Tyrian Food Law is Unfair, but Hey, Have Some Sorbet!

Ahai friends, Mitsu here!

Last time, I mentioned a bit about food law in Tyria. For the most part, you're free to discover what you can with the ingredients you have, combining them in different ways to create new dishes, but occasionally there are laws that can get in the way.

Licensing is one of the big food laws in Tyria. For the most part, licensing is there to protect a food from adulteration, but like last week's Butternut Squash Soup, not all licensing is about protection of the idea of the product. Sometimes licensing will exist to restrict who can make and sell a product, or consume a product in the case of many oyster and mussel dishes.

Food that can be dangerous gets restricted sometimes. This limits who can produce it to those who have been trained to produce it safely. Not everyone gets that training, and sometimes that training can be extremely expensive or very hard to get ahold of.

The other major food law is the Four Ingredient Law. Food allergies are dangerous, sometimes its only a bit of itchiness, but sometimes they are more dangerous than many of the foes I've fought. Its easier to rally a friend than it is to save someone from anaphylactic shock. Tyria's Four Ingredient Law requires food produced for general consumption to be composed of only four ingredients, some of which may themselves be made of ingredients, for the purpose of keeping track of what is in one's food. As a side effect, you get some recipes that are awkward or can be enhanced by adding small features.

This week, I bring you a dish where food law creates a bit of a paradox, and a nice dessert from the desert to go with it.


Spinach Burgers

This is where you run into a bit of a paradox. You see the cheese in the picture, but it is not in the ingredients list. Cheese helps stick the spinach to the burgers.

- Loaf of Bread
- ground Slab of Red Meat
- Spinach Leaves (a handful will wrap a burger, unless you are a Norn or like Norn sized burgers)
- Tomato Cheese

So, the story with the cheese goes a bit like this, the current photo in the recipe is the current dish, the recipe is the old dish, and the photo is of the patty that goes on the bun. Ideally you'd top with a tomato and condiments of your choosing, but it looks like cheese is used as a binder for the spinach to the burger, making wrapping wilted spinach easier. As a result of changes to the Book of Recipes over time, we end up with a five ingredient dish, something not legal in Tyrian food law, so in keeping with the law, I've created the four ingredient version for the new image. You cannot easily see it, but there is melted cheddar in between the spinach and burger patty.

How to make this, ow to make this... Well, first off, cook your burger, and top with a little bit of cheese towards the end of the cooking cycle. In another pan, heat and wilt spinach leaves, or you can use a uWAVE-IT golem very carefully (seriously, its easier to just pan wilt it). If you have to use a uWAVE-EH, you're probably with the Inquest. Then just wrap the wilted spinach around the burger, using the cheese on top and bottom bun to hold it in place.

Bowl of Prickly Pear Sorbet

This one was wonderful to make, think epicentre of strawberry, watermelon, and bubblegum, melting in your mouth with creamy goodness, with a hint of lime.

- 5 Prickly Pears per litre
- Ice Cream Base as per above
- Glacial Shard
- Lime to taste

I wish I had gotten a pic from the action cam on this one, but didn't think to... Anyways, slice the top and bottom of the pears off, the down the centre through the skin, and peel the skin away from the flesh like a layer of onion.

Toss fruit into A551-ST golem, proccess until it makes a slurry.

Add Ice Cream Base. If using pre-frozen Ice Cream, you can skip the following steps and instead just process and serve.

Take mixture and move to metal bowl. In a larger metal bowl, add crushed Glacial Shard, and put bowl with mix inside endothermic bowl. Mix gently while it thickens, and once sufficiently thick, put away to finish freezing.

Scoop into bowl and serve.

While this dish does require a license to make, because of how dangerous Prickly Pear hairs can be (think microscopic splinters getting into your skin), getting a license is not that difficult, and the Zephyrites are happy to teach.

Until next time, happy eating!

...oh... and yes... that is the actual colour of the sorbet...

Fun Facts About My Kitchen Golems pt 1

A551-ST

The A551-ST golem is a unit meant for slicing. Its name comes from the fact that it is the 551st golem design in the Appliance line, Slicing Through variant. Its incredibly useful for more than just slicing though, hence why I call using it "processing," with the end result being a processed food even when not sliced through. My particular model is a Mk2, which comes with a grating, shredding, and (im)perfect slicing processing unit.


