Delicious in Dungeon #13: Porridge Made From Grain That Was Just Lying Around

Some adventurers have kicked the bucket, again! I wonder what got 'em? oh well..

May as well not let those grains go to waste...

I originally bought crab sticks for this recipe because I didn't think i'd be getting so damn much mimic meat from my special order.. I also managed to source pearl barley, fresh seaweed salad and trout (merman??) roe! Absolutely decadent haul of premium food that probably would have been for broke peasants in the 1800s but whatever.

I'll wash the barley and let it soak for a few mins, its pearl barley though so apparently that means its already husked... good. I've never cooked barley before... or savory porridge, or... man, have I ever even had PORRIDGE!? I don't remember if I have! I was never from a gruel household, would you believe.

You know what else I've got leftover from last recipe? Some of that water I boiled all the crabs in! Now you're thinking with fridges. I empty out the rinse water and i'm gonna cook it in this boiling stock.

Hmm so we have salty crab water, grain... what else? I'm going to add a bay leaf, some dried seaweed and some black pepper. Oh it looks like dirt water now.

While this cooks for half an hour, that should give us a decent amount of time to extract enough crab meat from all these nasty little limbs!

Well the water has cooked off enough, and these seem... I don't know, soft and grainy enough? And i've managed to get a decent amount of crab meat, even though i still have MORE CRAB BITS LEFT somehow. I'll just bowl up a portion and dress it with all those ingredients.

****

Whoa! I didn't know what to expect, seeing as I've never cooked with most of these things before... and I had no idea what I was doing... (Also it sounded pretty drab)... It's salty, its delicately seafoody, its got a bit of a kick from the dressing in the salad and the fish eggs. The barley and seaweed and are satisfyingly firm and chewy, making it seem very filling. Maybe some lemon juice or garlic would punch it up a bit more... but maybe something mild and unique is nice too. This is probably intensely healthy for a hot dish, its all fiber, iodine and fish oils.