Iron Bay Chef 2: Krakens Worms and Wiggyfish Oh My! Read online

  If your fish looks reasonably, but not too firm, congratulations! You can finally return to your own time and place, and finish cooking this meal! (If not, get yourself another set of dried fillets and try again.)

  Cut the fillets into even-sized pieces, and place skin-side down in a buttered glass or ceramic oven dish. Sprinkle or rub the pieces with salt, and cover the oven dish tightly with a heavy lid. Bake in a 400F until the flesh starts to turn white and flaky. Baking time will vary, depending on the size and thickness of the fish pieces. (A good rule of thumb is to bake about 15 minutes per 2 pounds of fish. Check after about the first 20-30 minutes, and if necessary, keep checking every 5 to 10 minutes after that.)

  While the fish is cooking, peel the potatoes and place them in a saucepan, covering them with salted water. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until they are thoroughly cooked. Strain out the water, remove the lid, and let excess steam escape by placing the saucepan back on the warm stove for a few minutes.

  During this time, you can also prepare the puree. Cook the cinderberries in another saucepan in just enough water or stock to cover, until they are thoroughly tender. Strain them, reserving the cooking liquid. Push the cinderberries through a fine sieve to make a puree. Return that puree to the saucepan, and add the salt, sugar, cream, and butter. Reheat the puree, watching its consistency. If it’s too thin, let it cook for a few minutes longer; if too thick, add some water, cream, or stock.

  These other preparations should distract you from the odor of the cooking lutefisk. If you have any down times, though, you can watch the paint peel off the walls. Hopefully, you’ve already been considering a change of color in the kitchen. And the dining room. And the parlor. And the front hall. And the bedrooms…

  Once everything is done cooking, you can assemble the dish. Carefully lift out a piece of fish and place on a (preferably warmed) plate. Drizzle this with a bit of melted butter, and place some potatoes and a dollop of cinderberry puree alongside. The amounts given in the list at the beginning will serve 10 Scandinavians. If your guests are not Scandinavian, the potatoes and cinderberry puree will serve 10 diners. The lutefisk… about 100.

  (Many thanks to the Norwegian Recipe Archive for the information on lutefisk preparation and cooking!) http://www.dlc.fi/~marianna/gourmet/recipe.htm

  CEEJAY’S REVIEW: My goodness. I wanted to make absolutely sure I’d be able to completely use up this recipe, and so I took the time (well I HAD the time machine) to go out and make friends with ten Scandinavians beforehand. We ended up having a ‘mallet party’ and had the fish softened in no time at all! The rest of the preparations went well, and I was very glad for the warning about peeling paint. My neighbors are on a month’s holiday, and they had been complaining about their decor, so I think it was a kindness to them to use their kitchen rather than my own. They will thank me later, and perhaps re-think their habit of putting a spare door key under the mat. My ten Scandinavian friends enjoyed the lutefisk. I personally couldn’t bear more than a nibble, but that really was quite sufficient. Quite. For a lifetime.

  JUNIE’S REVIEW: What kind of lunatic… Okay. Well. Unlike Ceejay I did not have a time machine, because they don’t exist. Victor. But, I do happen to stockpile various preserved meats in cold storage—which is totally NOT the catacombs behind the Gangplank—so I had some dried wiggyfish. (I didn’t intend to have wiggyfish in there, it was sort of forgotten one time after a failed cross-swap barter arrangement with a seafood-loving airship captain and a carnival barker… details not important.) In any case, my favorite part of this recipe was not the bashing of the fish with a mallet as one might reasonably suspect, but working with the lye. That fire in the catacombs? Not my fault. Eventually I got bored though and let the fish soak too long, resulting in fish soap just as I had predicted. My valiant attempt to reproduce this insane recipe was a total loss. Not even Martin’s weird friends would go near it.

  Southern Fried Wigglyfish and Cinderberries

  by June Forsythe

  First you have to task of catching a few wigglyfish. Good luck and may the steam gods have mercy on your soul…

  Ingredients

  8 (5 to 6-ounce) wigglyfish fillets, skin removed

  Salt

  Port of Babbage Spice (think Old Bay, but sootier)

  4 cups all-purpose flour

  1 cup cornmeal

  Oil, for frying

  Cinderberries

  Cayenne Pepper

  1 cup sheep’s milk (baaaaaaaaa)

  Directions

  Step 1: Heat a fryer or a deep pot halfway filled with oil to 350 degrees F.

