RS Food Cook Off

Hosted by	Darkestnight
Participants
Aeadith Alaska Choto Cireon Darkestnight Diana Questcaping Spy whoman Tyco Elf Uptheirons05 Xurdones

The RS Food Cook Off was a 2021 event organized by Darkestnight. It was announced on August 17, 2021^[1] and ran from August 18th^[2] until September 25th when all participants revealed their dishes^[3].

Overview

The event was inspired by a similar event held by the Rogue Ninja Civilization clan earlier in 2021^[1]. Clanmates were invited to register and optionally express an interest in different categories of cooking, including fish-based dishes, spicy food, and vegetarian dishes, as well as a desire for either simple or more difficult dishes^[2]. Participants were then assigned a Runescape food dish by Darkestnight, and tasked with re-creating it with real-life ingredients.

Submitted Dishes

Baked Potato - Aeadith

Pirate Pete's Fishcakes - Miss Alaska

"Ahoy there, the finished dish - Pirate Pete's fishcakes!

Fishcakes made with smoked cod, crab meat and mashed potatoes. Added some chopped spring onion, parsley and peas to the mix. Garnished with seaweed to work in the final ingredient from Recipe for Disaster (which is kelp, so close enough 😋) They are delicious.

Had home made tzatziki to go with. Baked chips as a side at boyfriend's suggestion." wrote: Miss Alaska

Alaska checked the in-game recipe for Pirate Pete's fishcakes and found it simple enough to replicate in real life - though kelp would be an interesting one. Selecting a recipe online for smoked cod fishcakes (the only variety of cod stocked at the nearby supermarket is smoked!) she made a list for all the extra ingredients she would need on the day to bring the fishcakes into reality. She would add crab meat to the recipe given it is a key ingredient for the RuneScape version.

On a Saturday afternoon, she bought the ingredients from the supermarket and returned home to begin preparation. She peeled and boiled potatoes, and then trimmed and set the smoked cod fillets boiling in another pot for a shorter time, as they cooked rather quickly. Once the potatoes and cod were cooked, she mashed the potato with some butter then flaked the cod fillets before adding that to the mashed potato. Having tried a bit of boiled smoked cod without anything added, Alaska recommends this as a quick and easy fish meal with whatever side of vegetables you please - it's healthy and delicious!

Other ingredients added to the mash mix: thinly sliced spring onion, peas, chopped parsley and a tin of ready-to-eat crab meat (Alaska also recommends the crab meat as an easy fish meal to go with salad or in a sandwich - it would make for a yummy cold lunch!). The mix was seasoned with salt and pepper, before rolling it into thick patties - about your normal hamburger size

Next was the crumbing. Alaska prepared egg wash in a bowl and poured a layer of breadcrumbs on a plate One-by-one she swished the patties gently in the egg wash ensuring the cover them completely, then laid them on the plate of bread crumbs, giving a turn to each side so that there was an even coating of crumbs all over the patties. From here on, it was the simple task of frying the raw fishcakes in the pan until they were golden and cooked through. All the ingredients in the fishcakes were ready-to-eat by now so there wasn't too much stress related to under-cooking if it happened.

Alaska had been a little stuck on where to get kelp and how to work it into a real life production of Pirate Pete's fishcakes without simply throwing it into the mixture and hoping for the best. So she decided to tweak things. She bought a seaweed salad from a local sushi shop (close enough) and utilised this as garnishing for the fishcakes. Turns out - this suits rather well! It adds a fresh-tasting element to the plate to level out the richness of the fishcakes, and the overall taste wasn't as strong as she had anticipated. So for a future run of the recipe, Alaska considered perhaps chopping up the seaweed and working it into the mixture as one of the 'greens' in place of either the spring onion, peas or parsley.

And that's the main part for Pirate Pete's fishcakes replicated in real life! Optional additions to go with them, pictured below: tzatziki made from Greek yogurt + chopped cucumber (seeds scooped out) + lemon juice, baked potato chips and lemon wedges.

Cooked Oomlie Wrap - Choto 3000

Complete gallery

Cheesecake - Cireon

Ugthanki Kebab - Darkestnight

"Here’s my Ughthanki Kebab! If I could go back and do something differently it would be to diverge from the recipe in how to cook it.

The recipes suggested freezing it into a carve-able shape, carving the frozen meat, and then pan frying each piece in butter.

I think I should have wrapped the frozen meat in foil and roasted it, and then carved it, as the frozen meat defrosted mid carving and made it harder to fry due to how delicate it was.

