Dalamud has been on my mind a lot for the past few months.
If you didn’t play FINAL FANTASY XIV Online 1.0, then let me briefly fill you in on what happened. In short, during the Seventh Umbral Era, the smaller of the moons that orbited the precious little star that Eorzea resided upon became a weapon used by the White Raven of the Garlean Empire in his attempt to eradicate Eorzea. The Seventh Verse of the Divine Chronicles by Mezaya Thousand Eyes, prophesized across the land by the heretic Urianger, announced the Seventh Umbral Era and that a new disaster would visit the world. No matter how hard the citizens of Eorzea struggled and fought, they could not stop fate from happening. Dalamud, this smaller moon, fell and not even the Twelve could stop Bahamut from escaping inside of it and laying waste to everything.
2024 was a very difficult year for me. Between breaking my leg and the subsequent difficult recovery, the geopolitical shifts, drifting away from friends that I used to be so close to, missing the PGA Championship, and having to all but put my life on pause because of all of this, it didn’t help any that Cooking Eorzea had to go on hiatus too.
This week’s dish, Imam Bayildi, requires Italian eggplant. If you’re like me, and not familiar with the different types of eggplants, then just know that Italian eggplant is definitely a much rarer (at least where I live) type of eggplant. As in, I could not buy it anywhere nearby me, I could not get it shipped to me (and believe me, I TRIED), and I even tried to purchase it from a number of local Italian restaurants with no success. And of course, one of the founding tenets behind Cooking Eorzea is that I would not substitute ingredients. So, months passed, despite me continually searching and DESPERATELY trying to find some that I could use to make this dish.
It got to the point where I was seriously considering buying seeds, planting them myself, and growing them.
This past weekend, one of the smaller groceries in Oakland actually had some in stock. I ended up spending my Monday going a few hours away by Greyhound to that city and buying 12 of them to make sure I had enough good Italian eggplants in order to make this week’s dish happen. I brought ice packs with me to make sure the Italian eggplants wouldn’t go bad on the trip back home, and I ended up giving the extras away to someone who wanted them to cook with on their own – it turns out they’ve never heard of Italian eggplants, either.
So, what does this have to do with Dalamud?
After the moon fell, Eorzea gradually, slowly, got their world back together. It didn’t look the same as before, of course, but it was in some ways – a lot of ways – it was better before the moon fell.
This week’s Cooking Eorzea column is number 50 for me, and it is the first recipe attempt by me for 2025. I have so much faith that this year will be better than last year, even if everything is still bearing the scars and hurt and loss from the prior year. All I can do is push forward, keep fighting, and keep working to make each day better than the day before it. And writing this weekly column, showing people that even someone who has no cooking skills beyond a cookbook and YouTube, is a small piece of making that happen. That’s why I am using the acrylic block from FINAL FANTASY XIV 1.0 for this week’s decoration – it is a reminder of the past, which certainly cannot be forgotten, but how we can push past it for the future.
If you’ve missed an installment of Cooking Eorzea, you can check out all the prior recipes here.
Recipe of the Week
This week’s Cooking Eorzea dish is Imam Bayildi, from the Gyr Abania region!
This is the 51st dish in The Official FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Cookbook, and it is rated ‘Medium’ in difficulty. This is also truly a vegetarian dish – as there are no meat products used to make it!
I have never eaten Italian eggplant before, and I have never used a mortar and pestle before. I am therefore eager to try out a new experience in cooking for the first time!
Here is what Imam Bayildi is supposed to look like:
Featured Ingredient of the Week
There was never any doubt about what my featured ingredient of the week would be for Imam Bayildi: Italian Eggplant. Italian eggplants have a lot of Vitamin C in them, and they tend to be longer and cylindrical. What makes these different from regular eggplants is that they aren’t as bulbous, and they are not as bitter as regular ones are. The flesh becomes more tender as they are cooked, too.
It also doesn’t hurt that they are nearly impossible for me to find where I live, and I had to take a Greyhound two-plus hours away to another city to get my hands on some!
My Cooking Attempt
Ingredients, ingredients, ingredients. Without these ingredients, there is no Cooking Eorzea and no Imam Bayildi:
The first thing I did, as always, was slice up and prep my vegetables and herbs. First, I peeled and chopped up the shallots and carrots. I knew that it had been a long time since I had worked with shallots…but it was apparently long enough that I had to take a solid ‘cry break’ after I finished slicing them up, since they were THAT potently strong.
