Easy Dishes for a Beginner

This information is included in my Guides but I felt it might be useful for a player who is beginning RF3:


Cooking in Rune Factory 3


As in any Harvest Moon or Rune Factory game, Cooked Dishes have a variety of uses and any player who mistakenly believes that he/she cn neglect culinary skills in favour of combat soon will discover that the two go hand-in-hand. For a start, creating Weapons, Accessories and Medicines are based on the same principles as Cooking in the Kitchen. Furthermore, Cooked Dishes have Energy values that are superior to those of raw Items.

Your home in the Sharance Tree will not include any area for cooking initially, but when you first speak to Blaise and choose the 'Cookiing Appliances' option in his Menu, he will give you a Kitchen Counter. Basic Cookware then will appear in the Menu under that heading.

With the Kitchen Counter alone, you will be able to create 'No Utensil' or 'Hand' Dishes. Learning an actual Recipe will increase your chances of success with any specific Cooked Dish but is not a requirement. You can use the old 'trial-and'error' method or use this Guide to create new Dishes. Whenever a new Dish is created successfully, the Recipe will be added to your Cookbook. The difference between this method and the purchase and consumption of Recipe Bread is that eating Recipe Bread will add the Recipe to your Cookbook whether or not you have or can make the Dish successfully.

In Rune Factory 3, Skill Levels in Cooking determine your success rate where any specific Cooked Dish is concerned. You will not be able to make a Dish at all if you do not have the right Cookware or Utensil but even if you have both the correct Cookware AND the Recipe for a Dish, you may be unable to make it successfully if your Cooking Skill Level is too low.

If, therefore, you are using the 'trial-and-error' method to experiment in your Kitchen, you must not suppose that a failure signifies a lack of required ingredients. It may mean solely that you do not have sufficient Skill to prepare the Dish.

In Rune Factory 3, you will not have a Pet Glove to tame Monsters. If you wish to tame any Monster, you must give it Food. Cooked Dishes again have far more value than raw Items in terms of persuading Monsters to surrender and accompany you back to the Monster Barn. In like fashion, a favourite Cooked Dish often will raise the Friendship Levels of human Characters faster than any raw Items.

When the actual Cooked Dish has been obtained but the Recipe has not been acquired, the entry will not display the ingredients. Those will be added as soon as they are confirmed. Item information for any Cooked Dish when accessed in-game does not include Skill Level requirements or the list of Ingredients.

Tip: When you wish to discover the actual Energy and Status Effects of any food Item, press L and a detailed description of the Item with all Energy and Stat Effects will be displayed.


Cooking Appliances from Blaise


In order to be able to begin to cook, you will need a Kitchen Counter. You can obtain this (as well as Cookware later) from Blaise when he is behind his counter. Simply choose his Cookware option from the Menu and he will give you a Kitchen Counter.

Kitchen items from Blaise are delivered instantly to your House and installed in your Kitchen.

As soon as you have the Kitchen Counter, the three basic Cookware items will be available from Blaise. These are as follows:

My choices:
I've come to talk.
Buy Recipe Bread.
Cooking appliances.
Expand refrigerator.
Never mind.

Choose: Cooking appliances.

Blaise: You wanna cook? Then lemme give ya this Kitchen Counter!

After that, if I choose Cooking Appliances:

Blaise: Let me show you some basic cooking appliances, which one would you like?
Knife: 1200G
Frying Pan: 2600G
Mixer: 500G

When you have purchased all three Basic Appliances, he will declare:

Blaise: You already have all the basic appliances. Let me show you the advanced ones.

Oven: 10000G
Steamer: 5600G
Pot: 8800G

Ovens are a necessity in the kitchen if you're going to do any baking. That'll be 10000G gold.

The steamer is a cooking appliance you should definiately have in your kitchen. That'll be 5600 gold.

You can cook a lot of interesting dishes with a pot. That'll be 8800 gold.

