Skyrim Recipe: Elsweyr Fondue

There's a Khajit caravan that travels the roads and byways of Skyrim, appearing outside town from time to time to offer rare goods. I like to have my character stop by for a bit of moon sugar and some light conversation about the warm, exotic sands of Elsweyr, the Khajit homeland. But there's one thing I always wonder: just how does a desert kitty stay warm and groovy in the frozen wastes of Skyrim?

The answer, it turns out, is cheese fondue.

Cheese fondue and a bottle of skooma: not just for 1970's lounge cats anymore.

More specifically, Elsweyr fondue, a tasty recipe made from three simple ingredients in-game: ale, moon sugar, and an Eidar cheese wheel.

Beer? Cheese? Two of my favorite things! How, then, could I resist attempting a real world version? Well, lucky you: I couldn't.

Cheese fondue is a very simple dish with a history dating back several hundred years. It's little more than a thick cheese sauce made with beer or wine at low heat in a communal pot, into which diners dip cubes of bread. There are literally thousands of recipes built on this simple foundation. Variation comes from what type of cheese or liquor is used, what seasonings are chosen, or the addition of thickeners or emulsifiers (such as flour or egg).

As with other Skyrim-based recipes, the goal was to achieve an end result that came as close to the in-game description as possible, but was also tasty and relatively easy to make.

In this case, the first challenge came with how Elsweyr fondue is depicted in-game, as compared to what your average actual cheese sauce or cheese fondue looks like in reality. This is what game designers at Bethesda thought Elsweyr fondue should look like:

Image copyright Bethesda Game Studios.

Aside from being a liquid almost, but not quite, entirely unlike fondue... well, would you eat that? I sure wouldn't. It looks like the worst, most industrial chili ever made. If the game designers were trying to convey the bleak lawlessness of Skyrim in a single meal, I think they succeeded admirably with this one. It looks like a bowl of despair, Nord style. And it's certainly uncontaminated by cheese.

Which brings us to our next challenge: picking the right cheese. Take a look at this illustration of an Eidar cheese wheel:

Image copyright Bethesda Game Studios.

I've eaten a lot of cheese in my day, and that picture right there just screams STILTON to me. Stilton is a well-marbled blue cheese with a thick, brownish rind, lovely and creamy when at its most ripe. It goes very well with sweetish red wines and very ripe fruit... and it's definitely a stinky cheese. A wedge of the stuff, improperly sealed up, can make the inside of your fridge smell like feet, so I couldn't even imagine how rank a whole load of it would smell, bubbling away on a hot stove.

So Lexi and I decided against using just Stilton for this one. Instead, we chose a combination of cheeses for flavor, meltability, and scent. We also wanted to come up with a cheese that would melt well, becoming stable and smooth without the need for any emulsifiers, since none are called for in the game recipe.

Our family of ingredients: beer, cheese, fruit, and moon sugar.

The cheese we picked for our base was Snofrisk, a smooth, very mild, slightly tangy Norwegian cream cheese made mostly of goat's milk. We added a lovely, mild, soft French blue cheese (the front wedge in the image above) to stand in for the Eidar wheel and decided to pretend that Eidar Cheese would be a smooth, creamy, marbled goat cheese best represented by combining these two.   Add my favorite go-to amber ale (Silver City's Ridgetop Red), sumac moon sugar simple syrup... and it all melted into a magical tasty recipe that would do any Khajit proud. Here it is, in all its glory.

