Stardew Valley - Cooking

Cooking turns farm produce into meals that restore energy and health, and many dishes also grant a buff for a stretch of the day. Recipes arrive from the television, from villagers in the post and from a few shops. A cooked dish is usually worth more than the ingredients that went into it.

Overview

Cooking is the farm's way of turning a morning's harvest into a working day. A dish restores energy and health, and most of the good ones also hand out a timed bonus to a skill, to speed, to defence or to luck. That bonus is the real product. A farm that cooks before it mines gets further down the Skull Cavern than a farm that eats raw parsnips, and the difference is larger than any tool upgrade.

The branch opens with the first farmhouse upgrade, because the upgrade is what installs the stove and the refrigerator. The refrigerator is more useful than it looks: its shelves are treated as an extension of the backpack by the cooking screen, so ingredients can live there permanently instead of being carried. A Cookout Kit crafted after the third level of foraging lifts the whole system out of the house and lets a dish be made anywhere, which matters on a long island trip.

Every dish has to be learned, and the only one a farmer starts with is a Fried Egg. The rest arrive from four directions: the Queen of Sauce on television each Sunday with repeats in midweek, letters from villagers as friendships deepen, skill levels, and a handful of shop shelves. A cookbook bought from the Bookseller teaches every televised recipe at once, including the ones that have yet to air, which is the single largest shortcut in the branch.

Groups

The dishes sort themselves by what they are for. The skill foods are the ones worth planning a day around: a mining dish with a magnetism bonus for a cavern run, a fishing dish for a legendary catch, a foraging dish for an island sweep, a farming dish for a planting morning. The defence foods are the combat group, and they pair naturally with a slow weapon.

The energy foods are the second group, and they have no bonus at all. That is their advantage. Since only one food bonus can be active at a time, a plain high-energy dish tops a farmer up without wiping out the bonus already running. Drinks sit outside the rule entirely, so a coffee or a Ginger Ale stacks on top of whatever is being eaten.

Order

A first-year farm cooks for energy and for errands. The early recipes come from skill levels and cheap shop shelves, and the dishes that matter are the ones made from things already lying about: eggs, milk, a Cave Carrot, a potato. The first truly useful bonus food is a mining dish learned at the third level of mining, because the cavern is where a first-year farmer dies.

The middle of a run is where the television earns its keep. Watching every Sunday, and checking the midweek repeat, slowly fills the list with the dishes that need a kitchen and a farm behind them. This is also when a second fridge becomes worth having, since a wall of ingredients is what makes batch cooking possible.

The last stretch belongs to the island and to Mr. Qi. His seasoning makes every dish gold quality automatically, raising energy, health, price and the strength of the bonus, and it is applied without being asked for as long as a stack is in the fridge. One of his commissions asks for a hundred thousand gold worth of freshly cooked food, which renames every dish made during the job and is the one time cooking becomes a production line.

Best

Rank the dishes by bonus strength against duration, because a short bonus is a different tool from a long one. The strongest fishing dish gives the largest bonus in the game for a few minutes, which is exactly right for one legendary fish and wrong for an afternoon on the pier. A Lobster Bisque gives slightly less for a quarter of an hour and adds maximum energy on top, which is the better choice for a working day.

The same split runs through the other skills. The mining dish with the magnetism bonus is the pick for a cavern run, since the extra pull drags dropped ore across the floor. A cheap aubergine and tomato dish gives a smaller mining bonus with three points of defence, which makes it the thrifty choice for a farm that fights as much as it digs. For luck, one dish gives three points for eleven minutes and remains the standard, with a ginger drink stacked on top for a fourth.

Prices

Cooking is not a way to make money, and treating it as one is the commonest mistake in the branch. Almost every dish sells for less than its ingredients would fetch after a Preserves Jar or a Keg had finished with them, so the honest accounting is that a dish is worth what the day it enables is worth.

There are two real exceptions, and both exist because the ingredient has nowhere else to go. Algae has no artisan route, so the soup made from it is pure profit, and the same is true of the broth made from cave produce. Sashimi is a third, narrower case: it pays only on fish worth less than a cooked meal, which in practice means the cheapest Crab Pot catches and nothing else. A smoker beats it on everything larger.

One more warning is worth repeating. The Bulletin Board pays roughly triple a fish's value for delivering it, so a fish in the bag is often worth more as an errand than as a dinner.

Strategy

Cook in batches on a wet day. Rain is the day a farm has spare hours, and a morning spent making twenty portions of a bonus dish supplies a month of mining trips. The ingredients that go in should be the worst in the chest, because quality changes nothing about a cooked dish's energy or health.

Watch the order the kitchen takes ingredients. It searches the backpack first from the bottom right slot, then the main fridge, then each mini-fridge in the order they were placed. That order can be used deliberately: dropping a cheap Crab Pot catch into the bottom right slot stops a valuable fish being eaten by a recipe that accepts anything.

Notes

Three achievements track this branch, at ten dishes, twenty-five dishes and every dish, and the last of them is a tenth of a perfect save. The record counts a dish as cooked whether or not it is ever eaten or shipped.

Eighty-eight different ingredient types are needed to cook every dish once, and six of those are themselves dishes, so the last stretch of the list is a small production chain rather than a shopping trip.

Milk recipes accept any milk, including the large and goat varieties, and egg recipes accept duck, void, golden and ostrich eggs as well as the ordinary kind, which makes a mixed barn more useful than a specialised one.

