User:Artyom.pavlov/Characters/Juniper Churlgo/Juniper's Companion to Venturesome Cookery

Fryplate
Good tidings, dear reader. Today I present you with a delectable and nourishing fare from the Savage Frontier. As I traveled past the village of Mornbryn's Shield several seasons past, a dumpy caravan hand, who's passed the village many-a-times, told me about a local curiosity – the oh-so-creatively called "Shield moss." I had to investigate. Locals recommended a beautifully named eatery called Maid of the Moors, noting that a halfling of my stature would find her belly happily filed with the Maid's generously piled-up dishes. I will talk about some of the foods of note I found at the restaurant (and no, regrettably, no "Shield moss" was served to me that day).

One of Maid's staples, recommended by the eatery's delightful staff, was something called a "Fryplate." A morningfeast of vegetables and eggs. Below, I am reporting an attempt to recreate the dish in my humble burrow. Take a handful of plump tomatoes and slice them lengthwise. For the best result, find the most oblong fruits. I recommend sweet tomatoes from Mistledale. Take your favorite skillet and generously lard it up. However, drizzling it with flavorful olive oil from the Blade Kingdoms brings out grassy notes and adds complexity to the dish. Place your sliced tomatoes, cut-side up, onto the skillet. Sprinkle them with salt, minced garlic, and herbs like parsley, chives, and rosemary. You can purchase most of them from Aurora's Emporium if you are in a pinch or need to feed an entire household. Drizzle more oil over the seasoned tomatoes, turn up the heat and cook covered for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, throw another skillet on the flame and fill it with bacon (I personally prefer cubbed ham) and a handful of wild mushrooms. Fry it all together on high flames with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, until mushrooms are delicately golden-hued like Lathander 's "holy symbol" at dawn. Not what it's been 10 minutes, uncover the tomatoes and inhale the mouthwatering aroma. Take a utensil, a gnomish fork would do, and press down on tomatoes to flatten them and release the juices. Keep the skillet uncovered and cook until the liquid is almost completely gone and tomato skin starts getting caramelized. Now that you have 2 of 3 parts of the so-called Fryplate, you can start working on the star of the show. Take a handful of black peppercorns and crush them with a pot or a skillet. Asking a barbarian friend to help would be a bad idea, believe me. Toss the crushed peppercorns into a sauce pot, toast it on high flame for a minute or two and add a 1/4th of a tankard filled with your favorite stock. You can make your own or find an inn with an open kitchen window early in the day and scoop some stock while the cooks are distracted. Add a drizzle of brandy. My personal favorite is Sembian brandy, but you can follow your muse. Cook the ingredients together until reduced, then add fresh cream, just a bit to flavor, and thicken it sauce. Taste, season, reduce, and keep warm. (If you are looking to impress easily amused simpleton humans, add brandy first, then tilt the skillet to light it aflame. Us hin are not prone to such faff.)

Prepare yet another skillet; yes, you need many skillets! I do not envy Maid of the Moors' dishwashers! Crack three or four eggs into a bowl, season, mix well with a spoonful of cream, then deposit it onto a buttered-up skillet. On low, start moving the egg mix. You will see cooking soon, so pay attention! As the eggs start to thicken, add the peppercorn and brandy sauce, making sure not to add too much. We need eggs to be gooey, not soupy! Continue cooking the eggs while moving it around with a spatula as you jerk the skillet on the fire back and forth. When the eggs are coagulated and cooked but are still soft and creamy, take off the heat and get ready to assemble the whole Fryplate. Now your tomatoes will be ready. Carefully scoop them out and place them carefully on a serving dish. For a more rustic experience, serve it all right in the skillet! Atop the tomatoes, pile up your cooked bacon and mushrooms. Generously sprinkle them with thinly sliced almonds. Carefully transfer the eggs from one skillet to the serving dish atop the fragrant assembly. Now all you need is to make it pretty and sprinkle it with some sliced almonds, drizzle peppercorn sauce if you have any left, and strategically place fresh herbs and/or chives on the mound. And here you go—the Fryplate from Maid of the Moors of Mornbryn's Shield. Granted, my version took some liberty with the presentation, as the good folk of the Maid piled the fried goodies on a plate for you, but to people from the City of Splendors, or the Forest Kingdom, my plating, I am sure, would appeal better.

Remember to serve some hot flatbreads with your dish. I hope you enjoy this exotic recipe from the fairway banks of the River Surbrin.

"Amarast" for now my friends.

Yours truly, Juniper Churlgo.

Blood sauce and Beer-Battered Fishfry
Today, like every self-respecting halfling, I am craving good ale, good fry, and good spice. So today’s dish is very familiar to anyone traveling the Sword Coast. What is more abundant than fish and fries in the eateries and pubs of Luskan, Baldur’s Gate, and Waterdeep? Well, freshly fried fish. Some get to be seasoned and fried whole to be munched on with spiced ales, while others get dunked and battered and sauced. I’ve passed the City of Splendors many months ago, and what I found peculiar is the sauces they serve with such fried marine grub. This particular meal comes from the famed Yawning Portal. If you’re an adventuring sort, a heroic trill-seeker, or a fortune-finder like my dear brother Porto, you’ve spent many-a-nights at the Portal and had the pleasure of meeting Durnan, the grumpy proprietor of the fine establishment. Its ever-changing menu had battered fish the night of my visit. Nothing special about the fish. Whitefish served with battered zucchinis, but a duo of bickering cooks, Frinli Hinkille and Merin Falle whipped up a batch of what they called blood sauce to be smudged atop the fishfry. My research uncovered that the sauce originated from the sweltering Calimshan where it was prepared with handfuls of hot peppers, but Waterdeep’s version used more commonly available horseradish. So let’s talk about how to make this easy sauce… and the fish too, I suppose. You can use any fish for this fry. Fatty fish goes better with horseradish, but flat and white fish such as cod or snapper is what they used at the Yawning Portal. First thing first: slice the fish and a vegetable of your choice (zucchini, in my case) into somewhat uniform flat slices to help with cooking times. Toss them with salt and pepper and leave them be. What we want is for the salt to draw excess liquid out of the things we are frying. We will dab them dry before battering, so be ready to make a bit of a mess.

