Delicious in Dungeon #56: Phoenix Confit

 I have a policy not to eat things alive... but phoenix keeps coming back to life, so I guess I better eat it quickly?

Confit is a dish of poultry meat slow-cooked while immersed in fat. Maybe I won't do all that, but I can pick a very fatty meat and cook it in a deep pan.

I've got a pair of duck legs, and plenty of vegetables for the trimmings. Onions, carrots, potatoes and mushrooms.

Can't escape mushrooms when dungeoneering I suppose!

Just chopping everything up chunky style and sticking it in a deep casserole dish.

oops... maybe we made too much... theres barely room for the meat! Hopefully the vegetables will shrink down a bit after a while. I also don't know if it will really cook evenly, but i dont have any better ideas.

I want to add some "phoenix" inspired spices.. obviously it should be spicy, and maybe a bit earthy and smoky? I've got an ethiopian berbere spice mix that will provide some heat, and then ill add a bit of ginger, turmeric, and paprika salt.

Here are the duck legs, and i've scored the skin. They probably shouldnt sit on top like this, but as things cook down ill work them deeper into the dish and keep adding the melted fat back on top.

Adding plenty of spice on both sides!

And some extra vegetable oil..

And a bit of butter, too! why not?

We'll wrap it up for a bit and oven cook it medium-low while checking on it often. When its nicely cooked through we can take the foil off and let it crisp up a bit.

If the potatoes are tender and the meat is cooked through, I guess we are good.

*****

Perfect! I liked the smoky spicy flavour. The duck and the vegetables all seemed perfectly cooked somehow. I guess it's my fault given the process, but I think I just made a regular roast dinner really. Would a proper slow cooked confit totally submerged in duck fat be much different? I don't know. Afterwards my stomach felt quite heavy, maybe I ate too much potato and cooking oil.

Delicious in Dungeon #55: Barometz Soup

Damn this barometz is.. a heaving chonker... must be ripe

Another new but simple recipe for a familiar monster.

Last time we had tomatoes and vegan fake-lamb as our ingredients for barometz, and this time we're doing something very similar. This time I got some kebab spiced soya protein, and some fresh tomatoes.

I'm just gonna start blending these tomatoes with the clove of garlic and some leaves of basil.

I'll fry this kebab with some vegetable oil until its looking brown. Hopefully simmering it with the soup won't ruin the texture, but I don't really know.

Then we can add the cups of puree'd tomato and basil and try to fry them up as well. They're quite light in colour, i guess very watery tomatoes.

Adding the spices, i've got a teaspoon of sugar, a whole load of moroccan style spice mix (to lean into the kebab flavour!) and some celery salt.

once its probably cooked nicely i'll add a couple cups of water and just let it simmer for a while.

***

No action shot of me pouring the soup because I don't have 3 hands but you get the idea. It was pleasant, fortunately I was in the mood for something kind of light and hydrating because it was definitely more fresh tomato than a classic reduced and full-flavoured tomato. It had a nice warmth to the spice and you could really taste the basil. I think if you're having a very simple tomato soup maybe you'd prefer it very smooth and creamy... this was meaty and lumpy. Maybe the vegan kebab is a pointless addition, but its probably healthy with all that protein.

Delicious in Dungeon #54: Roasted Walking Mushroom

Walking mushroom returns! Just like the ones from the very first recipe.

This one, though is a very simple dish from an amateur chef.

I wanted to get king oyster mushrooms but I couldn't find any... have they gotten rare again? Still I DID manage to find some nice chunky shiitake and plain oyster mushrooms.

To make this more fun im going to do a skewer of each. I'll pick out the biggest ones and use the rest for other stuff. They're great mushrooms for anything.

I don't wanna do em PLAIN plain, so im going to coat them in olive oil, salt and lime juice. The reference emphasizes the juiciness of the mushroom so I think this will represent that well.

I'm just gonna put em in a watertight bowl with a lid and shake!

Now I skewer 'em, one for each mushroom type, and grill them for a bit. They start sizzling quite audibly!

I've learned a harsh lesson from my super paper mario challenge... not to eat nothing but mushrooms for dinner. They aren't a very balanced meal on their own. I'm enjoying them with a bowl of eggy noodle soup.

***

I don't know why but these mushrooms are always just way better than button/chestnut/etc mushrooms to me. These tasted simple and fresh. I think I slightly prefer the oyster ones done this way... i think shiitake goes more as an earthy companion to a main dish, while oyster somehow makes a better kinda... meat substitute.

Delicious in Dungeon #53: Succubus and Bicorn Brain Doria

Hot guys and horses, together at last!

Wait, are they making out..? Sigh... always a bridesmaid of frankenstein...

First while we got an hour before we should start, I'll cook up some rice! I think its traditionally done with japanese short grain, but I feel like italian short-grain (risotto) was made for this sort of thing.. its kind of creamier than sushi rice imo (is that just in my head?) so itll go great with dairy I think.

We have the rice, vegetables, succubus milk, vegetables, ingredients to make bechamel, 2 kinds of cheese, and for the young succubus i'm using some nice big prawns and for the bicorn brain!? I got some ZEBRA meat burgers! It's probably not brain meat, but ill be nice and squishy.

Diced up the carrot and onion really small, like a soffritto.

What i'm going to do is just break up this patty into little rough meatball-y chunks. I think just one will be plenty. The other can become a regular burger later.

And them im frying them all together in a wok with some butter.

While those cook, i need to make a start on grating the hard cheese. It's pretty hard, and my shoulders are bad again. Takes ages.

Once thats looking nicely browned, i'll add in the succubus too. They're frozen and pre-cooked so we just need to heat them up and then start making the sauce.

I've put the cooked rice in a nice casserole dish... maybe I shoulda picked a bigger one, is there enough room? Eh.. probably...

I pour in the milk and the parmesan.

Wait!!! Wasn't I going to put the parmesan on top at the end!? oops! I also completely forgot about the mushrooms! They''re also in my freezer so we can throw those in, and grate some more of the cheese, I was going to do that anyway. 

Hmm I haven't thought about seasonings AT ALL. It says it has some, so... eh, some of my go-to cheese pairings: paprika salt, pepper, nutmeg and chili (cayenne) pepper.

And lastly, adding FLOUR to the sauce, don't forget that step. It's kind of weird to make a bechamel sauce around so many other ingredients, but.. well it does seem convenient.

Once its thickened, we pour it all on top of the rice. Honestly...? looks kinda unappetising. I think the milk has separated a bit... and it smells like seafood, hot milk and feet. Also I hope I remembered to actually set a temperature when I turned on the oven.... (no)

Finally the cheese topping before we put it in. More of the hard cheese to help make a crust layer, and sliced up mozzarella to hide our sins. The cheese isnt really specified, but i saw this somewhere when i was looking up doria and it sounded like a good idea.

OK after some time in the oven this looks and smells a lot better.

*****

Oh! It actually tastes great! I still think rice instead of pasta or potato in a gratin is strange... but.. with the grana padano, mushroom and seafood flavours we acheived a really nice seafood risotto type flavour, a nice crispy chewy top, and the meatballs were nice too.. they had a sort of smokier darker flavour than horse i think, like a spiced venison or lamb.

It also made 6 hearty portions, and it holds together a lot better when its cooled down. A great alternative to lasagne if you're bored of tomato and pasta.