Eorzean Eats

Hey everyone!! Long time no see! The past several months have been comprised of frantic bar prep - then taking the bar exam, which in terms of difficulty and misery was like solo healing Titan Ex in i70 gear - then I moved to Dallas - then I started a new job! Cooking has been the last thing on my mind recently (*looks guiltily over at In N’ Out burger wrappers*), but now that I’m actually in the same place for more than two weeks at a time, let’s resume cooking all of the amazing dishes Eorzea has to offer. (Just in time for 3.4 to come out!) ALSO. Y’ALL. My new place has a gas stove. Talk about Master Culinarian digs.

I probably should ease back into the posting-once-a-week-or-so schedule with an easier recipe, but of course I saw a soufflé on the menu and decided I wanted to make that instead. This one is a long one, so I’ve inserted one of them fancy Read More page breaks. Sorry y’all. Meringues are fussy.

I’ve had savory soufflés before, but I think from the ingredient list (maple syrup, cream cheese, lemon) that this Cheese Souffle is meant to be more like a Japanese “cheesecake soufflé,” a Moogle-fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth meringue concoction rarely seen in America. It’s not as tall and puffy as a regular souffle, and it’s much lighter and eggier than a cheesecake - it’s kind of a hybrid of the two. After studying some recipes, I adapted the usual cheesecake soufflé to include the universal Eorzean sweetener, Maple Syrup, as a glaze. I made this with a springform pan, because the high sides are great for a cheesecake (and because springforms make it easy to extract a cake without tearing the sides.) My cake cracked a bit, but the texture and flavor were delicious!

Cheese Souffle!

Hi everyone!! Nicki here, back again with another FFXIV recipe. This one was a user request that I just couldn’t say no to. The way Catsfoot Chews are described in the Vanu quests - “A soft, sticky confection made with ground catsfoot leaves to give it a bright emerald-green color” - reminded me of kusa mochi, a mochi flavored with yomogi/mugwort leaves. Mugwort is kind of difficult to find in the US, so I had to order yomogi powder off Amazon to make this tasty candy! Yomogi has a wonderful aroma and an herbal, almost licorice-like flavor that tastes amazing in mochi. Sweet rice flour (mochiko) can be found at most upscale grocery stores (Central Market, Whole Foods, etc.) 

I’ve made mochi a couple of times and it’s super easy, fast, and produces a deliciously chewy candy. All you need is a microwave-safe bowl or two and a whisk. It also helps to have a pastry or dough cutter on hand, as mochi is QUITE sticky, even sprinkled with rice flour powder! By the way, if you have a traditional steamer, you can use that instead of the microwave. 

A word to the wise: a little food coloring can go a long way in making attractive mochi. I remember making strawberry mochi without it.... and it turned out a pale pink, looking like raw chicken. :S The in-game icon isn’t the “bright emerald-green” it’s described to be, but you can achieve a very lovely deep green color with just a drop of green food coloring. 

Catsfoot Chews!

2 cups water

1.5 tbsp yomogi or mugwort powder (can use fresh leaves instead, if you have them!)

2 cups mochiko (sweet rice flour), plus more for sprinkling

1 cup sugar 

Oil or cooking spray to grease the bowl

1 drop green food coloring (optional) 

Mix the yomogi powder into two cups of warm water and stir to dissolve. The powder I ordered was very fine, so it dissolved just above room temperature, but you can microwave the mixture if the water isn’t warm enough to dissolve. Sift the mochiko and sugar together, then add the yomogi mixture and one drop of green food coloring. With a whisk, beat the mixture until it’s uniform and there are no lumps. Transfer mixture to a greased microwave-safe bowl and put it in the microwave. Mine took about 9-10 minutes on HIGH in my microwave to become smooth, thick, and gummy; depending on your microwave, it might be a little shorter or longer. If you taste a tiny bit (taste with great caution - it’s HOT) and it’s thick and chewy and no longer tastes grainy, it’s ready.

I was really excited to make this one, because while I’ve eaten nopales a hundred times (I grew up in South Texas!), I’d never cleaned and roasted nopales paddles myself before. These might not be available in your area, depending on your location, but if you can find them, nopales are a real treat - tender, succulent, vegetal, and earthy. I especially love nopales salsa.

Nopales are prickly pear cactus paddles. They can be a bit slimy, like okra, so make sure you rinse off any sticky cactus juice. This Thanalan specialty appears to be served with a creamy-looking red sauce, so I opted for a chipotle sauce (Mexican crema and canned chipotle peppers, yum yum.) You can sub in sour cream if crema isn’t available where you live. You can also just use chipotle paste/puree if you can’t find canned peppers in adobo sauce. 

Roasted Nopales!

Several nopales paddles (2-5)

1/2 cup Mexican crema or sour cream, plus more for drizzling

Lime juice to taste

1-2 chipotles in adobo

2-3 teaspoons of adobo sauce (from chipotles)

1 clove garlic 

Cilantro to garnish

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Rinse the nopales paddles under running water to get any sticky juice off, then pat dry. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt. I lined a baking sheet with parchment paper and baked them for about 18 minutes, until they were less wet and had turned an olive green color. Prick them with a fork; they should be very tender.

I was planning out dinner for tonight - fried chicken, check; pepper cream gravy, check; but I needed a side. What ELSE tastes amazing slathered in gravy? Mashed popotoes! 

The FFXIV recipe includes cottage cheese, which I’d never put in mashed potatoes before. I like the effect it had on the texture, though, making the potatoes slightly lighter and fluffier. Yukon Gold or russet baking potatoes make the best mashed potatoes, since they are highly starchy and tend to take in a lot of moisture and fall apart. 

