Delicious in Dungeon #49: Crispy Mushroom And Egg Sandwich

As you can see, this is a horse-like creature with two horns. It's quite obvious really, but I thought I would just say.

So the bicorn, a kind of bisexual unicorn, their thing is that they only go for badboys and badgirls. And non-badnerys. So we have to lure it over by enjoying a sinful and decadent sandwich.

Got a big round loaf of fresh bread, butter, cockatrice eggs, mandrake leaves, and some dried changeling mushrooms. Doesn't sound all that badnasty. Oh and syrup? Ok maybe a little.

Since we have the butter out, lets cook the egg in butter.

Yeah got my little tiny pan. We wanna have the whites cooked but the yolk slightly runny.

I'm gonna lightly toast the bread, seems right to do that for a sandwich with fried egg and extra butter.

Even on hot toast my butter doesnt spread that well.. anyway we're also adding salt and pepper.

Then the mandrake leaves, which i decided today can be watercress and rocket. And the fried egg, which ive shaved a bit off to fit on the decidedly not-round bread. I tried my best to squish it into a rounder shape!

Now these are interesting. I was originally gonna try and grill/fry some mushrooms to death, but I was gifted this bag of already dried mushrooms! Unlike mushrooms dried for stock, these seem to be freeze-dried or something so they're light and airy. Seems perfect!

And lastly, as mentioned in the manga... they add a bit of syrup on the sandwich as well. I'm just adding a light drizzle, because it sounds a bit intense.

****

Really tasty! Nicely balanced, savoury with a burst of sweetness, with wet and crispy textures. A good rich sandwich, and none of the unusual ingredients were bad. But I have to ask myself... would I go out of my way to make this again? Probably not. I think the bar for sandwiches is very high, you can make a lot of good things with bread and butter and eggs.

Delicious in Dungeon #48: Hamburg Steak With Changeling Sauce

Is it me... or are dungeon mushrooms getting bigger these days?

The popular japan-german dish is back! It's a dungeon twist on the HANBAGU or Hamburg Steak which we seem to have visited quite a few times in other challenges.

This time we've got the monstrous ingredients of mixed leftover griffin/hippogriff (im using a beef&pork mince mix) and a changeling-based sauce with a bit of mandrake and frog skin.

Big load of mince, nice. And then i'm adding onion chopped as finely as I can manage, breadcrumbs, and an egg.

It says I can add whatever seasoning I want, so im adding my trusty paprika salt, pepper, mild chilli powder and ginger powder.

Now for the messy part... theres no way around it i have to knead it with my hands. Its cold and getting pork fat off your hands is SO WEIRDLY DIFFICULT. The mince seemed slightly dry and crumbly so I decided to add another egg as I went.

Now I can bust out my new MEGA ULTRA DELUXE FRYING PAN!! I could make paella in this someday.. hmm.. anyway, throw in a slightly generous portion of butter because we'll use the rest for the sauce.

These brown quite fast, so we might have to turn my overpowered hob off and on again to cook it slower. I'm not taking any chances with pork mince.

For the mandrake... in the past its been parsnips or ginger... its really whatever root vegetable we need? but i saw some whimsical looking radishes that I thought would be perfect. they come in 2 kinds!

What a nice pink and purple, very changeling.

For the changelings, I got a mix with 2 types of mushroom: shiitake and oyster, and can chop them up roughly.

For the "frog skin".. well, i don't have frog skin. but I was wondering... whats it there for? Is it to add brothy, collagen-y flavours and thicken up the sauce maybe? So I thought a good substitute would be a concentrated chicken stock.

These are getting somewhere, a bit longer and then I take the patties out and use all that oily meat juice as the sauce base..

Adding in the mushrooms and stock.

It says I can use whatever seasonings I want... so as a nod to the hanbagu recipes i've done in the past, im adding a bit of sake and soy sauce.

At the end I sprinkle in the grated radish as well. I was hoping it might add a pink sparkle, but it just looks brown and oily.

*****

Delicious! I think this came out perfectly. The mushrooms go really well with the beef and pork, and the oilyness of the sauce balances out the dryness of the mince. It's hearty and satisfying.

Delicious in Dungeon #47: Changeling Dumplings From Fairy Ring

~ !! WARNING !! ~ END OF ANIME SEASON 1!!!

