Here we are, another nondescript savory dish. Next week I’m doing a dessert, though.

The Dish: Daphnel Stew

Minced poultry and onions boiled with salt. The simple recipe lets high-quality ingredients speak for themselves. Ingredients include Poultry and Onion.

The Research: What’s this? Easy-to-obtain, clear ingredients? Actual cooking instructions? No hard-to-find stuff? Good lord, it’s the holy grail of fictional recipes!

Okay, so I looked at the recipe in-game. It’s clear this is a kind of creamy stew, with…I’m just gonna assume potatoes. It’s clear that something is floating in there, and the only other options are onions (gross), or chicken, but in ball form (ewwwwwwww). There are also whole green onions, which you will realize as not a thing people do. So with our modifications (chopping the taters and chopping the green onions), it’s stew time, baby.

The Method: I’m sticking as close to the text (and image) as possible. That means that with two exceptions, it’s just chicken, salt, onion, potato, and whatever I choose to use to build the liquid portion of my stew. That also means chopping. Lots and lots of chopping. I start by chopping the chicken thighs – about 2.5 pounds worth – into bite-sized pieces. Once achieved, I toss them with some kosher salt (I would ordinarily use black pepper as well, but I’m choosing to literally interpret the rules) and store them in a bag for refrigeration.

While they chill out in their salt, the next order is to chop up some potatoes. I know they’re apparently whole in the game, but c’mon, it’s a soup, you want things to be bite-sized. Anyway, give those the salt treatment as well, then chop up some green onions. Now it’s cooking time!

In an olive oiled pot (a little olive oil being the first exception to our rule…you gotta grease the pan a little!), we cook our chicken thighs until done. Skim those out using a slotted spoon, making sure to leave the rendered fat behind, which we’re gonna put to use…right now. Drop in about half a diced white onion (I use pre-diced, you can dice your own if you so choose) and sauté it in all that wonderful chicken fat. Once the onion chunks are good and soft, add an appropriate amount of flour to form a roux, which will thicken your stew. It’s true, that’s what’ll happen to you.

Next, we pour in a 32-ounce container of chicken stock, a couple of glugs of dry white wine, a solid amount of half and half, and a couple pinches of MSG (exception 2 to our rule but very welcome). Give all of that a stir, then we drop in the potatoes and green onions. Bring it to a boil and cook until the potatoes are fork-tender, then drop the chicken in and cook for a few minutes and…it’s ready!

The Result: I was fully expecting to come out of this going “well, it was okay, but it was missing…carrots, various aromatics, and other miscellanea that stews and soups need!” But I’ve gotta say, despite the minimalist recipe, this one was flat-out delicious. There were relatively few ingredients, it was easy, and it was really good.