Leveling Cooking, Using Meat

When I leveled my Horde Hunter, I chose to go the Fishing and Cooking route. I think every character should be able to cook, and I wanted to have a Fisherman on the Horde side. In doing this, there is a pretty simple set of cooking recipes that will take you the last stretch of the way to Outlands - from 225 to 300.

Alas, my Rogue is no fisherman. When I decided to pick him back up, he was level 38 and his fishing was around… 15. I already have an Alliance fisherman (my Paladin), so I didn’t see the need to sink 10-12 hours into leveling it up for this new toon.

Cooking, on the other hand, is a must. At the moment he’s a skinner, and he’ll likely be doing some farming of animals… so it would help a lot if he could cook up the food. I already have two Outlands-capable chefs on the Alliance side, but it’s easy enough to level that I want him to have it.

Originally I planned on going to Eastern Plaguelands and fishing up the necessary fish with my Paladin, but in the course of leveling I found another route. It’s possible to get from 225 to 275 without fish, in the course of normal leveling.

What Recipes? Where?

There are two key recipes that you’ll need.

Recipe: Tender Wolf Steak will take you easily from 225 to 250. Juicy Bear Burger (as well as the equivalent level Shish Kabob) will take you from 250 to 275.

The Wolf Steak recipe has been in the game for some time. It is sold to both Horde and Alliance characters in Felwood. It takes Tender Wolf Meat - and you can check Wowhead for specifically where it drops.

I found this to be a pretty convenient recipe to use, since the wolves in Felwood and Western Plaguelands both dropped this type of meat. The Plaguehounds in Eastern Plaguelands also dropped it. This gave me a pretty good shot of scooping up 25 of the meat before I left Azeroth without spending any extra time farming.

The Bear recipe was added in one of the recent patches to help make leveling cooking easier without fishing. What do you know… that’s exactly what I’m doing! The recipe utilizes Bear Flank.

It wasn’t quite as abundant as the Wolf meat, but it drops off bears in both Felwood and Western Plaguelands. I was able to collect 15-20 of them before leaving Azeroth. The Wolf Meat took me a bit over 250, so that was enough to get me to 275.

I skipped Felwood entirely with my Horde Hunter - I liked the idea of doing Feralas with a nice central city. This time around, I did the opposite and skipped Feralas for the most part and used the Felwood quest circuit. If you spend any time here or the Plaguelands, you need to get these recipes. They’ll make leveling cooking possible without fishing.

What About 275 - 300?

Well, that’s the sticky point.

The Bear Flank recipe will only get you to 295 before it Greys out. Outland foods don’t start until 300. Convenient, eh?

There are two recipes that can get you up to 300 without using fish. Somehow I doubt you’ll be making Runn Tum Tuber Surprise, since the reagent is found only in Dire Maul. I also know I will personally never make Smoked Desert Dumplings, since the requisite Sandworm Meat comes from Silithus… and I shan’t be going back there ever again.

That unfortunately leaves fishing. The recipe you’ll be looking for is Baked Salmon, and you’ll need some Raw Whitescale Salmon - probably from Eastern Plaguelands.

Luckily, I managed to find plenty of it on the AH. It cost me 30g to pick up 30 fish… but worth saving me the 30-45 minutes of fishing to get enough.

If you’re not planning on leveling your fishing, but you want your cooking up, I’d suggest you start looking early for this fish or the sandworm meat. If you’re lucky, it’ll be on the Auction House sometime before you hit 58 and head to Outland. Remember - the longer you look for an item on the Auction House, the more likely you are to buy it without paying through the nose.

Cooking 300 and Outland Bound!

At the end of all this, my young Rogue, Padishor, is level 58, his cooking is 300, and he’s just about ready to head to Outland.

Unfortunately, his Mining is a bit lacking… and I’ll have to spend some time running around and leveling that. Doh! I’ll probably wait until after he gets an Epic Mount and make a few circuits of the Plaguelands.

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