5HK-IT

The 5HK-IT golem is the fifth version of the Handheld Kombobulator, Intelligent Timing variant. I don't have to use it often, but its incredibly simple. Put ingredients into a container of sorts, and place in golem's hands.

The IT variant is particularly useful, as its mixing better kombobulates by timing its motions intelligently in response to how the product inside is mixing.

If you want a perfect emulsion, there's no better way to go, unless you're a Skritt, then maybe the shininess of shaking it will amuse you for hours...

Southsun and Beyond Through a Soup, Salad, and Sauce

Mitsu here, commanding the kitchen, Pact, and some bookahs!

Years back, the Consortium tried to make Southsun a lovely travel destination, and theoretically speaking it would make an amazing place to relax, maybe be served a drink or two, forget about metagenomics and their impact on the flavour of sauces for a while (is it the sauce or the taster that's off?).

Fighting the karka, because some bookah had to go and disturb what's best left alone, led to the discovery of some wonderful ingredients! Passion fruit in particular was a big one, and it got me thinking... Let's toss a salad, destress a bit, and maybe roast some karka too!

Bowl of Salad a la Consortium (oh what a fitting name)

Before we even get into the salad, let's get back to basics. We need a Bottle of Tropical Dressing, so...


Bottle of Tropical Dressing

- Pile of Salt and Pepper
- Vegetable Oil (plus a bit of EVOO to taste) or other neutral oil
- Vinegar 1:1 with the oil, roughly (I used white wine vinegar, white vinegar works too, passion fruit vinegar is when you want to make the pinnacle of dressings)
- Sprig of Dill, about one  sprig will do, scale up as needed
- Ginger Root (extract the juice or skip to powdered), maybe 5% by volume of juice, 2.5, somwhere in that range
- 3-6 Passionfruit, juiced

I didn't think to grab a picture of the open Passion Fruit, but the natural geometry inside is beautiful!

Cut fruit in half, use knife or spoon to separate seeds from pith, throw seeds and pulp surrounding them into your A551-ST Mk2 to process to a juice. Filter out seeds, pour into dressing bottle.

Add herbs and spices, oil, and vinegar, close bottle, and hand off to your 5HK-IT golem to mix to full emulsion.

...and with that out of the way...


Actually a Bowl of Salad a la Consortium

- Bottle of Tropical Dressing to taste
- a Nornian handful of Spinach Leaf
- Head of Lettuce
- Walnu.. Almonds (Walnuts, I had Almonds on hand)

Have your A551-ST Mk2 clean itself out, then use it to grind your nuts. It should look like this, and once it does, set it aside.

Cut your Head of Lettuce into mouth sized manageable chunks. I like to use a technique my Elonian mentor taught me, take a chef's knife, cut the heart out of the lettuce by making a triangular pyramid cut (no, this is not a pun, my chef mentor was actually Elonian, and this was the cut he taught me when I was learning in the Mediza district), then just pull the triangle pyramid of a heart out, square base works too, but you lose more lettuce that way, its wasteful, so don't. Quarter the head, then simply slice into strips.

Toss your lettuce and spinach together, distribute roughly evenly, sprinkle Almo... Walnuts on top, dress, and serve! 

Oh, I added tomatoes because I had one that was going to turn, and the last thing you want is an undead Branded tomato (seriously, did the thought even cross your mind?). If you stick to a recipe, sure, you get the essence, but you miss out on discovery, and discovery is the best way to learn!

Bowl of Swee.. err.. Butternut Squash Soup (for 2... or 12 really)

- Cream Soup Base (Roux with buttermilk added, keep thin enough to be a cream soup base)
- Butternut Squash (the size and quantity determine the quantity of every other ingredient, so its hard to be specific with them)
- Stick of Butter (totally unnecessary if you used a butter based roux)
- Cayenne Pepper
- Ghost Pepper (a little goes an.. burning BURNing BURNING!)
- Apple (one is sufficient for a smaller squash)
- Pile of Pumpkin Pie Spice

As you can see, I am not certified to make any Bowls of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup, but I'm not going to let rules stop me from experimenting!

First off, prep your oven to 450 proper units (that's 175C for most people, and 350F for a select few humans).

