Breath of the Wild #49: Glazed Veggies

Ingredients: Any Vegetable, Flower, or Herb, Courser Bee Honey.

Description: "Don't like the taste of vegetables? Simply saute them in honey for a salty-sweet flavor!"

Looks like we're all souped out, into the honey era! I've got some leftover swede from... I don't even remember when... A pak choi, a sweet potato, some chives. Now for the honey, i figure i can mix in whatever I want with that, to compliment the sweet honey with some more savoury and spicy flavours.

I know from experience the swede takes ages to cook and stays quite hard, so this time im going to boil it before I fry it! Same with the sweet potato, which i've peeled and chopped here.

Oh... I left this boiling for ages, the swede feels just right but the sweet potato... its waaaay soft. Like wow, I thought it took a long time to boil like potatoes?

The sweet potato has totally disintegrated and turned to mash! Oh well. I sautee these all in a bit of oil and generously sprinkle on chilli flakes, salt, chinese 5 spice, dollops of umami paste and a big drizzle of honey! Oh and before I serve, ill chop up a bunch of the chives and throw them in as well.

****

Im learning new things about vegetable cooking times... I really thought sweet potato would be tougher and need that boiling... Well! Consistency aside, the umami and chinese 5-spice flavours really pop off. I dont think the trio of textures is particularly appealing, but if you just did the swede/squash with the honey chilli 5-spice and chives that makes a great go-to side dish

Breath of the Wild #25: Salt-Grilled Greens

Ingredients: Rock Salt, Any Herb or Flower

Description: "A health-boosting dish made with leafy greens and a touch of salt."

Remember the fried wild greens from recipe 16? Here's what i did with the rest of them!

This time they're getting "grilled" (in my oven) in a baking pan. I'll spray them with cooking oil and a "touch of salt" or... ok more salt than I usually put on anything. It's the only gimmick!

***

Hmm salty. Quite nice, but I think i preferred the pan-fried version, more balanced in flavours but also more crisp and less floppy. My health is boosted. My sodium is boosted.

Breath of the Wild #16: Copious Fried Wild Greens

Ingredients: Any four different Vegetables, Flowers, or Herbs

Description: "A healthy dish made by cooking mixed greens over a strong flame."

Four different vegetables, we have! Spring onion, sugar snap peas, baby corn and courgette.

I'll cut the ones that need to be cut, but these can afford to be fairly big and chunky I suppose.

Like with the fried broccoli, I'll add a nice bit of butter for flavour and to help it cook.

And we can toss it in the nice big pan! Well, half of what I showed at the start, I can save the other half for salt-grilled greens later.

Oh why not add just a bit of seasoning? I have this paprika salt and lemon handy.

*****

Cool! I think I did a good job. Frying with the butter really brings out the sweetness in the vegetables. Crisp and hydrating with a nice variety. It really feels like more of a snack though. A visually pleasing healthy side. 

30 Gourmet Sandwiches #19: Nicoise Hero

This ones another "not really my thing" type and we're about to go make do with a lot of compromises. Yay.

Got a nice small baguette, lettuce, tomato, lemon... went ahead and boiled some eggs earlier. I HATE olives so no olives i'm just gonna go with the capers instead. They were out of green beans so i got mangetout beans, those are good salad beans anyway. And lastly, tuna... im quite fussy about tuna so i wanted to get some frozen tunasteak and cook it myself but they were FRESH OUTTA THAT TOO so instead we really are getting canned. At least its in olive oil.

Mm yes. not bad. It smells like cat food most certainly, but like, good cat food i guess? I can eat this.

Looks like its got lettuce on the bottom. sure. already I know its gonna be an unwieldy one.

All the tuna and plenty of capers. Wait, how many capers is plenty of capers?

I just need to chop up a little bit of tomato and beans.

veggies in and a good squeeze of lemon over it all. No sauce or anything I guess. Actually that's probably for the best, theres a lot going on here.

And lastly, the sliced boiled egg. Is it me... or is trying to close these sandwiches a whole art? How do they do it? I'm too european for this. I just put some cheese between breads and call it a day.

**

It's edible. It's like a... plain undressed but relatively upmarket cat food salad. This one goes out to people who choose tuna sandwiches when there's options for literally any other sandwich on the menu. You're so mysterious. Couldn't be me.

30 Gourmet Sandwiches #14: Spicy Crab-Salad Sandwich

Time for crab!

We have a tin of good quality crab meat, garlic, red chillies, spring onion, lime, sesame oil and some type of cabbage called "sweetheart" cabbage. It looks like a gnome hat.

I get no hints from the label if the crab meat is cooked or raw... i expected cooked when i bought it but.. well i dunno. I think ill give this a little sautee. Drained off the excess water of course.

Honestly, i think garlic, onion and chillies are all best with a little sear so let's just toss these all together with some sesame oil IN A HOT PAN

They are cooking in toasted sesame oil which also acts as a dressing, and we get to add some salt as well.

Will this be it? will this finally be the recipe where i learn to hold back on overstuffing the sandwich with too much greens? I think so.