While the salt is doing its magic, make ale batter. You want to use a cup of nice thick-bodied bready beer or ale. Mix it with a cup and a handful of flour, egg, salt, pepper, pepper, hot pepper flakes, and powdered garlic, and stir it all together until all clumps are gone. Prepare a plate with flour with a dash of salt and pepper for dusting. When you know your fish and vegetables and well-dried and dabbed, dust them with flour, dip them in batter and throw them into a pre-heated frying oil cauldron. If you are like me, pan-frying is an option, but instead of getting fluffy bits, you will be left with flattened pancake-like pieces. Both fish and zucchinis cook quickly, so keep an eye out and take out once the batter is dark golden and crispy. Let the freshly fried bits rest and drop oil on a wire rack and serve as soon as you can, maybe a minute after you take them out. Serve the blood sauce on the side and sprinkle with crispy fried garlic, onions, or leeks. Now, lets talk about the star of the event – the blood sauce. You can make it ahead of time, and the ladies at the Yawning Portal cooked it in a massive pot that was bigger than a well-fed halfling. You will need tomatoes, preferably from down south, hot peppers from the Vilhon or Maztica, bell peppers, garlic, horseradish, salt, a dash of sugar, and a drizzle of lemon juice. You can remove tomato skin by putting them into boiling water for a minute, but it’s not necessary. For horseradish, you will have to grate or purchase jarred preserves. Crudely chop all the ingredients and place them on medium heat, cover, and cook until all the vegetables are soft and can be mashed. Remember, the of peppers and horseradish reduces as you heat the sauce, so make sure to save some minced and mashed on the side to add at the end when the blood sauce is chilled. When everything is soft, remove the cover, mash, and cook until the liquid evaporates, leaving a thick sauce behind. For me, it took about 2 hours, but my pot was also snack-sized. When the sauce is thick and reduced, take it off the flame and let it chill. When cold, add in seasoning, acid, mashed peppers, and horseradish to taste. Serve the delicious, refreshing blood sauce cold. But one thing you need to remember if you are planning to jar it and preserve it, you need to make sure everything is heated up and sterile before you seal it for the future.

And here we go. Boring old fish fry with a lovely bowl of sauce. Feel free to use different ingredients! I’ve heard some made the blood sauce with carrots and apples to add it sweetness or smoked and red bell peppers from Maztica that are especially mouth-incinerating.

Speaking of Maztica, my dear reader. I have a hearthy recipe for a bean stew from Palul to share with you, as well as flaming-hot mayzcakes. Please remind me if I get distracted.

Another venture into the relaxing world of Torillian cookery is done. I hope you’ve enjoyed our time together. Amarast, as always, Juniper Churlgo

Boar Dumplings
Today's meal takes us to the Arnise Hold, one of the few friendly keeps in the lush Zehoarastria floodplains region of Amn. The small caste and its surrounding buildings are known for their friendliness, and the Hold's guest house has its doors always open to travelers and other guests. It's hard to believe the Arnise Hold was once taken over by monsters, and the lord of the hose was brutally murdered. I say Lady Nalia de'Arnise, the latest Lord of the keep, runs it well into prosperity. Among meals offered by the staff were simple and hearty dishes of game found in abundance around the keep. The wild boar dumplings are the dish we are talking about today. You will need a handful of wild mushrooms, wild boar meat (minced), flour, hot peppers, some stewing tubers, and vegetables, as well as herbs.

Boar is hunted in abundance, and you should not have a problem finding a hunter or a butcher with a freshly minced wild pig. You will need to make a dumpling mix using minced boar, salt, pepper, garlic, and soy sauce. To bind the filling together, use a small handful of starch, like dried potato mash, bread crumbs, or cooked rice, plus a single chicken egg. Roll up your sleeves and mash it all together well with your hands. Set aside. In the meantime, put two pots on the stove; one with clear vegetable stock (or any other stock you have), put in a handful of seasonings, finely diced ginger, several slices of hot peppers, chives, scallions, or leaks. Cook it all together on simmer for at least 30 minutes. In the second pot, cook two handfuls of finely chopped wild mushrooms in butter and stock or water until it's dark. Taste and adjust the seasoning, then cook until reduced to a dark brown thick liquid. Add chopped garlic, carrots, celery, potatoes, and a handful of thyme, parsley, and sage. If you’re feeling especially adventurous, use juniper berries that go well with game! This stew will need to cook for an hour at least until it's thick and creamy – perfect for dipping your dumplings into.

Now let's talk about the dumpling dough. A modern halfling might not have time to make her own dough so find yourself a good baker who would be willing to roll the wrappers out and cut them in uniform shapes. If you do feel so inclined, the dumpling dough I used here only needs flour, egg, cold water, and starch for rolling. Simple but time-consuming. The next step will be a labor-intensive one. Each of the wrappers will need to be filled with the boar mince you set aside earlier. Remember not to use more than a flange-sized scoop of meat. Place it in the center, then wet all the sides of the wrapper with water, using your fingers if you so desire. Bring the sides up, and press them firmly together to glue the dumpling sealed. There are several shapes you could make, but the presentation is not as important as the taste in such rustic dishes. When you’re finished, divide the dumplings into how you want them prepared. For the dumplings you will be serving in soup – place them in the clear soup you made earlier and cook on low heat until ready. Fifteen minutes should be enough. DO NOT BOIL, or the dumplings will fall apart – these wrappers are very delicate. As the main star of the show – melt some wild boar tallow in a skillet, then lay eight dumplings at a time in hot fat to fry them. Each side takes about 2 minutes to brown. The last step is what gives them a crunchy crust. Take a cup of water and dissolve half a tablespoon of flour in it, then pour it into the skillet. Cook covered for five minutes. Then take off the cover and continue cooking until the flour liquid turns into a crust.

