Delicious in Dungeon #47: Changeling Dumplings From Fairy Ring

~ !! WARNING !! ~ END OF ANIME SEASON 1!!!

This is the last recipe featured in Season 1 of the anime!  If you are keeping up with the anime and not the manga and don't want anything at all spoiled such as recipes and creature encounters, maybe make this your last one and email yourself a bookmark link a year or so from now? 

I will, however, avoid spoiling major plot events and be censoring recipes that I think give too much away regarding everything outside of the recipes and ingredients. So if you're not too bothered about the cooking side of things, please continue on and I will try to keep this relatively spoiler free!

I tire of these dumplings... what if mushroom circle fairy magic can switch them up a bit?

wow!! thank you dumpling fairies! 

Let's pop these whimsical badboys into my steamer. They always stick to the plastic tray so im using my oven baking sheet, make sure it doesn't cover up all the steam holes though. This ones old and full of holes tbh.

Once it's nearly done, we can pop the leftover dumplings and the dipping sauce on top in to warm up a bit.  Again, take care with a hot steamer, turn it off and let it cool for a bit before you add stuff. I also use oven mitts and don't mess around too much.

****

Everything tastes better with the dipping sauce. These store bought ones really show up my inferior homemade ones though. They're much firmer, and have fatty pork, prawn and leek flavours that go well with the salty vinegary dip.

Reminder: END OF ANIME S1!!!

Delicious in Dungeon #46: Boiled Hippogriff Potstickers

There's a gargoyle BOTHERING us so we're gonna hide in the kitchen and make dinner.

I guess we can't eat gargoyle... maybe STONEBAKED PIZZA? No? Alas.. I have to make something out of this leftover hippogriff meat.

So here's where we were last recipe, frying up that hippogriff meat with diced veg. After we got some out for the soup, i've added some black pepper to add flavour to the filling.

It's the next day, and this is back out the fridge. And for the wraps, I already had some old wonton wrappers in my freezer. They're looking a little worse for wear though.. theyve been in there a while and maybe they've dried out a lot. I guess I'll see what I can do...

I'm taking outthe meat chunks and dicing them up EVEN SMALLER. Since they were really meant to be minced meat.

I wasn't sure if these were a bit small for the shape we are trying to make... they are at least designed for boiling, but... yeah they're so dried out now... i dont know what kind of shapes I can even hope to make with them.

I am NOT happy with this. But its dinner time and I don't want to go try and make my own pastry or change dinner plans now. Let's just wade through like we always do.

OK, I have some kind of shapes. I refreshed the pastry a bit with hot water and I think these will hold together in water.

At least these are optimised for boiling, which was a specification of this dish after all.

**

They're not terrible I guess. They taste like a cheap lean steak with pepper and onion. A bit boring though and a fattier meat would be nicer. It's a shame i couldnt make them look that similar, and these wontons are really designed for serving in a soup which might have made it tastier and more satisfying. The lesson is.. don't leave things in your freezer for months and months and months saying "ill use it for a recipe some day". The other lesson is I just want to steam and fry store-bought gyoza instead.

Delicious in Dungeon #45: Hippogriff Soup

This is... yes... this is a hippogriff. An eagle's head and wings on a horse's lower body.

Since the front is the same, we only sample the hindquarters. Honse.

I'll be using the leftovers for the next recipe, so i'm doing it a bit different this time.

Well, first we chop it into nice stewing chunks again. Opps i'll have to wash the chopping board before I do my veg.

I'm chopping up the onion and carrot as fine as I can, this will hopefully lend some flavour to the meat but mostly its for the next recipe...

Same with the carrot. Nice n' small.

Now it all goes in together, with some salt. I'm using salt with a bit of paprika.

Once this is cooked, I pull out a good amount of the meat chunks for this recipe and the rest can go to one side.

OK so now im just adding hot water to the meat cooked in the veg. It's not going to be nearly as elaborate (and tasty) as the others, but i guess this is a bit closer to the actual recipe than the last two.

Hmm meat chunk water. This is normal. This is a very normal way to cook dinner.

**

It's more clear like the proper recipe... and very plain. The water tastes even waterier than regular water... its kind of... mineral-y. The meat is nice enough, again all this exotic meat seems to be good quality and lean, consistent cuts. Without bones and stuff and only cooking it for a short amount of time, it's not really a good way to make broth. Anyway it was perfectly fine, but I'm glad we're done with the plain meat soup saga and on to bolder things!

Delicious in Dungeon #44: Griffin Soup (Lower Body)

Now we sample the other side of a griffin! The arse end is a lion.

