When I started this project I really asked myself, okay how can you make this as niche and specifically only appealing to your interests only and I think I succeeded. Not only is this my fav gays from Germany’s second most successful movie of all time, TRaumschiff Surprise, no, it’s also my funny headcanon version of it in which Spucky gets to actually have fun turtle like alien features. Good time overall. I hope I made one or two Germans happy with this tho.
I know there are maybe one handful of German peeps following me and even less are interested in FFXIV... But I put a lot of work in that and I wanna show it off >x<
Hope you like the result of a hyperfixiation that started with me making a joke to my gf
for years i wanted to make the infamous blueberry soup, and since atm blueberry season is coming to an end where i live, i decided now's the time to finally give this fandom food once more YES LAWD 💯💯
during the entire process i held @ulec-elec hostage to be my beta cook☝🏻☝🏻
here's the recipe and how i made it (it's literally on chefkoch too btw unfortunately i can't say i dug up kastellan's grave to ask him 😔 FAKE FAN IK /hj )
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for the soup i used:
- 600 g of blueberries (either fresh or frozen) (i used hand-picked ones from the forest since they grow in my region. this bag in particular was gifted to me by a neighbor though I picked some this year myself too) (i kid you not, just as i thought about where i'd go to pick more for the soup the door bell rang and the neighbor said they picked too much so we can have some. the universe wanted me to make this hello) (also i stuck on the tag in polish fyi) (in 1899 i think kastellan would have used fresh ones from the forest too)
- 300 ml of pear juice (the og recipe calls for apple-pear juice but i don't like apple 😔 someone from my mutuals suggested orange as well but i think the kastellan would use more regional fruit esp because i hc he makes a lot of jams, syrups and juices for the royal household himself) (oranges in 1899 were available if imported from the mediterranean but i don't think the kastellan imports anything unless anyone calls for it, esp since burgeck is lwky broke) (ALSO IK ITS ALMOST EMPTY MY FAMILY DRANK IT WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE)
- 30 g of brown cane sugar (you can use any sugar though. kastellan would have probably used sugar beet sugar since that was available since the mid 18th century (1747) and in the early 20th century production of that sugar was steady. i used what the recipe called for and whatever was open in the pantry, plus i like the taste of brown sugar more so. but it isn't 100 percent accurate ik. don't fight me /hj)
- 10 g (1 tablespoon) of potato starch to thicken the soup, BUT BE CAREFUL i used too much lmfao and it ended up a bit thick (sigh) (kastellan most likely used this)
- a dash of cinnamon (it photobombed the wrong picture) (yes that was also available in 1899)
so here's what i did in a nutshell:
i made sure all the blueberries were more or less clean and free of stems and leaves, i put them in a pot with the juice and sugar and let it get to a boil. once that was happening, i stirred up the starch with a splash of cold water in a bowl and added it to the mix along with the cinnamon - theoretically you don't even need the starch if you are cool with very runny soup.
and yea that's it that's the soup. it ain't hard trust me i get why kastellan is so quick at this but he needs monstrous amounts for the cauldron like?? girl who picks that shit for you? are there like any enslaved workers in burgeck i don't know about?? 🤨
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and here is an addition that i made because eating that jammy soup alone is um. a task for people who have the taste buds of a 4 year old (hui buh) (it's just very sweet by itself) so i made semolina dumplings that came out very misshapen (@ulec-elec did another batch after the pictures that looked better. trust me)
I am halfing the amount we used deadass it was way too much lowkey
- 250 ml of milk (you can use any fr) (i just wanted to be accurate lmfao)
- 20 g of sugar (any sugar) (again i used the one on hand)
- 20 g of butter (yuh)
- 50 g of semolina (available in 1899)
- 1 egg
- a dash of salt
- a dash of orange peel (let's say kastellan had ONE orange. okay guys. don't hunt me down)
- hazelnuts for decoration later (not necessary but out of all the nuts i think burgeck can only afford the ones growing in the yard and that's hazelnuts LMFAO) (or walnuts but i like hazelnuts more)
here's what i did:
bring the milk with the salt, orange peel, sugar and butter to a boil and add the semolina to it. STIR LIKE FR STIR and let the semolina integrate into the mix. take it off the stove, whisk in the egg quickly and let it cool. then, form some dumplings and boil them in salted water for around 10 minutes on low heat.