All Cooking

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Recipe	Price
Algae Soup		Clint (Mail - 3+)	100g
Artichoke Dip		The Queen of Sauce 28 Fall, Year 1	210g
Autumn's Bounty		Demetrius (Mail - 7+)	350g
Baked Fish		The Queen of Sauce 7 Summer, Year 1	100g
Banana Pudding		Island Trader for Bone Fragment (30)	260g
Bean Hotpot		Clint (Mail - 7+)	100g
Blackberry Cobbler		The Queen of Sauce 14 Fall, Year 2	260g
Blueberry Tart		Pierre (Mail - 3+)	150g
Bread		The Queen of Sauce 28 Summer, Year 1 Stardrop Saloon for 100g	60g
Bruschetta		The Queen of Sauce 21 Winter, Year 2	210g
Carp Surprise		The Queen of Sauce 7 Summer, Year 2	150g
Cheese Cauliflower		Pam (Mail - 3+)	300g
Chocolate Cake		The Queen of Sauce 14 Winter, Year 1	200g
Chowder		Willy (Mail - 3+)	135g
Coleslaw		The Queen of Sauce 14 Spring, Year 1	345g
Complete Breakfast		The Queen of Sauce 21 Spring, Year 2	350g
Cookie		Evelyn (4-heart event)	140g
Crab Cakes		The Queen of Sauce 21 Fall, Year 2	275g
Cranberry Candy		The Queen of Sauce 28 Winter, Year 1	175g
Cranberry Sauce		Gus (Mail - 7+)	120g
Crispy Bass		Kent (Mail - 3+)	150g
Dish O' The Sea		Fishing Level 3	220g
Eggplant Parmesan		Lewis (Mail - 7+)	200g
Escargot		Willy (Mail - 5+)	125g
Farmer's Lunch		Farming Level 3	150g
Fiddlehead Risotto		The Queen of Sauce 28 Fall, Year 2	350g
Fish Stew		Willy (Mail - 7+)	175g
Fish Taco		Linus (Mail - 7+)	500g
Fried Calamari		Jodi (Mail - 3+)	150g
Fried Eel		George (Mail - 3+)	120g
Fried Egg		Starter	35g
Fried Mushroom		Demetrius (Mail - 3+)	200g
Fruit Salad		The Queen of Sauce 7 Fall, Year 2	450g
Ginger Ale		Dwarf Shop in Volcano Dungeon for 1,000g	200g
Glazed Yams		The Queen of Sauce 21 Fall, Year 1	200g
Hashbrowns		The Queen of Sauce 14 Spring, Year 2 Stardrop Saloon for 50g	120g
Ice Cream		Jodi (Mail - 7+)	120g
Lobster Bisque		The Queen of Sauce 14 Winter, Year 2 Willy (Mail - 9+)	205g
Lucky Lunch		The Queen of Sauce 28 Spring, Year 2	250g
Maki Roll		The Queen of Sauce 21 Summer, Year 1 Stardrop Saloon for 300g	220g
Mango Sticky Rice		Leo (Mail - 7+)	250g
Maple Bar		The Queen of Sauce 14 Summer, Year 2	300g
Miner's Treat		Mining Level 3	200g
Moss Soup		Foraging Level 3	80g
Omelet		The Queen of Sauce 28 Spring, Year 1 Stardrop Saloon for 100g	125g
Pale Broth		Marnie (Mail - 3+)	150g
Pancakes		The Queen of Sauce 14 Summer, Year 1 Stardrop Saloon for 100g	80g
Parsnip Soup		Caroline (Mail - 3+)	120g
Pepper Poppers		Shane (Mail - 3+)	200g
Pink Cake		The Queen of Sauce 21 Summer, Year 2	480g
Pizza		The Queen of Sauce 7 Spring, Year 2 Stardrop Saloon for 150g	300g
Plum Pudding		The Queen of Sauce 7 Winter, Year 1	260g
Poi		Leo (Mail - 3+)	400g
Poppyseed Muffin		The Queen of Sauce 7 Winter, Year 2	250g
Pumpkin Pie		The Queen of Sauce 21 Winter, Year 1	385g
Pumpkin Soup		Robin (Mail - 7+)	300g
Radish Salad		The Queen of Sauce 21 Spring, Year 1	300g
Red Plate		Emily (Mail - 7+)	400g
Rhubarb Pie		Marnie (Mail - 7+)	400g
Rice Pudding		Evelyn (Mail - 7+)	260g
Roasted Hazelnuts		The Queen of Sauce 28 Summer, Year 2	270g
Roots Platter		Combat Level 3	100g
Salad		Emily (Mail - 3+)	110g
Salmon Dinner		Gus (Mail - 3+)	300g
Sashimi		Linus (Mail - 3+)	75g
Seafoam Pudding		Fishing Level 9	300g
Shrimp Cocktail		The Queen of Sauce 28 Winter, Year 2	160g
Spaghetti		Lewis (Mail - 3+)	120g
Spicy Eel		George (Mail - 7+)	175g
Squid Ink Ravioli		Combat Level 9	150g
Stir Fry		The Queen of Sauce 7 Spring, Year 1	335g
Strange Bun		Shane (Mail - 7+)	225g
Stuffing		Pam (Mail - 7+)	165g
Super Meal		Kent (Mail - 7+)	220g
Survival Burger		Foraging Level 8	180g
Tom Kha Soup		Sandy (Mail - 7+)	250g
Tortilla		The Queen of Sauce 7 Fall, Year 1 Stardrop Saloon for 100g	50g
Triple Shot Espresso		Stardrop Saloon for 5,000g	450g
Tropical Curry		Ginger Island Resort for 2,000g	500g
Trout Soup		The Queen of Sauce 14 Fall, Year 1	100g
Vegetable Medley		Caroline (Mail - 7+)	120g