Tag Archives: recipe

Oatcakes

“When they woke the next morning, the fire had gone out and the Liddle was gone, but he’d left a sausage for them, and a dozen oatcakes folded up neatly in a green and white cloth.  Some of the cakes had pinenuts baked in them and some had blackberries.  Bran ate one of each, and still did not know which sort he liked the best.” -A Storm of Swords

Traditional Bannocks

Thoughts:

While we liked both of these recipes, the traditional version really matched what we imagined from the book.  They are a unique combination of crisp and soft, dry and moist.  Because of their texture, they are wonderful with tea, or on a hike.  We also liked the contrasting colors that resulted from mixing the blackberries in with the dough. We’d like to nibble them while out in the countryside, followed by a drink from a cold mountain stream.  However, we’re glad we aren’t relying on them during a mad survival dash for The Wall…

Both recipes are available in The Cookbook!

Salladhor Saan’s shipboard Dinner

“Salladhor Saan got to his feet.  ‘My pardons.  These grapes have given me a hunger, and dinner awaits on my Valyrian.  Minced lamb with pepper and roasted gull stuffed with mushrooms and fennel and onion.” (II: 115)

Medieval Lamb Meatballs and Modern Roasted “Gull”

Our Thoughts:

This is a really nice, comparatively easy meal.  The lamb meatballs are simply made, soft and spicy.  Because they only have pepper in them, the delicious flavor unique to lamb really comes through.  The eggplant puree only adds to the experience of the meatballs.  In the “gull” corner, the stuffing is what really makes it special.  The fennel stays a little crunchy, providing a nice textural counterpoint to the flavor combo of the other ingredients.  Pop a few grapes for dessert, and you’ll be feasting like a pirate king.

Make it at Home!

Salad in Castle Black

“‘From the Lord Commander’s own table,’ Bowen Marsh told them.  There were salads of spinach and chickpeas and turnip greens, and afterward bowls of iced blueberries and sweet cream.” (I: 372)

Medieval-ish Salad

Our thoughts:

This salad is earthy and quite tasty.  The different greens provide a wide variety of flavors; the splash of lemon from the sorrel, the refreshing crispness of the mint, and the classic tangy pairing of oil and vinegar.  That said, we weren’t crazy about the oniony greens in the mix. Our big change? Swap out the mushy chickpeas for the crunchy Middle Eastern snack kind.  Yum!

Make it at Home!

Sansa Salad

“All the while the courses came and went.  A thick soup of barley and venison.  Salads of sweetgrass, spinach, and plums, sprinkled with crushed nuts.” -A Game of Thrones

Medieval-ish Salad

Our Thoughts:

This was a tasty, tasty salad.  All the elements of it work beautifully with one another both texturally and aesthetically.  Pack this for a lunch, or have as a light afternoon meal, and you won’t be disappointed.

Make it at Home!

Leek Soup

“The wedding feast began with a thin leek soup, followed by a salad of green beans, onions, and beets…” -Storm of Swords

Medieval Leek Soup

Thoughts:

This was a simple, tasty recipe pairing.

The medieval leek soup took all of 5 minutes to prepare, and the result was an interesting, tasty broth with a bit of kick.  The pepper and ginger lengthen the feeling of heat in your mouth, transitioning from the temperature of the hot soup to the warm sensation of the spices.

If you were a monk traveling the open road and cooking over campfires, the modern recipe would be your dinner of choice. The citrus flavor makes the soup wonderfully fresh-tasting, perfect for a spring evening with a chunk of sourdough bread. Leeks are a gem of a veg, underused in cooking these days.

Try both recipes and let us know your favorite- viva la leek!

 

Medieval Leek Soup

Take funges and pare hem clene and dyce hem; take leke and shrede hym small and do hym to seeþ in gode broth. Colour it with safroun, and do þerinne powdour fort. -Forme of Curye, ~1390

Ingredients:

  • 1½ handfuls of mushrooms
  • 6 threads saffron (or a pinch of ground saffron)
  • 1 leek
  • ¼ tsp. ground ginger
  • 1/4 tsp. ground pepper
  • 2 c beef broth (or chicken broth)
  • ¼ tsp salt

Wash the vegetables; slice the leek finely and dice the mushrooms. Add saffron to the broth and bring it to a boil. Add the leek, mushrooms, and powder fort to the broth, simmer 3-4 minutes, remove from the heat, and serve.We prefer to use beef broth, but it is also good with chicken.

Modern Leek Soup

Ingredients:

  • 3 medium leeks
  • 1 medium carrot
  • 1 stalk celery
  • 4 hand fulls spring greens
  • 1 lemon
  • 2 Tablespoons butter
  • 1 litre vegetable stock
  • 2 bay leaves

Trim the green end of the leeks to about 3 inches above the white, and cut root end. At root end, slice a cross to about halfway up the stalks, and rinse. Slice the leeks into thin rings. Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the leeks. Cover and simmer over a low heat until the leeks are softened, but not colored.

Chop the celery and carrot and add to the pan. Pour in vegetable stock, add bay leaves, salt, and pepper, and leave to simmer for 20 minutes or until veg is soft but sill vibrantly colored.

Rinse the spring greens and shred into thin ribbons.

Grate the lemon zest and drop into thepot with the shredded greens. Simmer for 2-3 minutes until the greens are just tender, juice the lemon into the soup and serve.