Now it's ready. Flip the pan with a plate covering it, and here you have it. Break the crunchy crust and serve! The fried dumplings can be dipped in the mushroom stew you made earlier. Yum! (However, the Arnise Hold used game meat stew, not vegetable and mushroom). On the side, you have a bowl of dumpling soup with some refreshing heat – perfect for the autumn. And a plate piled high with dumplings. They were usually served with fried smoked fish and fried boar belly or bacon, but that is for another day.

I hope you enjoyed this dish as much as I did, my dear friends.

Until next time, Juniper Churlgo.

Luiren-Style Lamb Meatballs, Chessentan Lamb Meatballs, and Lambtails
And another tenday's gone by, and I am late once again. This time, however, due to a cooking accident that involved a bottle of flammable liquor, hot sauce, and a careless application of a firebolt. But enough about kitchen misfortunes. During my last visit to the City of Coin, Athkatla, I found an eatery that served lamb meatballs, oblong meatballs on a stick, and several types of sauced meatball dishes, all from different parts of the continent. After some snooping around, I found recipes of sweet Luiren-style lamb meatballs, Chessentan baked breakfast meatballs with a spiced tomato sauce, a dollop of sheep's milk yogurt, and a baked egg. Lastly, I found a recipe for the so-called Lambtails they grill in lawless Westgate. Making all three is a lot of work, but the meatball mix is fairly similar for each of the recipes. So let's begin. We will start with two sauces, which need at least an hour of cooking before being used. For the Chessentan tomato sauce, you will need peeled tomatoes, fresh or preserved, one forth head of sweet onion, sea salt, pepper, three roughly chopped cloves of garlic, a heaping spoon of cumin and a heaping spoon of freshly ground coriander (the more, the better). Add your canned peeled tomatoes or three-four sweet fresh tomatoes in a saucepan and squeeze them with your hands to roughly mash them. Imagining a naughty past paramour helps. If your fresh tomatoes are too hard, use a potato masher or squeeze them with a bottom of a tankard. You want the mash to be chunky. I do not know why, but it just creates a batter texture. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook on medium-low flames for at least an hour. About halfway through cooking, stir well and taste. You may want to adjust the spices and salt to taste. I added a dash of hot pepper and a dash of lemon zest to the sauce. Cook covered, but if your sauce is too soupy, evaporate the liquid before serving. For the Luiren sweet and spicy sauce, we traditionally use Harelveauplum sauce, but plums are not in season, so we will return to it later. We are going to make a sweet honey-based sauce loosely inspired by Harelveauplum. We will need a healthy squeeze of honey. For this recipe, I can recommend you the honey from Gullykin as its complexity of flavor compliments the sauce. Add honey into another saucepan along with a single chopped shallot, a spoonful of coriander, a spoon of salt, ground pepper, a drizzle of olive oil, a handful of mustard condiment, and a bit of lemon juice for taste. Cook it all together on low flame until the shallots are soft and translucent. It should take a bit over an hour. Halfway through, add half a mug of hot sweet sauce – Harelveauplum, if you have it. If not – sweet and spicy pepper condiment should do. Mix well and continue simmering covered. While your sauces and bubbling away like an angry tavern cook, prepare your lamb meat. You could ground your own using lamb shoulder or use pre-ground meat from your butcher. Just remember to get fattier mince, or your balls will be tough. We will make two mixed. Number one will be for meatballs, and number two – for Lambtails. First bowl: mix together well a pound of lamb mince, a cup of bread crumbs (I used sweet eggy santrath made by gnomes of Amn), half a spoon of rough salt, the same amount of pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. When it's well incorporated, roll the meat into balls of the size you prefer, depending on the size of your cookware and plates. You can quickly brown the balls and put them away. You don't need to cook them thoroughly, and you will have more than enough for two dishes. The second meat bowl will be the same as before, but you will also add a single egg and a small spoon of paprika. This batch will be shaped into Lambtails on small wooden skewers and grilled on a red hot pre-heated grill or skillet. Three minutes on each side and grill marks are all you need. And while you're grilling meat, why don't you toss some vegetables to cook alongside? I grilled some small peppers and cherry tomatoes on a stalk. As you grill, assemble the Chessentan dish. Place four meatballs in an over-safe ramekin. Top with your tomato sauce. Shake well so the sauce fills the bowl well, then add a spoonful of sheep's yogurt on one side. Place in a pre-heated oven and cook for 10 minutes to heat up the sauce and cook the meatballs through. Take out, crack an egg onto the side opposite of yogurt, add a grilled pepper, and sprinkle the top with some strong aged cheese. Bake for another ten minutes. While the meatballs are baking, toss a handful of meatballs into your sweet Luiren-style sauce, roll them in it, and cook for about 10 minutes on low heat. Plating time. The Chessentan lamb meatballs are ready to be served. All you need is to decorate it with ribbons of fresh mint leaves. Luiren-style lamb meatballs are to be placed on a small plate, topped with the sweet sauce, and sprinkled with more hard aged cheese. Lastly, Lambtails can be piled on a plate and served with grilled vegetables. I added roasted Maztican green beans with almonds and lemon and a dollop of yogurt. Enough food to feed three hungry adventurers. Serve it with a bottle of nice red wine and freshly baked bread. This was quite an evening, preparing all of these dishes. Of course, you could make most parts of these dishes ahead of time and then simply warm it all up and plate. This halfling needs a tankard of rivengut and a nap. Until next time, amarast, and good night. Juniper Churlgo

Nutbread
It has been a tenday since we last talked about foods. Good tidings, friends, and today we will travel far because the recipe we are covering is common and is eaten in Cormyr, the Dalelands, the Sword Coast, the Vilhon Reach, Turmish, and even in the Outer Planes!

