Delicious in Dungeon: The Monster Meshi - COMPLETE

We've cooked our way through every floor of the dungeon, now we're LORD OF THE DUNGEON! What? that's not how it works? Cmon. 

Things I learned:

- The unique flavours of a whole lot of different meats.

- Grilling and frying might be the same thing in japanese.

- The fairies are better cooks than me

- Demon actually doesn't pair well with apple at all

- I like making a medieval style banquet

- You can either bake a pumpkin whole, or use it as a serving bowl, you can't have it both ways.

- I got slightly better at making rolled omelettes.

Total Ratings:

*            x 4

**          x 9

***        x 13

****      x 26

*****    x 18

Average score: 3.64

Favourite Recipe: 

#8: Freshly Stolen Vegetables and Chicken Stewed with Cabbage Accompanied by Plundered Bread

This was a lot of work, making bread from scratch while stewing cabbage and grilling chicken. But it paid off, this just tasted great, wonderful hot crunchy chewy textures. A homely feast to eat with your hands. I feel sorta bad picking a recipe with non-monster ingredients, but... well, it was still an interesting and unique recipe I think.

Least Favourite Recipe:

#2: Man-Eating Plant Tart

uhh yeahh, i beansed this one so hard. Turns out citrus peel makes everything unbearably bitter. And it didn't hold together at all. Should have made a quiche. I did however manage to scoop out most of the vegetables and dilute the fruity sludge with a curry sauce and end up making a really nice curry out of the leftovers.

Special thanks:

Special thanks to the following resources:

Delicious in Dungeon fandom wiki

Shibuya Dungeon Meshi restaurant collab

DiD cafe Ikebukuro

Tobi - my spreadsheet legend, morale booster and master of the necromantic arts.

Delicious in Dungeon #70: Grilled Cockatrice

 Last recipe!!!! whoaaaoaoaoao

Remember the cockatrice? this ones a big one. So, this last recipe actually just features in a little bit of bonus manga content after the story. The official recipe was the previous one. But since it exists, we're doing it! Then we can round things off with a nice even number.

We got some yakitori paste which is perfect for this, as i think we're just effectively making yakitori. We got some breasticles for the white meat and some skin-on cockatrice legs for the skin and dark meat.

Separating the skin from the meat, and the meat from the bone. OMG what is the trick to getting meat off a thigh bone seriously, this took me way too long.

We have quite a lot of the chicken and not much of the marinade, so to stretch it out a bit im adding extra soy sauce and some ginger powder. To marinate i just add half of the yakitori sauce and those other things i just said, and we'll add the rest of the sauce during the grilling.

While the meat is marinating i thoroughly wash the chopping board and knife, because i forgot to chop the leek beforehand!

I had to use a keen eye to recognise which parts were breast and thigh meat, and separate the skin back out to try and get it on the skewer. It was a bit of work, but look! I totally succeeded.

When its looking mostly done I take it out, drizzle on the rest of the sauce and add a sprinkle of sesame seeds. The baking sheet under the grill will catch the excess and we can spoon it back on at the end if need be.

****

Wow!! Quite good actually. Nice flavours, and the different cuts add variety. I was worried the leeks would still be tough, but everything seemed well cooked. My mum was over and i think she liked it too, except the chicken skin. I thought it was nicely crispy though.

Delicious in Dungeon #69: Egg and Carrot Mush

Our final meat is all done! Now the penultimate recipe, a simple babymode food for eepy baby princesses

like that! This is supposedly a good meal for delicate stomachs, which checks out because i might be about to do the FODMAP diet myself and these are low-fodmap foods indeed.

I guess its just eggs and carrot. I saw a similar dish called ninjin shirishiri, its scrambled egg and shredded carrot, sometimes seasoned with sesame seeds. Sounds like a plan!

Going to town on the carrot with my julienne peeler, and then making sure the strips are a good bite-size length.

Then i can beat the eggs with seasoning. Just some of my paprika salt and mixed peppercorns. I'll add the sesame in at the end.

Frying the carrots with a bit of butter. I guess if you worry about dairy you can use vegetable oil.

After the carrots are softened I pour in the eggs and sprinkle some sesame seeds, I gotta keep it moving around the pan with a spatula to scramble the eggs.

