Delicious in Dungeon #62: Desire?

 A substance wrapped in a feeling wrapped in a demon.

That's desire, I guess...? How do we cook that?

The sweetness of honey can represent desire, the substance of an apple is a popular metaphor for the forbidden insights, and the demon? Well I managed to get mouflon mince patties, thats a baphomet looking animal if I ever saw one. If you've read the manga, you might remember some relevant motifs but I won't go into all that.

I'll chop the apple up into decent sized cubes, so we can fit the meat around it easier. Plus I don't want to eat the apple core.

a dollop of honey goes in the middle, and I guess I will probably need both patties to wrap it all the way around.

Nice! But... kinda cursed.

Wrapped it up into a ball and its ready to go in the oven. I guess i have to bake the remaining apple as well since it touched the raw meat.

Its looking fairly cooked but juicy, ill open up the wrapper to brown the outside a bit. Makes it a bit more appetising.

*

Hrmm.. this meat it kinda... it kinda tastes a lot like kidney meat... that pungent gamey flavour really doesn't go well with the sickly-sweet apple and honey combo. It's a nauseating pairing to be sure, maybe i'm not cut out to be a demon. Hope im not cursed.

Delicious in Dungeon #61: Local Cuisine From Someone's Hometown

Who's home cuisine is this? Is there any point in keeping it a secret? I... don't know. I don't think its really a spoiler, but maybe it seems like one? So I thought id be nice.

buongiorno we are making some authentic italian food according to 1 dwarf who lives in a dungeon

OK first of all the key ingredient, roasted pork. Research seems to suggest they make "chashu" style pork, which is pork belly slow roasted in a sort of bbq style marinade.

First I have to remove the rind i guess. Its got this kind of hard skin layer on one side. I just kind of had to saw it sideways for what seemed like an eternity.

Next, im rubbing on some chilli flakes, powdered ginger, brown sugar, soy sauce and cooking sake. You could marinate this for a while but im not a restaurant i dont care

I couldn't find any cooking twine at the shops (does nobody practice food bondage no more?) so ive tried to roll it up and wrap it really tight with foil and stick it in a loaf tin. I think you are also supposed to sear the pork for proper chashu, but knowing my oven pork tends to get burnt pretty quickly on the outside and i dont like a light touch on the inside so im just gonna roast it straight up. 

Alright the roasts been roasting in the oven for some time, nows a good time to start on the rest of the dish. The... the "pasta". The spaghet. This is why I don't call spaghetti "noodles". We've got traditional italian ingredients like ramen noodles, bean sprouts, cabbage, spring onion, egg and garlic.

First ill get the soft boiled egg out the way. I remember being told you shouldnt boil an egg in a soup, something about eggshell contaminants or something? Dunno if true but here we are. 7 mins and then it can cool off while we do the other stuff.

For the broth i've got this fancy chicken stock I oughtta finish up, as well as some miso paste.

Adding a big fistful of these hotpot/ramen noodles and hot water. These noodles take ages but they are designed for a nice slow cooked broth.

While thats all going on, I rinse the beansprouts and fry them up.

When they've shrank a bit I can chop the pak choi (leafy cabbage) and fry that a bit too. Hmm... am I forgetting something...? 

?!!?!?! I ALMOST FORGOT THE ROAST!!! Its looking ok though. Will it stay together when I slice it? Well we will find out soon.

Since its very juicy im going to add some of the pork fat juice into the broth as well.

Once the noodles are done we can start assembling everything and emptying the pan so we cna cook up the final touches - some of those chopped spring onions and a couple cloves of crushed garlic!

**

Well it looks pretty cool. But... its criminally underseasoned. Despite all that garlic, which is kinda nice, it kind of has that sickly taste of pork fat a bit too strongly. Maybe I really should have seared it or cooked it uncovered for longer. I also should have used even more seasoning in the first place, I was a bit light on it because it was a faff trying to roll the meat up. I guess the vegetables also dont really add much of a pop of sweet or sour either. Maybe im just spoiled on restaurant quality noodles because I thought this would be an easy winner. I feel very full now.

Delicious in Dungeon #60: Mysterious Bavarois And Some Kind Of Tea

The canaries are over for an important business brunch!

But when the gang gets together, the gangs gotta have a little treat.