The culprit is nutbread... Bread made with milled nuts if you can imagine such a thing. Bread with no gluten. To be honest, this type of baking is alien to me, and I had to try out several formulae to nail the taste and texture as what I've tried on my travels. I am going to make three dishes for you. First of all, regular nutbread, nothing fanciful or exotic in its flavoring, as what you can buy in Cormyr or the Dales. I am serving it drowned in gravy with some pickles and teeny weeny picked onions. This bread is served like that in Eveningstar and Baldur's Gate. The second type of nutbread will be from the plane of Bytopia and made with warm spices and carrots, mildly sweet to taste. And lastly, as it is customary in Turmish, I'll make a bowl of simple onion and chive soup. My first attempt at making the bread resulted in a hard and coarse nightmare. I used a mix of almond and walnut flour, eggs, and pumpernickel flour. It was a failure. I decided to substitute the rough flour for coconut flour or coconut milk powder. And this was exactly what I needed, and it gave the bread a gentle taste of my beloved Luiren (remind me to fry some Luiren bananas for you one day!) So let's begin!

For regular, Cormyrean nutbread, we will use a mug of almond and walnut flour, a mug of powdered coconut milk, a healthy squeeze of honey or, in my case, molasses, a chicken's eggs, a dash of salt, a dash or sugar]], and a generous pinch of soda. Now we need to act fast. Mix all dry ingredients together (leave soda out for now), mix liquid ingredients together and add them into a single bowl. Now put in your soda and add a teaspoon of lemon juice or any other acid. Quickly mix the dough. It will be wet and sticky. We have to bake the mix immediately to ensure the soda is still active and fluffs up an otherwise dense loaf. There is no gluten, so there is absolutely no need to rest your mix. Butter or grease your molds and bake for thirty-eight minutes. For Bytopian carrot nutbread, the recipe will remain largely the same. But we will need to make two well-packed mugs of shredded carrots. Bytopian produce is famous for being the sweetest and the most delicious in the entire multiverse, but if you live in the Savage Frontier, you might have to use local tough and less sweet roots. Shred your carrots, put a handful of brown sugar for taste and a handful of regular sugar into the carrots and mix well to coat evenly. Cover and put away. Sugar will sap out carrot juice, and we will need to use it for flavor. To make the tough, we'll use honey, two eggs, a heaping of sliced almonds, a generous handful of charnushka, and ajwain seeds. Follow the same instructions as before and treat carrots and carrot sugar juice as a liquid ingredient. Mix well to make sure the seeds are equally spread through the dough. Drop some liquid butter on top of the bread and bake. Expect it to take longer, and it will be ready when a tester comes out clean. Now soup – an easy task. Turmishian onion and chive soup is something I call four onions soup. Chop up yellow onions, leeks, red onions, and spring onions and put them with a bit of butter, cooking on low flame until it's all soft and sweet. Now add a tankard of dry white wine, pump up the heat, and reduce until it's down to ten percent of the original liquid. Chop up some herbs; I used just parsley and thyme and a generous amount of chives. Add salt, pepper, garlic if you like the taste and several tankards of stock or water. Cook until the soup is whiteish, and serve. As I had leftover nutbread dough, I decided to add some wheat flour to it and roll it out in thin stripes. Onto the stripes, I spooned some finely chopped and slowly cooked mushrooms and onions, topped with leftover almonds and cheese. Roll them up, sit them in your greased baking mold onto wetted disks of dough and bake for roughly the same amount of time as Cormyrean nutbread. Now we are ready to plate, and this time it's simple and rustic. Bytopian nutbread is served in thick slices and drizzled with molasses. Cormyrean nutbread is broken in two and ladled with thick savory gravy of fowl, cow, or mushroom. I don't need to tell you how to make gravy. On the side, add some cornichons and pickled pearl onions and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Lastly, your soup should be hot. Sprinkle it with fresh herbs for color and add a drizzle of herby oil or sherry.

This research and trial and error method absolutely exhausted me, but the result was good and bears some semblance to the original dishes, so I am satisfied. Let me know if you've ever made something with nutbread, and if you did, what version did you cobble up?

In any event, I've rambled long enough, my friends. For the next dish, we will go further north and do something quick and easy. How does Fireshear sound? Frozenfar can have its gastronomical surprises!

Amarast and until next time, Juniper Churlgo

Smoked Fish Tarts
And another tenday flew by, and I am in great need of some comfort food from west Faerûn. Some of the most common food there is fish, preserved for storage or transportation. Smoking is one of these methods of preservation. The nation of Amn is one of the major exporters of smoked fish, and everywhere that smoked fish goes, folk learned to make a variety of tarts with it. Some recipes called for soaking smoked and dried fish to make it more palatable, while others mashed it, mixed it with tubers, and baked it in a nest shape. And today, we'll make one of such tarts. I used smoked trout fillets this time (I recommend trout from Loudwater as the town knows its fish). You will also need three large starchy potatoes (you can use waxy, but they are just not as fluffy), butter, fatty sour cream (or creme fraiche), and milk. For the tart shell dough, you will need wheat flour, some raising powder, salt, sugar, a dollop of melted butter, and a generous amount of heavy cream. I recommend you make the dough a day ahead. Simply mix all the ingredients together. It is a crumbly fatty dough, so it will look like it is not coming together as you kneed it, but eventually, it will be nice and smooth. Wrap it up al let it rest overnight in a cold place. The filling for the tarts is simple. Boil your potatoes until soft; 45 minutes is usually enough. Drain and let them sit in the colander to cool and dry. After that, peel the potatoes and push them through a fine sieve; add melted or softened butter, milk, and sour cream. Season generously with salt and white pepper, and add chopped dill (not necessary). A single smoked trout is all you need. Shred two smoked fillets with two forks and make sure to remove any stray bones. Add the shed to your mashed potatoes and mix well.

Take out your dough and roll it out one-third of an inch thick or so. Find a round bowl roughly the size you want your tars to be and use it to cut the dough into circles. Place a dollop of potato and fish mix in the center, flatten it, and bring it to a uniform shape, then lift the dough sides up, shaping it like a nest. Pinch the sides to keep it in shape, and gently press inwards as you do. Place the tarts onto a greased pan and scoop some smoked bacon drippings on top for additional flavor. Bake for 25 minutes on very high heat. When almost done, take out and brush with eggwash for additional color and place back for a couple of minutes. When the dough is golden and the filling starts getting brown crust – it's time to pull the tarts out. When serving, I like topping them with a dollop of red caviar; black caviar could work too, and it's easier to find. A couple of sprigs of dill, and you're all set! I served them with nuggets of washed and cooked white fish. Condiments: horseradish and mustard, like my momma used to eat it.

