Week 19: Guest post - Drake Kabob

This week, I’m very happy to introduce a guest post by Cenwen, who is going to share her recipe for Drake Kabob! For those of you who don´t recall Drake Kabob being in GW2, that´s because this golden oldie is from the Guild Wars: Nightfall game/expansion. I’ll be back next week, and in the meantime, enjoy!

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Hello :)

First, I want to thank Mina for giving me the opportunity to share one of my own recipes on her pretty blog ♥
Then I'm really happy to be able to create a link between our two worlds and share this moment with you ♥

My nickname is Cenwen.  It comes from another video game (rpg) Spellforce, opus Breath of Winter. I am a French player and  food blogger. My blog dedicated to Guild Wars / Guild Wars 2 is called "Cook’n Play."

I started to realize the recipes from Guild Wars in 2008 and I continued with those of Guild Wars 2.

I propose you to discover the recipe of Drake Kabob which is a totally invented recipe, easy to make and perfect for sunny days.

Ready? Let's go!

Drake kabob
Source : personal recipe
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Rest time : 3 hours
Cooking time : 6 to 7 minutes

Ingredients for 2 people (6 kabobs)

♥ The Kabob

400 grams of white fish (cod fillet, for example)
the juice of a very large lemon
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon coriander
1 tbsp cumin seeds
salt and pepper
1 zucchini
some oil for cooking

♥ Provide more :

pita bread
6 wooden skewers
lemon wedges
basil

♥ For sauce :
Stirred yoghurt or Greek yoghurt
harissa (hot chili sauce)
1 teaspoon olive oil
a little pinch of salt

Preparation :
1) Prepare the marinade by mixing lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, coriander and cumin.
2) Cut the fish fillets into regular cubes. Put them in the marinade, and do not forget to add irregular leftovers. Mix. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for 3 hours. Stir regularly.

Meanwhile, soak the skewers in cold water.

3) Wash the zucchini, expand it into thin strips using a vegetable peeler. Assemble skewers, alternating fish and marinated zucchini slices (fold them in on themselves accordion).
4) Heat a little oil in a flat pan (or grill) and place the skewers to cook a few minutes on each side. Beware, it goes very quickly! (Once the kabobs are cooked, you should also quickly cook the leftover bits of fish).
5) Serve the kabobs on hot plates, accompanied by pita bread, lemon wedges, basil and sauce.

A table ! :)

Small notes :
You can use the leftover fish to fill a bun to offer an alternative to the kabobs :) The choice is yours ;)  
Wooden skewers are soaked  to prevent burning during cooking.

♥ In Game :

A Drake Kabob is an Istani specialty made from drake meat. Eating one grants you +5 armor for 10 minutes.  Given by Chef Lonbahn or Apida in exchange for one Chunk of Drake Flesh. [Source ]

Week 18: Cherry passion fruit cake & call for submissions!

[for call for submissions: scroll down]

This week, we're making cherry passion fruit cake:

Normally, I make these recipes at the weekend and then put them in the blog on auto-update. Not this one. I made this one today, and took the pictures just minutes before writing this. It was quite stressful, seeing how if it failed, it would mean I missed an update - the original plan for this week was another dish that did fail, so there was some pressure. I'm going to try and create a buffer to avoid that situation in the future!

It didn't fail, it's absolutely delicious, and as far as I'm concerned you should all try it. However, it's not exactly the standard I hope to live up to when recreating these recipes - i.e. it doesn't look like the in-game picture. I've adjusted the recipe a small bit already to rectify that: because there wasn't as much passion fruit jelly in the end as I had hoped for, but didn't want to use even more not-exactly-cheap passion fruit, I have adjusted the recipe accordingly, based on a recipe from the Viennese Hotel Sacher. As for the rest, I plan to make this cake again and update the pictures and recipe accordingly. When I do, I'll be making it in an 20 or 18 cm cake tin as I think that will give a more aesthetically pleasing result, but as it is I recommend a 23 cm tin if you're going to try this as I'm not sure of the baking time for a smaller one yet.

Cherry passion fruit cake

Ingredients:

175 butter, soft

170 g sugar

1 sachet (8 g) vanilla sugar

Pinch of salt

3 eggs

250 g self-rising flour (or flour with the appropriate amount of baking powder)

2 tblsp milk

175 g cherries from a pot

8 passion fruits

50 ml passion fruit juice (store bought, unsweetened) or orange juice (preferably) fresh

Jam sugar

2 tblsp corn starch

Preheat the oven to 165 degrees Centigrade.