Get a baking pan or cookie sheet, cut your squash in half down the length, gut it of its seeds with a standard spoon, place flat side down on tray, bake till you can put a toothpick into the neck without effort.

Get your A551-ST Mk2 ready, because you're going to spoon the squash from its skin into it, process, and move to a soup pot. Heat over medium heat, then reduce to light simmer.

In a sauce pan, make your roux. Once that is done, add Buttermilk, Cayenne Peppers, (not certified to say this, because certification requires you to get lucky when talking to Pact Suppliers or spend everything you have) but Ghost Peppers (I use Melinda's Naga Sauce, look it up on the Black Lion Trading Post search page), processed Apples, and Pile of Pumpkin Pie Spice.

Once that is all nicely mixed, pour into soup pot and mix in. Serve.

I would have a sponsor, but after Canach and the Karka Incident, I'm not accepting gold from the Consortium. Although, if I accepted that gold, I could have gotten certified for the soup...

Beloved Burgers

My ears, look at that date! Turns out I'm late...

Mitsu here, I was working with my guildmates in the Domain of Kourna, its a lot of work to clean up after a hivemind overseer kicks the bucket, and I took an arrow from a jittery ex Inquest.

Like with Koss, not all Awakened and enslaved Asura wanted to be part of Joko's plans. Some of his top brass didn't want to be awakened, but were forced to. It won't be easy, but we can help them adjust to a free life, and for the enslaved Asura, if they are willing to leave the Inquest, we should be able to help them adjust to a new life.

After finally being able to return home to my Asuran Kitchen, I made myself some burgers. I had ground Slab of Red Meat left over from when I made the Krytan Meatball Dinner, so I made burger patties with that!

Cheeseburger

Let's start with the simple, a cheeseburger can be built on into any burger, its nice, its simple, its:

- 1 ground Slab of Red Meat

- 1 Loaf of Bread Sesame Seed Bun (a fresh bun is better in my opinion, but a Loaf of Bread is good for learning prototypes)

- slice of Cheese Wedge

For this, I made a Parmesan frico and put it on top of the burger. To make this, take a handful of Parmesan and put it in a frying pan, fry, flip, and top burger with your Parmesan frico cheese wedge slice!

For the patty itself, I shaped it by hand to be a circular patty, and then froze my extras. The ones I cooked fresh went straight into the pan.

flip burger once its formed a nice brown crust on the bottom, and press down with spatula. This maximizes cooking surface contact, helping to make a delicious crisp, and with the cheese inside the burger from our Meatballs, you will get a deliciously amazing burger.

To go with the umami flavours of the Parmesan, I also added soy sauce and rice vinegar to the pan while cooking, playing it up with those notes.

The Cheeseburger is like an almost blank canvas, dress it how you like, its only wrong if you don't!

 

Horseradish Burger

- 1 Sesame Seed Bun (Congratulations! You've graduated from the College of Cheeseburgers, now you don't have to use a Loaf of Bread!)

- 1 ground Slab of Red Meat

- 1 Horseradish Root, creamed and sauced

- 1 part of a Head of Lettuce (trust me, you don't want the whole thing, and mine was a first prototype, not yet in production)

Take your basic burger, slather or squirt some creamy horseradish onto it, and serve. Unless you're me, then melt cheddar into a slice and add that too!

Deluxe Burger

- 1 Sesame Seed Bun

- 1 ground Slab of Red Meat

- 1 part of a Head of Lettuce (do I have to explain myself again?)

- 1 sliced Tomato, vine ripened or Roma, not hothouse or beefsteak (trust me on this, its a much better flavour)

Top burger with a part of a Head of Lettuce and Tomato slices. I like to add cheese, but as before, you can't go wrong if you dress it as you like.

I made a cheddar cheese slice by using a similar technique to the frico. Once the cheddar had melted, I took the pan off the stove, and stuck it on the biggest metal heat dissipator I had, shaped it with my spatula, and placed it on the burgers once cooled. Similar techniques can be used with different cheese, but you need to adjust based on moisture content, age, and other factors.

The Finished burger pair can be seen here. I also added a bit of mayo and barbecue sauce to my Deluxe Burger. After almost a decade and hundreds of prototypes, I finally achieved a perfect Deluxe Burger, never in my life have I had a burger that good. Just one more step in understanding the Eternal Alchemy as a Chef and Kitchen commander.

