Request: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Yeto’s Soup

I had planned on doing this soup for a while so when I got a number of requests through for anything from Zelda I thought this seasonal soup would fit in nicely. Also since most of us will be taking part in my favourite activity of pumpkin carving next week it would be useful to have a pumpkin based recipe. I have fond memories of Twilight Princess, it felt a lot more traditional than incarnations such as Wind Waker, although I must admit my favourite Zelda is actually Links Awakening (controversial). Yeto’s Soup comes from Yeto, a rather cuddly looking yeti, in the Snowpeak Ruins. His wife, Yeta, is very sick but you can help by giving Yeto the ingredients for his healing soup. It goes through three stages of strength – a Reekfish creates a Simple Soup, adding an Ordon Pumpkin makes Good Soup and finally adding Ordon Goats Cheese makes it a Superb Soup that restores eight hearts. Obviously I’m going for the full eight heart Superb Soup here.

This recipe serves 3-4.

What you will need:

A large pot, grater, baking tray, frying pan, baking tray, blender or hand blender.

For the Soup:

50g / ¼ Cup Butter

300g / 0.7lbs Pumpkin (Skinned and Choppped)

200g / 0.5lbs Sweet Potato (Skinned and Chopped)

2 Shallots (Chopped)

1 Small Clove Garlic

½ Teaspoon Grated Ginger

500ml / 2 Cups Vegetable/Chicken Stock

1-2 Tablespoons Goats Cheese

70 ml / ½ Cup Cream

75g / ½ Cup Smoked Haddock

75g / ½ Cup Pollock

Salt & Pepper

For the Pumpkin Garnish:

3 Pumpkin Wedges

1 Tablespoon Butter

Salt & Pepper

½ Teaspoon Dried Chilli Flakes

For the Potato Croutons:

Olive Oil

1 Medium Potato

Salt & Pepper

For the Carrot Tops:

5 Small carrots (Stalks On)

1 Tablespoon Butter

Preparing the Soup:

1. In a large pot on a medium heat melt the butter. Add the shallots, garlic and ginger and cook until soft. Add the pumpkin and sweet potato chunks and stir well, allowing to cook for another 10 minutes.
2. Pour in the vegetable/chicken stock, bring to the boil and simmer until the pumpkin and sweet potato has cooked through. Once cooked transfer to a clean bowl and blend (or use a blender). Return the soup to a clean pot, if it’s too thick then slowly add more vegetable stock until the desired texture is achieved. Set the soup aside while you prepare the garnishes.

Making the Pumpkin Slices:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/392F. Chop the pumpkin wedges into chunks and lay them onto a baking tray, cover with the butter, season and add the chilli flakes. Cook until soft and golden.

Making the Potato Croutons:

1. Dice the potato into small cubes and heat some olive oil in a frying pan on a medium heat. Add the potatoes and season to taste, fry until crisp and golden brown.

Making the Carrot Tops:

1. Heat the butter in a frying pan on a medium heat. Add the carrots and allow to cook until slightly soft.

Finishing the Soup:

1. In a warm frying pan add a little olive oil and heat. Add the smoked haddock and pollock and fry for 1 minute. Pour in the cream and season with salt and pepper, allow the fish to cook for about 5 minutes in the cream.
2. Once the fish has cooked pour the cream mixture into the pumpkin soup, add the goats cheese and stir gently. Warm the soup through on a low heat so the goats cheese can melt.
3. Serve and garnish with the potato croutons, roast pumpkin slices and glazed carrot tops.

This is an interesting soup. I’ve never cooked with pumpkin or any type of gourd before, it’s not really as popular a thing to do here as it is in America (I still need to try pumpkin pie). There’s a nice balance of sweetness that’s cut by the sharpness of the goats cheese and smokiness of the fish – it is actually one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted. I was not expecting it to be! I originally wanted to use monkfish but I couldn’t source any so I went with fish traditionally used in fish pies. I think the mixture of the smoked and white fish creates an interesting flavour that might mimic an actual Reekfish (despite it being based on a type of salmon). Yeto was definitely on to something with this soup and if it’s hearty enough for the Snowpeak Ruins then it’s a winter winner for me - I can feel my hearts restoring as I type.

Like this? You might also enjoy the Pokémon - Poffins.

Don’t forget! Next week will be the Costume Quest Hallowe’en Special that you all voted for!

Gourmet Gaming Drinks Special

Well it was my birthday last weekend. I threw a party, invited some of my favourite people around, drank copious amounts and then everyone embarrassed themselves by playing Rockband, others gained new respects as the master of Dance Central and some became my enemies when they preformed a Fatality on me.

Unfortunately between sorting the party and being at the party I had no chance to make the gaming based cocktails I wanted to. The booze was there, wedrunkenlyhalf-heartedly attempted some creations (the act of shaking a shaker became very dangerous very quickly) and eventually we receded into simply serving drinks with glow sticks in them. How futuristic. 

These recipes make 1 drink each.

Nuka-Cola Quantum - Fallout 3:

1 Blue Glowstick

Soda Water

1m De Kuyper Blue Curacao

1m Spiced Rum

1m Amaretto

1m Cola-Bottle Infused Vodka

Infusing the Vodka:

1 Empty 250ml Bottle (with a cap)

250ml of Vodka

100g of Cola-Bottle Sweets

1. Fill the bottle with the vodka and add the cola-bottles.
2. Seal the bottle and leave to infuse for at least a day - the longer the better.
3. Strain, then refill the bottle with the cola vodka and seal.

Mix the spirits in a cocktail-shaker and shake, pour into the bottle, top up with soda water and garnish with the glowstick.

Lon-Lon Milk - Legend of Zelda:

2m Amaretto

1m Vodka

0.5m Hazelnut Coffee

1.5m Double Cream

1.5m Milk

Shake all the ingredients in a cocktail-shaker and serve over ice.

Adam and Eve - Bioshock:

1.5m Vodka

1.5m De Kuyper Blue Curacao

1m Lemonade

1m Tia Maria

Cranberry Juice

Drop of Red Food Colouring 

Mix the vodka, blue curacao and lemonade for an Adam and Tia Maria and cranberry for an Eve (I added a drop of red food colouring to give it a denser colour.)

Definitely worthy of the mid-week hang-over I’ll be suffering with tomorrow. Just don’t ingest any of that tempting florescent glow-stick juice. 

Like this? You might also enjoy the Diablo - Health Potion.