This is the last recipe featured in Season 1 of the anime!  If you are keeping up with the anime and not the manga and don't want anything at all spoiled such as recipes and creature encounters, maybe make this your last one and email yourself a bookmark link a year or so from now? 

I will, however, avoid spoiling major plot events and be censoring recipes that I think give too much away regarding everything outside of the recipes and ingredients. So if you're not too bothered about the cooking side of things, please continue on and I will try to keep this relatively spoiler free!

I tire of these dumplings... what if mushroom circle fairy magic can switch them up a bit?

wow!! thank you dumpling fairies! 

Let's pop these whimsical badboys into my steamer. They always stick to the plastic tray so im using my oven baking sheet, make sure it doesn't cover up all the steam holes though. This ones old and full of holes tbh.

Once it's nearly done, we can pop the leftover dumplings and the dipping sauce on top in to warm up a bit.  Again, take care with a hot steamer, turn it off and let it cool for a bit before you add stuff. I also use oven mitts and don't mess around too much.

****

Everything tastes better with the dipping sauce. These store bought ones really show up my inferior homemade ones though. They're much firmer, and have fatty pork, prawn and leek flavours that go well with the salty vinegary dip.

Reminder: END OF ANIME S1!!!

Delicious in Dungeon #46: Boiled Hippogriff Potstickers

There's a gargoyle BOTHERING us so we're gonna hide in the kitchen and make dinner.

I guess we can't eat gargoyle... maybe STONEBAKED PIZZA? No? Alas.. I have to make something out of this leftover hippogriff meat.

So here's where we were last recipe, frying up that hippogriff meat with diced veg. After we got some out for the soup, i've added some black pepper to add flavour to the filling.

It's the next day, and this is back out the fridge. And for the wraps, I already had some old wonton wrappers in my freezer. They're looking a little worse for wear though.. theyve been in there a while and maybe they've dried out a lot. I guess I'll see what I can do...

I'm taking outthe meat chunks and dicing them up EVEN SMALLER. Since they were really meant to be minced meat.

I wasn't sure if these were a bit small for the shape we are trying to make... they are at least designed for boiling, but... yeah they're so dried out now... i dont know what kind of shapes I can even hope to make with them.

I am NOT happy with this. But its dinner time and I don't want to go try and make my own pastry or change dinner plans now. Let's just wade through like we always do.

OK, I have some kind of shapes. I refreshed the pastry a bit with hot water and I think these will hold together in water.

At least these are optimised for boiling, which was a specification of this dish after all.

**

They're not terrible I guess. They taste like a cheap lean steak with pepper and onion. A bit boring though and a fattier meat would be nicer. It's a shame i couldnt make them look that similar, and these wontons are really designed for serving in a soup which might have made it tastier and more satisfying. The lesson is.. don't leave things in your freezer for months and months and months saying "ill use it for a recipe some day". The other lesson is I just want to steam and fry store-bought gyoza instead.

Delicious in Dungeon #45: Hippogriff Soup

This is... yes... this is a hippogriff. An eagle's head and wings on a horse's lower body.

Since the front is the same, we only sample the hindquarters. Honse.

I'll be using the leftovers for the next recipe, so i'm doing it a bit different this time.

Well, first we chop it into nice stewing chunks again. Opps i'll have to wash the chopping board before I do my veg.

I'm chopping up the onion and carrot as fine as I can, this will hopefully lend some flavour to the meat but mostly its for the next recipe...

Same with the carrot. Nice n' small.

Now it all goes in together, with some salt. I'm using salt with a bit of paprika.

Once this is cooked, I pull out a good amount of the meat chunks for this recipe and the rest can go to one side.

OK so now im just adding hot water to the meat cooked in the veg. It's not going to be nearly as elaborate (and tasty) as the others, but i guess this is a bit closer to the actual recipe than the last two.

Hmm meat chunk water. This is normal. This is a very normal way to cook dinner.

**

It's more clear like the proper recipe... and very plain. The water tastes even waterier than regular water... its kind of... mineral-y. The meat is nice enough, again all this exotic meat seems to be good quality and lean, consistent cuts. Without bones and stuff and only cooking it for a short amount of time, it's not really a good way to make broth. Anyway it was perfectly fine, but I'm glad we're done with the plain meat soup saga and on to bolder things!