For the tastiest mashed potatoes, mash by hand, and don’t use a food processor or mash it to death. Potatoes can get quite gummy when overworked, which destroys that perfect fluffy texture. I happen to love slightly lumpy mashed potatoes - I LOVE when you get a pocket of potato-y goodness in a bite. 

Mashed Popotoes!

4 Yukon Gold potatoes (about 1.5-2 lbs), peeled and cut into quarters

1/4 cup cottage cheese

2/3 cup half-and-half

5 tablespoons butter 

Salt and pepper to taste

If you prefer your potatoes smooth or don’t like the texture of cottage cheese, in a blender or food processor, blend the cottage cheese until it’s smooth (or just mash it with the back of a spoon to reduce the curd size.) Place the potatoes in a pot and add cold water to cover by 1 inch. Add a big pinch of salt and turn the heat to high. Bring the pot to a boil, then drop the heat and let it simmer until the potatoes are tender (about 12-15 minutes.) If you cover your pot, it will speed this up!

Hi EEers! I apologize for the delay in new posts -- between my last round of law school finals, graduating from law school (hooray!), and arranging to move to a new city, it has been a hellish month. Now that all that is over, I’m excited to get back to posting regular updates! (And, hopefully, clearing A8S soon!) I’m making Raptor Stew for dinner tonight, and I’ll provide the recipe so you can cook along with me. Now, I know that in FFXIV, raptors look like this:

But since those are a bit hard to find in modern-day groceries, I’m opting to make this Raptor Stew with its modern-day relative:

This chicken, mushroom, carrot, and onion stew is a hearty and wholesome meal. It tastes great by itself or over rice. Because the recipe calls for Raptor Shank, I’m opting for chicken thighs, but you can use white meat if you’d prefer. Choice of mushroom is also flexible. The FFXIV recipe calls for two kinds of mushrooms; I’m using white button mushrooms and baby brown portabellas.

Raptor Stew!

Several tablespoons of vegetable oil or other frying oil

About 1.5 pounds chicken thighs (I opted for boneless)

4 tbsp butter

4 tbsp flour (white or wheat)

1 onion

2 carrots

6 white button mushrooms

6 brown baby portabellas

2 cloves garlic

6 cups chicken broth

1/4 tsp dried sage

1/8 tsp grated nutmeg

Optional: 1/4 cup half and half or cream

Dice the onion and carrots, slice the mushrooms, mince the garlic, and pat the chicken dry. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and set aside. Pick out a heavy-bottomed stew pot (I love my Dutch oven for this.) Add enough frying oil to cover the bottom and heat over medium-high until the oil is hot. Brown the chicken pieces for about 5 minutes or until there’s a nice caramelization on the outside, turning once. Remove it from the pot and place aside. 

Time to make the roux that will keep this a stew and not a soup! Drop the heat to medium and add the butter to the pot. When the butter melts, stir in the flour and keep stirring. The butter and flour should combine to be a thick slurry. Add the diced onions and carrots and let the mixture cook, stirring occasionally, for 4-5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and garlic and cook for another few minutes until the onions are soft and translucent.

I can’t believe it took SE so long to add pasta dishes to FFXIV, but boy am I glad they did. Peperoncino pasta is one of those dishes that works well as a last minute, I-forgot-they-were-coming-over dish AND can also totally be classed up with a bottle of wine and a salad for a fancy date night dinner. It’s pretty goddamn delicious tank food. 

Peperoncino is al dente spaghetti coated in olive oil and flavored simply with garlic and crushed red pepper, sprinkled with parsley. The spaghetti is the star. My parents gave me a pasta maker for Christmas and I’ve been making a ton of fresh pasta lately. Regular dried spaghetti or fresh pasta both work for Peperoncino, but because the flavors in this dish are so simple, make sure you don’t overcook the pasta! Mushy pasta will ruin the plate. 

Similarly, because this recipe has so few ingredients, try to make sure your ingredients are HQ. A stronger-flavored, extra virgin olive oil will really bring out the best in a Peperoncino. 

Peperoncino!

Fresh or dried spaghetti - would recommend about half a pound of dried

3 cloves garlic, finely minced

About 1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (adjust for taste!)

Several tablespoons chopped parsley 

About 1/3 - 1/2 cup good-quality olive oil

It’s a bit hard to give specific cooking times for pasta, since altitude, brand, grain choice, etc. can change the time a lot. Cook your pasta in a large pot of boiling water as specified on the package or until it’s al dente - until it’s chewy and sticks to your teeth a bit. (Since I made fresh pasta, my spaghetti only took about two minutes to cook.) Also, please salt your pasta water!!! I was always taught to salt pasta water until it’s about as salty as a human tear, and your pasta will thank you for it. Strain the spaghetti and set it aside. 

Hmm... how to make orange juice with just oranges. Apparently it involves a stove and saute pan?? 

All of the recipes I’ve made so far have just been preparation for this. You better get your melds on point and scrip up, because today we are preparing the first 5-star dish on this blog: Orange Juice.

Given the effort involved in creating this bold and innovative dish, it is absolutely criminal that Limsa/Ul’dah/Gridanian merchants sell this for only 7 gil. 

Don’t get discouraged if you mess this recipe up the first few times. Cooking can be difficult! 

Orange Juice!

1 bottle of orange juice

1 glass 

Using your hands, twist off the cap of your bottle. If your orange juice bottle appears purple, your crafting condition is Poor, and I suggest you throw it away.

Again using your hands, lift the bottle and tilt it over the glass. If you spill or somehow manage to cut yourself on the lid, quickly Master’s Mend with a paper towel. Pouring orange juice is kind of like blackjack: you can pour until you reach the top of the glass, but if you go too high, you’re going to have a problem.