Leche of Brawn

Leche of Brawn

“Tyrion was toying with a leche of brawn, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and almond milk, when King Joffrey lurched suddenly to his feet. ‘Bring on my royal jousters!’ he shouted in a voice thick with wine, clapping his hands together.” -Storm of Swords

Our Thoughts:

It’s slightly unclear as to what exactly a leche of brawn was to the medieval diner. It seems to have evolved from once being a simple cut of pork to what we know as brawn, or today as headcheese, sometime between the Middle Ages and Victorian Age. We’ve opted for an historical version of the brawn, and in order to keep the disembodied craniums in the kitchen to a minimum, have made only one version. Perhaps there is a modern version in our future, who knows!

With a binding aspic similar to that used in our jellied calves’ brain recipe, this dish is salty, savory, and sweet at the same time. Essentially a rustic, primitive version of a mortadella, the brawn is perhaps not the first choice for out modern palates, but it is easy to see why this would be an historical staple food. Cheap to make, packed with nutrients, and essentially self-preserving, a brawn like this would be gold in a medieval kitchen. George’s addition on non-traditional spices and accompaniments (cinnamon, cloves, almond milk) gave our Victorian recipe a decidedly medieval turn toward the unexpectedly sweet, adding another layer of complexity to the dish.

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Chocolate Carrageen Pudding

Plants that welcome the stranger,
Sea-swept and driven astern,
Beloved by the wide-world ranger—
Seaweed, tussock, and fern.

-Henry Lawson, 1910

Chocolate Carrageen Pudding

Our Thoughts:

Carrageen, or carraigín, is a wonderful foraged seaweed from the coasts of Ireland. Historically, it has been used as a binding agent in foods, as well as a clarifying agent in brewing. We order ours direct from foragers in Ireland, although it is available in most bulk herb sections, and in many home brewing stores.

The custard itself is interestingly savory, while still clearly a dessert. The carrageen adds a slight, unoffensive sea flavor that’s hard to place if one doesn’t know the secret ingredient. For those that enjoy a sweeter dessert, the sugar content can be increased, and other flavorings can be added as well.

Carrageen pudding has made more than one appearance at the dinner table in our house, equally suited to dinners for Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey. A relatively quick and easy set pudding to make, it’s an winner in our books.

Why it should be in the Next Book:

This pudding is a perfect dessert for GRRM to include in the next books. It’s use of seaweed as a binding agent, and just a bit of decadent cocoa powder for flavor makes it an ideal course to be served on the Fingers. We imagine Littlefinger enjoying a bite of it, having funded the import of the exotic flavorings, but still unable to shake his seaweedy origins. :)

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Direwolf Biscuits

This post is dedicated to Tundra, Olga, and Apollo. :)

Our direwolf’s thoughts:

The kitchen can be torture for a pet with a culinary inclined owner. I know my own direwolf sits proper for the entire time I’m cooking, in hopes of receiving scraps. We’ve concocted these biscuits so you don’t have to feel guilty looking into those big brown eyes every time you pick up your chef’s knife. Simply toss one of these down to your most loyal friend.

I wanted to make a treat that had no fillers, no grains, and could be easily made in a standard stocked kitchen. There are no crazy ingredients, and nothing bad for your dog. When developing this recipe, I did a series of scientific experiments along the way to ensure that the dogs thought it was as yummy as it looked to me. When they licked my hands clean of the raw mixture, I knew it was ready for the oven.

End result – all three dogs these biscuits were tested on loved them. Everyone was sitting pretty, politely asking for another round after the initial taste test.

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Suckling Pig in Plum Sauce

“Buy me a cup of Arbor gold, Hopfrog, and perhaps I won’t inform my father of your toast. The tiles turned against me at the Checkered Hazard, and I wasted my last stag on supper. Suckling pig in plum sauce, stuffed with chestnuts and white truffles. A man must eat.” -A Feast for Crows

Esteban, the suckling pig

Our Thoughts:

Since we started this blog, we have desperately wanted to make suckling pig in plum sauce. Our own roast pig, lovingly named “Esteban,” was the star of our premier party. Despite his needy nature, what with the days of brining, hours of slow and low roasting, and incremental basting, Esteban was delicious. The skin was crisp, and the meat incredibly tender and juicy. Serving with the plum sauce made an epic pairing.

We opted for a smaller suckling pig, as we didn’t have the option of roasting outside on a spit or in a pit. Generally, pigs above about 18 pounds do not fit in regular home ovens. Our pig was 16 pounds, and just fit in one of our ovens on a slight diagonal. Larger pigs obviously require a longer roasting time, and the roasting method changes the cook time as well.

Esteban was born and raised on the pastures of Sugar Mountain Farm, in Vermont. Sugar Mountain is currently raising money through Kickstarter to build their own abattoir. Be sure to support their great project! Many thanks to Walter and Holly, as well as our fearless courier and pig christener, Gavi.

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Mint Sun Tea

“There was much more than she’d asked for: hot bread, butter and honey and blackberry preserves, a rasher of bacon and a soft-boiled egg, a wedge of cheese, a pot of mint tea. And with it came Maester Luwin.” -A Game of Thrones

Mint Sun Tea

Our Thoughts:

We know the text doesn’t call for mint sun tea, but no one should have to live without this recipe. This is one of our go-to drinks for summer. As sort of tea aficionados/addicts, this fills our needs for both tea and sunshine. Sun tea is a fantastic way to get your caffeine fix without having to use the kettle on a hot day. If you plan far enough ahead, you won’t have to ever go inside again! Also a great recipe to use when camping. And you always look cooler drinking from a Mason jar!

