Shrimp Tarsis

Join me as I make Shrimp Tarsis – From Tika’s Cookbook for the first time! This is a recipe from Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home sourcebook, originally released in 1987. The recipes are compiled by Tika Waylan Majere. You can buy Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home here: https://amzn.to/3FOuL2J

From Tika’s Cookbook

“This is what comes of trusting a kender’s map.”
—Flint, in Tarsis.

After the Cataclysm, which left the seaport of
Tarsis landlocked, many favorite recipes required
some minor conversions. Shrimp Tarsis is a specialty
of the Red Dragon Inn.

1 pound turkey breast
1 chopped scallion
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon dill
5 tablespoons butter
¾ cup very dry wine
1 ½ cups milk
3 cups cooked noodles

Slice turkey breast into approximately ¼-inch
thick by 1-inch round medallions.
Saute in 2 tablespoons of butter over medium
heat until white with no trace of pink. Add wine
and shallot; simmer three minutes.

Melt remaining 3 tablespoons of butter in separate
pan and mix with flour. Bring milk to boil; remove
it from heat and pour immediately into
flour/butter mixture. Stir briskly with whisk until
sauce is thick and smooth. Add sauce and dill to
turkey mixture; warm over low heat five more
minutes, stirring constantly.
Serve over a bed of cooked noodles. Makes 3
to 4 servings.

Transcript

Cold Open

This would be great if turkey wasn’t the most tasteless meat on Krynn.

Intro

Today I am making Shrimp Tarsis from Tika’s Cookbook in Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home. If you have made this recipe, share your thoughts in the comments below!

Discussion

It turned out I had everything for this recipe except the most important parts, the turkey breast and the white wine. I am a red wine drinker so it took a moment at the liquor store to land on Banshee 2020 Sauvignon Blanc. After a quick hop to the grocery store, I opted for a hickory smoked, pre-cooked turkey breast, rather than a whole raw bird. I couldn’t find any turkey breast that was uncooked. When I assembled the ingredients for this hero shot, I had just over one pound turkey breast, one chopped scallion, which is really a green onion and definitely not the shallot mentioned in the directions. Sometimes I don’t think anyone proofreads these recipes. Three-tablespoons flour, one teaspoon dill, five tablespoons butter, three-fourths cup very dry white wine, one and one-half cups milk and three cups cooked noodles. I opted for fettuccine for the broad base to capture the sauce.

I started with the turkey, slicing it into one-fourth-ish thick slices, then cutting those into one-ish wide pieces. If I wanted to go the distance and make the medallion shapes I would’ve wasted the scraps of the turkey, so oblong shapes it is. Then I prepped the scallion, chopping it and adding the butter to my cast iron pan. Once melted, I added the turkey and since it was already cooked, I just kept it on medium heat until it got some color. Once that was done, I added the wine and scallion, mixing it together thoroughly. Now, the heat takes the alcohol out of the sauce, so if you are a white wine drinker, you can always have a glass with your meal. Once that simmers you can move onto the sauce.

I melted the three remaining tablespoons of butter in a small pan, then added the flour, mixing it till it was smooth. Then I heated the milk to a boil and immediately mixed it into the flour mixture, whisking it till thick and smooth. Then I added the sauce and dill to the turkey and warmed it on low heat, stirring constantly for five minutes. This coats the tukey and mixes in the wine. All you have left to do is cook the noodles. I added a healthy amount of salt and a drop of olive oil to the water because that’s how you do, then once cooked to taste, rinse the noodles in warm water.

You serve the turkey mixture and sauce on top of a bed of noodles and pair it with a glass of the Sauvignon Blanc. We added a buttered slice of my wifes homemade bread and it was a pretty good meal. It would have been infinitely better with actual shrimp rather than the tasteless turkey. Everyone in my family, separately I might add, asked if it was spam…. That’s not a good thing, lol. If it weren’t for the hickory flavor of the turkey, it could have been any other meat substitute. Go with shrimp and forget the tongue in cheek lore of the recipe.