There are many variants of smoked fish tarts. Some are infamous for their foulness, while others evoke a feeling of home and comfort. Amusingly enough, both could be found in Amn! I once had one of these tarts topped with red wine gravy and a fried egg. I did not complain. That is all for now. Next time we meet, we will be rolling lamb mince into balls! Salivating like a hungry gnoll already! Amarast, and until we are hungry together again. Your friend, Juniper Churlgo.

Waterdhavian Cashew Soup
Good tidings, my dears. I am pleased to announce that this tenday I am on time! Today's dish is going to be a quick and easy taste of home. And the said home is in the grand City of Splendors, Waterdeep, at the feet of the God Catcher. If you have a handful of cashews and some stock – you can whip up a bowl of Waterdhavian Cashew Soup. Let us begin with preparing the nuts. Spread your cashews on a sheet pan and roast them for twenty-five minutes until the nuts are golden, bringing up their natural sweetness and flavor. As the cashews are roasting, finely chop one onion and toss it in a pot with some oil, preferably something of lighter flavor. Add two cloves of garlic, smashed with the back of your knife, a thumb-sized dollop of tomato paste, a dash of pepper, and a dash of tumeric for both warming flavor and color. Cook them all together until onions are soft, regularly mixing. Now we have a bit of time to take care of additional flavor and something to have with your soup. First, if you have fresh cilantro, mash it together with neutral-tasting oil to extract the color and juices. Mash it well until your oil is green. Then strain the herbs and set them aside to drizzle in your soul as you serve the dish. You could dup bite-sized skewers of chicken meat into the soup, and it tastes great, but I am more in the mood for some flatbread. You can make simple dough of one cup of yogurt, one cup flour, a dollop of melted butter, and some salt and pepper. Add some soda and acid and quickly mix the dough until it's uniform and smooth. Pinch and roll out the dough as thin as you can; I like it to be very delicate and pan-fry up in some oil for color or just a heated pan for speed. Rip them by hand and toss some leftover chopped cilantro atop. Your cashews are probably already done, so take them out, and grind them to a nice powder and, add them to the onions, top with three cups of your favorite stock. Use two cups if you like your soup thick. Now mash the contents all together as it all warms up. Once you have made the onions and garlic into a smooth thick liquid, leave it alone and cook for six more minutes. Now you are ready to serve. Ladle the hot thick homey cashew soup, toss some cashew or cilantro atop, and drizzle with cilantro oil. That is it. Simple, warming, sweet, and savory. Get a handwheel of herb and bacon-stuffed cheese, drizzle some oil on it and its all here. Simple dish this time, and I will continue with another simple dish next time. How do you like smoked fish pastries from Amn? I highly recommend you try this. My halfling soul is gitty from thinking about all the leftovers I will have! Until the next time, amarast my friends. Yours truly, Juniper Churlgo

Bustards
Good tidings, dear friends. I have such a treat to share with you!

Today we are continuing our tour across the limited yet curious menu from the Maid of the Moors of Mornbryn's Shield. Even though the cook continued to shoo me away from the kitchens, I saw enough to put my findings to parchment for you, friends. This so-called “Bustards” platter is made using a specific breed of quail that inhabited the swamps of Evermoors immediately to the northeast of the village. Furthermore, all vegetables and herbs used in this recipe are swamp-growing species of plants found only there. But fear not my adventurous readers, I will attempt to find the best substitution and adapt the concoction so even a “vegetarian” ogre could make it. Let’s start with the bird. A single quail would be enough for a person, and two will make a good meal for a loving couple. I saw the cooks chopping quail heads and feet off but skipping plucking the feathers; instead, the birds were smothered and plastered in the swamp clay of notably grey color. These clay-covered birds were then tossed in a blazing oven until the crust hardened. Then, an impressive culinary feat took place when a large woman, possibly with some troll blood in her veins, cracked the clay shell with a single punch. This was my queue not to get caught trespassing again, but I digress… The clay method is a way to pluck the bird in one go. If you are like me, you have access to birds that have already been prepared to be cooked. Be sure to tip your butcher well, as my mother always used to say. Words to live by. From here, my version of the recipe deviates from the Maid's. I implore you to remember to pepper the outside and inside of the bird. In the cavity, put a handful of swamp herbs to flavor the beast - parsley, peppercorns, ginger, celery, thyme, rosemary, bay, or even fennel could work. Take the twine and tie up the bird’s wings close to the body and legs crossed to seal its filled cavity. Pat the animal dry. Turn a greased pan or skillet to high heat and quickly brown the quail all around until a gently appetizing golden color appears. Now you need to make a mixture of salt and eggwhite with the consistency of wet sand. Save the yolk for later! Plaster the fried bird with the mix as tight as you can and place it on a cooking dish, and roast it in a very hot oven for 20-25 minutes (it usually is much quicker, but the salt crust needs time to harden and seal all the juices). While the birds are being cooked, trim your greenneedles (asparagus) and cabbage. If you are not in the Savage Frontier, you can source your swamp shoots from elven communities as they adore herb-steamed greenneedles. You can also find them in Cormyr or brought from the village of Anga Vled in the Western Heartlands. Throw greenneedle trimmings and cabbage core into a pot of water or stock you’ve prepared ahead of time or “borrowed” from an inn. Be generous with the stock-making. Feel free to add garlic, ginger, other vegetables, browncap stems, or leftover trimmings you have. Cook it all together on medium flame. Make sure it is not in a rolling boil, or you’ll end up with a murky stock. Thirty minutes later, strain the stock and toss the cooking vegetables. Now it’s a good time to take out your birds and let the crust cook before handling. Boil the strained stock, reducing it to focus its flavor. In a separate pan, brown greenneedle stalks and shredded cabbage. You can use beef tallow, but I prefer sticking to poultry flavors, unlike what cooks at the Maid do. Now pat and drain fat from the cooked vegetables with paper or cloth. Use the same skillet (you might want to add a bit more fat and melt it), season with salt and pepper, add flour to make a sand-like thickener, and cook the taste of flour out until it turns golden. Now you need to be careful; control the heat of the saucepan by taking off and returning it to head as you slowly ladle in some of the stock and mix it well with the thickener. Do not forget to taste! TASTE! TASTE! Slowly start beating the egg yolks you had from earlier into the concoction. Mix vigorously, and make sure you don’t make scrambled eggs instead of sauce. Continue adding the stock in until the sauce is a pale color and silky smooth.

