icon footer home cooking - a crafter's choice vysala's rules to cook for cooking guide introduction skill 00-08 skill 08-18 skill 18-29 skill 29-42 skill 42-54 skill 54-60 skill 60-68 skill 68-80 skill 80-90 skill 90-100 cooking skill tests cooking guild points valuable sub crafts for cooking gil saving tips cooking for gil vysala's profit print-out cooking and your mule: tips for success world and elemental effects fast travel: moving through vana'diel valuable quests, resources, and time savers chocobo raising valuable online resources
about vysala contact the chef

Buy Vysala Coffee ^.^

Vysala's Cooking Guide


Skill 90-100
As you enter the final stretch of leveling your cooking, you will be faced with slow leveling, hard to get ingredients and very unprofitable recipes, but if you have come this far then chances are you will not let these small details slow you down! You have an awesome victory not too far in the distance - becoming a Master Chef.

Item Detail Item Guide

Skilling Levels: 90-92
Item Name: Flint Caviar
Item Level Cap: 92
Recipe: Dark Crystal, Rock Salt, Emperor Roe

Sub Craft: None
Key Item: None
NQ Yield: Flint Caviar x3
HQ1 Yield: Flint Caviar x3
HQ2 Yield: Flint Caviar x3
HQ3 Yield: Flint Caviar x3

Skilling Level Alternative Below

If you saved your Emperor Roe, now is the time to pull it out of the freezer. It is one of the easiest recipes in the 90's and is well worth the effort. This recipe is excellent because you can use the caviar in the next recipe, so do save it.
Item Detail Item Guide

Alternative Skilling Recipe

Skilling Levels: 90-91
Item Name: Persikos au Lait
Item Level Cap: 91
Recipe: Water Crystal, Persikos x2, Honey, Selbina Milk

Sub Craft: None
Key Item: None
NQ Yield: Persikos au Lait x1
HQ1 Yield: Persikos au Lait x1
HQ2 Yield: Persikos au Lait x1
HQ3 Yield: Persikos au Lait x1

If you do not want to do Flint Cavier, this is the next best choice. These are relatively cheap to make and depending on server prices may yield a good profit. If you are a gardener you can grow the persikos yourself. You will want to price this one out before making the investment as it can be risky because of the rarity and price of Persikos.

Item Detail Item Guide

Skilling Levels: 92-94
Item Name: Tonosama Rice Ball
Item Level Cap: 94
Recipe: Fire Crystal, Tarutaru Rice, Pamtam Kelp, Flint Caviar, Rock Salt, Distilled Water

Sub Craft: None
Key Item: None
NQ Yield: Tonosama Rice Ball x2
HQ1 Yield: Shogun Rice Ball x1
HQ2 Yield: Shogun Rice Ball x2
HQ3 Yield: Shogun Rice Ball x2

Skilling Level Alternative Below

Your Flint Caviar will come in handy here in this recipe. This will sell at the AH, but it will be a slow sale. It may even sell from your mule, but the AH will be your best bet (specifically the one in Jeuno). While making the fish all along, this recipe is generally still a loss even sold from the AH, however if you can get the rice from the cooking guild, it could be break even or profit depending on server prices and the amount of breaks you get during the skilling process. Make these until you run out of the Caviar, then move onto the Rice Dumpling or Sea Bass Croute or one of the alternatives to this recipe.
Item Detail Item Guide

Alternative Skilling Recipe

Skilling Levels: 92-94
Item Name: Hedgehog Pie
Item Level Cap: 94
Recipe: Fire Crystal, Selbina Butter, Pie Dough, Blue Peas, Rock Salt, Lizard Egg, King Truffle, San d'Orian Carrot, Buffalo Meat

Sub Craft: None
Key Item: None
NQ Yield: Hedgehog Pie x1
HQ1 Yield: Porcupine Pie x1
HQ2 Yield: Porcupine Pie x1
HQ3 Yield: Porcupine Pie x1

Skilling Level Alternative Below

If you did not take the Flint Caviar route, you could make this item. The ingredients are pricey again, but could turn a nice profit if your server has a demand for it. The meat can be farmed, but you will need to be high level to obtain it. Buying the meat could still turn a nice profit, minus breaks. Do the research first on this one, as breaks could really kill this recipe. When you reach 100 this is a great recipe to make for profit.
Item Detail Item Guide

Alternative Skilling Recipe

Skilling Levels: 92-95
Item Name: Rice Dumpling
Item Level Cap: 95
Recipe: Fire Crystal, Maple Sugar, Bamboo Stick, Rock Salt, Sticky Rice, Dhalmel Meat, Coral Fungus, Distilled Water

Sub Craft: Woodworking: Level 15
Key Item: None
NQ Yield: Rice Dumpling x3
HQ1 Yield: Rice Dumpling x6
HQ2 Yield: Rice Dumpling x9
HQ3 Yield: Rice Dumpling x12

Another alternative to the Flint Caviar is the wonderful Rice Dumplings. I highly suggest Rice Dumplings as the alternative choice because you can make a profit off of it and it will sell fast and in all of the Auction Houses. It can be an expensive investment though with the Coral Fungus.