  Step 2: Sprinkle both sides of each wigglyfish fillet with salt and Port of Babbage Spice. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and the cornmeal. Dredge the wigglyfish in the flour mixture and place in fryer.

  Step 3: Deep fry for approximately 7 to 8 minutes until done. Drain on old copies of The New Babbage Free Press and set aside.

  Step 4: In a medium bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, and cayenne pepper.

  Step 5: Dip cinderberries in buttermilk and then dredge in cornmeal-flour mixture to coat well.

  Step 6: Carefully add cinderberries to the hot oil and cook until golden brown. Remove from oil, and place with wigglyfish, and then serve immediately.

  CEEJAY’S REVIEW: Be sure to allow for a half hour’s worth of eye-twitching at the extra “L” in wiggyfish. Once you have gotten over that, the recipe is quite simple and a pleasant enough task to complete. If you have no back issues of the New Babbage Free Press on hand, you could use The Daily Snitch, but be warned, the cheap ink in that publication may add a strange design to your fish breading. I did enjoy the cornmeal crunch in the batter - deep fried food is a favorite treat! The Port of Babbage Spices will be with me for a long, long time to come. burp

  JUNIE’S REVIEW: As soon as I saw the instructions for deep-fried cinderberries, I almost stopped there and didn’t even bother with the wiggyfish. But, for the sake of art and science and Emerson’s growling stomach, I went ahead and made a big batch of the fish as well. This is the kind of simple and satisfying recipe that goes over well with longshoremen who come into the bar after their long shifts at the Port, and it went over equally well in my kitchen. I served this deep-fried, artery-clogging goodness with a bit of malt vinegar, and what Emerson and I couldn’t finish Martin polished off. I’ve never enjoyed wiggyfish quite this much.

  Braised Air Kraken Tentacle Suckers with Artichokes and Cinderberry Relish

  by Dee Wells

  Ingredients

  ½ dozen fresh(ish) small air kraken tentacle suckers cut flush, scrubbed

  ½ dozen baby artichokes

  1 large onion, peeled and chopped

  1 large carrot, peeled and chopped

  2 ribs celery, chopped (peeled if you like, to keep the stringies out of your teeth; although that’s the least of your problems…)

  1 large grimp leaf, minced (grimp can be hard to find; it grows wild in the northern limits of the Fells. Be careful harvesting as it looks just like, um… just be careful. Seriously.)

  2 cups cinderberries, as clean as you can get them. Discard if oozing glowing fluid

  2 tbsp wiggyfish oil

  1 cup wiggyfish stock (or vegetable stock, if you’re scared/sane)

  16 gal Rookswood Babbage Brown Ale

  Way more assorted seasonings than you think you need. Probably 10 times as much. Maybe a bit more.

  [Note: Wild cinderberry does have extra flavour, though you will need to add some soot. Wherever you get them from, WASH THEM. I won’t get into why, but you REALLY want to wash them. Like, ew.]

  Also, famed New Toulouse chef Julia Urchin recommends parboiling the berries in ale for making sauces, but as we will be making a relish we want to conserve as much alcohol as possible for drinking later. We’re eating kraken suckers, so we’ll really need it.

  I will also add that it’s not true that I include alcohol in all my recipes this time of year because I
’m some kind of lush*. It is very important to include alcohol in as many recipes as possible during and for several months after Kraken Migration. It is a well-known rumour that kraken will not attack anyone with a high blood-alcohol content. As far as you know.

  *Standard Disclaimer: I am not denying that I’m some kind of lush. Those who know me well know that I only drink on days of the week that end in nights. Mostly.]

  Servings: none. Don’t eat this, I beg you.

  Begin by building a good fire in the oven, scrubbing the suckers, removing any traces of victim blood, and heating up the wiggyfish oil to a low medium heat in a solid cast iron sauté pan or shallow iron saucepan.

  Sear the suckers as much as you dare, at least until there is visible caramelization or they begin exploding, adding the vegetables halfway through, artichokes last.

