Lord of the Rings-Inspired Recipes with Chef Frank and Emily

Hey fellowship of the friends! Today I'm joined by Chef Frank Proto of @ProtoCookswithChefFrank to make our (not at all officially sanctioned) versions of lembas and a tart based on the hobbits' feathertop fry-up. We're both big fans of LOTR (and many other fantasy and sci-fi franchises) and thought it'd be fun to put our own spin on some recipes inspired by the books and movies.
Scroll down for Frank's lembas bread recipe and my tart recipe!
Huge thanks to the awesome production team that made this possible:
Producer: Isabel Alcántara
Director of Photography: Colin Jakubczyk
Locations Manager: Karen Proto
Chief Executive Production Assistant: Dan Roboff
Find us on social media:
Frank: / protocooks
Emily: / emilyslamduncan
Like our shirts? I'm wearing Frank's merch, which you can get here: chef-frank-protocooks-2.creat...
And he's wearing mine, which is available here: my-store-ced2f3.creator-sprin...
Thanks for watching and let us know if you want more like this (not that you have much of a choice)!
Recipes:
Weathertop Bacon, Tomato, and Sausage Tarts
NOTE: You can get a downloadable/printable version of this recipe right here: slamduncan.substack.com/p/lot...
Ingredients:
Dough:
Pie dough (I'll bring)
Flour for dusting
Tomato jam:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup red onion, diced
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cumin seeds
3 cups grape tomatoes, cut in half
salt & pepper to taste
1-2 Tbsp water (as needed)
2 tsp brown sugar
4 tsp apple cider vinegar
Filling:
4 oz pancetta
1 lb hot Italian sausage, removed from casings
18 pieces aged white cheddar or gruyere (roughly 1 inch square, 1/4 inch thick)
Equipment:
Sauce pot
Frying pan
Rolling pin
Cookie cutter or round glass
Muffin pan
Process:
- Preheat oven to 375 F
- Roll out dough, cut out and form into tart shells (in greased muffin pan), place in fridge
- Make tomato jam (in a sauce pot: cook onion in oil with a little salt until softened, then add spices, then tomatoes, cook until softened and starting to boil/reduce, add sugar and vinegar, bring to a boil then simmer 5 minutes, set aside to cool)
- Meanwhile, render pancetta, remove from pan and set aside (bowl lined with paper towel)
- Brown sausage in pancetta fat, remove from pan with slotted spoon and set aside
- Assemble tarts: tomato jam on bottom, pancetta and sausage in middle, cheese on top
- Bake 15-20 minutes, until tart shell is golden brown and cheese is melted
- Let cool 10 minutes before removing from tin and enjoy!
Lembas Recipe
Ingredients:
115 grams (1/2 cup or 1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
100 grams (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
45 grams (1/4 cup) brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
2 teaspoons honey
175 grams (1 and 1/4 cup) all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
120 grams (3/4 cup) cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt
Equipment:
Stand mixer or handheld beaters
Sheet pan
Process:
- Cream butter & both sugars
- Add eggs, vanilla & honey
- Whisk together all of the dry ingredients
- Add dry ingredients to the butter mixture
- Blend well
- Scoop cookie to 2-3 oz
- Flatten a little
- Bake at 350 F until golden brown on the edges and set in the middle

[@GeriatricMillennialGamerDude]

Frank and Emily is always my favorite colab (on all of KZbin). You guys make such a great team. I love that you're also geeks and we are getting more of that content. Please feel free to make this a massive series.

[@Marshe.Valias]

Personally I love that you're each wearing a shirt that describes the other, it's friggin great xD

[@EmilyDuncan]

hahaha thanks for noticing!

[@katestewart-taylor9736]

Watching you all is like sitting down with my favorite friends/family and enjoying them interacting with each other. It makes my heart so happy

[@EmilyDuncan]

I love that!! Thanks for watching 🤗

[@peterschutzek325]

“Instead of a dark ruler, you would have a queen; Not dark, but beautiful and horrific to look at in the morning, sweet as the ketchup, stronger than the foundations of the earth. Everyone will love me and despair!

[@EmilyDuncan]

😂😂😂

[@Paul-ie1xp]

That thumbnail is a work of art!

[@EmilyDuncan]

THANK YOU!!

