gourmetgaming:

Request: Kingdom Hearts II – Sea Salt Ice-cream

You’ll notice the addition of hearts on this post and they will be added to past posts too - it’s to give you an idea of the level of difficulty the recipe is so you can pick a recipe to suit your ability should you wish to make something. Anyway, I can’t tell you the amount of requests I’ve had for Sea Salt Ice-cream - Kingdom Hearts certainly has an incredible fan base! So I thought I’d treat you all with the first post of 2012 because I’m just that good to you. I’ve learned that this is (or was) actually available at Tokyo DisneySea and that Tetsuya Nomura’s love for the treat explains its appearance in Kingdom Hearts II. Kingdom Hearts has a lot of delicious looking ice-creams in it, I feel like I’ve missed out now by not playing it when it first came out which upon reflection seems crazy considering one of my favourite games is Mickey’s Castle of Illusion for the Sega Mega Drive and the Disney-Final Fantasy combination sounds right up my alley. Though I have no idea what it should taste like I was excited by the prospect of flavoured salts and creating a twist on the classic vanilla ice-cream.

What you will need: A pot, a large bowl and 2 small bowls, a sieve, a wooden spoon, a medium container, a whisk, ice-cream moulds and wooden ice-cream sticks.

Ingredients:

½ Vanilla Pod

2 Tablespoons High Quality Sea Salt Flakes

125ml / ½ Cup Milk

75g / ⅓ Cup Sugar

250ml / 1 Cup Whipping/Heavy Cream

3 Egg Yolks

Blue Food Colouring

Ice

Preparing the Sea Salt Ice-cream:

1. Add half of the vanilla seeds to the salt. Rub the vanilla into the salt until well mixed – seal and leave to infuse.
2. If you don’t have an ice-cream machine (like me) place the container you’ll chill the ice-cream in into the freezer.
3. Warm the milk, sugar and rest of the vanilla pod together in a pot on a medium heat. Cover, remove from the heat once warmed through and leave the vanilla to fragrance the milk for about 30 minutes.
4. While the milk cools set up an ‘ice bath’ – half fill a large bowl with water and ice and place a smaller bowl inside. Pour the cream into the smaller bowl and set aside.
5. In another bowl whisk the egg yolks. Rewarm the now cooled and infused milk, gradually add the milk to the egg yolks whisking constantly. Once combined return the milk and egg to the pot.
6. Heat the mixture over a low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens and forms a custard. Do NOT let it boil! If bubbles or foam appear remove it from the heat immanently.
7. Sieve the custard into the bowl of cream over the ice bath. Stir well until it begins to cool, add the blue food colouring until the desired colour is achieved then place the bowl into the fridge to chill for several hours or overnight.

Making the Sea Salt Ice-cream:

1. Pour the chilled ice-cream mixture into the prepared frozen tray then return it to the freezer or use your ice-cream maker.
2. After about 40 minutes add the vanilla salt to taste and vigorously stir or whisk the mixture as it begins to set. Check on it every 30 minutes after this, continuing to mix well. Repeat this for about 2 – 3 hours every 30 minutes.
3. Once solidified take it out and allow it to soften. Once soft spoon it into the ice-pop moulds, be wary of air bubbles forming – it’s a good idea to mix the ice-cream around in the mould to try and remove as many as possible. If it’s too soft, pop it into the freezer for a bit before sliding in the wooden sticks and placing in the freezer to set.
4. To remove the ice-cream from the mould sit it in a bath of warm water until the outside begins to melt then carefully slide them out.

Feel free to keep this ice-cream in a tub or for a more authentic look use the moulds and wooden ice-cream sticks. For any doubtful British fans this sweet yet salty mixture means the ice-cream tastes less like a full dairy, or cream laden Cornwall style and more like an ice-cream van ‘99’ taste. For Americans I’d imagine the equivalent is what you’d call ‘soft-serve’ (if America is devoid of the classic 99 cone with a Flake – I feel sorry for you). And I don’t know what it is, blue is apparently an appetite suppressant but for me bright blue foods simply means “more delicious”. Cute and quirky Sea Salt Ice-cream is a surprising balance with a wonderful texture. Also if you have any left over vanilla salt it apparently goes wonderfully with certain fish.

justinrampage:

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gourmetgaming:

Fable II - Amazing Apple Pie

Obviously when I thought about making something from the Fable series my first thought was “Crunchy Chick”… then I realised that putting a chick on a plate is not a recipe and being evil is well, evil. And horns are so out this season. But across Albion there’s a lot of fresh produce including various fruits that are often baked into their more delicious form: pies. You can pick from blueberry or apple and since Autumn is swiftly and powerfully blowing it’s way in I felt a rustic and warming apple pie would be perfect. But not just any pie (especially not the rancid or crabapple kind) - it has to be Amazing Apple Pie.

