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.

Delicious in Dungeon #18: Tentacle and Kelpie Stew, Prepared with Undine

Typical... I go to get some water and there's an undine in the basin instead...

It's not much on its own, but we've built up a good amount of resources to combine with this.

We've got some leftover kelpie meat, tentacles, and the bottled undine... and then some stew regulars: onion, carrot and potato. And some "brown sauce" I wanted to add a bit of a caribbean twist to go with the plantains because the meat won't make for much of a gravy, so i got some reggae reggae (jerk bbq) sauce.

Chopping up the tentacles, i'll cook them with the meat first. I think a crispy outer layer will help when they get stewed.

Chopping all the vegetables and putting them to one side for now..

The meats a bit of a pain... theres odd shaped bones in it with bits of meat firmly attached, so ive split it into chunks but then im going to stew the bone bits in as well... i must remember to take them out at the end..

Once the meat (which i've seasoned with seaweed salt- because its kelpie!) and plantains have started to seal we should probably brown the onions too...

Oh, and it says to sautee the carrots as well. At this rate everythings gonna be all mushy except the potatoes... as you can see the meat is dry as hell, theres no jus to make gravy, so good thing we had....

Our flavourful bbq sauce! 

And some added salt & pepper since its on the recipe.

Finally, we can add the potatoes and the undine - it tastes subtly different from my tap water... I guess it's got more mana?

And we can leave it to STEW DOWN for like 40 mins until the potatoes are tender. Oh, and I won't forget to take out those bones!

*****

It's amazing. Autumn is really setting in so a stew like this really hits the spot. The flavour of the bbq sauce, the meaty kelpie and the fruity sweet tentacles go together so well. Jerk is quite cinnamon-y so it might not be to everyones stew tastes... but if you like one thats a bit different.. its fruity and sweet but not excessively, its sour and got a very warming kick to it. This will recover your mana and your mood.

Delicious in Dungeon #17: Tentacles with Vinegar

 Watch out for tentacles, they'll sting ya!

We'll have to carefully chop some chunks off and let them ripen...

Oooh don't these look good? They're not bananas btw, I decided to do something a bit more interesting and order some plantains from an indian grocery. These look huge, and because they are tougher and starchier than bananas, you actually want them to look at least this brown and patchy before you use them.

Senshi says to score them like this to help peel them.. it doesnt really help much, but they arent that hard to peel.

And now for the bit I didn't really wanna do but I got to... ive made a salt & vinegar mix and will brush them with it... its to get rid of the tentacle's sting...

**

It's perfectly ripe and tastes great!!! But... it would be better without the salt and vinegar. And cooking it will REALLY bring out the flavour...

Delicious in Dungeon #16: Grilled Kelpie

Kelpie, huh.... The horse of the sea. But not a sea horse... its very confusing.

Looks something like this, definitely not a pokemon. Anyway we have to grill and eat its liver speficially.

Horse meat is somewhat taboo in this country, but I managed to get some lamb liver which is perfect, and they cook a whole array of cuts but i don't want to get into allll that so heres just some more regular lamb meat. I guess its loin meat, which is the lower back. Since its a very seaweed-y animal, ive got some kaiso salad for the mane and im going to be seasoning it all with some dried seaweed flakes!

Got some veggies too! I'm going to lightly cook them while i heat up my oven's grill.

OK that was a bad idea, I guess cabbage cooks kinda unevenly. Should have just boiled or sautee'd it i guess? I don't want to eat it raw though.

 I'm chopping up the liver to try and get it in thin strips, its like a bunch of odd shapes though. And then I'm seasoning them with a spritz of cooking oil and some salt & dried seaweed mix, to make it more... aquatic. Also I guess it doesn't smell as bad as beef kidney, thats nice.

It's coming along in the grill, onions still taking forever though. I know this dish is more designed to do on like a tabletop barbecue, but... i dont have that and I don't wanna.

Same as the kidneys, ive chopped the lamb chops into smaller strips, and seasoned with seaweed, and with the bone bit separated it's kinda like having a big range of cuts i guess. Once its all done we can plate up!

**

It's... its just ok. It looks quite appetising, and the loin meat is delicious and juicy. The livers are ok, the flavour is fine and the meat has a dryer, gamier texture. The plain unseasoned onion and burnt cabbage were boring and the kaiso (seaweed salad) is nice on its own but it didn't pair well with anything else. I wanted to have a dip, but i didn't know what to have so i tried a few things: mayo, sriracha, brown sauce... eh, nothing really stuck. I wish i had like a chinese style peanut or sesame dip?