INGREDIENTS
Butter (optional)
1 4.4-oz. container of plain Snofrisk cheese
About 4 oz. soft, creamy blue cheese
Beer or ale
Moon sugar simple syrup (see recipe below)
Culinary sumac or lavender (to correct seasonings as needed)
Bread and/or fruit wedges for dipping

RECIPE
1. Melt a pat of butter in the top of a double boiler over medium heat. This is optional, but can help prevent sticking.
2. When the butter foams, add the Snofrisk. Whisk slowly with the butter until well blended.
3. Whisk in beer or ale, 4 oz. at a time or so, until the texture is thick and creamy, somewhere between the consistency of a melted milkshake and unwhipped whipping cream.
4. Add the blue cheese in bits and gradually whisk in until smooth.
5. Add a tablespoon or two of the moon sugar simple syrup. This will sweeten the fondue, so check to taste before adding a whole bunch of it.
6. If your moon sugar simple syrup was on the mild side, add lavender or sumac a teaspoon at a time to adjust seasonings.
6. If your fondue is a bit too thick, thin it with more beer or ale.
7. Mess it forth into a pre-warmed earthenware bowl or your favorite fondue pot, and eat by dipping in sliced apples or chunks of lightly toasted bread!

It should look more or less like this, a little thicker if you wish.

 MOON SUGAR SIMPLE SYRUP
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Several Tbsp of lavender or culinary sumac

Awhile back Lexi and I came up with a very serviceable recipe for moon sugar based on a microwave hard candy recipe. Initially I wanted to add the straight moon sugar to this recipe, but Lexi noted that we might have difficulties with it melting smoothly, and would end up with cheese sauce with bits of half-melted moon sugar floating in it rather than a smooth, creamy, dippable sauce. So instead, I took her advice and opted to make a simple syrup instead.

The process is simple: boil 1 cup of granulated white sugar in 1 cup of water. Stir until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat immediately and add lavender or culinary sumac to taste, usually 1 or 2 Tbsp. Let cool and use as you would in any simple syrup recipe. (If you make with lavender, we recommend straining before use to get the lavender bits out.)

MORE NOTES
Lexi and I made two different kinds of moon sugar, one for each of Skyrim's moons (Masser and Secunda). One uses lavender, the other culinary sumac; each have their own flavor qualities, and we kept this in mind when choosing ingredients for the fondue. Lavender makes a very floral, pretty flavor, but it's very strong. Sumac is more musky, like one of those flavors you've met before but just can't put your tongue on it... it's also more subtle than the lavender.

So for the first workup of this recipe I chose a milder French cheese and a solid, not-very-hoppy amber ale to go with the sumac without drowning out the flavor. The breads were chose were a dark rye (as might be found in the Nordic wilds) and an Italian artisan loaf, cut into large chunks and lightly toasted on a baking sheet at about 325F for 10 minutes or so. Round it out with slices of a firm, fleshy apple (like Granny Smith or Fuji) and you can dine with the coolest cats on the tundra.

And don't forget the skooma...

Skyrim Food That We'll Never Make



DONUT!

Gwen and I have been fielding some requests from readers, and seeing some requests posted on Skyrim forums around the intertoobs that we make some specific things from the land of Skyrim.  But there are some things that we will never make and you will never see on this site.  Here's why... 

WARNING: SNARKY SARCASTITRON LEVEL 3  

1. Boiled Cream Treat

Because it's a fracking donut.  I can't believe how much discussion I've seen online about this.  "What is it?  Is it a bagel?  What could it be?  It's fascinating!"  Seriously?  WTF.  IT'S A DONUT.  We're not going to spend our time and effort recreating something you can buy at a grocery store for 49 cents.

You can read this two ways: "Boiled" + "Cream Treat", where the cream treat itself is boiled.  That's just stupid.  or "Boiled Cream" + "Treat".  Oh, boiled cream?  Like CUSTARD?! Or PUDDING?!  Tell me you've never made the kind of instant pudding at home where you have to heat the milk first.   In all fairness, those of you under the age of 20 may have only ever had instant pudding, but let this be the time you learn from Gramma Lexi about how things were in the olden days of 1995.  Oh wait - it's not that old.  You can buy it right next to the instant stuff right now.

How exotic and mysterious!

2. Sweetrolls

Sweetrolls are everywhere in Skyrim, and everyone wants to taste them, including us.  This is a legit recipe that's got some of its own interesting challenges, but frankly, it's been done.  To death.  We don't think the world needs yet another sweetroll recipe right now.  Other sites did it first.  And probably better.

www.gourmetgaming.co.uk - The original and still Champeen!