Now that the bird is cool, take out your best mace, a mallet, or a goliath friend, and crack the salt shell open. Dust the bird off leftover salt and put it in the quail into the stock. Add greenneedle and whatever else you are serving and heat the dish through, keep the bird in the liquid in a low-heat oven if you need to keep it warm for later serving. Now, as to how to serve the dish. Take the quail out of the pot and place it into a tall but flat-bottomed serving dish. Pour the stock about halfway up the dish. Surround the soup with cooked swamp greenneedles and cabbage, and pour the silky gravy atop the dead beast. And sprinkle chopped herbs on it. And there it is, my version of “Bustards” from Mornbryn's Shield.

Alternatively, you can slowly cook the bird in the soup or make a sauce first and cook the meat in its silky goodness. However, that dish would be a bit lacking in presentation but still delicious. And as always, taste everything every step of the way and balance the flavor with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of lemon juice.

And here we are, friends. I will need to dig through my notes and see what other dishes of note there were in the village of Mornbryn's Shield. But we might take a trip to the hot and humid Vilhon Reach for a popular sweet dish.

As always, amarast, and until we meet again. Yours truly, Juniper Churlgo

Bowl of Hares
Tethyr. There is no other nation on the Sword Coast that's seen so strife and change in its recent history. The land as lush as it is warm. If you are like me and ever hitched a ride at some point along the Trade Way, openly or while pretending to be a sack of tubers, you are likely familiar with Mosstone. A humid and shaded walled oasis of civilization along the endless greenery of the Wealdath. Today's dish comes from a famous eatery there – the Oak-Father's Boon. The combination of chopped hares, leeks, cloves, and cinnamon attracted my curiosity and, along with you, my dear reader, we will try and reproduce the bowl of hares. Prepare your hares caught at the Forest of Tethir. Skin and gut them. Now the cooks of Mosstone butchered the animals into bite-sized chunks, but I am nowhere as proficient with game butchery, so we will remove hares' legs and paws and break the carcass in two. We will leave the meat to marinate overnight to soften it. For the marinade, you will need Thayan lemon peel, lemon juice, a sprig of rosemary, a sprig of thyme, crushed garlic, crushed ginger from Kara-Tur, brown sugar, salt, pepper, oil, a cup of honey from Amn and your best sweet and acidic red wine, I used Blood Wine from Aglarond. Mix the marinade well and submerge your hare bits overnight. The next day, strain your marinade and set aside the liquid in a pan, cooking on medium heat to reduce the liquid and concentrate the flavor. Pat your nare meat dry and quickly brown on all sides in a bit of oil. About two minutes per side should suffice. Set aside and in the same pot, put in some butter and finely (or not so finely) chopped leaks. Cook on low flame until leaks are sweet. Now transfer the meat back, pour in the now-reduced marinade, and add enough stock, wine, and water to cover. Add generous heapings of powdered cloves and cinnamon to the stew, and bring to a boil. Taste to adjust the flavor. Cover and cook on a slow simmer for three hours. I added coconut powder and sweet apples to thicken and make it sweeter. If you want your hare stew to look more presentable, use whole cinnamon and cloves tied in a little satchel to keep the liquid smoother. But be generous with the amounts of spices – they are the spotlight in the dish. Traditionally, a bowl of hares is served with spiced of eggbread, which is easy to whip up. You will need to beat eggs and a dash of cream and soak your day-old stale bread in it and then pan-fry it.

Voila, let us hope you like the result as much as Volothamp Geddarm liked his serving. At the Oak-Father's Boon, each bowl was filled with chunks of leeks and meat and packed with eggbread for dipping. But I think the dish is filling, so smaller bowls can satisfy a single person.

This exercise in Tethyrean cuisine was riveting. Next time I want to try and make the dish even better. If you try to iterate on the recipe, please do not hesitate to share your results. Next time we will travel to the southeast from Tethyr to the mysterious Blade Kingdoms for another bean dish.

Until next time, my friends. Amarast and stay culinarily curious! Yours truly, Juniper Churlgo.