I then diced up the tomato and chopped the garlic after peeling it and using the TikTok hack to shake it inside of a container to loosen up the shelling. Both of these were fairly uneventful.
Setting all of that aside, I minced up some parsley. I am good enough at estimating herbs now that I minced up almost exactly one-fourth of a cup!
Because I could not reliably buy ground pink peppercorn online or in stores, that meant I would have to grind it myself. I was going to just use a pepper grinder, but I read online that pink peppercorn is too soft for that. So I went for the next best thing: a mortar and pestle. I have never used one before, and so this was a unique new experience for me! It took a while, but I managed to grind the pink peppercorn down.
This is what it looks like when it is fully ground down!
At this point, I preheated the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
While the oven was preheating, I got out my Italian eggplants. I sliced each one lengthwise quite deeply, but only barely not enough to cut through all the way. The goal was to make sure that it would open up like a wedge.
I then scooped out a bit of the middle with a spoon from each half of the Italian eggplant to make sure that there would be room for the ‘stuffing’ I was about to make.
Once that was all done, I rubbed the Italian eggplants down with salt and I let them sit for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, I took a paper towel and used it to wipe off all the salt and to dry off the Italian eggplants.
Setting the Italian eggplants to the side for a moment, I pulled out a small bowl and blended together the olive oil, dried thyme, and pepper into a suspended liquid.
I rubbed the Italian eggplants down with the created liquid and then placed each Italian eggplant onto a baking sheet that was covered up with a piece of parchment paper.
I then placed the entire tray into the oven for a half-hour so that the Italian eggplants could soften up.
Once the timer went off, I pulled each soft Italian eggplant off of the tray, and I placed them into the colander so that any excess liquid could drain off for about 15 minutes.
Pulling out my pan, I set the stovetop to medium-high and then added in olive oil when it was ready.
I added in the chopped shallots and let them cook for five minutes. I then added in the chopped carrots and chopped garlic, and I let all that cook for a further five minutes.
While the carrots and garlic were being cooked, I reset the oven to preheat for 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
At this point, I added in the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, salt, dried thyme, ground pink peppercorns, and minced parsley.
After stirring all of these ingredients together, I lowered the temperature to simmer and then let it all cook for a further 15 minutes.
At this point, I laid out the Italian eggplants on a new sheet of parchment paper, and I stuffed each Italian eggplant with the blended filling. I ended up not having QUITE enough for the very last Italian eggplant to be fully stuffed, though. I am putting that down to picking up two larger-than-the-others Italian eggplants to use, and I guess the recipe wasn’t imagined to accommodate that size difference.
I then placed the stuffed Italian eggplants into the oven for a further 20 minutes.
And here is the final dish for this week’s Cooking Eorzea column!
This was the first time I’ve ever had Imam Bayildi, and what struck me the most about eating it was how little flavor the Italian eggplant had by itself. Instead, it pulled its flavor from the stuffing that was crammed into it. The stuffing was DELICIOUS, all said and done, though. The pink peppercorn and the thyme really popped and cut through all the vegetables the stuffing had in it.
I ended up eating one-and-a-half Italian eggplants, and then I ate all of the stuffing by itself. It was that simply well-seasoned and delicious, and I couldn’t get enough of it. In fact, I would probably make and serve the stuffing by itself in the future to people, as I thought it was simply good enough to eat all by its lonesome.
Afterword
If I was to make Imam Bayildi again, I would definitely make more stuffing so that each Italian eggplant could have its own proper share of stuffing to it. Otherwise, this was a real simple dish to make, and it turned out quite well!
Even though it’s been a while since I’ve done a Cooking Eorzea entry, I would be absolutely remiss if I didn’t thank the people who make this column series possible. First, 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- and for being super patient with me about how slow this column has been recently. 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 X.
Finally, I want to thank both Hiromichi Tanaka and Naoki Yoshida for producing FINAL FANTASY XIV Online in both iterations of the game. We are in yet another year of exploring Eorzea, and this game has no signs of stopping or slowing down anytime soon.
Next Week
Next week’s Cooking Eorzea dish will be Mashed Pototoes from the Thanalan region!
And yes, that column is definitely happening. I’ve already verified that I can purchase all the ingredients easily and locally.
So please come back then to see how that recipe attempt goes!
Let us know in the comments below!
