Delicious in Dungeon #65: Final Stew

Final Stew! Actually not sure if that's even true, i think there's another stew coming up. 

I didn't have a giant tail to stew, but I looked it up and pork shoulder is apparently a good stewing cut. 

Got a huge hunk of pork shoulder, butternut squash (the closest i could get to pumpkin), onions, garlic, carrots, celery and cabbage.

The onions and garlic can go straight in the pan, maybe with a bit of oil or butter. But then i'll chop all the rest of the veg and put them aside before we do the pork.

Time to go peel crazy and peel the pumpkin and carrots.

Its quite hard to cut when its raw.. but itll have plenty of time to cook in the stew. Also don't forget to remove the seeds!

Theres already so much here, i think ill just use half of the cabbage and celery and save the rest for other stuff.

Once everythings chopped up and put to the side, we can finally get to the meat.

Plenty of it! its all wrapped and ready for roasting in the oven, unfortunately we are going to undo all that and chop it up to fry. sorry.

I guess i'll remove the hard rind? Maybe it doesnt matter. I'm methodically slicing it into big steaks and then cutting them into chunks.

Hmm, this us really filling up my biggest stew pot huh.. maybe its time to admit this is a 2 pan sized stew.

Better! Maybe we can already start applying the spices. I'm not really sure what im doing yet so lets go rummaging. I think i want something simple and european herb-y.

Ok how about this... celery salt, pepper, bay leaf, thyme, worcestershire sauce and white wine?

Once the meat and onions are browned we can finally put in all those vegetables and extra water, and try our best to evenly distribute the seasonings.

Oh! I just remembered ive got that open jar of chillis in the fridge. And some horseradish too! Lets use some of that in there.

Ive covered it and left it on low for like an hour, stirring occasionally. Looking good!

****

Wow! The pork is so tender! Its a bit simple, but not bland, you can taste the thyme, horseradish and chilli as well as the hydrating combination of vegetables.

Delicious in Dungeon #64: Final Blood Sausage

Blutwurst, morcilla, boudin noir, bleedie weenie, hemoglobin cylinder.

 
Blood sausage! What am I, a butcher? Nah ill cook pre-made blood sausage, but instead im going to use the recipe as inspiration to make an extra dipping sauce to have with it.

Here in the UK our typical blood sausage is called "black pudding", so i got that. And for the sauce its gonna be red bell pepper and garlic.

I guess I could have roasted the peppers in the oven, but that seems like a lot of extra work when im gonna try and mix it and reduce it on the hob anyway. So ill just chop it up to go in the blender.

Pepper and garlic, liquid style!

Put it on the hob for about 5 mins and its already reduced significantly into a thick paste! I was worried itd be too soupy.

Now we can add lots of spices. I've got a jar of chopped chillies, olive oil, cream, salt, pepper, paprika and garam masala, which is kind of a classic indian spice mix.

Pop em all like this and mix up!

Well, now I guess all thats left is to fry these things. Dreading this because i dont like blood sausage. I'd usually pass on them with the fryup breakfast.

See, heres the other problem with them... since they instantly turn black, how do you even know when they're cooked through or burnt? Well i took one aside and cut it in half to make sure it seemed hot throughout. I gotta admit they do actually smell amazing right now, as does the sauce.

***

Huh, is it me or is this the best black pudding ive had? Its not as chalky or bitter as I remember. Maybe you just can't beat fresh home cooking..? Or maybe my expectations are always lowered. I guess its not like, amazing though. Compared to other sausages its pretty bland. The sauce is pleasantly spicy and pairs pretty well. I tried to do a little sausage-inspired swirl but it was too lumpy so we ended up with this.. artistic puddle presentation.

Delicious in Dungeon #63: Final Meat Pie

We're in the final stretch! But, deceptively, there's a whole series of these recipes. They all feature the same final ingredient.

A mysterious meat! If you read the manga you know. We gotta use something versatile that comes in a lot of cuts, so I'm going to be using pork.

The first cut is "breast and liver", and ok I don't know what pork breast would be, but ive chosen a lean cut, and i couldnt find any liver so i got sausages. Whatever, I just think they'll go well in a pie. We also got onions, mushrooms, aubergine, and tinned carrots cause they were out of fresh! Oh and some pastry, because, well, you'll see later how bad I am at handling pastry.

Chopping the onion into medium chunky chunks.

Followed by the mushrooms..

I'll put the onion straight in a pan to fry and put the chopped mushroom and aubergine aside so we can cut the meat last.

The pork fillet. Tenderloin, is it? Always seems to be quite nice to cook with.

And 2 of the "chorizo spiced" sausages sliced up.

Now, we get to add plenty of undisclosed spices. It's a bit of a scattershot here, but im leaning into the chorizo idea a bit. We'll have just a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg, plenty of chilli flakes, celery salt, paprika, black pepper, and a sensible amount of fennel seed and thyme flakes. And another of those concentrated chicken stock capsule things.

Mm spicy! once the pork and onion are looking somewhat browned ill throw in the mushrooms and aubergines next.

And try and melt down the stock in a little bit of water, though i expect the vegetables to produce a fair bit of liquid as they cook.

When everythings had time to cook and soften we can add in the tinned carrots last, as they're already soft.

Oops its very wet in there. Perhaps we can thicken it up with some cornflour?

I had a bunch of leftover bits of square pastry to use up, so ive just kind of.. yeah this is just how I do pies. No technique.

At least its the right size! Now for the lid... I guess it need to be...

about this big!! haha!

Hell yeah im a genius

thats not so bad, is it? Its vaguely pie shaped. Now it can go in the oven for like 40 mins or until.. yknow, baked looking. The insides are all cooked so its just the pastry.

*****

Yeah ok its a little wet. A little soupy. What i should really have done is strained out some of the liquid and made a gravy on the side! Anyway it tastes AMAZING. A delicious blend of spices and vegetables gave this a super flavourful sauce.

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.