Today's dish, the first to appear on Hell Yeah I Can Cook, is an old stand-by I refer to as the 'Sea-food Jamble'. I first Came across this dish on an excursion into the vast system of tunnels beneath the city of Leaf Rapids Manitoba.
I had spent numerous hours spelunking and exploring, hearing rumors of a powerful secret hidden deep beneath the town. The Deeper I went into the earth, the more believable the rumors became. Surrounded by darkness, seeing only within the 6 foot radius of the light from my lantern, I could feel an presence almost otherworldly in nature following my every move. I almost turned back as slowly my movements became less and less confident, fear creeping into my bones.
My tenacity saw me through though! After the incredible struggle to overcome my fear, and force myself onward, the floor giving way beneath me increased my progress ten fold.
After what I can only assume were a few hours unconscious (Luckily I was wearing my Pith Helmet!) I awoke to find something that to this day can only be describe was one of the top fifty most incredible things I have ever seen. Well, it can also be described as an underground cathedral peopled entirely by the re-animated corpses of monks covered in a bio-luminescent fungus. I had been laid on the altar of the cathedral while the monks were seemingly tending to my wounds. They silently went about their tasks while I struggled to clear the fog from my head and ensure that what I was witnessing was actually happening. Slowly, as my wits returned I began to become more aware of the Monks' methods. The familiar smells of Chili peppers and Cilantro wafted to my nose, and I noted that I was being restrained.
That is when I saw the Cave-Prawns.
A Cave-Prawn, it turns out, is a great and terrible beast. Roughly 18 times the size of a regular prawn, covered in spikes as sharp as Razors. The Monks were herding them into the Cathedral much like cattle, slowly lining them along the pews. A monk dressed slightly different from the others, whom I assumed was the head of the fungal monastery, walked among the prawns and was inspecting each for any imperfections. The brightness of its luminescence, the twitching of its feelers, and the toughness of its shell were all subjects of scrutiny. Soon Two had been chosen and brought to the altar on which I was held. The head monk then took out a large hooked blade from somewhere beyond my field of vision, and began to flay and skin the beasts.
Much to my surprise There were smaller creatures living within, and apparently feeding off of the Prawns. Smaller shelled beasts that acted as extra protection to the prawns, they too were removed and prepared. The head monk, now quite clearly the cook of the bunch, set about silently directing the others in fetching numerous other powders and substances that were added into a massive Cauldron, heated by unnatural purple flames. I was then overpowered by the smells akin to Onions, Garlic, and Tomatoes, with faint whiff of what I swear must of been cumin.
It was when I saw the Cook monk preparing sausage skins out of a thin malleable fungus and looking at me from the sockets of his chipped and crusted skull that I had finally had enough. Luckily this was not my first (nor my last) encounter with glowing-subterranean-mind-control-fungus and knew the specific frequency to whistle to render it powerless for the span of 8 minutes.
Letting out a long high twoot I was able to wriggle free of my now incapacitated captors. Checking my person to make sure I still had my belongings, I found my adventure backpack laying behind the altar. I quickly pulled out one of my specimen jars (thankfully unbroken) and wrenched the head off of the cook monk to store for future investigation. Finally being able to see the Sepulcher in its full glory I was able to make out a series of symbols inlayed into the stained glass windows. Quickly deducing that they were in fact ingredients to making the dish I was about to belong to, I orated the recipe into my recorded and departed post haste.
Although I have had to make some certain adjustments to my Seafood Jamble (namely the lack of a human sacrifice) the majority of the ingredients are similar enough as to allow for a mighty tasty dish!