For those wondering, I set my cheese slices on an aluminum sheet while I finished the burgers. Here's what they looked like!

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Krytan Meatball Dinner, A Human Food for All

Mitsu here, bringing you a taste of Kryta!

Some foods are inherently cultural, a thing I discovered as I ventured further and further from my home in Metrica Province. One such dish is a human favourite, Krytan Meatball Dinner, a dish with regional history that goes back to before The Searing.

Its a Krytan dish, and humans tell me that's important, its important that its not just human, but Krytan. Humans are silly at times, they really want people to know that they are Elonian, or Canthan, Ascalonian, or in the case of this food, Krytan. Don't ask me why this distinction is important, only some bookah would really care, and just because Scarlet left her mark in Asuran history doesn't mean I don't welcome the Sylvari in my krewe. Politics are human, iteration, invention, and innovation are Asuran.

Food is about hospitality, and while there is a right and a wrong way, and well, caring about the history of a dish doesn't change the end result enough to be meaningful.

What does change the dish is the technique and where your ingredients come from. Krytan grain fed cattle Slab of Red Meat taste different from Shiverpeaks dolyak Slab.

That said, if you want to be true to form, use Krytan ingredients where you can. They aren't hard to get ahold of, and they can be good for some dishes. This dish also benefits from using human (not necessarily Krytan) meat processing techniques. More on that when we get to the meat of the dish.

This dish uses garlic bread for both the meatballs, its a standard in ground Slab of Red Meat, and as an excellent side for the Krytan Meatball Dinner

Garlic Bread

- Slice of Buttered Toast Bread
- Head of Garlic (I used powdered garlic, fresh garlic works too)
- Parsley (I prefer using dried)











Butter your bread, sprinkle garlic, parsley, and/or other herbs of your choice, as long as they work with the dish.

Stick in oven set on medium high till toasted. When done, it should look as below, not darker.

Dry out the ones you'll use for meatballs.

Meatballs

- Slab of Red Meat, ground, scale to recipe size
- 4 slices of Garlic Bread per above
- 1 Egg per above
- 1 Cheese Wedge per above (I used Smoked Oka for flavour, and yes, I used the entire wedge, flavour is matters more than anything else in a dish)

Process the Garlic Bread in an A551-ST golem, or mill if you don't have access to magitech. Use A551-ST golem to shred cheese, and I don't know how humans would do this, so hit up your local Black Lion Trading Company if all else fails!

Throw ground Slab of Red Meat into a bowl. Add egg, crumbed Garlic Bread, and shredded Cheese Wedge. Homogenize as much as you possibly can using your hands, using an A551-ST golem here will result in a very soft and creamy texture, and well, you want your balls meaty...

Remember that this is a human dish, and I don't know what it is about humans, but that means making your Meatballs like a Charr's, comically oversized.

Once not quite homogenized, trust me, you don't want it homogenized, I made that mistake, I love my A551-ST golem, the Mk IIs not so much, make them into balls in your hands.

Cook in pan in medium heat, covered, until cooked through.

Dill Cream Sauce

- Dill Sprig
- Bowl of Herbed Poultry Stock
- Bowl of Roux, see recipe here
- Bowl of Sour Cream (replace with buttermilk if using a dry stock)

Quantities of all ingredients are scaled for thickness and flavour, I used a half litre of buttermilk, and it thickened as it cooled.

While Bowl of Roux is hot, mix in the stock, Bowl of Sour Cream. Let it simmer until it reaches desired thickness, or add water if you need to thin it.

Krytan Meatball Dinner

- Meatballs (I like to make it very obvious meatballs are in the dish, skritt might not notice if you don't, so keep it shiny!)
- Pasta Noodles (trust me, save yourself a headache and BLTC this)
- Bowl of Dilled Cream Sauce

Once your pasta is cooked, drain, plate, top with balls and sauce, pretty simple, hard to get wrong.

Drown it in sauce! Give it something for your Garlic Bread to soak up, and enjoy!


And now not a word from our sponsers! The White Mantle wanted to fund this, and not happening. After Caduceus, I never want to see another White Mantle again.

You can get the ingredients for this almost anywhere in Tyria, so if you don't want grain fed Krytan cattle, feel free to slay a Shiverpeaks dolyak.

See ya next week!

As always, any questions or suggestions, let me know down in the comments!