Fireshearan Steamed Salmon
Good tidings, my friends. It has been almost a tenday since our last attempt at cooking, hasn't it? I've missed you dearly, and it took me almost a tenday to clean a pileup of dishes, utensils, containers, and other dangerous cooking implements in the kitchen, and it's time to make another mountain of dishes to conquer. Today, as I've promised you, we are going to a quaint freezing town of Fireshear in the Frozenfar. A simple mining town with simple food and today's meal will take time to make but minimal effort. The local specialty dish is freshly caught in frigid water salmon, steamed with a sauce of cream and shallots. If you visit one of the several Fireshearan inns, you can often see a huge vat of steaming liquid puffing and huffing over a large half-carcass of salmon, sometimes bigger than yours truly! Even in its great size, salmon cooks quickly, and guests are free to come over to the pot to receive a handful of steamed fish dolloped with cream and shallot sauce. We will replicate the recipe on a smaller scale of just two portions of a smaller farm-raised salmon from the hatcheries in Hiltail. I heard that their fish is spawned by a deepspawn. Poppycock, if you ask me... Let's begin! I will serve the fish atop a bed of roasted potatoes, mushrooms, and carrots. Carrots take a long while to roast, and we would want them to be soft, so we are going to marinate them overnight. For the marinade, we will mix vinegar, olive oil, brown sugar, ginger, hot smoky peppers, paprika, ground cinnamon, cumin, fennel, coriander, salt, and black pepper. Mix it all together, cut carrots into smaller pieces and submerge overnight. Making potatoes is quick. I picked small-sized tubers and boiled them in a vat of water until they were soft enough to be pierced with a knife. Drain and let air dry. When dry, place them on a baking sheet, well-greased, and crush each with a fork. Add your mushrooms and carrots to the crushed potatoes and generously drizzle them with a mix of melted butter and oil. Season with salt and pepper and toss some chopped dill. Roast on medium-high fire until the potatoes are crispy and the carrots are soft. For the sauce, cube a shallot and cook it in a bit of butter or oil until soft; add a tankard of white wine and cook until reduced to ten percent of the original volume. I used a refreshing white wine from Lapaliiya, but as long as it's white and acidic, it will turn out well. Season with salt and pepper. Take it off the heat and add the cream just enough to change the color, and put it back on the low heat. Do not overheat the sauce, or it will break! Add several pinches of flour as a thickener and cook regularly, stirring until it thickens. Finish it was a small dollop of butter, and stir it into the sauce before serving. Steaming with be lightning swift if you youse a small portion of salmon, so be mindful, and the fish will continue to cook after you take it off steam. Make steaming liquid using remnants of your wine and add chopped shallots, crushed garlic cloves, bay leaves, and dill stems that you should have leftover from earlier. Place your salmon with skin on, skin side down on parchment, and generously salt it with sea salt and pepper to taste and toss lemon on top. Bring the steaming liquid to a rolling boil and place the fish to steam. Seven minutes should be all you need, and it will continue cooking as you're plating. Place your roasted vegetables on the bottom of the serving dish, top them with salmon and pour your sauce over them. I added some simply cooked arugula to make sure I got some greenery in my meal. Serve with sprinkled or placed sprigs of dill. And there it is. Cuisine from that far north is known for its simplicity and blandness, but the taste of perfectly cooked salmon is silky smooth as is, and it doesnt really need anything else to make it palatable. It's almost as good as salmon pie from the Frozenfar, but that is for another day. The next dish we will tackle is a soup from the City of Splendors itself, made with roasted nuts and served with cheese and toasted bread. As a certain old mage once said, "Life has no meaning but what we give it. I wish a few more of ye would give it a little." the meaning I give mine – is you, my dear friends. Until the next adventure. Yours truly, Juniper Churlgo

Lomatran Baked Beans
Ah, the tiny patchwork of a nation, the Blade Kingdoms. A collection of feuding city-states that claimed some of the most fertile land southeasts of the Vilhon Reach. When the region is at peace, it’s a glorious place to visit. Rolling green hills dotted with vineyards and ancient aqueducts. Mountain valleys. Fresh bread and flavorful olive oils pressed in the Valley of Umbricci.

There is not better sight than seeing the first rays of the late summer sun hitting the lush mountain valleys of the Kingdoms or seeing the evening sun glistening off the Akanamere. Today’s dish is from a less prosperous city of Lomatra, a coastal humble settlement of fishers and farmers that grew greatly following the infamous Blade Wars. These tiny pots of Lomartan beans stuffed with herbs, white wine, fresh vegetables, and local spicy sausages are baked en mass on the High Street and delivered across town. Some of the pots are lidded with clay tops, while others are wrapped in the simple, tough dough to keep the steam and gorges aroma inside. This is a simple recipe, and dare I say, some of the best bean dishes I’ve tried so far. There are three parts for us to tackle. Firstly, we need to make simple dough with wheat flour, some salt, a dash of water, and hard clear alcohol. Simply mix it all together and set it aside for when you are ready to bake. Let’s now prepare aromatic vegetables – a very common part of Blade Kingdomer cuisine. Finely cube sweet onions, carrots, tomatoes, and peppers (I used red, but green is what is traditionally used). Add minced garlic, salt, pepper, and a bay leaf, and slowly cook it all on a pan in a drizzle of olive oil. Use low heat to bring out the flavors and keep your oil fresh-tasting, regularly steering the vegetables. When softened, pour in a good white wine, like Saerloonian Topaz. Stir and cook to evaporate the alcohol and reduce. Now the sausages. You can keep them in the casing, but I prefer to get my hands dirty. Local Blade Kingdomer sausages are made with pork, very fatty, and well-spiced with paprika, so you don’t need to add much more to it. Add all the sausages taken out of their casings to a bowl, and add a dash of salt and pepper. I added some dried scallions and Herbes de Provence and/or savory leaves, dried as well. Mix the meat well and form it into small balls. Toss the meatballs into a hot skillet to brown on all sides. There is no need to add oil as sausage fat will quickly melt and make sure nothing gets stuck. When they are ready, toss them together with your vegetables, preserved or fresh beans (soaked overnight), and more savory as well as rosemary, dried or finely chopped. I used white beans. I am unsure what they use in Lomatra, but I went with butterbeans and pinto. Take your clay pots and fill them with the mix you just prepared, topping it with a bay leaf and a single dried pequin pepper to give it light heat and a smoky taste. Add a drizzle of white wine and olive oil to each pot. Roll out your dough and seal the jars. Brush the crust with oil or melted butter if you want a bit more flavor in the crust. Place the jars into a hot oven for 45-50 minutes and have a glass of Saerloonian Topaz while you wait. And that’s all there is, friends. I paired a pot with an iced glass of soldier's champagne (which is half table wine and half slivovitz, by the way) and a salad of greens and yellow peppers coated in red wine vinegar, oil, and capers dressing.

I hope you try this dish for yourself and share its splendid simplicity with the fishers and commoners of Lomatra.