Drain the cherries well, preserving the juice or syrup. Mix the butter with the caster sugar, vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt until the mixture is light and smooth. Mix in the eggs one at a time, then continue beating for 5 minutes. Sieve in the flour and add the milk. With a spatula, combine the mixture until it is just smooth but no longer! Put approximately 1/3 of the batter into a different bowl. Mix the pulp of 2 passion fruits with the 1/3 of the batter, and the drained cherries with the other 2/3 of the batter. Spread the passion fruit batter over the bottom of a well-greased round baking tin with a 23 cm diameter. Pour the cherry batter over the top, and spread out evenly. Bake in the middle of the oven for 80 minutes or until a cake pin inserted in the middle comes out clean. Take out of the oven and leave to cool. Do not remove from the tin.

Measure the cherry juice. Reserve 3 tblsp of the juice in a separate bowl, and combine the rest of the juice with 1/3 as much jam sugar as juice (e.g. 1 cup cherry juice=1/3 cup jam sugar) in a small pan. Bring the sugar/juice mixture to the boil. Meanwhile, mix the corn starch with the 3 tblsp of reserved juice to a smooth paste. When the cherry juice is boiling, add the corn starch mixture. Bring to the boil again, and continue to boil for 1-2 minutes. Then, turn off the heat and leave the cherry jelly to cool, stirring occasionally to avoid a skin forming (which will form lumps when poured out). When the jelly is thick and sticky but still liquid, pour it out over the cake (which should have cooled down to near-room temperature, but should still be in the tin). Spread the jelly over the cake; it's okay if it runs over the sides, but make sure the top is covered. Place the cake in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Put the pulp of the remaining 6 passion fruits in a blender and pulse a few times, than sieve into a bowl. Measure the remaining juice. Reserve 3 tblsp of the juice in a separate bowl. Combine the rest of the juice with 1/3 as much jam sugar as there is juice (e.g. 1/2 cup passion fruit juice = 1/6 cup jam sugar) and the passion fruit/orange juice. Bring the mixture to the boil in a small pan. Meanwhile, mix the corn starch with the 3 tblsp of reserved juice to a smooth paste. When the passion fruit juice is boiling, add the corn starch mixture. Bring to the boil again,  and boil for 1-2 minutes. Leave to cool, stirring occasionally to avoid a skin forming (which will form lumps when poured out). When the jelly is thick and sticky but still liquid, remove the cake from the fridge (checking that the cherry layer has set) and pour the passion fruit jelly over the cake. Make sure the whole top is covered. Place the cake back in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Serve straight from the fridge or bring individual slices to room temperature first. Enjoy!

Tip: Passion fruit can be expensive. For the jelly layer, you can use store-bought passion fruit juice or passion fruit lemonade jellified with gelatine rather than sugar

Important announcement/call for submissions: There will be no update from me next week, as I am moving house and do not have a kitchen yet! However, if you, the readers, want to submit a recipe, please do so to guildwarschef [at] gmail [dot] com. Only rules are it must be written at least in English, and it must be a recipe that is found either in the original Guild Wars (e.g. drake kabob) or Guild Wars 2. It can also be your own take on a recipe that has already been featured on the blog. Adding a picture (or several) is highly recommended. Don't forget to include your name (i.e. the name you want published here) and, if applicable, link to your own site/blog/whatever.

 I'll be really grateful if I get a submission that I can put up to compensate for next weeks lack of update; if I get more than one, I'll just choose one and make a list of acknowledgments with links of the others. Thanks!

Week 17: Zucchini chilli

This week, we're making zucchini chilli:

[again with the screenshots! I keep forgetting the screenshots]

This is a very healthy vegan recipe! Yes, it uses many of the same ingredients as last weeks recipe, but... well, actually, it's purely because tomatoes were on sale at my local supermarket. Also, I'm trying to fit one vegetarian or vegan dish into my diet per week, and this one seemed like a great choice!