Apparently this specific type of pie can only be accessed via the Pub Games pre-order bonus and playing the Spinnerbox game. I, however, did not receive my Pub Games bonus despite my pre-order all those years ago (I’m talking to YOU Amazon) so, I’m without specific reference here. It’s so special because “it fully heals you - even in the middle of combat!” and “causes you to lose weight instead of gain it”. Sounds like my kind of pie.

What you will need: A 9-inch pie dish, 2 large mixing bowls, 2 small bowls, a sieve, wooden spoon, rolling pin, cling film, a strainer, 2 large flat baking trays, a non-stick pot.

For the Pastry:

350g Plain Flour

1 Teaspoon Salt

30g Light Brown Sugar

225g Unsalted Butter

30-60ml Cold Water

Milk & 1 Small Egg (for bonding/glaze)

For the Filling:

6 Large Cooking Apples

110g Golden Caster Sugar

1 Tablespoon Fresh Lemon Juice

1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

¼ Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg

Pinch of Salt

30g Unsalted Butter

1½ Tablespoons Cornflour 

Apple Filling Preparations:

1. Peel and slice your apples into generous chunks - place them in a bowl filled with cold water to stop them from browning as you chop. Strain from the water and return to the bowl. 
2. Add the sugar, salt, lemon juice, ground cinnamon and nutmeg to the apples and mix well. Let this sit for at least 30 minutes to an hour while you prepare the pastry.

Making the Pastry:

1. In a large bowl sieve in the flour, salt , sugar and mix.
2. Cut the butter into chunks and add them to the flour mixture. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles crumbs.
3. Add the water slowly and mix very gently until a smooth dough begins to form - you wont need it all.
4. Lay some cling film on your work surface and turn the dough out onto it. Form the dough into a ball, split it in half and then wrap each portion in some cling film. Place in the fridge for an hour.
5. After an hour - lay a large piece of cling film on a clean counter. Remove one of the dough portions and place it in the middle of the sheet. Lay another equally sized piece of cling film over the top and roll out the pastry (always roll pastry from the centre out) - using the cling film like this will stop the dough from sticking to anything.
6. Once the desired size and an even thickness, remove the top layer of cling film. Pick up the dough using the cling film underneath and swiftly flip it over onto the pie dish - cover with cling film and return to the fridge to chill. 
7. Do the same with the second piece of dough, but instead, once rolled out keep it covered with the cling film and transfer it to a flat baking tray and then pop it back in the fridge - this piece will be your pie crust.

Making the Amazing Apple Pie:

1. By now your apples should have stewed nicely and have some juice at the bottom. Place a strainer over a bowl and pour the apples into the strainer leaving the juices to drain for about 15 minutes.
2. Once strained, pour the juices into a non-stick pot and add the 30g of butter. Allow to simmer on a medium heat for a few minutes until the liquid has slightly reduced. Do NOT allow it to boil - I accidentally made (delicious) toffee instead!
3. Remove the pie crust from the fridge and allow it to sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes.
4. Move the strained apples to a bowl and mix them with the cornflour.
5. Take out the pie base from the fridge and fill it with the apples, leaving no gaps, making sure the apples come just above the edge of the pie dish and are level, pour over the reduced juices.
6. In a small bowl beat the egg with a few tablespoons of milk. Wet the edges of the pie base with a little of the milk and egg mixture. 
7. Use the same technique as before and flip the pie crust over the apples. Tuck in any excess pastry under the base edges, trim anything extreme and create a nice crimping pattern if you wish with your fingers.
8. With a sharp knife make five 2inch cuts from the middle of the pie outward so steam can escape.
9. Cover the pie with cling film and refrigerate. 
10. Preheat the oven to 220C, and place a flat baking tray lined with some tinfoil on the bottom rack.
11. Once heated, remove the pie from the fridge and remove the cling film, brush lightly with the milk and egg mixture and place the pie onto the baking tray and allow to cook for 45-55 minutes. Keep an eye on the pie and be sure to cover the edges of the pie with some tin foil once golden or else they will burn. 
12. Once cooked, leave to cool for several hours before serving warm or cool with some cream or vanilla ice-cream.