as you can tell, unfortunately, there were minor clumps in mine that can be avoided with more rigorous stirring, though (again, i did a large amount, which is why i halfed the amount) 😔
kastellan i am sorry 😞
@ulec-elec did it better she saved me from fandom failure GIVE IT UP EVERYONE
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and here is the moment we've been waiting for ladies and gentlemen, and whoever else is reading this 🤯🤯
SOUP'S DONE 😫😫😫 OH YES LAWWDD ( it is best eaten cold/lukewarm imo, hot it tastes very sweet !! )
so. here's our review (and headcanon thought train that no one asked for) ✊🏻
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˙ ✩°˖🫐 ⋆｡˚꩜ oleander rating: 8/10
it was definitely very yummy, surprisingly so - I thought i'd wind up with something more that is way too sweet. of course, the semolina dumplings are not part of the canon recipe and were just an addition by the chefkoch recipe. even my family ate it partially, which is always a good sign 👌🏻 however, the soup itself without anything is quite reminiscent of just blueberry jam, which is why eating more than a smaller bowl is not as easy. it's fr tasty, but i wouldn't be able to eat large quantities of it. i bet it would taste great as a frozen popsicle or with pancakes/waffles as well. BUT YEA THIS ROCKS LWKY 😼🩵 and i'm not even a huge blueberry person (ik fake fan. you can go and cancel me now)
i tried it with the hazelnuts later, too, but i think i like it more without. lol?
ANYWAY WHERE IS MY NR 1 FAN PASS NOW HUH HUH /HJ
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the whole thing got me thinking - blueberry soup in itself is, in fact, not a common german recipe, but a swedish one. it even seems that it really is just narrowed down to the scandivanian area, since i couldn't find any records on it being prepared in any other european countries outside of it (correct me if i am mistaken). this led me to the following conclusion: hui buh's favorite dish being blueberry soup must have been established AFTER his death. we know that during his lifetime, no swedish queen or influence was present in the castle. i think that he probably liked blueberries (or just berries) in general beforehand (they were available in the forest), but never actually ate any soup until he became a ghost. though it was never said where burgeck is exactly located, it is heavily implied to be in the south or lower east of Germany (or even the Czech Republic of today but that's a different topic) (name-implications, burgeck being in a mountainous region, movie made in Bavaria and the Czech Republic, the kingdom Luxenstein being a direct reference to Liechtenstein (located between Switzerland and Austria), Roswitha's restaurant being a literal implied stereotypical Bavarian restaurant lwky etc.), thus it wouldn't make sense they made that soup ever on a regular basis (nowhere near Sweden).
i would even go as far to claim that he hadn't eaten any until he met the kastellan, who, as we canonly know, comes from a scottish line of royal servants and has most likely tried a lot of recipes from around the world in the royal kitchen. another thought i had is that maybe one of the queens of burgeck was a swedish woman, which would make sense since some the queens of Burgeck were non-germans (Queen Mimosita from audio book 12, Julius having a lot of British relatives canonly who were involved in the Habsburg line (which would only make sense if they married non-germans)), who brought in the recipe from afar. one could even go as far as to say that both events happened at the same time (f.e. kastellan working under one of the king juliuses and his wife just happening to be swedish). whatever the case may be, the swedes definitely tickled a certain ghost's taste buds, that's for sure.
though the canon information on ghosts we have claims that ghosts typically dislike what humans find enjoyable, there have been more than a few exceptions to this rule in the canon lore. maybe it's tied to the amount of 'humanity' left in a ghost? who knows. *mystery jazz hands*
