Breath of the Wild #66: Gourmet Meat Stew

 Ingredients: Raw Gourmet Meat, Goat Butter, Fresh Milk, Tabantha Wheat

Description: "The meat has simmered for so long it melts in your mouth. A true bucket-list meal!."

Going all out again for the gourmet, our meats are venison AND turkey thigh. Then we have the ingredients to make that bechamel sauce again. And since there seems to be other chunks in there, we've got some onions and a sweet potato.

I'll start cooking the venison in butter while I prep everything else, this will probably need the longest to cook if we want it reasonably tender.

Wow it shrinks a bit! Still, good sized meaty lean chunks in there. Now we can start the stew.

I'll cut the sweet potato and onion into pretty big chunks.

Ah right, the "stock"! Ive got a bunch of leftover pastes and sauces in the fridge already, so i've grabbed a selection that I think will complement the dark meats. Beef stock, celery salt, tomato & chilli pasta sauce, and concentrated umami paste (made from tomato and mushroom?).

that can all go in with some hot water.

And that turkey thigh... well... its already pre-cooked actually so we can just sort of... just place it on top? I guess?

We can't do all that and half-ass things, so ill let this simmer for a full hour!

Time to make that sauce again... I swear it feels different every time.. 

Looks good!

And in it goes!

*****

It really does melt in your mouth! The turkey melted right off the bone already, and the venison is sooo tender too. The broth is soo rich and buttery. I guess I could have put the sweet potato in a bit later, its quite different from regular potatoes i guess and gets a little bit too melty after that long. Gourmet, decadent even.

Breath of the Wild #29: Salt-Grilled Gourmet Meat

Ingredients: Rock Salt, Raw Gourmet Meat or Raw Whole Bird

Description: "This lavish grilled dish makes liberal use of high-quality cuts of meat."

For the gourmet-est meat I managed to get a nice big joint of lamb, time to make "liberal use" of it!

Again, salt has to be the main ingredient so ive just put plenty of salt on all sides of the meat and thats it!

Actually, its a bit boring on its own so im going to fry up a side of sprouts and chestnuts.

Here it is after about 1h45 in the oven, i took the foil off at the end to let it brown more. Looks ready to serve!

*****

It's great! The meat has quite a fatty rind that crisps up in the oven giving it lots of flavour, along with the salt. You can use the side vegetables to mix up the flavours too. I didn't really eat that whole joint in one meal of course.

Delicious in Dungeon #64: Final Blood Sausage

Blutwurst, morcilla, boudin noir, bleedie weenie, hemoglobin cylinder.

 
Blood sausage! What am I, a butcher? Nah ill cook pre-made blood sausage, but instead im going to use the recipe as inspiration to make an extra dipping sauce to have with it.

Here in the UK our typical blood sausage is called "black pudding", so i got that. And for the sauce its gonna be red bell pepper and garlic.

I guess I could have roasted the peppers in the oven, but that seems like a lot of extra work when im gonna try and mix it and reduce it on the hob anyway. So ill just chop it up to go in the blender.

Pepper and garlic, liquid style!

Put it on the hob for about 5 mins and its already reduced significantly into a thick paste! I was worried itd be too soupy.

Now we can add lots of spices. I've got a jar of chopped chillies, olive oil, cream, salt, pepper, paprika and garam masala, which is kind of a classic indian spice mix.

Pop em all like this and mix up!

Well, now I guess all thats left is to fry these things. Dreading this because i dont like blood sausage. I'd usually pass on them with the fryup breakfast.

See, heres the other problem with them... since they instantly turn black, how do you even know when they're cooked through or burnt? Well i took one aside and cut it in half to make sure it seemed hot throughout. I gotta admit they do actually smell amazing right now, as does the sauce.

***

Huh, is it me or is this the best black pudding ive had? Its not as chalky or bitter as I remember. Maybe you just can't beat fresh home cooking..? Or maybe my expectations are always lowered. I guess its not like, amazing though. Compared to other sausages its pretty bland. The sauce is pleasantly spicy and pairs pretty well. I tried to do a little sausage-inspired swirl but it was too lumpy so we ended up with this.. artistic puddle presentation.

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 #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.

Delicious in Dungeon #57: Head-Hunting Rabbit Curry

We have to make curry. No like, we have to make... LOTS of curry.

Sorry, ominous fantasy world rabbits, but you're going in the soup again.

Maybe I won't make as much as they make in the manga, but I will make a nice big batch, as much as my cookwares can handle. We have rice, potatoes, carrots, onions (not pictured oops), mushrooms, garlic, instant curry, and a big cylinder of rabbit meat.

Let's start by steaming plenty of rice. I guess traditionally they do japanese rice with japanese curry, but I have some thai jasmine rice that I think will be nice with it.

First I will chop the stewing vegetables (potato, carrot, mushroom) into nice chunky pieces and put them to one side.

Then i'm going to slice up the garlic and onions, which I will fry in some butter along with the meat to add a nice flavour base.

Once all the vegetables are good to go I can chop the raw meat last.

I'll just take the whole wadge of it and slice it all up. That's a good amount of rabbit!

Once they are looking lightly cooked its probably fine to add the rest of the vegetables..

OK... I may have overdone this a little... um... hopefully the water will soften them down and stop them from burning, if not maybe we'll get a second pan.

Next we dump in all the curry blocks and plenty of water. You can check the back of the box for the right proportions but tbh I just eyeballed it. We've got a lot of added ingredients to soak.

We can just pop the lid on and trust the process... well occasionally stirring it gently. As you can see its already coming along nicely, once the potatoes are soft its good to go.

*****

I love a nice stewed curry, its mild but well-rounded and comforting and you can pack lots of veggies in there. It's also super easy. Maybe I could have chopped the vegetables up real tiny make it look more like a giant serving? But this process was more authentic.

And it also makes plenty of meals worth!