  Remove the suckers and set aside to rest. Now get back up and back in the kitchen; this mess isn’t going to cook itself.

  Combine the stock with 1 cup of the ale in a medium saucepan on low heat, add the grimp leaf seasoning to ‘taste.’ You’ll probably need a lot of seasoning. Go ahead, add more. No, no, way more than that. Okay, easy, easy—don’t waste it.

  Add the cinderberries and stir very carefully. Do NOT break the berries open. Don’t ask why. You don’t want to know.

  Return the suckers to the iron pan face up (you’d have an awful time with an upside-down pan) setting one artichoke in the centre of each, and drizzle 1 cup of ale over the ‘meat’ before covering and placing into the oven. Try to leave it in there until you’re actually hungry enough to try to eat it. Or until you need the oven for something else.

  Check it once in a while to be sure there is enough ale to keep it partly submerged. It keeps the smell down. But you know, don’t waste any. It’s good ale, come on.

  Add the vegetables to the stock, and continue to reduce the mixture into a relish consistency, while adding ale to the chef as necessary. I find I use quite a bit for this recipe. What do you mean, “It shows…”?

  Once cooked through, or when you can no longer stand the smell, remove the kraken and artichoke from the oven and plate each portion with a generous spoonful of the cinderberry relish on each ‘eye’ (mostly to cover it up so it doesn’t frighten the children).

  Serve with alcohol (important), and keep a stretcher by the door in case that wasn’t grimp leaf.

  Discard leftovers, and not near your house or anything explosive, or anyplace it can be proved you did it.

  CEEJAY’S REVIEW: In spite of Miss Well’s pleas that I not eat this, I take my duties as a judge seriously. After spending the morning with my solicitor making sure all my affairs were in order, I braced myself for the possibility that I’d be ending my day in the afterlife. I added a liberal amount of ale to my belly and then cooked up a literal storm. Sorry about that, picnickers. I’m a little worried that my grimp leaf wasn’t quite right, and will be spending the rest of the night on that stretcher by the door. Otherwise, tis a fine, fine recipe. Trust me. Don’t actually MAKE it, just trust me.

  JUNIE’S REVIEW: Cooking air kraken suckers is a seriously delightful experience that no one should miss. You don’t even have to eat them, just cook them. It’s like putting a grape in a microwavelengthometer—if you’re lucky they’ll spark before they pop out of the pan. Bert wasn’t fond of the “find me some grimp leaf” errand I sent him on given it had been raining all week prior, and honestly, judging by the smell I’m not sure he was entirely successful; I threw everything he brought back into the sewer. (Some people cook with that water, I hear…) Because I had no grimp leaf, and to make this recipe extra fun, I used some overripe cinderberries. Not enough to poison anyone, mind you, just enough to… well, make the evening a bit more lively. Emerson and I invented new words while enjoying a rousing match of rock-paper-hedgeclippers, the Squire was sullen (as usual) but couldn’t manage a proper sneer, and Bert wandered around the bar, apparently following a mysterious green dot that only he could see. Good times.

  Idiot Proof Supper

  by Mumsy Abigail

  Here is a recipe for the best dinner in town:

  1. Hail a hansom cab.

  2. Ride to Academy of Industry.

  3. Enter Brunel Hall restaurant.

  4. Order a steak.

  5. Enjoy.

  CEEJAY’S REVIEW: I applaud Mumsy for her lazy laborsaving recipe. I do enjoy a good steak, hopefully not served with Mr. Mornington’s house red wine. And really, even the most ardent cook does need a night off now and then. I am certain that Mumsy returned to cooking spectacular meals after this brief break.

  JUNIE’S REVIEW: I wasn’t able to reproduce this recipe because Victor kept throwing me out of the restaurant. He said I smelled like lutefisk.

  Spurgan’s Tricarnal Delight

  by Thomas Morlock

  This is my dear Spurgan’s favourite, so I share it with you now. It is an elegant meal best served with a fine cabernet sauvignon or a vintage pinot noir. Though it is a violation of convention, I like to chill my reds.

