Next up in our character themed meals is

Daenerys Targaryen

She’s hot, she’s confident, and she’s a total bad-ass. She embraces each new culture she encounters, folding them into her expanding empire.

Your best suggestions will get incorporated into a meal fit for the mother of dragons. So give it your best shot: What dishes do YOU think typify Daenerys Stormborn?

Out thoughts so far include Mottled Duck Eggs, Sweet Wine with a touch of spice, roasted grapes, and honey cinnamon roasted chickpeas… And no, we’re not serving a stallion’s heart!

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.

Peppercrab Stew Recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 cups fish stock (vegetable stock works, too)
• 1/4 cup dried and chopped wakame seaweed
•  1 tablespoon of a pepper varieties tied in cheesecloth (long, aleppo, black, red, cayenne etc.)
• 3 medium crabs worth of meat
• 1 small onion, chopped

Believe it or not, that is actually a cupcake.  Red velvet. Mmmmm. Red velvet heart.

Choose your favorite red velvet cake recipe, or a boxed one, as we did, and bake cupcakes according to the directions. We made six extra large cupcakes in order to get a bigger heart, closer to that of a horse.

As the cupcakes are cooling on a rack, roll out enough fondant to completely cover a cupcake. This amount will vary, depending on your cupcake size. Once the cupcakes are completely cooled (this is important), place a cupcake on its side on the rolled out fondant, and bring up the edges of the fondant to the top of the cupcake and mold the edges together. Use the top edge of one or two of the sides to create the arteries, and press the fold of the fondant together to create the appearance of the arteries and veins.

Mix black and red food coloring with piping gel to create the colors to paint the heart with. Work in layers to create depth and realism. The piping gel will stay shiny, even when dried.

Serve with a cherry compote. You can also fill the cupcakes with compote or jam before wrapping in the fondant for some fun when cutting into them!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Water of Time for the Passion of the Heart

Our Thoughts:

Yes, that is actually the title of the recipe. Naturally, I couldn’t resist.

The base mixture, after sitting overnight, was extremely strong. Dark and murky with herb juice and spices, the jar full of thyme needed only a miniature X-wing to closely resemble Dagobah.

We tried to come up with a method of home distillation, with moderate success… Lacking any proper equipment, we rigged a double bowl system with a tent of tin foil to catch and direct the vapors. However, much of the liquid was lost by this method (we got about one serving), and fearing there wouldn’t be enough to go around, we reserved a bit of the unrefined juice for comparison.

The unrefined juice is the color of thick apple cider, with a flavor like a punch in the face. The thyme flavors are foremost and strongest, giving the mixture a very strong herbal quality that reaches all the way to the back of the throat. The spices are also present, but more understated compared to the thyme.

The pseudo-distilled version is clear, and utterly delicious. It’s so good that we immediately determined that we needed more sophisticated distilling equipment. The thyme and spices are a very delicate taste. Starts like sake, then takes on a hint of sourness which fades into a vaguely nutty sweetness, which transitions into a mildly dry finish.

Conclusion? It’s a surprisingly sophisticated beverage, and entirely unlike anything I’ve ever tried before. LOVED it. :)

Water of Time Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 quart white wine (a little over one bottle)
• 1 pint sack
• a lot of thyme, about 3 oz., or 3 cups
• 1 tsp. galingale
• 1 tsp. calamus
• 1/2 tsp. cloves
• 1/2 tsp. mace
• 1/2 tsp. ginger
• 1/2 tsp. grains of paradise
• sugar to taste

No wonder King Robert is so large, and there’s little question why the crown was six million gold dragons in debt.

Cheese.

And ale. And venison, mead, bacon, wine, tarts, and a plethora of other tasty, tasty foodstuffs. This meal left two of us utterly stuffed. The roasted veg were all soft and delicious, slightly caramelized from cooking in duck fat and cider. The venison was simply mindblowing. I have no words. The desserts were a wonderful conclusion, and proof of my theory that dessert occupies a different space in the stomach than does dinner. Sweet and delicious, we managed several of each before succumbing to a sensory overload. The honeycakes (forthcoming!) were absolutely divine, though.
The Menu:

• Assorted Cheeses
• Roasted Vegetable Medley, with a splash of cider
• Red and Golden Beets
• Mustard-Stout Deviled Eggs
• Drunken Venison Steaks, marinated in mead and wrapped in boar bacon
• Honeycakes with Lavender icing
• Blackberry Jam tarts
• Wine-Poached Pears
• Lots and lots of Dark Beer

Overall, we got a ton of great suggestions for this post. Rich foods and drinks are the name of the game, such that you’d risk a brush with gout after just one meal like this… After very careful consideration, we had to agree with Katy and Mary that after Cersei’s gloating, boar is much more her dish than it is Robert’s, despite his delight in hunting them. However, we couldn’t resist slipping just a little bit in there in the form of boar bacon, wrapped around the venison rib chops. In this way, both the hunter and the hunted come together in one dish. After all, he is what he eats, and that is a stag.

The venison is topped with a savory-mead reduction sauce and strips of boar bacon. Sheer decadence, and possibly the best tasting dish I’ve ever made.

For sides, we made an assortment of roasted veg, including leek, carrot, and potato (yes, he is a meat and potato man, despite the pseudo-medieval setting…). The red and gold beets represent the Lannisters, while the deviled duck eggs are made with mustard and stout.

We liked Dinofsilence‘s suggestion of a range of dishes that represent the king both in his youth and as we see him in GoT. For desserts, we included delicate honeycake topped with lavender as homage to Lyanna Stark, blackberry tarts (“You smell like blackberry jam!”), and mini wine-poached pears.

To sum up, the foods were made with stout, mead, wine, and cider. Now that’s a meal fit for a king! Our beverage consultant recommends Schneider Weisse for a hefeweizen or Kapuziner Weissbier Schwarz for the first half of the meal, then one of the Dansk Mjods for the second half (we used Viking Blood for the marinade/reduction). A bit of cider and red wine won’t go amiss amongst the spread, and you really can’t have to much to drink if you’re Robert Baratheon…

Other great ideas included:

• King Crab legs, broken open with a Hammer, suggested by Richard
• A medieval style “Turducken”, with boar, pheasant, and quail, suggested by Christopher
• The incredibly delicious sounding wild game goulash, suggested by Pitzur
• Fried Calamari, to thumb the nose at the Greyjoys
• Stephen Scott’s suggestion of pickled eggs (the sourness is for his innumerable dalliances with whores)