I have been writing about video games and anime since 2015, and I have attended events ranging from E3 and GDC to Dragon Con and MetroCon. I have a full collection of badges that I keep in my bedroom, and I find myself having to upsize the container every so often just to fit it all in. As I write this instead of packing, I will be heading to Las Vegas tomorrow to cover FINAL FANTASY XIV FAN FESTIVAL 2023-2024 on behalf of oprainfall – and by the time that this column goes live, I will be reporting from the event itself (alongside my editor who will be reading this shortly – hi Leah!).
Despite how many industry events I attend and media meetings I take, I still feel a twinge of nervousness inside before I go. I worry about making a good impression on the people I am going to meet, I worry about the type of coverage I am going to write – and if I will in fact have enough to write what I need to do to begin with. I even worry about things like how I dress and if I am going to look like I am falling apart before the end of the day or if I have done enough research on whatever company/game(s) that I am going to see so that I can hold a real conversation with the developers or publishers. Even when I am cooking a new dish for Cooking Eorzea (with Love, Eorzean Style), I feel a bit nervous too, as I want to make sure that I do a good enough job (good or bad!) to be able to put out a new column on time.
I love what I do for oprainfall. I love the fact that I can attend all of these industry events and conventions and that I can write about all of these amazing things I love and share them with everyone else. I ultimately just take a deep breath, try to let out the nervousness with each exhale, do the best that I can when I am out there, and trust in myself and my writing. It’s a skill that I’ve developed over the years, and it honestly works for me.
If you see me out there this weekend in Las Vegas, be sure to say “hi.”
If you’ve missed an installment of Cooking Eorzea, you can check out all the prior recipes here.
Recipe of the Week
With a difficulty rating of “Medium” and being served in La Noscea, this week’s Cooking Eorzea dish is Battered Fish! The 37th recipe out of the cookbook, I had zero desire to cook with oil in my apartment again after the fire last year. As a result, I decided that I would deep fry the French fries and the cod fillets in a pot over a grill that was surrounded by concrete.
Anyway, this is how the dish is supposed to look like:
Featured Ingredient of the Week
Cooking Eorzea‘s featured ingredient of the week for this week is the Amber Ale, which I used to help make the fish batter. Amber ale is made using amber malt and crystal malts to create a beer that has an amber color to it. I picked up two bottles of a local brew to use for this week’s column, and I was surprised at how non-bitter it was, unlike a lot of beers out there. It had a pleasant, yet different flavor to it than I expected. I am by no means a beer connoisseur, as I actually do not drink a lot of alcohol in the first place. But I actually enjoyed it, and the flavor definitely came out in the batter at the end of the dish!
My Cooking Attempt
This week’s Cooking Eorzea dish had only a handful of ingredients, and the majority of them were used to help prepare the batter or the French fry seasoning:
I first peeled the potatoes.
I then cut the peeled potatoes into thick strips and put them into a bowl of cold water to rest for a minimum half-hour.
While the potato slices soaked, I made the spice mix for the French fries out of garlic powder, salt, cayenne pepper, turmeric, and pepper.
I then hauled the entire kit out to the patio grill, and I started to mix the fish batter. I added flour, garlic powder, turmeric, cumin, cayenne, amber ale, and nine teaspoons of lemon juice into a large bowl.
I whisked the batter together, but it was very, very thick. I added in some water to help thin the fish batter out.
I whisked the batter again, and this time it was much better.
Setting the batter aside, I sliced up the cod and then I salted and peppered it on both sides.
After setting the cod fillets aside, I added peanut oil to my tall pot and started to heat it up on the grill to 300 degrees. This…was a bit of a mistake. It turns out that it is quite difficult to heat up a pot of peanut oil on the grill top, and the entire dish, from the moment I started to heat the oil, took around three-and-a-half hours to complete. Most of it was spent heating up the oil to the 300 degree mark.
When the deep fry thermometer was around 250 degrees, I added flour to the cod fillets and then I started to thoroughly dry each of the French fries with paper towels.
Once the oil was ready, I did my first fry of the day by carefully lowering the French fries into the oil to fry for about five minutes in two batches. Once the time was passed, I carefully pulled them out.
I then placed the French fries onto a wire rack, and I let them drip dry oil out over paper towels. Some of them had definitely browned more than what they should have been, but thankfully it was only a few.
Once the oil heated up some again, I started to dunk the cod fillets into the batter and then dropped them in small batches into the oil to cook.
After three minutes, I flipped the fish over to ensure that the batter cooked evenly on both sides. Once the timer was out, I pulled the fish out and did the next batch.
After yet another lengthy delay in heating the oil up again, I dunked the French fries in for two minutes a time in more small batches for the second fry. This time, they were nice, crispy, and properly browned.
While one of the small batches was frying, I sliced up a fresh lemon so I could squeeze the slices out over the fish.
After laying the French fries back out over the wire rack, I generously seasoned them with the spice mix.
And here is the full dish for this week’s Cooking Eorzea! By the time this dish was done, it was almost noon and it was in the 90s. The sun glare messed with the protective sleeves of the Triple Triad cards, unfortunately, but they are authentic from the 2016 FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Fanfest. I thought it was fairly appropriate to use, seeing as this Battered Fish recipe is one that would be served at the Drowning Wench, that Triple Triad is a game that is played there, and the fact that this week’s Cooking Eorzea column will be going out on the first day of this year’s Fanfest!
The dish itself was absolutely fantastic. The cod was cooked through perfectly, and the batter was definitely flavorful and perfectly crispy. I loved how the lemon slices, when squeezed out, really added another dimension of citrus to the fish. The French fries were also perfectly crispy and fluffy throughout. The seasoning was amazing, and it had a soft afterburn sensation once you ate them. Most surprisingly, I could taste the Amber Ale in the batter itself. I thought that the seasonings would cause it to lose its flavor, but it definitely did not. This was a beer-battered fish recipe that truly worked.
The Battered Fish was a very, very good dish that I was very happy to have made and that I would recommend for anyone else to create if they can.
Afterword
If I was to make Battered Fish again, I would probably have to have a dedicated outside heating apparatus to heat the oil up much quicker. It was beyond annoying that it took four hours to make this week’s Cooking Eorzea dish, and the majority of that time was spent heating up the peanut oil to the necessary temperature. I wouldn’t alter the dish itself otherwise, honestly. It was just so great to eat.
Sooooo…’thank yous’. As always, I want to thank Victoria Rosenthal for writing The Ultimate FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Cookbook. I also want to thank the staff over at Insight Editions for giving me permission to use the photos from their book to show how these recipes are actually supposed to look. Furthermore, I owe Brandon Rose a special thanks for creating the logo for this series on short notice. You should check him and his works out over on Twitter.
Finally, I want to thank both Hiromichi Tanaka and Naoki Yoshida for producing FINAL FANTASY XIV Online in both iterations of the game. By the time that this week’s Cooking Eorzea column goes live, I will be covering this FINAL FANTASY XIV FAN FESTIVAL 2023-2024 in Las Vegas on behalf of oprainfall, and I will be surrounding myself in everything Eorzea.
Three Weeks From Now
There will be no column next Friday or the Friday after, as I will be attending FINAL FANTASY XIV FAN FESTIVAL 2023-2024 and then Evolution Championship Series the following weekend. Yep, I am spending two weekends in a row in Las Vegas!
Once I am back, I will be making the Boscaiola recipe though, so please look forward to it!
Are you attending FINAL FANTASY XIV FAN FESTIVAL 2023-2024? What do you hope will be announced at the fan convention?
Let us know in the comments below!
