Breath of the Wild #48: Creamy Heart Soup

Ingredients: Hearty Radish, Hydromelon, Voltfruit, Fresh Milk

Description: "Enjoying this sweet soup with another person will bring you both close together."

Curious one, this. I'm choosing to take it quite literally though. We've got radishes, "hydro" melon, frozen dragonfruit/pitaya for the voltfruit, fresh cream... and then some green grapes and sugar syrup to round out the recipe. What could go wrong? 

Yes, radishes. The vegetable. I don't think i want them hard and crunchy, so im going to nip the stem and roots off and boil them in a bit of hot water.

I don't know how much waters in the other fruits yet so ill be stingy with the hot water.

Now, to remember how the juicer attachment for my blender works... Perhaps i should have let this frozen dragon fruit thaw, but... I don't know, will it turn brown if i do that? im just going to add a splash of hot water and blend it, see what happens. 

Ok, not as much liquid as I expected. Its turned into a nice looking smooth slush in the middle, maybe ill just dump the whole thing in after all? The seeds will be good for me.

Yeah this looks fine. Boiling the radishes ironically turns them white, but theres plenty of pink to go around.

I was really struggling with if we should add any kind of herbs or spices, but I dunno. Lets make like a fruit cocktail and add loads of sugar instead! 

Handful of grapes... gotta boil those grapes. (what am i doing)

Once its nearly ready i add in the cream... uhoh... I didn't think about it possibly of it curdling. Is this something a bit of heat and a good whisking can fix?

Whoa, it kinda helped! It smells kinda bad though. It smells like cream thats been in my fridge a bit too long, and dragonfruit thats been in my freezer way too long... Im starting to feel queasy.

I also wanted to get a whole melon to cut a big heart with it, but they were all out (its mid spring as i write this!) so I got these slices... still, this will do for making a heart shape right?

*

Somehow, its not as bad as I expected. It feels a lot like consuming a soup for some sort of weird ritual. The radishes are crisply boiled. The hot grapes... are nothing. Grapes are not better hot. It's sweet and creamy, and probably full of fiber. Would I make this again? Absolutely not. It's pointless. But... the experience brought us together?

Breath of the Wild #41: Copious Simmered Fruit

Ingredients: Any Four Different Fruit

Description: "The flavors of the various fruits in this simmered dish exist in perfect harmony."

Our four different fruits: pear, orange, blueberries and pineapple. I thought to add a little complexity but be different from the previous one, we'd add a touch of ginger, star anise and lemon juice. And then of course extra syrup, to taste.

Time to peel anything peelable, and remove as much of the orange pith as I can be bothered. Don't want it getting too bitter.

Shoving everything in my big cast iron pot, a couple tablespoons of extra water and let's just see what happens!

After about 15 mins its already looking transformed! Shout out to blueberries for adding a bit of colour. I think i'll just serve myself a little bowl of it for now, I want something savoury with dinner as well.

****

Harmonious! The simple bits of ginger, lemon and star anise add a noticeable complexity, while every fruit flavour stands out. It's surprisingly wine-like, it reminds me a lot of sangria, I think pears really trick me somehow into thinking there's an alcohol taste. Some of the textures are better stewed than others. The pineapple maintains a nice crunch, but the orange slices are fibrous and mushy. Great thing to try if you're bored of fresh fruit, or you have a lot of slightly blander/underripe fruits to use up.

Breath of the Wild #40: Simmered Fruit

Ingredients: Any Fruit

Description: "This sweet dish is made by heaping tasty fruits into a pan and simmering until tender."

For this we're just starting with ONE fruit, there's a 4-fruit version coming up. When I think "simmered" I think pears for some reason. So pears its gonna be! I picked some bold pairings with this bold flavour: white wine, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. And syrup for that extra sweetness.

Damn i see why people call pears "juicy". It's like peeling a wet bar of soap.

Next I chop them into quarters and get rid of all the hard bits, seeds and stems and that.

And in a pot they go with the white wine, cinnamon, nutmeg and a few cloves. It's gonna be festive! I also have a tiny sprig of purple sage to garnish.

****

Yep, the flavours were fun and worked really well. A nice idea for such a simple dish. One thing I don't like about pears though, is that weird mealy texture, and the ground spices kinda enhance that for an extra-fine grittyness. I guess now I see the point in buying whole spices to infuse for things like this. 

Breath of the Wild #39: Fruit and Mushroom Mix

Ingredients: Any Fruit, Any Mushroom

Description: "This dish contrasts the sweetness of fruit with the savoriness of mushrooms."

OK so last time I combined mushrooms with fruit (orange?) it was kinda gross, but im feeling good about this one. I have decided to stew some mushrooms and plums together.

First, let's rinse the mushrooms. They're going in whole.

So, I figured... maybe we can accessorise this dish with lots of savoury items to offset all the fruit. I'm chopping some shallots, and then ill add some beef stock, strong flavoured herbs, tomato puree, and some other stuff as I think of it.

I chose some plums that were a bit underripe, so theyll be a bit sour and less sweet. Nice colours though.

I'll just dry fry those for a bit and then add in the rest.

In goes the mushrooms, beef stock cube, chopped rosemary and thyme, a bay leaf, and a bit of hot water to make it a stew.

Hmm to lean into the plummyness, how about a tiny bit of wine, tomato puree and soy sauce?

It looks not bad, I suppose. Are we going to be ok? I think i'll get a bread roll to eat it with too.

**

First mouthful I was like wow! Ive created a really nice umami flavour. The plum, mushroom, wine and herbs really did contrast the flavours nicely. But after a while, the bitterness sunk in, and then i had to eat big wet mouthfuls of slimy mushroom and plum. It seems like it would make a really nice gravy to pour over something else. But gravy isn't a meal. Maybe i'll blend the leftovers and use it as a meat sauce base?

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.

****

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?

30 Gourmet Sandwiches #30: Banana and Fromage Blanc Grilled Cheese

 Last one! Lets end it on a sweet treat.

I got a cinnamon & raisin bread (is a fruit loaf the same thing?), i dont know what the closest thing to fromage blanc is but I got ricotta cheese, and then we got a banana, vanilla extract and icing sugar.

I've actually never had ricotta before. I thought it would be lumpy and sour like cottage cheese tbh but I guess its more like mascarpone? Thats nice. I'll mix up 3 tablespoons with a little bit of sugar and vanilla.

This is quite a small banana so ill just use it all.

Gently folding the banana chunks into the creems cheems. Could deffos use a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg but thats what the breads for i guess!

Bread! Its quite small but dense, and we're to butter just the outside!?

Once again, im using my tamagoyaki pan for crimes. This is how much I think I can fit into the sandwich, ill have to eat the rest.

Oh my goddd the leftover cream cheese and banana mix is soo good! I should just have a bowl of this for breakfast. Ok its probably toasted enough time to take a weirdly closeup photo.

****

Well im sold on sweetened ricotta and banana, thats very nice. I'll be honest with you though... I think maybe I liked the chilled leftover filling more than the warmed sandwich. Somehow the heat made it seem a bit... blander? I do like all the components though, its easy to like.