If you’ve been rolling through the gritty Motorvania Laika: Aged through Blood, you’ve probably at least been curious about the cooking system in the game.
It’s a little side thing that you can use at certain checkpoints to get temporary buffs, but how you cook up your ingredients (and the best way to do so) is pretty scarce information.
There are tons of ingredients, recipes, and different buffs you can get from Cooking, and the in-game recipe guide can only help so much since it doesn’t cover the ingredients themselves and only unlocks each recipe after you’ve cooked them.
After much trial and error, I’ve cooked up this guide, which compiles everything you’ll need to know about Cooking in Laika.
What does Cooking do?
Cooking is the only way to get buffs in Laika, which have various effects, typically lasting 15-45 minutes. This does come at the expense of requiring you to cook them up using sometimes costly ingredients at a big checkpoint, which aren’t the easiest things in the world to find, either.
This means, more often than not, you’ll probably be using the cooking feature whenever you’re entering a new major area, doing some grinding, or prepping for a big boss fight since it’s probably too costly for you to have a buff going on every second that you’re rolling through the wastelands. In essence, cook when you need, but not all the time.
How to Find Every Ingredient
If you want to cook recipes, you’ll need ingredients, and finding certain ones can be difficult. Though many recipes take a generic “filler” or “flavor bomb” ingredient, others require more specific ones, like Ghost Peppers or Coffee Cans. I’ll review all the unique ingredients you need and give you an easy way to find the less specific ones.
For all these ingredients, you’ll either need to shoot them (or their container) in the world or buy them using Viscera at one of the convenience stores (or the ingredients shop Where We Live). You’ll probably be buying most of your ingredients, so lucky for you, we happen to have a Viscera guide.
- Ghost Pepper can be found around the world, mainly underground in the more dangerous areas of the game. It can also be found at gas stations.
- Canned Corn can be found occasionally in enemy camps in chests or just at convenience stores.
- Blood Beans can be found all around the world and are very common, but they are also sold in the shop Where We Live.
- Coffee Can can be found occasionally in vending machines or sold in convenience stores.
- Mini Whiskey can occasionally be found in coolers scattered across the world, especially in enemy camps. It’s also sold at gas stations.
- Oily Sardines can be obtained by shooting vending machines, despite not being vending juice.
- Lemon is primarily found at the left edge of the world, growing on small plants.
- Red Garlic is very common, being found planted in the ground all around the world, and is sold Where We Live.
- Filler will be a large number of items you find, and anything marked with filler will do, especially the ones you can buy a large amount of.
- Flavor Bomb is a bit rarer than the former ingredient but still quite common, and again, the ones you can find at shops are probably your best bet.
- Vending Juice primarily comes from vending machines, but honestly, I have far more luck just buying it at convenience stores in limited supply.
- Military Supply comes occasionally from the more substantial enemy bases in the game, namely the later-game ones. Still, again, it is probably best to buy these in limited supply at stores.
How to Cook Every Recipe
Now that you’ve gathered the ingredients, you can learn the recipes that you’ll be using them for. I’ll be listing all the things you need to make them, as well as the buffs you’ll get by cooking them up. Not all recipes are created equally, but there are quite a few that will be worth your while, even if they’re a bit of a struggle to craft.
I’ll be going in the recipe book’s order, from left to right, top to bottom, which means it gets just a bit wack, some things not being as cleanly grouped together as I’d rather them be. But, if you’re trying to 100% the recipe book, you can easily find the one you’re missing in this guide and quickly cook it up.
Extra Spicy Taco
- Ingredients: Ghost Pepper, Canned Corn, Blood Beans
- Effect: Extra Life
Though Ghost Peppers can be tricky to get a lot of, they’re worth it for making Tacos. I will say that one extra life doesn’t tend to go a long way for the majority of the game, but this buff could be a godsend during some of the endurance battles you’ll have to play with the bosses in this game. I’d recommend saving them for a boss you find yourself struggling with.
