A Regular Redwall Feast
Feb 22, 2018 15:06:46 GMT -5
Post by Aquamarine on Feb 22, 2018 15:06:46 GMT -5
If two dishes counts as a feast, which it doesn't really when you think about actual Redwall feasts. It's the thought that counts?
My siblings and I have a tradition of sorts where we get together every now and then to eat food and hang out, watch a TV show, catch up, etc. We're all Redwall fans (my brother is the one who got my sister and me into Redwall to begin with), and after our recent discussions here about scones and the Redwall cookbook, I thought it would be fun to make some Redwall recipes since it was my turn to cook. So I preset you with Shimp 'n' Hotroot Soup and Rosey's Jolly Raspberry Jelly Rock Cakes. Also some bread, which is not in the cookbook but is good with soup.
I didn't take any pictures of making the bread because I wasn't thinking about it. But there's part of a finished loaf.
I made the rock cakes first. I remembered that a few others had made them before, so I checked Auri and Isaiah's threads for ideas. My dough was stickier than Isaiah's looked, but adding the flour when I rolled it out helped. I also did not cut myself while dividing the dough, so I figure that's a plus. However, I did drop a bit of eggshell into the dough that I couldn't fish out until I mixed the eggs in and then found it back in the dough. But I did find it and get it out, so all's well that ends well, I guess.
I didn't have any raspberry jelly, but I did have some homemade strawberry jam so I used that. Isaiah mentioned making the holes for the jam bigger, so I made them what I thought was fairly large. Even then, the jam squeezed out when I pinched the dough closed over it. I think next time I'd just press them flat and sort of wrap the dough up around the jam. I ended up more or less doing that for the last few, which worked better. You can tell I got better at it as I went, since the ones on the right are neater than the ones on the left.
Ta-da! Rock cakes! They spread more than I thought they would, so maybe I could have added a bit more flour to thicken the dough a bit. Overall I thought they turned out pretty well, although once again I agree with Isaiah's more jam assessment. Still, the cake part is good on its own so it wasn't a major problem.
Next up, Shimp 'n' Hotroot soup. I've found that recipes in the Redwall cookbook don't always make a lot of food, and since I wasn't making anything besides the soup, I decided to double the recipe. That made more than enough, so I have leftovers for days. Anyway, first I had to chop a bunch of vegetables: leeks, onions, and potatoes. I had never cooked with leeks before. They basically look like huge green onions. The recipe calls for two medium leeks, but I could only find very large leeks. Two of those was plenty even when I doubled the recipe. I've cooked with onions and potatoes plenty of times, so that was pretty straightforward. The recipe says to peel the potatoes, which I didn't do because I don't mind potato skins. Also they have lots of good nutrients and stuff, and it saves time to leave them on.
At this point I packed things up and headed over to my brother's, since that's where we get together and soup is harder to transport than chopped vegetables. (I made chili once for siblings night and may or may not have spilled it everywhere on the way over.) Once I got there, I cooked the leeks and onions in slightly less butter than the recipe called for, since doubling the recipe meant it would have been a lot and I'd already put some olive oil on the potatoes to keep them from turning brown after I cut them up. Then I added the potatoes, vegetable broth, some salt and pepper, and hotroot pepper -- that is, curry powder. The recipe calls for either curry or chili powder. I love curry, so I chose that.
Put the cover on and let that simmer for a while. The recipe says 15-20 minutes. I think next time I'd cut the potatoes a little smaller and more uniformly, since a few of them were a bit on the large side and didn't quite get done. I probably could have cooked them longer to help with that, but we were hungry and I'd already let them cook longer than the recipe called for. Then I just had to add the last ingredients -- the shrimp and some milk -- and heat it all through. I got little shrimp instead of big ones so they were easier to eat. Plus all the big ones I could find had tails on, and I didn't want to deal with cutting them all off.
And there you have it: Shrimp 'n' Hotroot Soup. It wasn't as red as I always imagined it, probably because I used curry powder. It wasn't actually that spicy even after we added extra curry powder, and I consider myself a bit of a spice wimp. I think I'd try the chili powder next time to give it more of a kick or maybe add some red pepper flakes or something. All in all, though, it was pretty good. We had a lot of fun reminiscing about the books and eating one of the more iconic dishes from the series.