Well, im not sure lion's meat is even legal... but we make do, I got some wild boar chunks which is probably the closest I can think of to a predator/carnivore meat. And probably way better.

Like last recipe, no pretenses, i'm going to add some vegetables to create a more complex soup flavours (and give myself a bowl of stewed veggie on the side)

Might as well just get straight to it. I forgot to defrost the meat earlier, but thats ok because I want to just boil it slowly I guess. 

Medium-chunky chopped red onion, celery, carrot...

And finally some apple! Yknow like... pork and apple sauce...

Uhh I wanna add a stock but no!! We want the flavours to prove themselves! I'll add a bit of salt though.

After a good 40mins its looking nice and soupy. The apple is gone mushy which might be weird, but I guess its not that different from potato chunks...

***

It's pleasant and flavourful, though sulphurous and sour which might not be to everyone's tastes. It reminds me a bit of the pork soup I made for a cooking mama recipe some time ago, but with that extra tartness from the apple that I think I prefer. The meat is very nicely firm without being tough or chewy. It's weird that my broth always comes out way more opaque than the reference, even though I'm always scared of under-flavouring it by cooking it relatively fast.

Delicious in Dungeon #43: Griffin Soup (Upper Body)

Big bird front and a lion's booty, that's a griffin right?

The first soup is made with the upper body, which is the bird part.

I have the biggest bird meat I could find (ostrich). The recipe is a super simple broth, made with just meat and salt. I really though about sticking to the brief, but... it just feels wrong, you know? After all, this is a part-cooked steak, it's not exactly broth-making meat. It just feels like a waste to cook it so plain.

So I thought id design my own fun soups based on the expected flavour profile. It looks so steak-y, so ive gone with mushrooms, a bit of bell pepper, plenty of black pepper and a little bit of horseradish sauce.

Oh! I should also add some salt, and why not some spicy. I'll add celery salt and cayenne pepper as well.

***

It's so peppery and warming! No surprise, we have a lot of types of pepper in there, and the horseradish sauce is not subtle. If you told me the meat was just roast beef, i'd have believed you. Maybe they could have just sold me beef steak... but... it was actually pretty cheap for steak then. It was a good cut too, very consistent and not tough even though i boiled it to death. Simple or not, broth isn't that filling though.

Delicious in Dungeon #42: Sky Fish and Chips

Sky fish! Does that look familliar to you? You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

I'm aware that this dish is meant to be more of a reference to regular battered fish and chips... but that's NOT what they made when actually creating the familliar in the manga/anime. they made it out of leftover supplies. So I thought it'd be cute to make a crazy spring roll instead!

  

Here's a lil cross section shot, but let's now back up and show how we got to this..

I've got my defrosted spring roll wraps, and based on that diagram of the ingredients used to alchemize the skyfish, we've got leftover beef, cabbage, carrots, and spring onion. I... don't... remember why I bought smoked tofu for this recipe...? I guess it can be the cartillage? Whatever im using it.

I've chopped and julienned the cabbage, carrot and spring onion. I'm going to fry them in a bit of sesame oil.

And then cut the beef and tofu into thin strips. Come to think of it.... everything's already cooked (or edible raw) so I guess we didn't need to do this step...? Oh well.

Now I carefully separate and arrange the fillings, and wrap it all up with 2 sheets into a giant extra-long spring roll! You can scroll back up to see how that turned out.

All the remaining veg and spring roll wraps can be a problem for tomorrow, because this wack recipe wants us to BATTER AND DEEP FRY the thing. 

I'm preparing just a really small portion of tempura batter in a big bowl so I can roll this giant wingwang in it.

Here goes... I have to be very careful not to tear it. it's a 2 spatula job.

In it goes! ....Hmm, this is stupid. If its going to come out bent like this i might as well just cut it in half at this point. I'll cut it with a plastic spatula of course. Should have just done this sooner. Or like... why didnt i just make 2 normal sized spring rolls....?

The wings get rolled up and dunked in the rest of the batter and thrown in there as well!

While thats cooking we can make a little dip. I've decided to mix yuzu salad dressing, soy sauce and vinegar.

***

It's perfectly crispy! It was a little over-laboured so I didn't expect much, but I was quite impressed. The plain wings were crispy and chewy and went great with a vinegary dip, and the spring rolls tasted so fresh... After a while though, I started to think.. maybe smoked tofu and slow-cooker beef is a bit of a weird flavour in a spring roll actually... and the oilyness gets a little sickly after a while, I should stop minmaxing fried things and start serving them with a side.