Carajillo
- Ingredients: Two Coffee Cans, Mini Whiskey
- Effect: An Extra Round for All Guns
When you down a Carajillo, you’ll find every gun gets an extra shot. This matters a lot for something like a Shotgun, which helps you skip some areas if you’ve got the ammo. It’s a little tricky to get, given the Coffee Cans, but if you can choke down this shot before a boss, then you’ve got an incredible buff on your hands.
Sardines Al Ajillo
- Ingredients: Oily Sardines, Lemon, Red Garlic
- Effect: 3x Combo Multiplier
If you want a large combo multiplier (which also gives you quite a lot of money if you can pull off some decent combos), Sardines Al Ajillo is the best way to go, if not the most practical. It’ll probably be more accessible to grab one of the lower combo modifiers and get a better combo, but if you want the best of the best, go for this complex recipe.
Grilled Chillies
- Ingredients: 3 of any Flavor Bomb
- Effect: 1 Extra Parry Shield
Now for a straightforward recipe, Grilled Chillies provides you with an extra charge for your parry, which, in my opinion, won’t matter too much since you shouldn’t be spamming parry anyways. Still, if you play that way, this is the easiest way to dodge a ton of bullets, as long as you remember to frontflip occasionally.
Yellow Rice
- Ingredients: Any Flavor Bomb, Filler, and Military Supply
- Effect: 2 Extra Parry Shield
It’s the same deal as the previous recipe, but this time, you can parry three bullets consecutively before recharging. Again, it is only as helpful as you use the parry, but if you find you want to use it a lot, this might be worth it for you.
Croquettes
- Ingredients: Vending Juice, Military Supply, and Vending Juice/Military Supply
- Effect: 3 Extra Parry Shield
Finally, in the last tier of parry shield progress, you’ll get to parry four times without recharging when you cook up some croquettes. I will say that it’s probably not worth it regardless since you have to spend at least two vending juice or military supplies, and that’s very expensive.
Vegan Omelette
- Ingredients: Flavor Bomb, Filler, and Flavor Bomb/Filler
- Effect: 15 Extra Bike Magnet Radius
A handy item, the Vegan Omelette comprises the two most common ingredient types in the game and provides you with a little bit of extra item pickup range on your bike. This means when you’re out and about, it’ll be much easier to grab a ton of materials or ingredients, and you’ll pick them up from a bit further away.
Soup and Stew Leftovers
- Ingredients: Flavor Bomb, Military Supply, and Flavor Bomb/Military Supply
- Effect: 15 Extra Bike Magnet Radius
Now, you’d expect with better ingredients, you’d get better effects, but that’s untrue for just about anything that gives you extra magnet radius. For some reason, this and the following recipe require at least one military supply but give you no better effects, so only create this one if you want to 100% the recipe book.
Jackfruit Arepa
- Ingredients: Filler, Vending Juice, and Military Supply
- Effect: 15 Extra Bike Magnet Radius
As with the previous entry onto this list, Jackfruit Arepas are even more challenging to cook for absolutely no payoff; only get this for completion and nothing else. Technically, this and the last one do last a little bit longer, but is that really worth it?
Rice Noodle Soup
- Ingredients: Flavor Bomb, Filler, and Vending Juice
- Effect: 1.5x Combo Multiplier
If you want the easiest possible way to increase your combo multiplier, this is it. Rice Noodle Soup is only a bit costly, needing Vending Juice to create, but the other two ingredients are the most common ones in the game. If you’re going for combos, you probably want something better, but this is easy.
Grandma’s Meatballs
- Ingredients: Flavor Bomb, Vending Juice, Military Supply
- Effect: 2x Combo Multiplier
This one’s probably the best effort-to-reward ratio you’ll get if you go for a combo multiplier. It gives you 2x, which means you can get far really fast, and it only takes nonspecific ingredients, though vending juice and military supplies are still rare. I’d recommend Grandma’s Meatballs if you’re money-grinding, though.
Rice Sausage
- Ingredients: Triple Filler
- Effect: 10% Extra Viscera when Killing Enemies
Rice Sausage is the easiest thing to make in the game, providing a decent buff for what is essentially free. 10% extra viscera, for most enemies, means one extra viscera. Still, if you’re killing many enemies (or the bosses that drop viscera in the thousands), you’ll appreciate the little gains you get.