  Ingredients

  Three medium air kraken tentacles thinly sliced (tips only please; no need to de-sucker)

  Four cups of diced and brined wiggy fish

  A dozen large egg yolks

  Fourteen teaspoons of beaujolais mustard (in a pinch dijon or grey poupon may be substituted)

  Two cups of extra virgin olive oil (imported from Italy please)

  Twenty pounds of cubed North Fells black worm

  One cup of over-ripened cinderberries

  In a large bowl combine egg yolks, olive oil, and cinderberries and blend until you have an aromatic paste. Make sure your hands are clean before you start blending. Set the blended ingredients aside.

  In a second large bowl mix your meat ingredients until they are all evenly distributed.

  Combine the two bowls and mix thoroughly.

  Place a double handful on each plate and serve with either the cabernet or pinot noir—both if you have them.

  Bon appetite

  CEEJAY’S REVIEW: After I had a small dance of joy upon noticing that Mr. Morlock’s recipe dealt with normal proportions and portions, and did not seem dangerous or disgusting, I set about cooking, with plans to have this for my own supper. I did find the recommendation of both cabernet and pinot noir to be a delightful accompaniment. In fact, perhaps because I was dining alone that night and had two bottles to polish off, I don’t quite recall finishing my plate. What I do remember tasting was amazingly edible.

  JUNIE’S REVIEW: Initially this recipe sounded promising until I got to the not-cooking the raw anything part. At that point it sounded like something to foist on the Squire, but true to form, he turned up his nose and brought in one of his gothy friends. What is it with these guys and their Morlock costumes? Is it some kind of subculture? (Emerson and I are starting to worry about the company he keeps… this can’t be healthy.) Anyway, Martin’s frighteningly-pale friend erupted in a grisly baring-of-teeth that was probably intended to serve as a smile, before belching loudly (and odoriferously) and pronouncing the dish “genius.” I really do not get these people.

  Mummeh-wrapped Air Kraken with Cinderberry Garnish

  by Arthur Serpente

  Paper-wrapped chicken is a favorite among restaurants of the exotic Orient, and the peoples of Africa have similar delicacies. It was during a trip to Egypt while smoking 15 fakirs under the table that I learned in conversation of a more remarkable delicacy, mummeh-wrapped chicken. It was through experimentation among the air kraken-rich lands of Kxcvischishtan that I created my own variation of paper-wrapped chicken which substitutes the dry wrapping of the mummeh for paper. One might first ask, why can’t I just wrap the arms in paper? It can be done, but the paper quickly tears if the arm is of any length, and of course fresh kraken arm may yet have restless nerve tremors which will undo a night’s worth of wrapping.

  In addition, because every mummeh was of a different person, every mummeh-wrapped k
raken will taste different because of numerous variables ranging from the method of mummification long ago to your choice of how much of the interior of the mummeh to remove and how much content to leave for flavor. It was normal for Egyptians to leave herbs and flowers inside the body, and those impart remarkable nuance of flavor.

  While mummeh-wrapped kraken may sound exotic to our ears, centuries of heathen practices have left Egypt with an overpopulation of mummehs. The dead are in fact so common that many are used as doorstops, set side by side and used to mark race courses, or unwrapped gradually as needs by for one’s toilet. It takes only a bit of preparation to obtain one through the post or through the well-traveled and richly-supplied acquaintance.

  These are the materials required

  Two long tentacles of juvenile air kraken cut to fit the mummeh’s stature. These should be the tips of the youngest arms. The end of one must be able to fit through an eye socket, and the other end must be about as wide as the human knee.

  A cylinder of cinderberries sufficient to fill a space about two inches in diameter and six inches long, up to eight inches if your mummeh was particularly robust

  A male mummeh (some spell the word as mummy) OR a female mummeh with an extra hand of either a male or female mummeh

  One barrel teriyaki sauce

  36 cloves garlic, minced

  five inches of ginger, grated

  one pound crushed red pepper flakes

  Cooking instrumentation to have on hand

  At least one live rat

  Wood coffin

  Metal coffin

  Sufficient oil to fill the metal coffin for deep frying

  Slotted metal fencing of sufficient length to line the metal coffin and spill over to allow for use as a handle (in other words, a very large coffin-sized colander) If you have the assistance of a mutant individual with impressive strength, a 5-foot-long slotted spoon may be commissioned and utilized.