See?
http://www.gourmetgaming.co.uk/post/12553999356/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-sweet-roll-this
http://www.geekychef.com/2012/01/sweetroll.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWReL8P-GtQ
http://toysandbacon.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-make-skyrim-sweet-rolls.html
http://coffeelovescompany.blogspot.com/2012/10/fantasy-recipe-skyrim-sweet-rolls.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/Dovahcake-or-how-to-make-a-sweetroll/

3. Potage Magnifique

Because it's nasty.  It's a flour gravy filled with vegetables.  Potage was peasant food in the middle ages that people had to eat out of necessity that was bland and subsistence-only food.  It's also the in-game joke.  The 'Gourmet' who wrote the book Uncommon Taste can't cook.  His whole presence in the game is a parody of arrogant TV chefs and his recipes are bunk. This one is no exception.  Sunlight Souffle without the eggs?  That's not a typo, it's irony.

 IT'S A JOKE.  IT'S SUPPOSED TO TASTE LIKE ASS.  (Actually it looks like ass too)

BTW, this goes for all the rest of the recipes in Uncommon Taste as well.   Pfft.

4.  Boring, Common or Otherwise Uninspired Recipes

There's a lot of really interesting in-game food.  Aaaaaannnd... there's a lot that's not.  We're not going to make things like Beef Stew, Roast Chicken, or Clam Meat.  If it's got a clear real-life analogy, there are hundreds or even thousands of recipes out there that you can try.  What makes our cooking juices flow is the stuff nobody else is doing, or stuff that's super challenging.  While we might do a Horker Stew with pork and lavender sometime, we'll probably not post a recipe for a baked potato. 

So there you have it.  The Foods We'll Never Make.  As an aside, although we love Skyrim, we've been itching to get back to our bloggy cooking roots and do more food from things not Skyrim related.  There will be a few more Tamriel recipes, sure, but expect to see an increasing number of recipes from Britcoms, movies, cartoons and other geeky sources.  We can't be one-dimensional now, can we?

Mrs. Miggins' Scarlet Chicken in a Pimpernel Sauce

 

Die hard fans - I mean REALLY die hard fans - of Britcoms will recognize this dish as an obscure single-line reference from the 1987 "Nob and Nobility" episode of the classic series, Blackadder.  In it, the show pokes fun at the legend of the Scarlet Pimpernel, a popular fictional story about a rich nobleman who decides to don a disguise and uses his money and skills to effect daring rescues of disenfranchised nobles from the clutches of the French Revolution under the pseudonym 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'.

Sound familiar?  A regular rich guy who wears disguises and uses pure skill to pursue the cause of his own vigilante form of justice?  That's because this story was one of the main influences for the development of the Batman mythology.  The original book, published in 1905, was wildly popular with a society that had finally come to terms with the violence and anarchy of the French Revolution, despite the book's clear pro-nobility stance. 

As only the supremely educated British comedy writer can, the story is cleverly parodied in the episode, and is presented as seen through the eyes of the butler Edmund.  Upon visiting his favorite pie shop, he's disgusted to find that Pimpernel-inspired Francophilia has taken over London and instead of Shepherd's Pie, is offered only a selection of pretentiously French dishes by the somewhat-less-than-upper-class proprietor, Mrs. Miggins. 

 "Today's hot choice is Chicken Pimpernel in a Scarlet Sauce, Scarlet Chicken in a Pimpernel Sauce, or Huge Suspicious Looking Sausages*.  In a Scarlet Pimpernel Sauce."

Blackadder doesn't have a ton of food references, and it's absolutely one of our favorite - and most quotable - TV series ever produced, so this seemed to be a good place to start.  