Oh! I forgot to show what bread I acquired. I really wanted to find any type of non-crusty baguette or soft roll. Lidl was out of almost everything except these brioche buns, but you know what? Not the first time ive heard of crab/lobster in brioche rolls, I think its kind of a thing around here. Anyway look away while I do some unethical fire hazard things to lightly toast the bread.

I think the crap looks reasonably cooked?? Sits nicely in there.

Some cabbage on top and squeezing the mini lime wedges, and we're good!

****

Quite nice, fresh tasting, the lime adds a lot. There's some grit in there though, maybe I needed to rinse the crab? Not all that spicy, I didn't need to hold back on those pretty mild chillies. It's nice but its not amazing or anything.

Delicious in Dungeon #38: Vegetables in Slime Aspic & Blade Fish Loaf

The golden country! A slice of immortal farm paradise. I will illustrate this with some proof that I do get outside sometimes.

This large meal has 3 fairly big dishes, so I decided I wanted to split them up. There's not much guidelines to making them so I'll just go for it, yknow.

I've chosen to start with the weirdest one. Blog-willing this is the closest I ever get to those cursed looking 1970s gelatine salad dishes. We've got bladefish, vegetables, gelling slime, and a bit of stuff to flavour it all with.

First i'm just going to thaw/part-cook the fish in my steamer, I think this way itll break down into flakes and we can mash it into a meatloafy thing. A terrine?

Then i'm adding an egg, some breadcrumbs, crushes garlic, salt&pepper, and also I found some sauce in my fridge that I think will be perfect. A swedish condiment that's like mustard, mayo and dill.

We can pop that all in there and just mash it up like we're making a hamburger patty.

Now we can't just chill this yet, its got raw egg in it... so im going to bake it in the oven for a while and put the jelly part on top. The foil lining will make the shape a bit rougher, but... hopefully it'll come out easily at the end, I dunno.

That's baked into a firm patty terrine loaf thing! Perfect! And it smells kinda nice.

Chopped the carrots up into small chunks and portioned out the frozen peas and corn. We'll bring them to a boil to hopefully cook the carrots a little bit, then put in the other ingredients as its cooling.

Once it's off the boil i'm adding lime juice, chopped parsley, 2 sachets of gelatine, and a little bit of salt & pepper. The manga recipe remarks about how unseasoned and flavourless it is... but I have a policy not to try and make things bad on purpose. I will just try and keep it simple.

That's so much vegetable jelly... I hope its not horrible. It's ready to go in the fridge overnight!

It's set! We have a loaf! I'm going to plate it up on my brand new leaf plate I got for christmas... i friggin love it, look forward to seeing it plenty in the future...

****

I dunno I think it might actually be pretty good. Would I make this on purpose? I don't know... but the parsley and lime was a great choice, it tastes fresh and gardeny, like a spring vegetable soup. The fish loaf tasted very... well, swedish-y, like somewhere between gravlax and herring salad. Making a good flavour profile together for a cold and slimy meal. I think I made the best of it.

Delicious in Dungeon #26: Eisbein-Style Cockatrice With Sauerkraut-Style Dryad Buds

 Basilisk? No way, that's a cockatrice! They're totally different colours!

So, I was somewhat torn between seeing if I could actually get a proper Eisbein pork knuckle, or if I should salt "preserve" some turkey meat instead, since cockatrice is all... poultry-ish.

The universe made that decision for me because I missed my chance to get the pork on alpen week at my local store. Turkey it is!

So, I lack the equipment, expertise and desire to actually properly try and salt cure some meat.  Instead what i'm going to do is essentially more like a marinade, im just going to kinda pickle the meat in very salty water for a day instead. I've also added a few things for flavour: spiced coconut vinegar, dried chillies, fennel seeds and a bay leaf. Not sure how effective that is but it feels right. We can swish it around a bit.

Alright its now the evening, we've got our... waterlogged cockatrice, dryad bud and depetrification herb.

Senshi says we boil the meat... Not my typical method for poultry but I guess maybe itll leech some of the salt back out... As you can see its already turned kind of white from the vinegar or something, but don't be deceived we need to heat this through.

The herbs are grilled, so im gonna season them with a bit of paprika salt & pepper, a spritz of oil and put them in the oven.

Now to really make the germans cry... sorry but im a big hater of fermented vegetables, and so is my stomach...its very vocal about it..  so instead of getting sauerkraut im just gonna be mixing some raw grated cabbage with vinegar and hoping for the best.

And making a big mess again...

Oops this came out less like shredded cabbage and more like cabbage flour. Well, maybe the more broken down the better?

I thought itd be nice to flavour this up some, so im adding cider vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, and german mustard. And mixing it all up.

And its going into a jar... well a jug. A jur.

Meat check, sliced it into smaller bits and it looks cooked through. It looks unseasoned but it actually smells quite aromatic.

The herbs are done, ready to plate up! I should probably pair this something not fizzy or sour to drink.. Um.. coffee??

****

Tasty! It's very cooling and sour (and didn't taste like seawater!), like a light lunch you could put in a sandwich or salad. Despite being as wet as humanly possible, the cockatrice seemed sort of dry in a way...? I guess from a lack of fat. Feels like a needlessly inefficient use of extra salt and its hardly authentic. But I like the flavours, I'd probably do similar combo with the mustardy cabbage again someday, maybe in a sandwich.