Make it at Home!

Oxtail Soup

Medieval Oxtail Soup

“This evening they had supped on oxtail soup, summer greens tossed with pecans, grapes, red fennel, and crmbled cheese, hot crab pie, spiced squash, and quails drowned in butter. Each dish had come with its own wine. Lord Janos allowed that he had never eaten half so well.” (A Clash of Kings)

Modern Oxtail Soup

Our Thoughts:

Rich and savory, this is the medieval-soup version of brisket. The recipe is different from other oxtail soups in that it doesn’t have New World tomato in it, so it lacks that distinctive acidic tang. The broth is very savory and beefy with a bite from all the spices, while the meat is tender from long boiling. It is delicious with a slice of buttered bread and a mug of ale.

This modern twist, an oxtail and Gruyère ravioli in a clarified oxtail stock, is elegant and fantastic. The cheese melts into the oxtail, adding just a slight bite to the flavorful meat. The stock, though similar to that in the medieval recipe, has a more intense flavor, due to the additional simmering time, and is simply beautiful in presentation.

The best part about these recipes is you don’t have to choose- simply use leftovers from the medieval recipe to cook the modern!

Make it at Home!

Sweet Biscuits

Traditional Burrbrede

“[Sansa] drank a glass of buttermilk and nibbled at some sweet biscuits as she waited, to settle her stomach.” -Game of Thrones

Modern Sweet Biscuits

Our Thoughts

The traditional sweet biscuit is shortbread at its very very best. Burrbrede, or shortbread, is a traditional Scottish flour confectionery, made from three ingredients. Although a proper recipe wasn’t memorialized in a cookbook till 1736, shortbread has been a Scottish treat since at least the 12th century. Perfect with tea or a glass of cold milk, these biscuits are difficult to stop eating. Soft, flaky texture, and just a bit chewy eaten straight from the oven, these biscuits get an enormous stamp of approval from us!

The modern biscuits are our take on the glorious Hobnob, king of all chocolate biscuits. Clearly we’re big fans, and these home made hobnobs shape up pretty well. A bit more rustic and oaty than the store bought variety, they are equally as delectable when dipped in hot tea. This batch filled our biscuit jar, and were gone in record time!

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Peppercrab Stew

“‘I’d work in your castle, milord. I can clean fish and bake bread, and churn butter. Father says my peppercrab stew is the best he’s ever tasted. You could find me a place in your kitchens and I could make you peppercrab stew.'” (A Clash of Kings)

Peppercrab Stew

Our Thoughts:

We bought these crab at the local market, using feminine wiles to coax a few more crab legs out of the fishmonger’s stall into our bag, free of charge. Imitation crab meat can be used for the faint of heart, or if fresh or frozen crabs are not available- although demolishing the crabs by hand and harvesting the succulent meat is half the fun! Our recipe makes a hearty, fiery crab stew, suitable to warm you from the inside out on even the coldest of days on the Iron Isles.

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Gulls Eggs and Seaweed Soup

Traditional Cawl Bara Lawr

“Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home. When I break my fast on gulls’ eggs and seaweed soup, I’ll be certain of it.” -A Storm of Swords

Modern Egg Drop Seaweed Soup

Our Thoughts

Cawl bara lawr is popular with the coastal folk of Wales for more reasons than just ingredient availability- it’s creamy, hearty texture bolsters one up on cold, blustery, winter days. Though perhaps not the prettiest soup to grace our tables, the complexity of flavor was certainly surprising. The saltiness of the laver is well-balanced by the sweetness of the parsnips (always sweeter after the first frost!). As for the “gull’s egg”, we settled for quail. May is gull egg season, and they are even harder to come by here in the US than they are in the UK. Nonetheless, the addition of a fried egg to our hearty breakfast added the protein the soup lacked.

Our modern seaweed egg drop soup is a bit of a stretch from what is described in the book. However, it is a wonderful combination of flavors and textures. The soup is surprisingly hearty, the mushrooms, seaweed and egg combining to make a dish substantial enough to be a meal in itself. Low in calories and effort and high in nutrients, this is a winter time must!

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Strawberry Pie

“The kitchen yielded no lemon cakes, but they did find half of a cold strawberry pie, and that was almost as good. They ate it on the tower steps, giggling and gossiping and sharing secrets, and Sansa went to bed that night feeling almost as wicked as Arya.” -A Game of Thrones

Modern Strawberry Galette

Our Thoughts:

Fun Fact! There are numerous historical recipes for strawberry pies, which we were quite excited to discover. However, we have tried the medieval strawberry pie recipe more times than we can count, and were sadly let down. It’s unpleasant to eat, and is just about the ugliest thing we have ever made. We’re embarrassed to even show it to you.

So in this case, we recommend the modern version all the way. It is inherently summery, bursting with fruity goodness and the tang of lemon curd. The thyme pastry adds a depth of flavor to the dish, and offsets the sweetness of the berries nicely, creating an immensely well balanced dessert.

UPDATE: Many readers expressed a desire to see the recipe that flopped. Might I suggest, instead, a strawberry tart recipe that we already know works, at the bottom of our Medieval Fruit Tarts post.