The humble Scarlet Pimpernel, image courtesy of Wikipedia 

I started (as always) by researching the main ingredients of the recipe and found that the Scarlet Pimpernel is a common roadside flower that grows extensively in Europe. The pimpernel family also includes an edible herb known to us Americans as Salad Burnet. Serendipitously, Salad Burnet is one of the main ingredients in the modern Frankfurt Green Sauce, a popular mixed herb sauce that dates back to the middle ages in one variant or another.

Clockwise from Top: Tarragon, Chervil, Chives, Tarragon, Parsley, Cress

The sauce is basically a puree of fresh green herbs, lemon and sour cream or yoghurt.  Since German field herbs don't grow so readily in US supermarkets, I thought it would be a good idea if I modified the recipe to used herbs and substitutions that could easily be purchased in your local grocery store.

For the Scarlet Chicken, we had a couple of options.  I leaned heavily on Gwen for this one, as she's got a Medieval History degree and knows everything about everything when you're talking historic food. 

According to her, Red spices like paprika and sumac would have been common in England during the late 1700's and used extensively to spice and flavor dishes.  Citrus would have been easily imported from France or Spain (though French lemons would have been an unlikely commodity during the revolution itself, due to interrupted trade).  Chickens would probably have been smaller, due to the lack of advances in genetic science during the time, so a modern GMO cornish game hen makes a nice substitute.

We never got the poultry to that bright red that you see in Tandoori cuisine (incidentally, Tandoori red is food coloring), but the bird did turn a rich toasty ruddy caramel color, loaded with flavor and smelled absolutely scrumptious while it was cooking.  However, they evidently liked food colored with livid hues in the olden days, so feel free to liven the meat up with some beet juice if it suits your fancy.

Using generous amounts of smoked instead of sweet paprika made the hen smell and taste just like bacon.  OMG.  Bacon flavored Chicken?  SIGN ME UP.  The idea was to make a really french dish, but... BACON!  It's close enough.

 

Pimpernel Sauce

Combine in a blender:
1 C Sour Cream
1/2 C Heavy Cream
1 Tbl Chopped Fresh Chives
1/4 C Chopped Fresh Dill
1/4 C Chopped Fresh Chervil
1/4 C Chopped Fresh Tarragon
1/4 C Chopped Fresh Parsley
1/2 C Chopped Fresh Upland Cress (sub with 1/4 C Watercress)
1 C Chopped Fresh Salad Burnet (Sub with Cucumber and decrease cream to 1/4 C)
Juice and Grated Rind of 1/2 Lemon
2 tsp Salt

Blend until smooth and creamy.  Adjust the herbs and salt to taste.  Let the sauce rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, up to 24 hours.

Scarlet Chicken

Brine
Dissolve into 3 Qt water:
1/4 C Salt
1/4 C Brown Sugar
1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar

Wash and remove giblets from
1 Cornish Game Hen
Brine for 2 hours

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Peel:
8 Cloves of Garlic
Using the flat of a knife, crush 2 of the cloves to bruise and soften them.

In a small bowl, mix together into a smooth paste:
3 Tbl Smoked Paprika
3 Tbl Dried Sumac
1 tsp Turmeric
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1/4 C Olive Oil
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Black Pepper
Set aside.

Peel and Slice into wedges:
1/4 Onion
1/4 Apple
Set aside.

Set a raised rack into an oven proof pan so that air can circulate underneath the bird.
Rub the hen inside and out with the crushed garlic.

Salt and Pepper the cavity of the bird and then stuff with the Apple and Onion Wedges and the whole garlic cloves.

Rub the paprika paste gently over the whole chicken (add a little more oil if it's too sticky)

Roast in oven at 450 for 15 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 375 and Roast in for 30-45 additional minutes or until the juices run clear. (internal temp of 155).

You can serve the sauce on the bird or on the side, whatever your personal preference dictates.  The sauce is fresh and creamy and balances the spicy/smokey richness of the poultry perfectly.

Bon Apetit, Monsieur!  It's French!


*They're horse willies.  No really, that's the joke.  How prescient those writers were...