[@thweaver]

This was fantastic! I host a Lord of the Rings marathon every November and will absolutely be cooking these for everyone this year -- thanks Emily and Frank!

[@EmilyDuncan]

yes!! yay!! I have a couple other LOTR recipes on my blog from my last marathon if you want *even more*: slamduncan.substack.com/p/lotr-marathon-menu-special-edition

[@thweaver]

@@EmilyDuncan Amazing!! Thank you for putting these recipes together!

[@smellslikeupdog80]

I love the screen chemistry both of you share nerding about! Proto-Foodie and fiction-head, and I want more in this series! This is great!

[@EmilyDuncan]

Yay!!

[@daroboff]

This is the best video of all time! PLEASE keep making delicious food from my favorite movies!!!!

[@EmilyDuncan]

Guess we’ll have to do Talladega Nights, then 😂

[@joshuajohnson2216]

Great work guys👍👍

[@chichibangbang3667]

Those are snacks worthy of a second breakfast

[@farronroboff255]

Both recipes look so good. Thank you guys. AND I want to second the Star Trek suggestion!

[@the-chow-hall]

OMG Emily this was everything I didn't know I needed in my life right now! It makes me so happy to know that you and Frank are both fellow nerds. With the LOTR music in the background, this made me smile so much, making me remember how much I loved LOTR and bringing me back to a better time. Please keep doing these! Not just LOTR but other fantasy and sci-fi franchises as well, I think you guys can have a lot of fun putting these episodes together and these would help inspire me to start creating again.

[@EmilyDuncan]

Aww YAY!!

[@lindafreeman7030]

This makes so incredibly happy!

[@EmilyDuncan]

Yay!! 🥳

[@rickcasedrinksbud]

A great episode ❤

[@robertneild3772]

Bring it on! More hobbit food!

[@serisothikos]

These look really neat! If we're talking LotR, when I was a kid I really wanted to try Ent-draught because I wanted to get tall. As an adult, that sounds like a fun addition to cocktail hour. Something botanical! edit: As Frank is talking about corn cookies I am thinking very fondly about the one I got from Schmackary's on Friday. I miss it. It was delicious.

[@ericthompson3982]

I always end up having to eat similar foods to the movies I'm watching. I can't help it. When i get back into my house, I am totally making these.

[@EmilyDuncan]

The power of suggestion is strong!

[@ericthompson3982]

@@EmilyDuncan Truth! I'm still waiting for my house to be rebuilt after a fire, though, and as I absolutely am a hobbit, I plan to have a very hobbitish party when I get back in. Please thank Frank for the Lembas ideas!

[@martinschulz326]

And again nerdy. I love it.

[@martinschulz326]

One Video to rule them all, One Video to find them, One Video to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

[@EmilyDuncan]

doo-doooo do-do-do-do-doo-dooo

[@greywolf065]

Yes do Talladega Nights.. ❤

[@iAvivB]

The dishes look good 👍🏻 It would be nice if we could see how it was in the movie.. just for a reminder 😊

[@terichewbaccazulu5908]

I love that you two are friends :)

[@EmilyDuncan]

:) :) :)

[@TheIllyrianRTW]

I'm no chef, but I'm imagining adding some walnuts to those "lembas" and it being very nice

[@atamanen]

I would love more LOTR recipes if you decide to circle back 😋 this was a wonderful video!!!

[@EmilyDuncan]

So glad you liked it!!

[@matreames]

I love this idea. More Nerdy Foods please

[@EmilyDuncan]

absoLUTEly!! :D

[@isabelisa116]

GROND GROND GROND

[@EmilyDuncan]

GROND GROND GROND

[@spolarbearful]

yass please more like this!

[@VerhoevenSimon]

I love these collaborations, I hope you do some more of them.

[@EmilyDuncan]

Thanks!!

[@Magdalenna312]

Chef Frank and Emily doing LotR inspired food?! A mother's day gift come early!

[@alvincura]

I would be really curious how you guys would make leaf wrappings for the bread.

[@EmilyDuncan]

Behind the scenes, we talked about banana leaves! I think bamboo or fig leaves would also be a great choice

[@yelljal2764]

PO•TA•TOES!

