Delicious in Dungeon #23: Orc Medicine

Hmm I need a pick-me-up after all that dragon battling... perhaps i need some medicine...Orc Medicine!

Dr. Roy M.D. has got us some secret special ingredients.. or just random junk, not sure.

Gonna grate a bit of the ginger, obviously not the whole thing. My concept for this was sort of like a ginger shot and a greens smoothie all rolled into one. A shootie. (hmm needs work)

So yeah dont worry its all edible, its sunflower seeds, spinach leafs, ginger, spirulina powder and a pinch of turmeric.

And a dash of water! so that it... actually blends.

That was fast, looks ready to go I guess. Lok-Tar Ogar!

*

It's giving wet leaves... with a side of choking hazard (bits of seeds) and a fiery aftertaste. I hope this is good for me. Emotionally speaking it is not. In the future I might stick to tea and vitamins.

Delicious in Dungeon #22: Roast Red Dragon, Onion Flatbread, and Dragon Tail Soup

 The red dragon's defeated!

Huh, you already knew that? You saw me roast its hams? Well... I hope you didn't see me drop that sauce all over my kitchen floor...

Since we already had a whole brick of meat, I decided to use that for the massive chunk of meat in this recipe too. It just makes sense. I'm also gonna just carve off a chunk of it to use in the soup as well.

BUT FIRST lets quickly prepare that flatbread. I was gonna get a pizza base or something, but I saw this mini garlic flat bread on discount and I thought itd be kinda perfect, just a single portion of the flatbread for my single self (whos got an entire brisket roast to eat)

I'll chop the smallish onion into thick slices like this.

Topping the garlic bread with some very thinly sliced cheese and the larger bits of onion... It's ready to go in the oven for 15mins, but let's do the soup first!

For the soup i've got those smaller bits of onion, and the recipe mentioned turnip, which I couldn't find but I had some leftover salad radishes so they'll do. browned them up in the pan as you can see.

Then I'm throwing in that chunk of dragon I carved off earlier, some boiling water and 1 beef stock cube. I can also tip in any leftover jus from the roast.

Once the soup has had a bit of time on the hob to mingle or whatever, I cooked the flatbread in the oven. Smells good! 

****

Delicious! I loved the garlicky oniony flatbread with the red meat. The soup was boring, it just tasted like beef stock mainly.. The meat was tough but had a nice flavour. I'm looking forward to thinly slicing the rest and putting it in a sandwich.

Delicious in Dungeon #21: Boneless Dragon Hams

Bit of an odd one this - another sort-of bonus recipe. This doesn't actually get eaten in the end, but since we are cooking a big hunk of dragon meat for the next recipe anyway, I thought we might as well split part of the process to represent this recipe!

Here we have a boneless hunk of dragon, already wrapped up nicely. I didn't have to do the butchering myself so I guess this is it... but!!! Actually, we're going to roast it here, and also show how I convert the meat into a fitting "red dragon" flavour with a sauce coating.

So naturally "spicy and smoky" are what come to mind when I think of flavours for a red, fire-breathing dragon. I've got a fresh red pepper, some olive oil, im gonna use a load of smoked paprika and a lil bit of ginger, and then some of that leftover reggae reggae bbq sauce to add just a little bit of sweetness and other woody spices. 

I roughly chop the chilli and then im just gonna blend this all together. We can a bit of water if we need. I also had a thought, I should probably add salt as well so lets do that.

That's a nice sauce colour! Looks like it'd mess you up if it splashed in your eye. I don't know why I said that.

I scored the meat a bit and then I just sort of slap it on with a thin spatula like im plastering a wall.

AH GODDAMNIT i dropped my sauce container. Fortunately I didn't lose too much, but UGH. This is the kind of tough trials you might face when you take on a red dragon.

It's all sauced up and then I wrap it up and stick it in the oven for like 3 hours.

!!! This just in! I checked the other block of red dragon recipe and its got wine in the ingredients. So part way through as I check on it, lets baste it with a lil' red wine to keep it all moist.

***

I don't really know how to rate this, its not really done yet, its the base for next recipe... But trying a bit on its own, yeah... it tastes pretty good, its quite tough... i don't know what im doing with red meats... the sauce coating is nice but its a little subtle in the end I guess. 

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!

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.