dish o’ the sea [sardines with hash browns]

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If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you would know that I am incredibly obsessed with Stardew Valley. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s basically an RPG where you farm to your heart’s content, stab monsters, and stalk romance your village love-interest.

The game has a lot of features, but I definitely enjoyed fishing and stalking romancing the most. I actually documented my whole spaghetti-based romance saga on Twitter because I’m not insane at all. But, I’ll save that entire story for another recipe…

This is completely normal behavior!

But honestly, the greatest thing to me is cooking. If a game has cooking in it, I get pretty hyped. One of the recipes that caught my eye was Dish O’ The Sea. It just sounded so tasty, so I just had to make it!

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Are you staring at a TV again, Seb? It’s lunch time, dude.

The original recipe calls for just sardines and hash browns, however, the art seems to have more on the plate than just that. I assumed that this dish would also feature kale and tomatoes since both of those things are crops that can be grown on your farm. :)

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I’ve gone ahead and made some slight adjustments to the original three-ingredient recipe for this real-world adaption. 😀

UNIT COMPOSITION

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  1. salt
  2. pepper
  3. (optional) parsley
  4. 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
  5. 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  6. juice from 1 lemon
  7. cherry tomatoes
  8. 4 sardines, gutted and de-boned (hopefully your fish prepping skills are better than mine!)
  9. 1 potato, peeled
  10. 4 leaves of kale, stem removed

BUILD ORDER

Prep time for this meal is about 30 minutes. Cook time is about 25 minutes. This makes 2 servings.

OPENING

  1. Take your potato and grate it.
    blog_dishothesea_potato
  2. Fill a bowl with cold water and place the grated potato into the water. This will draw out some of the starch.
  3. Let the potatoes sit in the water for about 15 minutes. Drain the water and squeeze any excess water out of the potatoes. Allow it to dry on a paper towel.

MID GAME

  1. Heat a pan on medium heat. Add in 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
  2. Take one half of your grated potatoes and place them in the pan. Squish down the pile of potatoes to form your hash browns. Season with salt and pepper. Let cook for ~5 minutes and then flip and cook for another 5 minutes, or until golden brown. Repeat this step for your remaining potatoes.
  3. While your hash browns cook, steam your kale and cherry tomatoes. You can either do this over boiling water, or using a microwave steamer (which I used). Season your kale with salt, pepper and 1/2 juice of lemon once done.

LATE GAME

  1. Using a damp towel, wipe away any access hash browns from the pan.
  2. Set the pan on medium-high heat and add 1 tablespoon of oil.
  3. When the pan comes to heat, add in your chopped garlic and saute.
  4. Season your sardines with salt and pepper.
  5. Add in your sardines. Allow them to cook for about 2.5 minutes on each side.
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  6. Add in the remaining 1/2 lemon juice to your pan.
  7. Remove the sardines from the heat and begin plating your dish.
  8. (OPTIONAL): Sprinkle chopped parsley over your fish.
  9. Eat!

GG WP, farmer! 😀

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Now you have a delicious meal that will get you prepared for a day’s worth of fishing! Hooray!

 

gorgrond chowder [fish and sausage chowder]

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I’ve been wanting to make Gorgrond Chowder for a while… So I finally had a chance to sit down and hammer out the recipe. I wanted to do it right, so was a lot of research involved. There’s something very special about enjoying a creamy seafood soup in a toasty sour dough bread bowl on a chilly day.

It’s a hearty soup, and it has to be since Gorgrond is a pretty rough neighborhood.

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GUYS…GUYS WE CAN TALK THIS OUT. MAYBE OVER A BOWL OF CHOWDER?

You could probably make this meal while doing runs of Blackrock! Just don’t die and upset just don’t upset your raid lead.

UNIT COMPOSITION

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  1. salt
  2. 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  3. 1 cup of water
  4. 2 cups of fish stock
  5. 3 cups of milk
  6. 1/2 onion, chopped
  7. 1/2 lb of carrots, chopped
  8. 1/2 lb of celery, chopped
  9. 1/2 lb of red potatoes
  10. 1/2 lb of italian sausage
  11. 1 lb of cod, chopped
  12. OPTIONAL: 1/2 lb sour dough bread rounds
  13. OPTIONAL: parsley

BUILD ORDER

Total prep time for this dish is about 20 minutes. Total cook time is about 35 minutes. This makes about 6 servings.

OPENING

  1. Set a large pot on high heat. Add your tablespoon of olive oil.
  2. Cook your Italian sausage until golden brown (roughly 5 – 7 minutes).
  3. Remove from the pot and set aside.
  4. Add in your chopped onions, celery, and carrots. This blend of ingredients is called a mirepoix.
    blog_gorgrondchowder_mirepoix
  5. Reduce the heat to medium and allow the mirepoix to sweat. Stir it occasionally to prevent it from burning.

MID GAME

  1. Slice the Italian sausage and re-introduce it into the pot. Make sure you pour in any juices left over from the sausage.
  2. Bring the heat back up to high.
  3. Add in your fish stock, water and potatoes. Allow to cook for about 10 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.blog_gorgrondchowder_cooking

LATE GAME

  1. Add in your chopped cod.
  2. Reduce the heat to medium and pour in your milk.
  3. Allow the cod to cook for another 10 minutes, stirring often.
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  4. OPTIONAL: to make a bread bowl, cut off the top of the round of bread and scoop the insides out.
  5. OPTIONAL: garnish with parsley
  6. Eat!

GG WP!

Now, the bread bowl is totally optional. You can serve this chowder in a bowl if you’d like!

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As always, I try to replicate the in-game appearance. Here’s what it looks like in-game:

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And here’s how it turned out with the bread bowl:

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Close, I think!

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Yessss….