Breath of the Wild #51: Glazed Meat

Ingredients: Any Meat, Courser Bee Honey

Description: "The sweetness of the honey permeates the meat, giving it a complex taste profile."

Based on the wobbly fatty looking meat, I thought pork belly would be good for this! But it looks like... i picked up a pork loin joint instead! Oh well, I like that too! Then i've got honey, soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, miso paste and one (slightly old) chilli.

A bit of everything and ill blend it together!

Ok i know it looks really nasty and the strong miso smell is a lot, but it also smells like its gonna be goooddd

I think ill use my nice pumpkin pot to roast this! Itll just about fit, i will keep rotating it around periodically as it cooks, otherwise itll probably be dry on one side and wet on the other.

After about 2 hours its looking good!

And on the inside too, we can chop off some big chunks to serve. I think ill make some peas to have on the side.

*****

The miso and sesame does a lot, making it very umami. It's mildly sweet and salty, i didn't over do it with the honey or soy sauce. Very rich and flavourful, and now I have plenty of roast meat!

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.

30 Gourmet Sandwiches #20: Pork Sandwich with Red-Onion Relish

 After that slightly sad processed turkey in the thanksgiving sandwich, I felt like maybe i haven't been putting in as much effort, and getting more sliced ham instead of a proper roast pork wouldn't do for this one.

So I am going... for it!!! I bought a whole-ass roasting pork joint. only £7.50 actually, pork has gotten really cheap here. It's a workday so I sneakily pop this in the oven a couple hours before I finish work, one of the many perks of work from home eh. Bit of red valkyrie lore for ya.

Still, it would be a crime to do all this and not give it some season. I've got a drizzle of olive oil, a splash of red wine vinegar (more on that later), paprika salt (mostly just salt at this point) and some chilli flakes. And then some fresh sage leaves from my herb planter!

A couple hours later and I've finished up at work, time to complete the dinner... I've got a big loaf of sourdough bread, red onions, olive oil and red wine vinegar, and some... ketchup for this? really?

I'll thinly slice 2 onions, thatll probably make me plenty.

I've already done a later recipe where i had to caramelise onions, and i cooked them too hard and fast and burned them a bit, so now im gonna try really hard to do it low and slow. They're sauteeing in some olive oil and then when they've softened I add in the red wine vinegar.

A nice chunky slice of the sourdough will do. I think sourdough is a bit overrated, this bread looks a little dense and cakey. Never seemed worth the hassle to maintain all that starter stuff, just to make a slightly worse and more sour bread than yeast can do. Still better than any bread ive ever made.

These are looking much better! And as for the pork?

That's looking great! I've tried to slice it as thin as I can.

Nicely proportioned and smells so good.

The onion relish goes on top, there'll be plenty of both for leftovers.

And lastly. perhaps controversially.. I must admit, even as a big ketchup kid this wasn't my first thought to pair with pork and onions! But i love sauce on my sandwiches, i couldn't help but want to try it. Is that a good idea though...?

*****

This is sooo good. It's mainly the roast pork that tastes soooo goooood. It pairs surprisingly well with the sourdough, and the ketchup really doesn't clash with the vinegary onions after all. I should definitely make roast pork loin more often, sandwich or otherwise.

Delicious in Dungeon #56: Phoenix Confit

 I have a policy not to eat things alive... but phoenix keeps coming back to life, so I guess I better eat it quickly?

Confit is a dish of poultry meat slow-cooked while immersed in fat. Maybe I won't do all that, but I can pick a very fatty meat and cook it in a deep pan.

I've got a pair of duck legs, and plenty of vegetables for the trimmings. Onions, carrots, potatoes and mushrooms.

Can't escape mushrooms when dungeoneering I suppose!

Just chopping everything up chunky style and sticking it in a deep casserole dish.

oops... maybe we made too much... theres barely room for the meat! Hopefully the vegetables will shrink down a bit after a while. I also don't know if it will really cook evenly, but i dont have any better ideas.