***

Tasty! simple! A little bit bland though. Definitely a good idea if you're feeling so delicate, but im feeling like... wheres the rest of the stir fry?

Delicious in Dungeon #68: Final Cream Stew

Oh look its another final stew...

Different this time though!!! Don't judge me i didnt write this!

This time we're doing a cream stew, which deceptively has a bechamel sauce base instead of actual cream. OK. Anyway we have leftover shoulder meat from the cutlet bowl that ive already chopped, potatoes, carrots, onions, broccoli, mushroom, chicken stock, and ingredients for bechamel sauce (aka white sauce)

I'll start by roughly chopping the onion so we can brown them with the meat.

The meat isnt quite defrosted yet, but its got plenty of time to cook while we chop everything else.

Potatoes and carrots chopped, we can put them to one side.

Broccoli chopped as well.

While we are cooking we can also add some seasoning, ive just got salt, pepper and nutmeg.

I should have probably used a shallower pan if  i wanted to get it more seared, its already producing a decent amount of liquid without adding anything.

Alright we can put the other vegetables in now, with some stock and a bayleaf and hot water to start stewing and- oh... ive done it again haven't I? theres too much here... i should have started with 2 pans... 

Well. This is fine. It will cook down. Will there be enough room for the mushrooms at the end? I.. don't know.

OK yeah we can fit the mushrooms on.. its had 30mins simmering and the potatoes are soft...

We can begin the final phase now while the chopped mushrooms cook, make the bechamel sauce in my next biggest pan, and we'll admit defeat and split the stew between 2 pots again.

Starting with a roux made with melted butter and flour. I guess the consistency doesn't matter much this time, since its going in the wet stew, and honestly its already looking well thickened from the potatoes.

Stirring in the milk on the heat and once its starting to thicken, we can just pour half into the pot, and transfer a load of the stew back into this pan.

Here's the stew! well about 2/3 of it actually! looks tasty.

****

It's nice! Came out a bit dark though... and not so light and brothy like how the japanese cream stews look. I think i simply used too many vegetables and didnt make nearly enough bechamel sauce. It tasted most strongly of the broccoli, with a pleasant creamy mushroomy and meaty secondary flavour. Yeah, not nearly a creamy enough cream stew, but a perfectly fine stew.

Delicious in Dungeon #67: Final Cutlet Bowl

This isnt even an official recipe, but just scroll down and look at that glamour shot... its begging me to make it. So shiny and meaty looking, our pickiest eaters would crave it.

I looked up some japanese recipes, it doesn't really look breaded in the image like katsudon so ive settled on a bbq pork recipe called butadon instead. But... instead of making a whole caramel sauce, im going to make a simpler bbq style glaze with syrup.

Got a big load of medium-fatty shoulder steaks! I considered doing a massive batch, but... itll be quicker and easier to do just 1 saucepan full, and save the rest of the meat for the next recipe, which I think itll work well for. 

OK first up, cooking some nice japanese sticky rice.

For this we just need the white part of spring onion for garnish. I can chop the rest of the greens up and store them in my freezer stash, they're one of my go-to toppings for instant noodles.

We gotta have a big pile of flat steaks, so ill tenderise them. This will probably also make them pick up the sauce better with all those spike holes.

We filled the pan with only 4 pieces. Seems like a reasonable amount!

Now while thats browning, we can make the sauce. I'm mixing minced garlic, golden syrup, sake, mirin, and soy sauce.

Just eyeballing it really. I dunno. then i mix it up so the syrup dissolves.

Once the meat is looking about 3/4 cooked ill drain off any excess oil and add the sauce. Its really thin, so heres hoping it reduces nicely without burning the sugar too much.

Look at that, a transformation!

Now maybe ill season the rice a bit too, just with some salt and rice vinegar. Then fluff it up and pile it high in the bowl!

The onion looks a bit tough as a garnish, so im going to fry it a little bit at the end.

Oh! I also wanted to add some pickled ginger to the bowl, that often came suggested in the recipes and I happen to have some.

*****

Cor! It's as good as it looks. Im not as robust as Tade after all. (im sorry i cant be her...) so i split it into 2 meals after I took the photo. It's simple, but i love rice, i love bbq... it's sweet and sour and sticky and perfect!