpretation of the dish, but i think it makes a somewhat balanced and credible meal. Edible and credible.

Super Paper Mario: Saffron & Dyllis Super Show #90: Dyllis Dynamite

 Dyllis Dynamite is made from EGG BOMB and DYLLIS BREAKFAST

OK so we need to break this down a bit. We still have some EGG BOMB but I don't have any dyllis breakfast left, which was made from leftover SPICY SOUP and SHROOM SHAKE. Complicated. But here's what we're gonna do: Make a fresh spicy ramen soup with mushrooms and the leftover devilled eggs.

Making a soup base with seaweed, veg stock, grated ginger, miso paste, and some szechuan spicy hotpot paste. What, you think im just trying to use up a bunch of leftover ingredients in my cupboards? Well... :)

Then we add in the sliced mushrooms, a squeeze of lemon and some soy sauce. And then we just let it cook for a while.

****

No I didn't eat the whole fresh chillis, that szechuan pepper paste is already no joke. Nice flavours, definitely lived up to being called dynamite. Conventional ramen toppings probably would have been even better though, like some barbecue pork, surimi, bamboo shoots, spring onions etc.