I've Come Up with a New Recipe!

An Unofficial FFXV Cookbook.

[chefiggy-blog]

Classic Tomato and Egg Stir Fry

This is a personal favourite recipe of mine. It’s one of the first dishes I learned once living on my own, as it’s incredibly easy to make and quick to cook. And if you’re looking to show off to friends about your Chinese cooking knowledge, it looks really impressive despite how little effort it takes to make.

2 tomatoes

3 eggs

Salt (sub. sea salt/season salt/soy sauce)

Cooking oil

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, adding in a pinch of salt. If you are using soy sauce, note that it may change the overall colour of the recipe, but the flavour will be just as good.

In a pan, heat some oil on high. If you have a wok, I recommend using that as I find it often easier to cook with for stir fry since it’s such a quick cooking process.

Add the egg to the heated oil, quickly cooking it until it’s no longer runny. The egg does not need to be fully cooked through; it’s almost better if it still looks a bit undercooked and liquidy. If the oil is properly heated, the whole cooking process for the egg should take no longer than 10 secs.

Scrape the egg from out of the pan and back into the bowl. Wipe down the pan to rid it of excess egg before returning the pan to the stove. Add in more oil and heat on high.

Chop the tomato into large chunks. I prefer Roma tomatoes, but any kind will do. Add it into the heated oil and cook until it starts to soften, adding in some salt for flavoring.

WARNING! The tomato juice may cause the oil to jump, so be careful and stand back if need be to let the oil settle. Wear an apron to avoid any damage to clothes.

Add the eggs back into the pan, cooking it with the tomato until the eggs are fully cooked through. Taste test it and add more salt if need be.

Place and serve it when done.

Note: Though it’s not pictured in Ignis’s recipe, you can add in a hint of black pepper, shallots, and/or green onion for extra flavouring. To cook the shallots and green onion, dice it and add it in with the tomato and cook together.

I usually eat this dish served with a side of rice and highly recommend eating it that way. For those who are interested, this dish also can be made into a soup by frying up the tomato first, and then adding either water or broth (the amount of salt you add may change depending on which you choose, so taste it as you go). For the egg, pour it into the heated soup. Go slowly and be careful not to dump the whole bowl in one go so the egg is light and floating at the top of the soup (this may take some practice to get right).

Tomato-Egg with rice makes for a good meal. Especially served in a ChocoBowl :)

[chefiggy-blog]

Flame Roasted Toast

Alright so this might seem a bit silly for a recipe, but let’s talk about toast, or more specifically, Ignis’s Flame Roasted Toast. As the starting recipe of the game, it seemed somewhat fitting to have it the starting recipe for this blog.

While anyone can stick a slice of bread into a toaster and go, “Viola, toast!”, I decided to take it a step farther and chose to make Texas Toast, which is usually cooked on a grill, though in this case I’ll be using an oven. I’ll be leaving the outdoor activities to the boys while I enjoy the view from my couch instead; inside and far away from nature.

I decided to try making this recipe fully from scratch, starting with the bread itself. You can purchase pre-made bread and just skip straight to the toasting portion of the recipe, but to make it a little more authentic, I wrote up the steps to making the bread as well (believe it or not, portable camping ovens exist. I just discovered this yesterday.)

This recipe makes a heartier, denser sort of bread than you’d typically buy at the store. A single slice was enough to fill me up, which would make sense since Iggy only served a single slice for dinner (which still seems a bit light for a bunch of boys in their early 20’s traveling all day and fighting monsters.) This sturdier bread also makes for an easier time to throw onto a grill than flimsy white bread.

Bread:

(makes 2 loaves)

1 pack yeast (1/4 oz)

2 ¼ cup warm water

3 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp salt (sub. fine sea salt)

2 tbsp canola oil (sub. veg. oil)

6 ½ cup flour

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in warm water. Sift through it and break up any clumps you find.