Bean Stew
- Ingredients: Filler, Vending Juice, and Filler/Vending Juice
- Effect: 20% Extra Viscera when Killing Enemies
This Bean Stew takes a decently expensive ingredient to craft but provides an extra 10% buff. Again, this is probably only giving you 1-2 extra viscera on average from any regular enemies, with a decent boost from bosses. Still, if you’re going to go for something higher quality, I’d say go all the way.
Bloody Spirit
- Ingredients: Triple Vending Juice
- Effect: 30% Extra Viscera when Killing Enemies
Now we’re talking. This will be a big boost during bosses, and given it’s pretty expensive, I’d only recommend grabbing one for those fights since the 2-3 extra viscera you’d get from regular enemies isn’t worth it. If you can pop this before a boss, though, go for it and get hundreds of viscera in the bank.
Garlic Soup
- Ingredients: Flavor Bomb, Vending Juice, and Flavor Bomb/Vending Juice
- Effect: 25% Extra Resources
Onto the final category of recipes, we have extra resources. These are particularly helpful when you’re trying to farm a bunch of different materials for crafting new gun upgrades or what have you, and 25% extra will help you out quite a bit, usually giving you one or two bonus pieces of whatever material you’re picking up. It’s a bit expensive with the Vending Juice, though.
Rice Burger
- Ingredients: Filler, Military Supply, and Filler/Military Supply
- Effect: 40% Extra Resources
It all comes to Bunger, eventually. This Rice Burger will give you 40% extra of any resources you pick up, which is usually enough to get two and sometimes three extra. The scaling on these recipes is quite weird, so you’ll get diminishing returns the better item you go for, but if you’re material farming, you can probably make it all back anyway.
Espeto
- Ingredients: Triple Military Supply
- Effect: 60% Extra Resources
And lastly, we have the Espeto, which gives you a 60% boost and usually around three extra resources. You’ll probably want to go with this one if you can get your hands on the military supplies required to make them, and if you’re material farming for a significant upgrade anyway, this is the one you should go for.
How to Cook
Once you’ve got the ingredients you want for the recipe you’re cooking, find one of the bigger checkpoints (the ones you can hold the interact button on to Fast Travel to), and just select Cooking (which you can’t do with the mouse, for some reason), then you choose the ingredients you want, and just cook it up, which will consume it immediately.
Quick side note: there are occasionally dedicated cooking pots strewn about the world; these are less common and mostly only come before an area with a bunch of enemies where they’d put the big checkpoint in a much safer location. Regardless, cooking at them works precisely the same; you interact with them and toss in your ingredients.
Questions and Answers
Question: How do you get Ingredients in Laika: Aged Through Blood?
Answer: You can find some ingredients on the ground, where you just have to shoot them, but most are sold at stores like the gas stations around the map.
Question: What are Ingredients for in Laika: Aged Through Blood?
Answer: You can use ingredients in a cooking pot or a large totem to cook dishes that provide temporary buffs.
Question: What are the best dishes to cook in Laika: Aged Through Blood?
Answer: Most dishes provide unique effects, so there’s no “best” one, but an Extra Spicy Taco gives you an extra life, and you’d almost always want that.
Conclusion
Overall, I quite enjoyed the cooking system in Laika, but I didn’t expect writing this guide to be the hefty task that it was. Getting every ingredient and sussing out the recipes for each unique dish took nearly completing the entire game, which is much more time-consuming than I would’ve imagined when I first started writing this.
Nevertheless, I did find every part of it to be about as enjoyable as it could be, considering my opinion of the game, which I’ve already made more than apparent in my review.
It’s fun to cook unique dishes, and the buffs they provide are pretty nice, especially getting an extra bullet or making money faster. I’d recommend messing around with it the next time you get the chance.
Continue reading:
How to get Viscera Quick in Laika: Aged Through Blood
Laika: Aged Through Blood Review – A Broken but Well-Oiled Machine
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