Amarast, and until next time we meet. Possibly in Cormyr or the plane pf Bytopia. Yours truly, Juniper Churlgo

Maztican Bean Stew and Mayzcakes
For those of you who like to singe your mouth and burn your guts with hot peppers, may I introduce you to a simple dish from the distant continent of Maztica? Mayz, beans, tomatoes, and peppers are the staples of the cuisine, at least in the New Amn territory of Payit. I traveled there on an expedition once after finding stuffed Red wolf of Payit in a store in Westgate. Long story short – a chubby friendly Payitlan woman invited me over to her home and, of course, cooked for me. She eagerly stirred her big clay pot of beans, peppers, and tomatoes and shaped mayz mash into hand-sized cakes. Unfortunately, the language barrier meant I had to improvise and try making something that tasted as close to the stew from Maztica as possible. So, let us begin. First thing first, if you're using dried beans, and you probably are, soak them in cold water overnight. I used black and white (pinto), but I am unsure what the names of local Maztican species of legumes are, but I implore you to experiment. Prepare the spices: we will need a heap of paprika, a heap of ground white pepper, ground garlic, salt, crushed hot pepper flakes, crushed dried cilantro, parsley, oregano, sage, and cumin. Additionally, I used a herb known as epazote. Now for the vegetables. You will need a handful of tomatoes and sweet peppers. I like roasting them first with a drizzle of oil to bring out the flavor. Roughly cut onions, celery, hot peppers, and sweet peppers and all of them to a clay pot, along with roasted vegetables, spices, and drained soaked beans. I usually add a cup or so of bean water, along with stock (as always "borrowed" from the closest inn) and water. Cook uncovered on medium flame, regularly stirring. Add water when it evaporates. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and lemon juice if needed. Yes, it IS supposed to be hot. When I tried it for the first time, my face turned into a red, sweaty mess and the Maztican matron had a good laugh at my expanse. I have to admit I could not pinpoint the recipe's taste, so take this as a work in progress. Maztican mayzcakes are simply fried or baked flops the size of a hin's hand. They are made with ground mayz meal, hot peppers, fresh mayz, and that is all. My attempts to use just mayz resulted in hard and not particularly flavorful cakes, so I suggest making a mix of mayzmeal and regular flour, salt, sugar, crushed hot red peppers, chopped hot fresh green peppers, roughly chopped cilantro, fresh corn, two eggs, baking powder. Mix all the ingredients with water until the consistency of the wet and sticky dough is reached and let it rest in a chilled place. Mayzcakes are a versatile food in Maztica. They travel well and are used as travel rations. Their mouth-singeing heat makes you sweat like a hog, which in turn, cools you – Mystra-sent in Maztican heat. These cakes were wrapped in leaves to travel, which kept them soft. When eaten with Maztican bean stew, I like to dip them or crumble them into the dish. Another interesting use of mayzcakes – is morningfeast. Old cakes can be soaked in eggs and fried in a puddle of eggs. Then the egg was folded around the cake akin to an envelope and served for morningfeast.

When you are ready to serve the stew, roast or fry cakes in a drizzle of oil and pile them on a plate. Caution, both dishes are VERY HOT! So unless you're a valorous eater (or a halfling) use caution and common sense.

And another dish it recorded by yours truly. Next, we are going to the green Tethyr to hunt for some hares.

Until next week, Amarast, my friends.

Vilhonese Klarvel
As I promised, today we will talk about klarvels or ring-loaves. These loaves of bread are quite common and can be found in a lot of southern lands, such as the Land of the Lions. But I've come across klarvels in neighboring lands to the north. I truly believe that their popularity will spread along with merchants and traders. But we are here to talk about a version of the bread from the Vilhon Reach. Unlike in other lands where these ring-loaves are savory foods made with dark rye, Vilhonese folk liked to sweeten the dough and serve it as a type of crude buy delicious cake. You will need fresh berries, mangoes, oranges (or orange preserves), and sweet liquor (like orange flavored or spiced rum). To make the cake softer, use a copious amount of softened butter. In a bowl, add sugar to taste. One cut would result in a sweet cake, but if you're sensitive or do not have a sweet tooth, half a cup should suffice. Cream sugar and butter together and set aside. In a separate bowl, combine three warmed-up chicken eggs with an almost full tankard of yogurt and a drizzle of vanilla extract for flavor. Set aside and prepare a bowl of dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and a pinch of salt. When you are ready, start incorporating all dry and wet bowls into the sugar and butter mix. To thoroughly mix, go in small batches and mix well. When all three batches are mixed, they will form a sticky type of dough that will not be handled with your bare hands. Set aside and chill it to relax gluten within. Now prepare to bake. Take your favorite ring-loaf tin and rub its insides generously with butter. Make sure to get it into all nooks of the form to make sure the bread leaves the mold with ease. If you DO have a sweet tooth like us hin do, dust the insides of the buttered mold with sugar. Lastly, preheat your oven. When ready, transfer the dough into the buttered tin. Smash the tin several times against the table to remove any air pockets, and smooth the top with a greased spatula. Now it's time to bake. Forty-five minutes should be enough. Perfect time to read a good book, sip some cold ale by a fireplace. When the bread is done, take it out and see if it is cooked with a tester. If the wooden utensil comes out smooth after piercing the bread - it is done. Put it into a chill place to cull the desert quicker. Meanwhile, mix orange zest and preserves with your rum to soak the bread in later. In another bowl, whisk together thick cream, seeds of a vanilla pod, and some dusting of confectioner's sugar. If you want to add some gentle pink color to the whipped cream, mash a handful of berries in a little bit of water and cook to extract the red juices. Strain and cook to reduce. Cool and beat into your cream mix. When the cake is chilled, take it out of the mold, pour your orange mix on the bottom, and put the cake back in so it soaks it all in. Now once all liquid is done, place a plate on the top and flip the mold. Fold your berries, chopped mangoes, and orange zest into the whipped cream and dollop it into the center hole. Decorate the loaf as you see fit; I never had the patience for such things. And here you go. A beautiful ring-loaf. When it's time to serve, let your guests slice into the bread and unleash the avalanche of cream and fruit from its center. My first dessert dish turned out very well, and I highly recommend you try it and taste the flavors of the Vilhon Reach. Until next time and the next dish, my friends. Juniper Churlgo