If I’d roasted it I probably could have had longer strips of meats but overall not bad for a first attempt I reckon!" wrote: Darkestnight

Darkestnight's quest to create an authentic Ughthanki Kebab began with sourcing camel meat. To the average person this would be a difficult feat, but for Dark it was a moderately difficult feat. Dark's local butchers coincidentally sold exotic meats, including camel, but the main struggle she faced was poking her head around the door on a day when they'd had a delivery. For some reason, camel was very popular and the last steak had just been sold a couple of days ago. Obviously everyone in town were big fans of camel kebabs and Dark would just have to wait her turn. Eventually she managed to snag a camel steak, the last one in the shop in fact, and made plans to create her Frankenstein's Kebab that weekend.

Dark's plan was simple: She was going to follow a recipe on how to make an authentic Turkish doner kebab whilst substituting the main meat with her kebab. The first hurdle was that the meat required would have to be in minced form, and so Dark took her food processor and blitzed chunks of camel until it had a similar texture to minced meat.

Then she mixed her minced camel with half a diced onion, salt and pepper, garlic powder, paprika, cumin, and oregano. Taking her meat mix she placed it onto a sheet of grease proof, wrapped it, and twisted either side so she had a taut ball of camel. From the outside, the ball could have been mistaken for Haggis. The next step was to freeze the parcel for a few hours in order for it to keep its shape as she carved pieces of it, which as she found didn't take long. Unwrapping the parcel the meat held its shape, and she speared a kebab skewer through the meat so that she could keep it steady as she carved.

Carving wasn't difficult, but as time passed the meat began to defrost and the slices she had carved became more delicate. Moving along quickly to the next step to prevent it from completely losing its form, Dark then fried each piece of meat in butter at the recommendation of the recipe she was following; The task took a considerable amount of time due to the quantity of camel slices she had, but all were eventually cooked.

All Dark had left was to assemble her kebab: Earlier in the month Dark had visited her own local Turkish grill and kept one of their takeaway boxes to present her very own kebab within which sealed the deal. Within this takeaway box she placed two garlic and coriander naans, the camel meat, and a mixture of salad and baby spinach. While the RS3 recipe called for onion to be used in the actual salad Dark decided she had already incorporated it into the meat and that more would be overkill.

And voila! Dark's Ughthanki Kebab was finished. One of Dark's main regrets was not leaving a slice of the unseasoned camel meat to the side to cook and use as a control group to see what camel actually tasted like. Dark will simply have to hunt down another camel to discover this, whether that be at the butcher's or the nearest zoo.

Brûlée Supreme - Diana

"Result! Fairy dragon was a bit inconsistent (had to grill it rather than use a blowtorch) BUT it snaps nicely" wrote:

Diana

Spicy Crunchies - Questcaping

"gnome spice is pseudo-canonically equivalent to french quatre épices -- white pepper, ginger, nutmeg, cloves -- and I definitely smelt that! they're also often accompanied by cinnamon, which I used quite a bit of in accordance with the recipe I used. ended up having to bake them for closer to 40 mins than 10, quite possibly due to the different shape? they were veeeery soft for the first half hour of the baking time

but otherwise, recipe unaltered] 😄. ended up having to bake them for closer to 40 mins than 10, quite possibly due to the different shape? they were veeeery soft for the first half hour of the baking time. but otherwise, recipe unaltered" wrote: 105%

Recipe

Evil Dave's Spicy Stew of DOOM - Spy Whoman

Sailfish Soup - Tyco Elf

Great Maki - Uptheirons05

"A combination of hectic moving country preparation and the lack of a fishmonger at last weeks farmers market has meant I’m going to be unable to complete my meal 😭 However, as an alternative, I have made a CQ Steak and Stilton pie" wrote:

Uptheirons05

Arc Gumbo - Xurdones

"My recipe calls for shrimp, which is traditional for Cajun gumbo, but I'm using cod because 1) I don't love shrimp, and 2) the Arc gumbo recipe calls for whiting (seerfish), which cod is a fair substitute for apparently. I could have gotten real whiting, but because of Covid I didn't feel like going to an unfamiliar grocery store and wandering around for an hour. If anyone from Lousiana is reading, I cannot apologize enough for what I'm doing to your culture with this dish. In lieu of a tortle shell bowl (which is illegal in my country), enjoy my extravagantly-patterned dishware" wrote:

Xurdones

References