Ingredients: (feeds 20 people)

5 eggplants, cut into 1 inch cubes
salt and pepper for seasoning
12 tablespoons of oil
10 rashers of streaky bacon, diced
5 celery sticks, chopped
1 hobbit, chopped into 3 inch pieces
20 large tomatoes, skinned and chopped
4 cloves garlic, sliced
10 teaspoons each of chopped marjoram and parsley
2 cups of Orc Yummy
3 3/4 cups of chicken stock
2 red peppers and 2 green peppers, seeded and thinly sliced

Method

Sprinkle the eggplant with salt, and leave for 1 hour. Rinse, and drain and dry the eggplant well.

Heat oil in a large pan, and add the bacon and celery. Fry gently for two minutes. Add the hobbit pieces, and fry until lightly browned. Add the tomatoes, garlic, herbs and a little salt and pepper and cook, stirring, for about ten minutes. Add the orc yummy, bring to the boil and simmer for about five minutes until well reduced. Add the stock, cover and simmer for thirty minutes.

Add the eggplant and pepper, and simmer for about half an hour, or until the hobbit is tender.

Serve the sauce spooned over the hobbit.

Cribbed into the margin of the recipe you can see a number of notes in the drunken scrawl of the goblin cook.

• Hobbit pulps from our guards outside make the ideal ingredient, as the tough, gamy hobbit has already been tenderised by their clubs.
• For particularly hairy hobbits, roast them in a bonfire - this makes their skin nice and crisp and crackly, and burns the hair off them, particularly off their feet.
• If you can't find hobbits, you can use rabbits instead - for this recipe, I would use five rabbits
• If you have run out of Orc Yummy, you can substitute Marsala.
• With particularly fat hobbits, use non-streaky bacon, as there is more than enough fat in this dish.
• Ferris made a particularly tasty dish, which was enjoyed by many of the soldiers. Next time however ask the guards not to smash him quite so flat.

You can close the recipe book and cast your attention back to the mess-hall if you wish.

Alternatively, if you know where you wish to head within the halls, you may consult your site map to take you straight there.