There’s a lot of steps up there - but I assure you it’s actually rather easy to make. I’ve never made pastry or pie in my life and mine turned out perfectly! Well it is a little lumpier than the picture, I think I got a bit over excited and didn’t pay attention to the amount of apples I was piling in, so I made sure to add a note about it in the recipe. I did buy some back up ready-pastry after the horror stories I’d heard about making your own, but it was so easy to do it’s almost embarrassing that people use it. Let’s just say the words “pie master” were mumbled in between the gorging. The pie dish was surprisingly expensive - as this was a success though it warrants the making of some sort of pie every week for the next 10 years to balance the cost. So get on that Spinnerbox game, because the only thing your dog is going to dig out the ground is a condom that, let’s face it, you’re never going to use.

Don’t forget you can VOTE HERE for the Gourmet Gaming Hallowe’en Special!

gourmetgaming:

Christmas Special Drink & Nibbles: Skyrim – Black-Briar Mead, Grilled Leeks & Elsweyr Fondue

Everyone knows cold weather demands a warming drink and something to nibble on, preferably in front of a roaring fire. For the start of my Gourmet Gaming Christmas feast I thought taking a trek back to Skyrim might be worth while due to a lot of requests and let’s not forget its cold, snowy, Nordic landscape. Someone managed to source me some authentic Norfolk mead (thank you!) which I’ve used as my base for creating the infamous Black-Briar brew. I didn’t want it to be just a plain old mead; I felt that spices and fruits available around Skyrim could be added to create a more hearty drink. I’ve also been in enough bars in Skyrim to know that you can’t drink mead without some grilled leeks, why not dip them in a Kajiit’s favourite - Elsweyr Fondue?

Black-Briar Mead

What you will need: Large pot, a sieve and a serving jug/bottle.

Ingredients:

200ml / 1 Cup Mead

200ml / 1 Cup Dry Cider

200ml / 1 Cup Cloudy Apple Juice

2 Tablespoons Honey

3 Star Anise

1 Teaspoon Cloves

1 Cinnamon Stick

1. Add all the ingredients to a pot and simmer gently for 30 minutes. Sieve the mixture into a clean bowl or serving jug. Can be enjoyed warm or chilled.

Grilled Leeks

What you will need: A pot, a bowl, and a griddle pan.

Ingredients:

Leeks

Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

1 Clove Garlic

1. Slice the leeks vertically in half and wash thoroughly in cool water. Pop the halved leeks in a large pot of water and bring to the boil. Cook for 4 minutes or until cooked about half way through, then drain and instantly submerge the leeks in a bowl of ice cold water to stop them from cooking any further.
2. Dry the leeks in some paper towels then season with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and garlic. Warm a griddle pan on a medium heat.
3. Lay a few leeks at a time, open side down on the pan. Try to keep them intact so they still have their shape. Turn them gently every few minutes to prevent from burning. Once cooked, lay on a plate or tray to serve.

Elsweyr Fondue

What you will need: A fondue pot/a heavy pot and a grater.

Ingredients:

200ml / 1 Cup Ale

110g / 1 Cup Mature Gruyère (Grated)

110g / 1 Cup Emmental (Grated)

1 Tablespoon Flour

¼ Teaspoon Nutmeg

1 Teaspoon Sugar

1. If you have a fondue pot with a heater than use that. If not – you can also use a heavy pot to melt your ingredients.
2. In the pot heat the Ale on a medium heat – do NOT allow it to boil.
3. Mix the grated cheeses with the flour until it is lightly coated. Add the cheese a little at a time to the ale, stirring gently. Reduce heat to low.
4. Once the cheese has melted, add the nutmeg and sugar and mix gently. Grate over a little more fresh nutmeg and serve.

The original recipe calls for black-market “Moon Sugar” which we know is used to make Skooma, so I had to do some research on what this could be. I instantly thought of nutmeg; it’s seasonal and is a traditional spice to serve with Swiss based fondues. It also has psychoactive and toxic effects if consumed in large amounts, causing sickness and hallucinations – not unlike the in-game drug. Skooma: Not Even Once, Elsweyr Fondue: Delicious. Try dipping in chunks of fresh bread or fruits and eating with savoury preserves or chutneys.

Love The Elder Scrolls? Then check out the recipes for Sweet Rolls and S’Jirra’s Famous Potato Bread.

nedroidcomics:

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