Zucchini chilli

Ingredients (3-4 portions):

2 zucchinis (ca. 600 g)

2 red chilli peppers, finely diced

4 tomatoes (ca. 400 g)

70 g tomato puree

2 onions, diced

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 tsp cumin powder

1/4 tsp smoked paprika powder

1 tblsp sugar

Basil to taste

In a dash of vegetable oil, sauté the onions, garlic, chilli peppers with the cumin and smoked paprika for 5-8 minutes until the onions are soft. Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes in chunks. Add the tomato chunks, seeds and all, and the tomato puree to the onion mixture. Bring to the boil, turn the heat down, cover the pan and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Cut the zucchini in bite size chunks. Add the zucchini to the chilli. Give it a good stir, then cover again. Leave to simmer until the zucchini is done, about 10 minutes. Remove the lid and keep at boiling point to allow excess moisture to vaporize. Stir in the sugar. Taste and adjust seasoning (basil, salt, pepper, chilli powder). Serve with plain rice. Enjoy!

Week 16: Meatball dinner

This week, we're making a meatball dinner:

Yes, the humble spaghetti-and-meatballs. But with some interesting twists! Particularly the meatballs are just a little different than you may be used to. I call for either 100% beef or 50/50 pork/beef as minced meat, but I feel obliged to add that if any of that turns out to be horse meat, the meatballs won't suffer for it at all!

Meatball dinner

Ingredients (4 portions):

500 g tomatoes

140 g tomato puree

2 medium sized red onions

6 cloves of garlic

400 g minced meat (beef or 50/50 pork/beef)

1 egg

20 g bread crumbs

15 g freshly grated Parmesan cheese + more to taste

200 g whole wheat spaghetti

2 tblsp fresh basil, chopped

Lightly beat the egg. Place the minced meat, beaten egg, bread crumbs and 15 g grated Parmesan cheese in a bowl. Squeeze 2 cloves of garlic into the bowl. Knead the meat and other ingredients until they are well mixed. Divide the mixture into twelve portions and make a meatball of each portion by rolling it between your hand.

Dice the onions and remaining cloves of garlic. Chop the tomatoes in small pieces.

Heat some butter or vegetable oil in a large pan. Fry the meatballs on medium heat until they are browned on all sides. Cover the pan with a lid, turn the heat down and simmer for 5 more minutes. Remove the meatballs from the pan.

In the fat that is left in the pan, sauté the onions and garlic over low heat until they are soft and translucent. Add the tomatoes, pulp and all, the tomato puree and a splash of water. Bring to a bubble, then turn the heat down and leave to cook for 5 minutes. Add the chopped basil and stir through. Adjust seasoning.

Boil the spaghetti according to the instructions on the packet.

Add the meatballs to the sauce and stir gently, so that the meatballs are coated with the sauce. On low heat with the lid on the pan, leave to simmer for 5-10 minutes. Drain the spaghetti. Serve the sauce and meatballs on top of the spaghetti. Grate more Parmesan cheese on top to taste, and/or garnish with a beautiful basil leaf. Enjoy!

Week 15: Yam soup

This week, we're making yam soup:

This soup, as so many in the game, uses the cream soup base. I'm a bit over that, really, having made two soups like that already, so for this yam soup I cheated a little bit: I stuck to all the ingredients, but used in a different way than suggested.

Yam soup

Ingredients:

1 liter chicken stock, or vegetable for vegetarian version

600 g of yam, peeled and cut into small chunks

2 good sized onions

3/4 tsp dried thyme

50 g butter

ca. 3 tblsp flour

50 ml single cream*

Boil the yam chunks in the chicken stock for 15-20 minutes.

Dice the onions. Melt the butter in a pan with a thick bottom. Add the onions and the thyme and sauté over low heat. Take your time for this (at least 10-15 minutes), as you want the onions to be nice and soft. Meanwhile, take the stock of the heat. Puree the yam until the soup is completely smooth.

When the onions are soft, add 1 tablespoon of flour. Stir the flour into the onion mixture. Continue this until the flour has absorbed all the butter and the onion mixture is something of a solid mass (you may need a bit more or less than 3 tblsp of flour). Add one ladleful of soup to the onions and stir well. Repeat this three times more, than pour the onion mixture into the rest of the soup. Heat the soup through. Add the cream. Do not let the soup boil after adding the cream! Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Enjoy!

*: For Dutch people: gewone kookroom is prima

Tip: For a different flavour, replace the thyme by ground allspice.