As we get later and later into The Ultimate FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Cookbook, I finally feel like it is ‘time’ to pull out some of the more unique items in my FINAL FANTASY XIV Online merchandise collection. I’ve been collecting random bits and pieces of this world that I Love, Eorzean Style, since 1.0 came out and I discovered that you could buy and import things from Japan. A lot of them I have had in mind for a particular recipe or two since Cooking Eorzea began. For example, I knew that when I made the Chocobo Cake, I would want to use something Chocobo-related as a decoration (even if I wasn’t quite sure what), and I was absolutely saving the Ryne and Gaia coaster for the Coffee Biscuits recipe.
Unlike some things that came out after this column started, I knew when I started Cooking Eorzea that I wanted to use my Taito Moogle Desk Clock for this week’s column. As a little background to it: this Taito-made clock was a prize you could win in Japan back in 2019. This Moogle clock also reminded a lot of the FINAL FANTASY XI Online Vana’diel Clock, but it only told the time on Earth instead of also in this game world I loved so much.
This clock is definitely one of the pieces I see the most in my home, even though it is smaller than you think it would be, as it sits in my living room on top of a glass display case. And honestly? I like having little touches of my interests in my day-to-day life where I can catch them out of the corner of my eye every so often.
It also makes my home unequivocally ‘my space’, and says that ‘yes, a Warrior of Light lives here.’
If you’ve missed an installment of Cooking Eorzea, you can check out all the prior recipes here.
Recipe of the Week
Kupo Nuts, while they do not have an in-game equivalent, would come from the Dravania Region of Eorzea. They are the 62nd recipe in the cookbook, and they are ranked as an ‘Easy’ recipe to make. This is not really a surprise, it it is ultimately just a bunch of ingredients thrown into a food processor, balled up, dunked in sesame seeds, and then chilled in the refrigerator. It is one of the easiest recipes, I think, to make in this whole series!
Here is what Kupo Nuts are supposed to look like:
Featured Ingredient of the Week
I didn’t know that black sesame seeds were a thing until I started to make this week’s Cooking Eorzea shopping list. I am so used to the white- or cream-colored ones that top hamburger buns. When I finally got some, I was surprised to find out how dark there are and they definitely taste a bit nuttier (in my opinion?) than white ones. Black sesame seeds are grown in China and Thailand, and yet they all hail from the same oilseed plants, and sesame seeds in general have been cultivated for thousands of years. It was ultimately due to my very real sudden discovery of black sesame seeds’ existence that they became my featured ingredient of the week!
My Cooking Attempt
This week’s Cooking Eorzea recipe had quite a few nuts in it:
I first added a fourth of a cup of shelled, raw, pistachios to the food processor.
I then added in chopped walnuts and whole cashews. I made sure everything had the shells removed, since I did not want to spend my evening shucking all of these nuts.
I then turned on my food processor and pulsed it until the nuts were all crumbled together. This took a lot longer than I expected.
I added in three-fourths of a cup of almond butter. It was incredibly sticky to work with, and I ended up having to use a spoon to help scoop as much of it out as possible.
I then added the honey and the maple syrup in on top, one after another.
I then added four-and-a-half ounces of ground flax seed. What that amounted to was me having to add an extra teaspoon on top of the rest in order to meet the recipe requirements!
I then added in the chia seeds and the flaky sea salt.
Finally, I added in the dried cherries and the dark chocolate chips.
Here is what all the ingredients look like stacked up inside the food processor bowl:
At this point, I started to use my food processor to blend it all together. After a while, the food processor started to smoke and it broke. I definitely panicked, as I was hoping it all broke down enough to make the end dish actually work. When I removed the top, I was glad to see the food processor had more or less finished doing its job.
After setting out a baking sheet with parchment paper on it, I started measuring out a tablespoon of the mixture at a time and then rolling it into a ball with my hand.
I would then place the ball onto the parchment paper.
I then added multiple tablespoons of white sesame seeds and black sesame seeds to a resealable bag.
I then shook the bag up to mix the two types of sesame seeds together.
I would add a ball to the bag, seal it up, and then shake it. As I shook it, the two types of sesame seeds would coat the ball. Once the ball was fully coated, I would pull it out and set it back on the parchment paper.
Once all the balls were done (coincidentally using up all of the sesame seeds!), I placed the whole baking sheet in the refrigerator for an hour to chill the Kupo Nuts.
And here is what the Kupo Nuts look like as a final dish for this week’s Cooking Eorzea!
When I first ate a Kupo Nut, I found it was incredibly nutty. That isn’t a surprise since there are multiple types of nuts in the recipe. What really caught me though was that there was definitely a tart cherry and salt flavor on the backend. It surprised me since I wasn’t expecting the cherries and the salt to be that powerful. I think the sesame seeds were more for decoration than anything else, but they definitely worked on giving the dish that gorgeous ‘pop.’ The overall dish wasn’t ‘smooth,’ as there were still definitely some nut chunks in there, but it wasn’t like there were whole pieces left over for me to discover.
The coaster is for Good King Moggle Mog XII from Eorzea Cafe. The clock, though, is a FINAL FANTASY XIV Online lottery prize from Taito in Japan. The clock works if you put a battery into it, and I have been holding onto it for a while now specifically to use for this dish!
Afterword
If I was to make these Kupo Nuts again, I would definitely get a better food processor that wouldn’t burn out. I got lucky it broke and combined everything as much as it did before burning out. I think with a higher quality food processor, I would have a much smoother overall dish. While it wasn’t bad at all, the larger nut chunks were definitely a surprise to randomly find inside the dish.
As always, I first want to thank Victoria Rosenthal for writing The Ultimate FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Cookbook and coming up with this recipe that doesn’t have an in-game equivilent! I also want to thank the staff over at Insight Editions for giving me permission to use the photos from their book, and for their continued support of Cooking Eorzea. I also owe Brandon Rose a ‘thank you’ for creating Cooking Eorzea‘s logo on the incredibly short notice I gave him. You should check him and his works out over on X.
And finally, I want to thank both Hiromichi Tanaka and Naoki Yoshida for producing FINAL FANTASY XIV Online in both iterations of the game. I keep digging up random pieces of merchandise and memories of Eorzea as I write this column and I go “what should I decorate with next? Is it finally time for me to use this?”, and it is thanks to both of them that this is possible.
Next Time
To be blunt: there is deep frying involved in making the next dessert called Papanasi.
I have had a very poor track record so far in deep frying dishes, and it is cold enough out that I cannot just turn to the grill to do it. I am going to have to figure out a way to deep fry the doughnuts that are part of this recipe without catching the whole place on fire. In other words: I am going to research this and figure out what to do and how to do it in the safest manner possible without burning the whole dish again. (Give me a couple weeks to figure it out.)
Do you have any advice on deep frying?
What is your favorite piece of FINAL FANTASY XIV Online merchandise?
Let us know in the comments below!