[@EmilyDuncan]

Mash ‘em, boil ‘em, put ‘em in a stew!

[@goesman81]

Great Episode you Two i would love more lord of the rings stuff :) i also want to drop a snipped of inspiration there is a whole Hobbit Cookbook out there (at least its available here in germany) with loads of great recipes for hardy to sweet. And also toward Frank " a Song of Ice and Fire" (or Game of Thrones) has tons of "Regional" Foods in it From a bowl of Brown from the Poor in Kingslanding to exotic dishes of Dorn :) just for inspiration :)

[@EmilyDuncan]

Good intel, thanks for sharing! 😄

[@MichaelOKC]

Correction to your note about honey. Honey is Very Much cannon as Beorn served Honeycakes to Bilbo and Thorin's company of Dwarves in The Hobbit.

[@EmilyDuncan]

Honey is canon in general, absolutely, but it’s not a known ingredient in lembas, is what I meant! Though hard to imagine the elves refining sugar, right? (the only ingredient I could find in any of the books was corn, and that was in The Peoples of Middle Earth)

[@LilT2o00]

aaah emily and frank. love you both. Hope you are having a lovely day. I watch you for your personality btw Emily i'm a level 0 chef i can't do anything not in an air fryers and wendy's is 2 mins walking distance from my house lmao; they're my chef

[@EmilyDuncan]

hahah well I’m living proof that you too could end up learning to cook with enough peer pressure from internet strangers

[@PatrickRMcCoy]

Really enjoyed the video! But one small, nerdy note: when Tolkien used the word "corn", he used it in the British sense of "any grain", such as wheat or barley. He almost certainly did not mean maize.

[@EmilyDuncan]

Ok yes I also read this on the LOTR wiki but decided to ignore it because this made a damn fine cookie haha

[@garryhammond3117]

You guys are too funny! Will you be eating frogs for your Star Wars video? - I hope so - lol - Cheers!

[@EmilyDuncan]

Hahah hmm there’s an idea 😂

[@Callithyia]

PS. Y'all remember the food descriptions in Redwall? Future topic?

[@EmilyDuncan]

Oooh good one!!

[@rudolfpunt3286]

More!

[@EmilyDuncan]

heck yeahhh

[@Kalizal]

I wonder how the Hobbit's tarts would turn out if you used Frank's bacon jam, tomatoes, and cheese.

[@EmilyDuncan]

hmmm color me intrigued!!

[@BabyMakR]

Do Star Trek. Would love to see some Klingon Dishes. Maybe even some of Nelix's cuisine?

[@EmilyDuncan]

YES love Star Trek, would love to replicate (hehe) some dishes from the various series

[@martinschulz326]

​​@@EmilyDuncanDo you know leola root?

[@EmilyDuncan]

That’s Voyager! Probably the series I’ve seen the least, but still aware of it. What do you think a good dupe would be? Sunchoke?

[@BabyMakR]

@@EmilyDuncan There are some pretty good Gagh recipes online using various noodles and even some made out of gummy like snakes that are sweet. You can make a thin chocolate sauce to make it look genuine.

[@BabyMakR]

Actually have just found a savory recipe for Gagh using Chicken stock and Miso paste. The directions said to use straws, but I've done the sweet ones with molds off Amazon.

[@martinschulz326]

I always thought Lembas is some kind of hard tack.

[@EmilyDuncan]

Gimli thinks that too, until he takes a bite and declares it better than the honey cakes of the Beornings!

[@lindafreeman7030]

Max Miller of Tasting History has entered the chat (clack clack).

[@Machodave2020]

NF3-S Edit: Honestly, a possible acronym.

[@ashe1317]

now you have to make a stew with a brace of coneys and potatoes-- which i hear are excellent mashed, boiled, or stuck in such a stew 😆 just don't make any dishes that Smeagol would approve of; we don't want them raw and ~wriggling~

[@martinschulz326]

Well... yes. But not Eowyns stew. We like good food.

[@Callithyia]

Please stream your inevitable DnD game

[@EmilyDuncan]

😂😂 criminally accurate

[@MagicAl56]

You did nothing with PO-TA-TOES! It's a shame because you had so many options. You could have boiled them, mashed them or stuck them in a stew. Still, kinda jonesing for some lembas cookies right about now...