Add in the sugar, salt, oil, and half of the flour (approx. 3 cups). You can use either salt or fine sea salt (not coarse!), and you can substitute the canola oil with vegetable oil if that’s what you have on hand instead. Neither oil will change the flavour of the bread, the way that olive oil will, but canola oil is considered healthier of the two options.

Beat the mixture until smooth. Add the rest of the flour in ½ cup at a time, mixing it in between each cupful. By doing this in segments, you can avoid making a bigger mess since flour seems to have the ability to get everywhere.

On a floured surface, knead the dough, making sure that everything is fully mixed in and that the texture is same throughout. Once done, place the dough into a greased bowl. It can be the original mixing bowl, but try to clean as much of the remains from the sides before greasing it.

To grease the bowl, brush oil or butter around the entire inside of the bowl (spread it with a paper towel, napkin, or pastry brush.) Apply some grease to the top of the dough as well so that once it starts to rise and expand, the dough won’t end up sticking to the bowl.

Cover the bowl and let it rise in a warm place until it doubles in size (approx. 1 ½ hours).

Once the dough has risen, punch the dough down, pushing your fist gently into the center of the dough to get rid of the extra air trapped within. Then pull the edges of the dough into the center and move it to a floured surface, knead the dough a bit to release some additional air bubbles. Divide the dough into halves, and place them into 9×5 in bread pans. You can set aside one of the halves if you only have one pan, placing it back into the greased bowl and cover it.

Cover the bread pan and let it rise for 30-45 mins as it doubles in size.

Bake the bread at 375°F in a pre-heated oven for 30-35 mins or until it turns a golden brown. Once done, remove it from the pan and place it on a wired rack to cool.

Note: While this isn’t part of Ignis’s recipe, you can add some extra flavour to your own bread by topping it with some rosemary and coarse sea salt before putting it into the oven.

Texas Toast

Butter

Garlic powder (sub. granulated garlic/garlic oil/puree garlic)

Salt

Bread

Preheat the oven at 375°F.

Slice the bread into 1 in. slices, whether it be a pre-purchased loaf or your own homemade bread.

Melt the butter in a bowl in the microwave for 20 -30 secs depending on how powerful your microwave is. Add in garlic and salt, seasoning it to taste depending on your preference.

Brush the mixture onto both sides of the bread. Depending on your bread, the mixture may soak in more, so you can make your own judgement on how much to coat it with, though personally I believe you can never have “too much.”

Places the slices of bread onto a baking sheet and bake for 15 mins, flipping it once half way through. You can also cook the bread on a grill for a more authentic camp food experience.

Once done, plate it and serve.

[chefiggy-blog]

“That’s It!” I’ve decided to make a cooking blog

I’ve really loved playing Road Trip Simulator 2016 with our four favourite boys, but I hold a particular fondness for ‘Cooking with Ignis’. The graphics for the food looked so amazing that I can’t help but get hungry every time I play, and I always walk away desperately wanting to try some of Iggy’s dishes (because seriously, have you seen the food in this game??)

As someone who really enjoys cooking, I immediately looked online to see if I could find any sort official cookbook or recipes from Square Enix, but disappointingly found nothing beyond a few images from their café, which even then didn’t really look like the in-game food. I then turned towards the fans, hoping someone else as equally hungry and desperate would have written something up, but beyond a handful of few simple recipes here and there (and chili con carne, why is there so many recipes for chili con carne??), it has been rather quiet on that front.

So fuck it; I’m gonna make my own recipes.

It’s going to take some time, but I’m determined to work through all of Ignis’s various dishes, doing my best to follow the visuals as well as finding the best substitutes for the listed ingredients to keep things as closely accurate as possible (unless I’ve been shopping for Anak meat in the wrong place this whole time.)

I recognize a lot of people reading through these recipes may not be intense chefs like Ignis, so I will do my best to keep things simple and provide options for alternative ingredients to make things easier, because let’s face it, we’re all gamers first and cooks second (otherwise you’d be following recipes from a real chef and not my blog.)

I don’t know how many people will end up reading this blog, but for those who do, I hope you enjoy it.