I want to add some "phoenix" inspired spices.. obviously it should be spicy, and maybe a bit earthy and smoky? I've got an ethiopian berbere spice mix that will provide some heat, and then ill add a bit of ginger, turmeric, and paprika salt.

Here are the duck legs, and i've scored the skin. They probably shouldnt sit on top like this, but as things cook down ill work them deeper into the dish and keep adding the melted fat back on top.

Adding plenty of spice on both sides!

And some extra vegetable oil..

And a bit of butter, too! why not?

We'll wrap it up for a bit and oven cook it medium-low while checking on it often. When its nicely cooked through we can take the foil off and let it crisp up a bit.

If the potatoes are tender and the meat is cooked through, I guess we are good.

*****

Perfect! I liked the smoky spicy flavour. The duck and the vegetables all seemed perfectly cooked somehow. I guess it's my fault given the process, but I think I just made a regular roast dinner really. Would a proper slow cooked confit totally submerged in duck fat be much different? I don't know. Afterwards my stomach felt quite heavy, maybe I ate too much potato and cooking oil.

Delicious in Dungeon #39: Beef Rib Steak

We're still in the golden country, time for a delectable minotaur main!

Look at this grumpy gal! I promise I didn't eat her. 

I got some beef short ribs... are those the right cut? Well it's all I can find. And since its the GOLDEN country I got some instant GOLDEN rice to serve them on.

I guess I will try slow-cooking in the oven. Since its described as bland and it looks fairly dry, I guess I will try and keep the flavourings simple and homely. So I'm seasoning it with olive oil, celery salt, ginger & chilli mix, and dried oregano.

Wrapping these up and sticking them in the oven on a lower temperature for... 6 hours!? That feels illegal. Should I turn my central heating off to compensate?

Half the day has passed... these have shrunk a bit but they look and smell rich and beefy and they seem tender.

Just 2 minutes for the rice and then that's it!

****

I'm really happy with the beef, it's all tender and stringy. Perhaps I should get a slow-cooker someday. Maybe its because im getting over a nasty virus but the rice has a slightly weird taste? Is it because of added stabilisers? It's nice enough though and adds a pleasant texture. Maybe I should have added a touch of sugar to the beef. The dish overall would have benefited from being slathered in BBQ sauce.

Delicious in Dungeon #22: Roast Red Dragon, Onion Flatbread, and Dragon Tail Soup

 The red dragon's defeated!

Huh, you already knew that? You saw me roast its hams? Well... I hope you didn't see me drop that sauce all over my kitchen floor...

Since we already had a whole brick of meat, I decided to use that for the massive chunk of meat in this recipe too. It just makes sense. I'm also gonna just carve off a chunk of it to use in the soup as well.

BUT FIRST lets quickly prepare that flatbread. I was gonna get a pizza base or something, but I saw this mini garlic flat bread on discount and I thought itd be kinda perfect, just a single portion of the flatbread for my single self (whos got an entire brisket roast to eat)

I'll chop the smallish onion into thick slices like this.

Topping the garlic bread with some very thinly sliced cheese and the larger bits of onion... It's ready to go in the oven for 15mins, but let's do the soup first!

For the soup i've got those smaller bits of onion, and the recipe mentioned turnip, which I couldn't find but I had some leftover salad radishes so they'll do. browned them up in the pan as you can see.

Then I'm throwing in that chunk of dragon I carved off earlier, some boiling water and 1 beef stock cube. I can also tip in any leftover jus from the roast.

Once the soup has had a bit of time on the hob to mingle or whatever, I cooked the flatbread in the oven. Smells good! 

****

Delicious! I loved the garlicky oniony flatbread with the red meat. The soup was boring, it just tasted like beef stock mainly.. The meat was tough but had a nice flavour. I'm looking forward to thinly slicing the rest and putting it in a sandwich.