Roast Basilisk

 Welcome back, Dungeon Meshi Maniacs!  See, it stuck.  Maybe I should shorten it to DMM's?  That couldn't possibly ever come back to bite me.  But fan group names is not why you came back. It's time to get cooking dungeon style.  This week is the ROAST BASILISK!

 Yeah, that's a roasted chicken. It's going to be roasted chicken this week, guys.

Hey, HEY! Where are you going!?  I swear even though this is kind of an easy week there is plenty to talk about.  Remember that eating is only one part of the fun of Dungeon Meshi. The other part is a love of monsters!  So let's look at the "Monster Of The Week" (mental note, trademark that phrase).

It is the King of Snakes...the BASILISK!

I can hear you right now since I'm all hearing and all seeing.  You just said, "Wait a minute, Nih. That's a Cockatrice. You boob. You knobhead."  First off, hurtful.  And second off I thought the same thing! Chicken body, snake head, can turn people to stone with a look?  That's Cockatrice all the way...right? I mean, this is what a Basilisk looks like according to a famous tabletop role playing game.

Looks what I would call a King of Serpents...kinda. Kui-sensei is pretty thorough with the monster research so what gives. Using all my powers of Monsterology (which are vast!) I made a shocking discovery.  The Basilisk and the Cockatrice?  Yeah, they're the same creature!

Thank you, Senshi! Do you know how hard it is to research a creature whose name is flipped as the ancient writer seems fit?  From the Bible to Shakespeare both use Basilisk and Cocktrice interchangably over the years.  Both are King of the Serpents. Both can kill with a glance. Both are pretty flat out mean!

The key difference between the two seems to be how they are born.  You want a Basilisk?  Then a cockerel raises an egg laid by a snake or frog. You want a Cockatrice?  Then have a snake raise a chicken egg.  I was also able to find reference that you can get a Basilisk from an egg laid by a rooster.  Apparently you could make a lot of money selling a Basilisk egg to an alchemist so maybe it was a good idea to check if your rooster laid an egg each morning.

The best way to kill a Basilisk?  Weasels.  Seriously, even the smell of a weasel could kill a Basilisk.  it is still a serpent, after all.  No weasels on hand?  Thankfully they have the same downside any monster that uses a glare attack. Mirrored surfaces!  There was a legendary Basilisk below Warsaw, Poland that was killed when a regular dude went down armed with a mirror in front of his face.  The Basilisk also has the weakness of hearing a rooster crow.  If they hear a rooster crow they'll die by morning.  Rough.  Nobody said being a King would be simple.  

A fourth way to kill them is with a sword and axe, of course.

 Now that the Basilisk is dead and the people of Warsaw can sleep easy, what do you do with the body?  Thankfully this is the modern era and we can skip the important first step.

Yeah, no.  The chicken that I bought was even de-gibbleted.  As an aside, that kinda made me a little sad. Gibbletes are great! We don't eat enough ophal as a country.  Gibbletes gone leaves us with an empty cavity that needs to be filled.  I'll spare you photos of the inside of the empty chicken.  You can thank me later. 

So what does Senshi and crew stuff their Basilisk with?

Lots of medicinal herbs! Medicinal herbs that all look like actual herbs and vegetables. Lucky!  Let's take a look at that spread in real life!

What do we have:

• Mana Herb=Parsnip
• Deparalysis Herb=Garlic
• Depetrification Herb=Ginger
• Burn Herb=Spring Onions
• Good Medicinal Herb=Bok Choy
• Medicinal Herb=Sage
• Antitoxin Herb=Carrot

Granted it's pretty obvious that Mana Herb is Ginseng. But options for ginseng are limited.  I could buy some but good night...that is one expensive root!  Which leaves the second option. Go into the hills and try to find some ginseng.  This is unfortunately a great way to get shot. Even if it's "wild" ginseng there's a good chance someone else is claiming that root and will not hesitate to defend it. I really wish I was joking about this but I grew up in an area with ginseng and this happens.

I had also planned on doing a deep dive on how these herbs and vegetables could do what Senshi wanted them to but researching the medicinal properties of cooking gets squishy fast.  Someone has claimed every food can cure anything at some point.  It would get boring fast to say "technically they can all be used to heal a burn."

Let's stuff that bird!

Kind of amazing how much you can cram into a 3 pound chicken!  I also rubbed olive oil over the chick to help crisp it up and added some simple seasoning (salt/pepper).  I really want the aromatics to do the heavy lifting.  Unlike Senshi my bird is going into the oven.

 Look at the size of that thing!  I must have bought a Shetland Basilisk.  That at least means mine should cook faster. When cooking chicken the internal temp is what you are shooting for and the safest temp is 165 degrees.  I tried a little heat manipulation to hope and avoid drying it out.  Start at 420 degrees and lower it to 350 after 15 minutes and let it cook until done.  Roughly an hour later this was my reward.

Pretty! And it tasted pretty too ^^.  Some of the inner parts really absorbed those aromatic flavors.

You're too kind, Marcille. This one turned out great!  Not something I'll do every month but a prefect once in a while treat.  And I plan on playing around with aromatics.  That could be a lot of fun!  So that's three dishes down.  Thanks again for joining me and check back next week.  I'm thinking of updating weekly!  I'll be doing dishes every other week but the off weeks I'd like to just talk about the chapter. Should be fun so I hope to see you then!