A new aspect of Cooking in Rune Factory 3 is the concept of Recipe Breads instead of Cookbooks. Recipe Breads made by Blaise, when consumed, will teach you a single Recipe in a specific category. Breads are manufactured and sold in the following categories:

Medicine Bread: 160G
Cooking Bread: 200G
Weapon Bread: 350G
Accessory Bread: 300G
Farming Bread: 450G

You can buy 5 loaves of Bread per day from Blaise. The actual Recipe that is contained in the Recipe Bread will be random. If, therefore, you are given a Recipe that is fairly useless, you can reload and try again.

Note, however, that you will be unable to access the Recipe you have 'consumed' and learned unless you have the appropriate workspace or Cooking Appliance. In other words, you can purchase and 'learn' Forge Recipes by consuming Weapon Bread, but you will not be able to access these Recipes until you have a Forge of your own.

From time to time, Blaise will announce that the Recipe Bread you have purchased is particularly delicious. These superior Bread loaves will contain two Recipes instead of one.

There is a nameless 'Traveler' who appears in the village and wanders from shop to shop who will offer to sell you Recipe Breads for 800G each. You cannot choose a Category of Bread when buying from the Traveler. It is quite random and very overpriced, similar to Won's visits to your Farmhouse when he offers his special Apples for exorbitant prices.

You actually can make Cooked Dishes without having the Recipe for them, but if you have been 'taught' the Recipe, your chances of success will be greater. As in other Rune Factory games, you must Cook frequently and make the same simple Dishes again and again in order to raise your Skill Level in Cooking to allow you to make more complex Dishes.

Fortunately, Pink Turnips, a Spring Crop, can be made into Pickled Turnips with nothing more than the Kitchen Counter given to you by Blaise. Your chance of success will not be guaranteed initially but Pickled Turnips may be the easiest of all Cooked Dishes to make.

Another simple Dish that requires no Utensils is Rice Ball, made with the Cooked Rice that you can purchase at the General Store.


Blaise's Cafe


To purchase any items from Blaise, you need to visit the Cafe before 6.00 p.m. in order to find him behind the counter. Your options, when you speak to him there will be:

I've come to talk.
Buy Recipe Bread.
Cooking appliances.
Expand refrigerator.
Never mind.

Choose: Cooking appliances.

Blaise: You wanna cook? Then lemme give ya this Kitchen Counter!

As with any items purchased from Blaise, the Kitchen Counter will be installed immediately in your Kitchen.

After you have been given the Counter, when you choose Cooking Appliances:

Blaise: Let me show you some basic cooking appliances, which one would you like?

Knife: 1200G
Frying Pan: 2600G
Mixer: 500G

When you have purchased all three basic cooking appliances, the 'advanced' appliances will be added to the menu:

Blaise: You already have all the basic appliances. Let me show you the advanced ones:

Oven: 10000G
Steamer: 5600G
Pot: 8800G

If you wish to learn Recipes, you need to purchase and consume 'Recipe Bread': You can make Cooked Dishes, however, using the old 'trial-and-error' method. Although having the Recipe will increase your success rate in preparing any new Dish, it can be managed without a Recipe if you know the proper Ingredients.

Buy Recipe Bread

Blaise: When you eat recipe bread, you'll learn a recipe depending on what kind of recipe bread you ate. I can bake 5 more for you today.

Medicine Bread: 160G
Cooking Bread: 200G
Weapon Bread: 350G
Accessory Bread: 300G
Farming Bread: 450G

When you eat Medicine Bread, you'll learn recipes that you can use in your pharmacy. That'll be 160 Gold. Is that okay?

Cooking Bread: When you eat Cooking Bread, you'll learn recipes that you can use in your kitchen. That'll be 200 gold. Is that okay?

Farming Bread: When you eat Farming Bread, you'll learn recipes you can make farm tools with at your forge. That'll be 450G

Weapons Bread: When you eat Weapons Bread, you'll learn recipes that you can use at your forge. That'll be 350G

Accessory Bread: When you eat Accessory Bread, you'll learn recipes that you can use in your workshop. That'll be 300 gold.


