Breath of the Wild #9: Steamed Fruit

Ingredients: Any Fruit, Any Vegetable, Flower, or Herb

Description: "A regional dish made by steaming near-ripened fruits in the leaves of fragrant plants."

Tough choices for this one... I decided to be a bit similar to the graphic and steam a banana, but instead of an apple I got some quite unripe nectarines. A steamed apple sounds mushy and gross to me. For the aromatic herbs, i've got coriander and almonds! Yeah i dont know, im just using my ~*imagination*~

i know the banana is shown steamed in the peel but then how are the herb flavours gonna get through? Doesnt make sense to me, im going to peel it and half the nectarine. I can't get the stone out though its super hard.

A bold amount of coriander there, and tossing the almonds on top.

Piling it all in some foil to steam in a parcel. Surely this will be undeniably aromatic! In the steamer it goes.

Post-steaming update. um... the banana is grey, and it smells weird. How long are you supposed to steam fruit for? Do any of you... steam fruit?? Oh well im gonna plate it up. Time to give it the ol' forage try.

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Oh! Even though it looks evil and cursed, its actually really hitting the spot and i think i like it... granted im really hungry right now. The hot fruit is filling and not too sweet, and the coriander and almond flavours smell a bit weird but taste really fresh and kinda tropical somehow. Maybe everything tastes better when you eat it from a giant fake banana leaf?

Breath of the Wild #8: Copious Seafood Skewers

Ingredients: Any four different Fish

Description: "It's just a whole heap of stuff shoved onto a skewer, but it's still a pretty tasty dish."

While making the seafood skewer, I got stuff to make these multi-fish skewers as well. I've had enough of eating these bony sardines so I got fillets of salmon and hake, and I wanted to get tuna as well but they were all out! We'll have to settle for more crab sticks, they're technically made of fish meat and not crab anyway!

Chopped some of the fillets into cubes and in they go for the seasoning. It's not really a marinade because im going to cook them in a minute.

It was olive oil, horseradish, garlic, chilli flakes, salt and lemon juice, and uh... lemongrass paste!

Here they are! i had a bit of fish chunks leftover for an extra skewer. Just the chunks seems like a better idea honestly...

**

Same as the other ones really. I guess I preferred the flavour of the salmon to the sardines. Not to mention the boneless chunks are waaay easier to eat off a stick. It's very filling though, I didn't end up finishing all these skewers. I'm sick of eating grilled fish! Free me from skewer jail!

Breath of the Wild #7: Copious Meat Skewers

Ingredients: Any four different Meats

Description: "Just shove a bunch of meat onto a skewer, and you're good to go."

Four different meats it says, so four different meats it is! I've got chicken thigh, lamb leg, pork belly, and that tough beef cut again (why am i like this)

Anything thats not already in chunks can get sliced up. I'm not sure how much of this to do... I guess if i dont prepare it now, when will I? I will make a few skewers and then fry the rest in a big pan for leftovers.

That's a lot of meat! It just says shove a bunch of meat on a skewer, no need to make it complicated... but im going to make it complicated.

First ill make a zesty marinade with vinegar, soy sauce, salt, worcestershire sauce, and lots of ginger.

Mix that all up. I also had some leftover ginger paste to finish up so its extra gingery.

Oops! I almost forgot one other thing, olive oil so that it browns nicely.

4 kebabs seems like plenty, oh but we're not done yet!

With all this meat I didnt want a repeat of that boring chewy beef skewer, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to make a satay sauce. I think that goes with all kinds of meat.

Half a tin of coconut milk, 2 big tablespoons of peanut butter, a tbsp of sugar, soy sauce, lime juice and gochujang paste should work for an improvised sauce. Heating it up helps all the fatty ingredients mix.

Doesn't that look nice? Now our copious meat doesn't have to be naked.

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Finally! A good skewer! Even the beef seems less tough this time around. The peanut sauce is fun and flavourful. Despite that, the flavour of each meat is very distinctive. I think the pork belly goes best with the ginger and satay. 2 skewers of meat and the thick sauce though, its a bit rich and sickly. I should start making side salads.