Notice that you must get your woodworking up to 15 (or close to it) to make this recipe as it is a requirement subcraft.

Item Detail Item Guide

Skilling Levels: 94-97
Item Name: Sea Bass Croute
Item Level Cap: 97
Recipe: Fire Crystal, King Truffle, Grape Juice, Zafmlug Bass, Sage, Lizard Egg, Pie Dough, Mhaura Garlic, Rock Salt

Sub Craft: None
Key Item: None
NQ Yield: Sea Bass Croute x1
HQ1 Yield: Sea Bass Croute x2
HQ2 Yield: Sea Bass Croute x3
HQ3 Yield: Sea Bass Croute x4

I found these levels to be terribly slow and painful. I bought all of the Truffles and fished as much of the Bass as I could. The Truffles were mighty expensive and a bit rare, so I found myself purchasing them whenever I could find them and synthing them when I reached a stack. Every day, several times a day, I searched every auction house for the Truffles.

I alternated profit recipes and skilling periods during this time. This stuff never sold for me once at the AH. After I gave up trying to sell it, I just stood by an NPC and sold it off as I made it. I alternated between this recipe and Sweet Rice Cake until it capped.

Do not forget you can make this recipe less of a loss by synthing the pie dough and grape juice yourself.

Item Detail Item Guide

Skilling Levels: 97-99
Item Name: Sweet Rice Cake
Item Level Cap: 99
Recipe: Fire Crystal, Maple Sugar, Cinnamon, Sticky Rice, Gardenia Seed, Fresh Mugwort, Distilled Water

Sub Craft: None
Key Item: None
NQ Yield: Sweet Rice Cake x9
HQ1 Yield: Sweet Rice Cake x12
HQ2 Yield: Sweet Rice Cake x12
HQ3 Yield: Sweet Rice Cake x12

This recipe was also difficult, but the excitment of getting to 100 drove me on. Fresh Mugwort is your enemy here because it is expensive at the Auction House. You can harvest it, but it is very rare and you will find yourself only finding one every hour or two. When I did this recipe I tried harvesting it for a while and I often ran into other harvesters. Many times I was able to strike a deal with other harvesters, giving them anything they needed for any Mugwort they found. This worked pretty well, but in the end I bought a good 90% of the Mugwort from the AH.

The skill ups on this recipe were not as slow as I expected and went faster then some of the 70's recipes.

Item Detail Item Guide

Skilling Levels: 99-100
Item Name: Cursed Soup
Item Level Cap: 100
Recipe: Water Crystal, Kitron, Persikos, Royal Jelly, Distilled Water, Honey

Sub Craft: None
Key Item: None
NQ Yield: Cursed Soup x1
HQ1 Yield: Cursed Soup x1
HQ2 Yield: Cursed Soup x1
HQ3 Yield: Cursed Soup x1

The final recipe is here and you have but one recipe standing in your way. You could do Red Curry if you find Dragon Meat is available on your server in large quantities, but you will likely find it to be on the really expensive side, so I suggest going all the way with Cursed Soup. It took me exactly 23 synths to make this level - surprisingly fast. You will find all of the items, except the Royal Jelly, at the AH. While the ingredients are expensive; that will be the least of your worries.

To get the Royal Jelly you must be able to farm Death Jackets in Crawlers' Nest (see map below for farming route). Royal Jelly is an Exclusive item, not sellable in any way, so you must obtain them by farming these Death Jackets. These bees are level 40 to 42 and do hit hard with sharp sting and can cure themselves for a large amount. I was level 51 and I took along my husband, who was also 51, to do all this farming. The drop is rare and we spent 3 hours farming on the first night and 4 hours farming on the second night. It only took 7 hours to obtain 24 Royal Jellies (yup, I had one leftover - better to have more then less I guess).

Each evening I went back to my mog house with a stack of 12 and synthed them all at once. I find that skill-ups happen better in longer sessions verses single synthings one at a time. However, you could potentially take all of the ingredients with you and farm as you go until you reach level 100.

Below you will find a map to help assist you in your hunt for Royal Jelly. You simply need to constantly make a little circle through the front portion of the first map of Crawlers Nest. There are two drop downs in your circle, so you can only go one direction. I have marked the starting point where the first of the Death Jackets spawn and the arrows show the path in which you should farm the bees in. In case you do not have this map, I have lightly marked the edges of the map with the location letters and numbers that correspond with the full map.

Crawlers Nest Map for Royal Jelly Farming

Congratulations to you, Master Chef!


Previous | Introduction