Category Archives: world of warcraft

braised riverbeast [red wine braised lamb shanks]

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There’s nothing better than coming to your garrison from a long raid and enjoying a hearty home cooked meal. Even before I started playing WoW, I was always fascinated by the robust recipe options offered throughout the game. Choosing to level up the cooking profession was definitely a no-brainer for me  because of my interest of mercilessly killing virtual wildlife and throwing their meat over a roaring flame. MEAT GOOD.

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LOOK AT ALL THIS POTENTIAL MEAT!

 I guess that it’s fitting that I rolled as a hunter in this game.

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Appropriate title: the Butcher

Since my local butcher doesn’t offer River Beast, I had to choose a substitute. I decided to go with lamb as my meat of choice. I personally love lamb and its slight gamy flavor. If you’re not a fan of lamb, feel free to use beef. You may have to adjust the cook time and quantity of liquid since typically larger than lamb shanks.

There’s something special about red wine and red meat. That enchanting aroma that gently wafts through your home as the meat slowly cooks in a bath comprised of its own fatty juices and wine is just magical... Excuse me while I get a bucket for all of this drool.

UNIT COMPOSITION

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  1. salt
  2. pepper
  3. 6 cloves of garlic
  4. 1/2 tablespoon of butter
  5. 1 cup of red wine
  6. 1/2 cup of beef stock
  7. 2 lbs of lamb shank, french trimmed (~4 lamb shanks)
  8. 2 carrots, sliced
  9. 3 parsnips, sliced
  10. OPTIONAL: parsley

BUILD ORDER

Prep time for this is about 25 minutes, or up to 45 minutes if you plan to french trim your lamb shanks. Cook time is ~1 hour, 45 minutes. This makes 4 servings.

Just to note, french trimming is completely optional! It’s really only for presentation purposes.

If you’re going to french trim your lamb shanks on your own, you’re going to want a very sharp paring knife. Here’s a tutorial I used.

Basically, you’ll want to make an incision around bone at the very end of the shank. Then, cut into the meat, and remove about 1″ of it. Scrape off any excess fat/tendon away from the bone until it’s fairly clean. When cooking, the meat will slide down from the bone.

OPENING

  1. Season your lamb with salt and pepper.
  2. Put a pan on high heat and add in your butter.
  3. Sear the lamb for about 30 seconds each side, or until brown.
  4. Place lamb in a large baking dish. Pour in your red wine and stock. You should have enough liquid to cover 3/4 of the lamb shanks.blog_braisedriverbeast_prep

MID GAME

  1. Preheat your oven to 350° F.
  2. Place your garlic in the baking dish.
  3. Place the entire baking dish in the oven and bake for 1 hour.

LATE GAME

  1. After an hour, flip over the lamb shanks.
  2. Add in your chopped vegetables and continue baking for the remaining 45 minutes.blog_braisedriverbeast_cooking1
  3. Remove from the oven and plate the lamb shanks and vegetables.blog_braisedriverbeast_cooked
  4. Pour the remaining liquid into a pan and reduce on high heat for about 5 minutes.
  5. Drizzle the reduced red wine sauce over the lamb. Sprinkle chopped parsley over the plate.
  6. Eat!

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I took some photos of the lamb shank without the vegetables since I wanted to replicate what it looks like in-game:

blog_braisedriverbeast_wowheadImage from WoWhead

 But, to have a balance meal, you need to throw in some vegetables!

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GG WP!

Hopefully this dish has satisfied your Draenor cuisine cravings for now. Until next time, happy hunting!

GUEST RECIPE: murloco’s tacos [baja-style fish tacos]

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Hi! My name is Homebrewed, some of you may know me from Twitter. I am a huge fan of Warcraft and more recently Hearthstone. My favorite amphibious humanoid is the Murloc, I am even quite fluent in Nerglish. So, my recipe I want to share with you today is Murlocos, Baja-style Mur…fish tacos.

https://twitter.com/HomebrewedDwarf/status/536372067592314881

The weeks after I came back from BlizzCon I received some news from the doctor, in other words, I need to start eating healthier. So in this venture, I have been cooking at home a lot more and finding different ways to make some of my favorite food to fuel up into between work and gaming. I was inspired by a dish I had one time at The Reservoir – Restaurant and Tap Room – Waterbury.

There are some things you can do ahead of ahead to cut on the actual time from cooking to eating when you go to fry your fish and assemble your tacos. I recommend making the pickled jalapeños and the cilantro onion salsa the day before as it keeps for at about a week. Also, I do want to recommend, that when you slice the jalapeños you buy some cheap plastic gloves, powder free, to protect your hands.

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Total prep time for this dish is about 1 hour. Cook time is 40 minutes. This recipe will make roughly about 16 tacos. You will end up with leftover condiments! 

OPENING HAND

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EARLY GAME

Ingredients

  1. 3/4 cup water
  2. 3/4 cup distilled white vinegar
  3. 3 tablespoons white sugar
  4. 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  5. 1 clove garlic, crushed
  6. 1/2 teaspoon oregano
  7. 10 large jalapeno peppers, sliced into rings

Directions (Pickled Jalapeño)

  1. Combine water, vinegar, sugar, kosher salt, garlic, and oregano in a saucepan over high heat. Bring mixture to a boil, stir in jalapeno peppers and remove from heat. Let mixture cool for 10 minutes.
  2. Pack peppers into jars using tongs, cover with vinegar mixture, cover, and refrigerate until needed.

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MID RANGE

Ingredients

  1. 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
  2. 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
  3. 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
  4. 2 teaspoons olive oil
  5. 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  6. 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions (Cilantro Onion Salsa)

Chop everything, juice your lime, and place all the mixture into a mason jar and pop it in the fridge.

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Ingredients

  1. 3/4 cup cold seltzer water
  2. 1/2 large egg, beaten
  3. 1/4 cup cold vodka
  4. 2.5 ounces unbleached cake flour, by weight
  5. 2.5 ounces white rice flour, by weight
  6. 1 liter vegetable or sunflower oil
  7. 1 pound haddock or cod
  8. Red cabbage, sliced
  9. 16 corn tortillas
  10. Kosher salt

LATE GAME

Directions (Fish & Assemble)

  1. Slice up your cabbage and put asideblog_murlocostacos_cabbage
  2. Slice fish into pieces that are about two inchesin depthblog_murlocostacos_fish
  3. Heat oil in a cast iron Dutch oven to 375 degrees
  4. Combine seltzer, egg, and vodka in a bowl
  5. Combine rice flour and cake flour in a separate bowl
  6. When your oil reaches temperature, add the wet to the dry ingredients and whisk to combine and surround that bowl with ice on the outside to keep the batter coldblog_murlocostacos_batter
  7. Dip your fish into your batter, shaken off excess, and slowly place into the oil about four pieces at a time
  8. Cook for about two minutes until golden brown and remove from heat
  9. Place cooked fish on a paper towel and season with saltblog_murlocostacos_frying
  10. Heat your corn tortillas directly over the burner if you have a gas stovetop turning with tongs to heat them through or in a pan with a very slight mist of water
  11. Put everything together and enjoy!blog_murlocostacos_macro

Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!

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Special guest recipe by Homebrewed. He’s a  writer, a Hearthstone aficionado, and a Murloc whisperer! You can follow his adventures on his Twitter: @HomebrewedDwarf