My siblings and I have a tradition of sorts where we get together every now and then to eat food and hang out, watch a TV show, catch up, etc. We're all Redwall fans (my brother is the one who got my sister and me into Redwall to begin with), and after our recent discussions here about scones and the Redwall cookbook, I thought it would be fun to make some Redwall recipes since it was my turn to cook. So I preset you with Shimp 'n' Hotroot Soup and Rosey's Jolly Raspberry Jelly Rock Cakes. Also some bread, which is not in the cookbook but is good with soup.
I didn't take any pictures of making the bread because I wasn't thinking about it. But there's part of a finished loaf.
I made the rock cakes first. I remembered that a few others had made them before, so I checked Auri and Isaiah's threads for ideas. My dough was stickier than Isaiah's looked, but adding the flour when I rolled it out helped. I also did not cut myself while dividing the dough, so I figure that's a plus. However, I did drop a bit of eggshell into the dough that I couldn't fish out until I mixed the eggs in and then found it back in the dough. But I did find it and get it out, so all's well that ends well, I guess.
I didn't have any raspberry jelly, but I did have some homemade strawberry jam so I used that. Isaiah mentioned making the holes for the jam bigger, so I made them what I thought was fairly large. Even then, the jam squeezed out when I pinched the dough closed over it. I think next time I'd just press them flat and sort of wrap the dough up around the jam. I ended up more or less doing that for the last few, which worked better. You can tell I got better at it as I went, since the ones on the right are neater than the ones on the left.
Ta-da! Rock cakes! They spread more than I thought they would, so maybe I could have added a bit more flour to thicken the dough a bit. Overall I thought they turned out pretty well, although once again I agree with Isaiah's more jam assessment. Still, the cake part is good on its own so it wasn't a major problem.
Next up, Shimp 'n' Hotroot soup. I've found that recipes in the Redwall cookbook don't always make a lot of food, and since I wasn't making anything besides the soup, I decided to double the recipe. That made more than enough, so I have leftovers for days. Anyway, first I had to chop a bunch of vegetables: leeks, onions, and potatoes. I had never cooked with leeks before. They basically look like huge green onions. The recipe calls for two medium leeks, but I could only find very large leeks. Two of those was plenty even when I doubled the recipe. I've cooked with onions and potatoes plenty of times, so that was pretty straightforward. The recipe says to peel the potatoes, which I didn't do because I don't mind potato skins. Also they have lots of good nutrients and stuff, and it saves time to leave them on.
At this point I packed things up and headed over to my brother's, since that's where we get together and soup is harder to transport than chopped vegetables. (I made chili once for siblings night and may or may not have spilled it everywhere on the way over.) Once I got there, I cooked the leeks and onions in slightly less butter than the recipe called for, since doubling the recipe meant it would have been a lot and I'd already put some olive oil on the potatoes to keep them from turning brown after I cut them up. Then I added the potatoes, vegetable broth, some salt and pepper, and hotroot pepper -- that is, curry powder. The recipe calls for either curry or chili powder. I love curry, so I chose that.
Put the cover on and let that simmer for a while. The recipe says 15-20 minutes. I think next time I'd cut the potatoes a little smaller and more uniformly, since a few of them were a bit on the large side and didn't quite get done. I probably could have cooked them longer to help with that, but we were hungry and I'd already let them cook longer than the recipe called for. Then I just had to add the last ingredients -- the shrimp and some milk -- and heat it all through. I got little shrimp instead of big ones so they were easier to eat. Plus all the big ones I could find had tails on, and I didn't want to deal with cutting them all off.
And there you have it: Shrimp 'n' Hotroot Soup. It wasn't as red as I always imagined it, probably because I used curry powder. It wasn't actually that spicy even after we added extra curry powder, and I consider myself a bit of a spice wimp. I think I'd try the chili powder next time to give it more of a kick or maybe add some red pepper flakes or something. All in all, though, it was pretty good. We had a lot of fun reminiscing about the books and eating one of the more iconic dishes from the series.