Tag Archives: cardamom

Cardamom Tea – The Throne of the Crescent Moon

“Tea. Adoulla leaned his face farther over the small bowl and inhaled deeply, needing its aromatic cure for the fatigue of life. The spicy-sweet cardamom steam enveloped him, moistening his face and his beard, and for the first time that groggy morning he felt truly alive.”

–The Throne of the Crescent Moon, by Saladin Ahmad

Thoughts:

Now, let’s start with the simple fact that I love cardamom. As soon as I heard about this beverage, I knew I had to try it.

The book is set in a quasi Middle Eastern setting, which I took as my starting point. Having lived in Turkey for a year, I know how essential tea is to everyday life. I decided to go for spiced added to a base of actual tea (rather than just an herbal/spice infusion).  As I constructed the recipe, though, the realization slowly dawned that I knew this beverage I was making.

Chai.

What a wonderful example of how slightly changing the name of something defamiliarizes it enough for us to discover and wonder over it all over again. The flavor of the tea is rich and spicy, with the cardamom and ginger at the forefront. 

Cardamom Tea Recipe

Making: 15 minutes

Makes 2 servings

Cook’s Notes: As with all recipes, feel free to tweak this one to suit your own tastes!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups water
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 ” fresh ginger, thinly sliced
  • 4-6 cloves
  • 7 cardamom pods, crushed (or 1 tbs. seeds)
  • 1 heaping Tbs. black tea leaves
  • Milk 
  • sugar or honey to taste

Combine ingredients except for milk and sugar in a saucepan, and bring to a simmer. Keep on the heat for about 5 minutes, then strain into serving cups. Add milk until it is a rich tan color, and sweeten to taste. Enjoy!

Cardamom Tea | Food Through the Pages

Tyroshi Honeyfingers

“…we seldom had enough coin to buy anything…well, except for a sausage now and again, or honeyfingers…do they have honeyfingers in the Seven Kingdoms, the kind they bake in Tyrosh?”

-A Game of Thrones

Our Thoughts

The Roman recipe is a curiosity. They fried to a crispily crunchy on the outside while still leaving a bit of chew on the inside.  The pieces were easy to cut into shapes, and could probably even be rolled into logs. The flavor is really all about the honey, but the pinch of pepper and cinnamon on top adds a slight level of complexity.

The Modern recipe knocked our socks off.  These fritters are like Winnie-the-Pooh-gasms.  Between the spiced sauce and the incredibly luscious texture, we ended up gobbling them and shamelessly licking our fingers.

The winner?  We had imagined Tyroshi Honeyfingers to be sort of a tasty sweet street food.  The Roman variety is fun because of its historical significance and ease of shaping, but wouldn’t be easy to make in a dusty alleyway.  The modern version is SO good and is made basically like carnival fried dough, so fits our loose criteria for a great honeyfinger.  Modern Wins!

Get the recipes in The Cookbook!