So I did a lot of re-engineering of these dishes as I went along. Just imagine me as a stubborn Imperial innkeeper determined to level up as a chef despite having taken an arrow to the knee while he was an adventurer. (It’s been so long since this became a cliche meme that it almost feels fresh again!)
A lot of dishes in the cookbook call for “Stormcloak Spice”, which is a mixture of fennel, dill, grains of paradise and ground mustard. That’s a weird mix. I didn’t find it unpleasant, and I get the thought—an “exotic” taste that goes with the somewhat northern European orientation of most of the major dishes. However, since both of the main dishes called for this mixture as their main flavoring element, I was determined to do something different for one.
I decided to go at the “horker loaf”, aka beef meatloaf, in that spirit, so I spiced it instead with a bit of cumin, a bit of pepper flakes, a teeny bit of lemon zest and some smoked paprika. The kind of stuff you can get from those khajits trading outside Whiterun, you see. Well, not that stuff.
The idea of having the “horns” be whole garlic cloves sticking up out of the shaped meatloaf? Doesn’t work visually and doesn’t do anything for the dish. Otherwise this is meatloaf with bacon on it.
I’m not sure what the smoked oysters did for it. I generally hate meatloaf but it wasn’t the worst one I’ve had, maybe because I did a bit extra to make it less bland. The person in the house who loves meatloaf was grateful since she almost never gets it.
With the chicken, I decided that I was simply not gonna make a bunch of little dumplings, so I made a small chicken pie instead. I thought the mixture in the pie needed some jazzing up, too, so I cooked a small mirepoix to start with leeks, carrots, celery and a sweet red pepper.
I had boneless chicken breasts instead of the drumsticks the recipe calls for (picking meat off of cooked drumsticks is a nuisance—I don’t understand why anyone would pick drumsticks rather than thighs unless somehow the drumsticks feel more faux-medieval) so they needed a bit more flavor anyway. I put in a bit of homemade chicken broth and then a beurre manie (a ball of flour and softened butter) to thicken the result. The pie dough was standard except with some “Stormcloak Spice” (which I also put in the filling) and being half rye dough—I used spelt instead because I had some fresh spelt from a local miller. Came out pretty well—the crust had a distinct flavor to it.
I don’t have small bundt pans to make the sweetrolls so I went for a larger cake that we’ll slice off of. I also thought the frosting was a bit dull (cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, cream) so I added some orange zest and cinnamon, at the risk of getting sued by some popular mall stores or the Thalmor.
Not bad, but I don’t think we have to worry about it being stolen—I doubt we can even manage to eat more than a few slices in the coming week.
It’s a gimmick cookbook, so I don’t know that I have the heart to toss it in the used bin, but I cannot imagine cooking from it again even for gimmick’s sake. I would kind of class this in Schrodinger’s Discard Box: I can’t know whether it’s still in the house until I open the box and collapse the wave function.
VERDICT: Who knows?
I truly did appreciate the meatloaf. Have not had one in a long time. Thank you! P.S. Bittersweet Cafe does serve meatloaf for their dinner service. Maybe we should try it some time.