Breath of the Wild #6: Seafood Skewer

Ingredients: Any Snail or Crab

Description: ""A skewer of delicious roasted fish and shellfish."

Curiously, the ingredients don't say a fish has to be included, but we've got plenty of those sardines so, another round of those. I wanted to get some other seafood resembling the crab and snail, but uhhh.. i dont think i can get any that fit easily on a skewer for one thing. I did how ever get some crab sticks and small squids, so im defrosting some of that. It's seafood!

I've gutted the sardines, i'll also be doing the "copious fish skewers" recipe at the same time as this one so i'll throw more fish chunks on top.

For the seasoning, I dunno, there's only so much that goes with fish and seafood so i'm just gonna do a remix of some of the stuff I already have. More of that horseradish root, lots of garlic, a bit of lemongrass paste, chilli flakes, salt, olive oil, and plenty of fresh lemon juice.

Grated, sprinkled, splashed and tumbled it together. I also got in there and stuffed extra garlic and seasonings into the fish cavities.

Grill ready! Think it looks enough like the reference?

**

Crab sticks work surprisingly well on the grill, they look even more like real food this way. The seasoning was very strong and spicy and a little woody. Not bad for surviving the wilderness I guess, but for home cooking eh... it sure is some edible creatures on a stick.

Breath of the Wild #5: Fish Skewer

Ingredients: Any Fish

Description: ""A simple dish made by cooking chunks of fresh fish on a skewer."

This is just a continuation of the fish and mushroom skewer recipe, so I gutted the fish and added the seasonings i mentioned there: paprika, salt, oregano, lemon juice, horseradish and olive oil.

Stuck them through and grilled until crispy!

** 

Going out of your way to use whole fish instead of fish fillets for the look, not worth it. Am I bourgeoise? Am I spoiled? Spoiled in the head maybe because I just know, like I already know im going to do it again the next time a recipe has a whole unfilleted fish. Hey look I did it though, that's pretty cool.

Breath of the Wild #4: Meat Skewer

Ingredients: Any Meat

Description: "A juicy, filling snack made by grilling small chunks of meat on a skewer."

I thought I could get away with combining this recipe with the meat and mushroom skewer, using the same marinade, which was of course my pepper and red wine type... thing.

Assembled an all-beef skewer and put it in the grill with the others.

**

Without the mushrooms its even tougher and less juicy. I guess at least its appropriate for the most basic level foraged meat dish. Next time i'll try to cook it better though. So much chewing, im living proof that all that tiktok mewing stuff doesnt work.

Breath of the Wild #3: Fish and Mushroom Skewer

Ingredients: Any Fish, Any Mushroom

Description: "A simple dish made by cooking skewered fresh fish alongside fragrant mushrooms."

I managed to get a nice bunch of whole sardines so i can really sell that rustic fish-on-a-stick look! and some big chestnut mushrooms.

It turns out I have to gut them myself... ok... um ive never done this before, im sparing you the gruesome blood and guts but i think ive succeeded, and rinsed the cavity. All that effort for extra horrible bone texture and mostly skin type of fish.

But here's the fun part! Coming up with a nice seasoning that might go well with these. I've picked paprika, salt and oregano, and then a big squeeze of lemon juice, making sure not to miss the insides of the fish too.

And then something a bit weird! No it's not a demon boner, its a massive horseradish root I found at the local farm shop. It's fairly potent so im just going to grate a bit onto everything. If you don't know horseradish, it's hot in a mustard sort of way. European wasabi.

And then some olive oil to help it crisp up on the grill.

It's assembled and ready! The other 2 sardines will become the fish skewer recipe.

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You might be starting to get the idea why im combining some of these recipes, well apart from it being very resource efficient. It's also because these are pretty plain ways to cook ingredients that nobody even really likes that much. I expected the worst with these nasty little whole fish and shrooms, but you know what, it could have been worse. The seasoning was zippy and worked well, the fish... well i hate that texture where even though you take out the main spine, theres tons of micro thin bones in there that are small enough to eat so its sort of like eating a shoe brush, but the flavour was alright and you get a satisfying amount of fish meat. It was probably very healthy.