This certainly is a bit mysterious, since bavarois are meant to be made with cream and not milk. Will it even set properly with milk? I guess we will find out. I have "that one milk", slime (gelatine), an egg, and for the "plant nectar" i happen to have both golden syrup AND maple syrup. 

I guess its just milk and a raw egg straight in a pan to heat... this feels so wrong. So illegal. Poaching an egg in milk.

To sweeten it we just have "plant nectar", im adding a couple tablespoons of the regular syrup in this mix, and ill use the maple syrup at the end for the garnish, since that has a stronger and more distinctive flavour.

Once its whisked and been heated to not-quite-boiling for a bit, ill mix half a pack of gelatine in let it start to cool.

Poured it in to some moulds... will this work? is the egg cooked? it feels as opaque as this pudding right now. Once its cooled I put it in the fridge and leave it overnight! 

Good morning! Time for a cup of SOME KIND OF TEA and a MYSTERIOUS BAVAROIS. Im making an earl grey tea, its floral and fragrant flavour i think will go well with a sweet dessert.

Hmm, has it set properly? well it didnt pour out when i tipped it upside down, so thats a good start. Moment of truth! (also topping with that maple syrup at the end)

****

Wow! Yes!! It has a smooth creamy texture and a sweet brown-sugar-y flavour. If its not made with cream though, is it really a bavarois? or is it a crème caramel? Also I didn't whisk it well enough (or maybe i should have strained it), it had some lumps of gelatine and egg that had floated to the top. If you're very picky about textures it might bother you. But if you haven't noticed by now, I'm not very picky about a lot of things.

Delicious in Dungeon #59: Golden Country Dragon

It's actually not a golden dragon, it's a green dragon again...

But it's like a really small one, it shrunk! How, you ask? Erm... a wizard did it. No wait, why are you asking? of course a wizard did it!

This recipe is literally just crispy dragon pancakes, so... im just going to use a meal kit. It is the best way. 

Let's see what we're working with here... parboiled dragon goes in the oven, wraps go in the microwave for 30 seconds at the end, and the dungeon tree sauce is ready to go. Goddess bless the culinary conjurators guild!

It's more solid than it looked in the packet which is good for grillin'. I will flip it halfway through to make sure it crisps on both sides. 

I chop the spring onions into little convenient wrapping sized slivers.

And same with the courgette. Um... dungeon tree fruit.

arrange them on the plate, and then when everythings almost done, the wraps can get a little microwave.

****

It's tasty! The meat is really nice, with a perfect pulled texture and crispy skin. The spring onions are really tough though, I like the flavour but its not so nice to bite into. Not a creative twist on the recipe, its just a regular standard crispy duck pancakes meal, but it was nice to make an excuse to have it.

Delicious in Dungeon #58: Green Dragon Acqua Pazza

A green dragon! Don't worry, its not a very big one.

Instead of a big roast up this time, we have... a seafood dish?? Yep that's right.

,

The dragon meat is cooked in wyvern's fire and apparantly tastes like a chimney stack.. i wont go that far but ill get some smoked duck breast for the meat. And for nightmares, last time we used clams but I couldn't easily find any so I got mussels, though they come in a garlic sauce... and to round that out we got some squid ink spaghetti and seaweed salt.

This recipe doesn't contain pasta, but i don't feel like eating plain meat with nothing else, so im adding a bit for the base. Plus the whole dish is boiled in sea water, which i'm also not going to do to the pre-cooked meats we have. We're really making do here. Anyway, adding a little too much salt to the pasta water instead, for the sea water. goody.

This dragon breast is already smoked, but I want to sear it a bit so its warm and tasty.

I swear i didn't do anything to this spaghetti! It just seems to be falling apart on its own. Well, unless it was the salt water? It was a really cheap discounted pack though.

While the spaghetti is draining, we can heat the mussels as well. They came in a sauce, which is probably nicer than just salt flavour.

Pouring some of the sauce straight on the pasta and then ill arrange some mussels on the plate.

For a final touch, ill season it with seaweed salt for the seawater flavour (unenthusiastically) and I also have some bonito flakes, those are seafoody and smoky!

*

Well, at least it doesn't taste like seawater and chimney smoke. It's actually fine, I guess.. It tastes like mussels and smoked meat, two things I don't particularly go out of my way for. I was also disappointed that the spaghetti fell apart into little bits, making it annoying to eat. The duck was nice, but the added salt and overall seafood flavour didnt do much for it. I don't think its bad, but I don't like it.