Easy Dishes for an Aspiring Chef


With a Kitchen Counter and no Cookware, you will be able to make a few Cooked Dishes almost immediately. You will not have 100% success rate initially, but you will gain sufficient Cooking Skill to guarantee success after you have made the Dish a few times.

Having the required Ingredients as well as Cooking Skill Levels will determine the Cooked Dishes that can be made in the beginning of Spring.

Cooked Rice is one of the Items that can be purchased at the General Store. With this, you can make a Rice Ball.

Rice Ball: 300G
Rice pressed into a triangle shape. Often packed as lunches, as they're good on the go
Ingredients: Rice.
Sell: 150G
HP Rec +50%
Effect: 6 Hours
Skill Level 6

Flour is another Item that can be purchased at the General Store and Bread can be made without any Cookware. It does require a little more Skill than a Rice Ball or Pickled Turnips, however.

Bread: 660G
A staple of cooking. Can be toasted or filled and used in a variety of dishes.
Ingredients: Flour
Sell: 330G
HP Rec +50%, RP Rec +20%, HP Max +10
Skill Level 9

You should be able to harvest your first Pink Turnips within a couple of days and you then can make:

Pickled Turnip: 960G (Lv. 1)
Picked turnip. Its refreshing taste is great for cleaning the palate.
Ingredients; Pink Turnip
Sell: 480G
HP Rec +40, RP Rec +35%, STR -3, INT +3
Skill Level 2

Pickled Turnips are one of the easiest Dishes to make. Making Pickled Turnips from the Pink Turnips that you harvest is advantageous for a number of reasons. Level 1 Pickled Turnips ship for 480G while a raw Pink Turnip ships only for 200G. You therefore can double your income by cooking and increase your Skill Level at the same time.

Once you have raised your Skill Level in the Kitchen, you should be able to make:

Bamboo Rice: 400G (Lv. 1)
Rice mixed with bamboo shoots. A delciious spring dish.
Ingredients: Rice, Bamboo
Sell: 200G
HP Rec +40%, RP Rec +50%, RP Max +10%, STR +2, VIT +2
Skll Level 10

Bamboo Shoots are plentiful in Spring in your own Fields. You can use any sharp Tool to harvest them but if you use your Hoe, you will till a square of land at the same time, allowing you to plant Seeds afterwards.

Another Ingredient that is plentiful once you have entered Privera Forest is the Apple. Apples are War Trophies dropped by the Pomme Pomme Monsters as well as fruit that grows on Trees in more than one area of the Forest.

To prepare the Apples, you will need a Mixer, but the Mixer is the least expensive of the Basic Cooking Appliances sold by Blaise. With a Mixer, you can make:

Apple Juice: 166G
Fresh apple juice. Allows the natural taste, colour and flavour of apples to be completely enjoyed.
Sell: 84G (Lv. 2)
Skill Level 8
HP Rec + 20%, RP Rec +30%, STR + 1, INT +4

Sashimi is another class of Dishes that requires a Basic Cooking Appliance in the form of a Knife. The Skill Level requirements for Sashimi depend on the type of Fish that is used, so there are Sashimi Dishes that can be made only by an Expert Chef. Others, like Squid Sashimi, can be made by a beginner. You can find a raw Squid in a tub in Pia's room in the Inn.

Squid Sashimi: 260G
Slices of raw squid served up for consumption. Generally eaten with soy sauce.
Ingredients: Squid
Sell: 130G
HP Rec +20%, RP Rec +30%, STR +1, VIT +4
Skill Level 9

In Harvest Moon, unless you have a Greenhouse, you are fairly limited in the Ingredients you can obtain in any given Season, especially at the start of any game. In Rune Factory, this is not the case, as there are Dungeons that are ruled by each of the four Seasons. You are limited only by your skill in exploration and combat. If you can run fast, you can find Items in Dungeons at the start of the game in Rune Factory 3 even if you would be defeated instantly if you were to be forced to fight any of the Monsters there.

N.B. To access my RF3 Recipes Cookbook Guide, simply click the Recipe Cookbook Tab at the top of this page.