Wintercake with ginger, pine nuts, and cherry

“He could still recall the sounds of the three bells, the way that Noom’s deep peals set his very bones to shuddering, the proud strong voice of Narrah, sweet Nyel’s silvery laughter.  The taste of wintercake filled his mouth again, rich with ginger and pine nuts and bits of cherry…” -A Feast for Crows

Modern Wintercakes

Elizabethan Wintercakes

Our thoughts:

No wonder Areo Hotah remembered these wintercakes fondly. Biting into one is like tasting a memory- the memory of a childhood characterized by roaring fires in stone keeps, the smell of leather, and warm smiles from bearded men. Eating one of these cakes is like finding something you lost years ago and had forgotten how much you loved; it is like coming home.

Needless to say, we loved both of these recipes.  In the modern cake,  the spice of the ginger combined with the tang of the cherries is reminiscent of an English fruitcake, but is more similar in texture to the interior of a moist, high quality scone.  The Elizabethan cakes are denser and heavier, like English biscuits.  The overall taste is one of pleasant, homey shortbread, but when you get a bite with cherry or ginger, the flavor shifts from familiar into foreign and fantastic.  Both cakes can be served any time of day, and are better at room temperature than hot.  They are delicious with tea, coffee, or hot cider.

Bottom line:  Have friends over for hot drinks. Sit in big leather chairs. Talk about beautiful things. Take up the mandolin.  Consider the merits of index based mutual funds. Whatever you do, make these cakes.

Both recipes are available in the Cookbook.

White Beans and Bacon

Medieval White Beans and Bacon

“Then came lamprey pie, honeyed ham, buttered carrots, white beans and bacon, and roast swan stuffed with mushrooms and oysters.” (A Clash of Kings)

Modern White Beans and Bacon

Our thoughts:

Both of these recipes are absolutely wonderful. The medieval recipe really soaks up the bacon taste in the beans. Roughly chopped lardons paired with the buttery beans make for a lovely mouthful. The onions offer a bit of caramelized sweetness at the end of every bite.

The modern recipe is incredible. Curly endive is reminiscent of the broccoli rabe when wilted, balanced out phenomenally by the sweetness of the bacon and onions. We could eat this as a meal in itself! These dishes take about 10 minutes to make, and can easily be scaled up for more people.

Beans are indeed the magical fruit.

Get the Recipes!

Applecakes

Medieval Applecake

“Jon was breaking his fast on applecakes and blood sausage when Samwell Tarly plopped himself down on the bench. ‘I’ve been summoned to the sept,’ Sam said in an excited whisper. ‘They’re passing me out of training. I’m to be made a brother with the rest of you. Can you believe it?'”  -A Game of Thrones

Modern Applecake

Our Thoughts

The clear predecessors of the modern day doughnut, the medieval applecakes are fantastic. Called krapfen in Germany, these fluffy fried morsels are filled with nutty apple goodness.

The modern cakes are essentially apple coffeecake muffins.  The crunchiness of the crumble top contrast with the softness of the cake itself. The apples melt as they bake, imbuing the cake with an incredible moistness and apple flavor.

Like Jon Snow, you’ll be hard pressed to eat just one; We’re hard pressed just to pick our favorite.

Both recipes are available in the Cookbook.

Potted Hare

“Littlefinger turned away. ‘Boy, are you fond of potted hare?’ he asked Podrick Payne.” (II:199)

Elizabethan Potted Hare

Our Thoughts:

This quirky dish, still found in the UK, might be one of our new weekend staples.  The Elizabethan version is quite basic in flavor as it contains only a few spices, but this allows the taste of the rabbit to come through.  Ours didn’t hold together too well, and so ended up more a confit than a pate, which was still very good.  

The modern potted hare is fantastic. The thyme gives the rabbit a wonderful savory flavor, and the reduced fat adds a creamy texture that is awesome spread over crackers. The rabbit sets very well, and should be molded into any shape for a fun, interesting presentation.

Bottom line?  Well worth the effort, and tasty.  We served ours as part of a ploughman’s platter, with pickle, chutney, apples, cheese, and hunky bread.


 

 

Elizabethan Potted Hare

A Hare Hashed.

Cut it out in quarters, chine it, and lay it in Clarret, mixed with three parts of water, and parboyl it, then slice the flesh in thin pieces, and lay it on your stew pan, let this be off the Body, but the legs wings, and head whole, almost cover it with some of the liquor it was boyled in, add some Butter, sliced Nutmeg, the juce of Lemon, and a little beaten Ginger, serve it upon sippets, Garnish it with Lemon, and sliced Onion.

–The Whole Duty of a Woman: Or a Guide to the Female Sex, 1696

Our changes: *NOTE* This dish is best prepared a day in advance.  Potted meats are basically stewed meat and herb that are ground after stewing and packed into a terrine. So we’ve used the basic recipe for hashed hare and finished it as you would a potted recipe.  Also, can we please just take a moment to appreciate the title of the original source?  Hilarious.

Ingredients:

  • 1 rabbit, cleaned
  • 1 part red wine
  • 3 parts water
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 lemon, juiced
  • stick butter, clarified

Cut the rabbit into manageable pieces and place into a large pot.   Add one part red wine to three parts water until the meat is covered and simmer until flesh is falling off the bone (several hours).

Strain off liquid and pull all meat from the bone, discarding the bones (what broth is left can be made into a soup — waste not!). Grind down by hand or in a food processor, adding spices, and lemon juice. Pack loosely into a terrine, add a bit of the broth, then pour over with clarified butter to completely seal and coat. Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for at least one day before eating.

Modern Potted Hare

Ingredients:

  • 1 rabbit, cleaned
  • 1/3 lb. smoked slab bacon, cut into lardons
  • 1 pigs trotter, washed
  • 1 onion, peeled and quatered
  • 2 stalks celery, chopped
  • 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
  • 5 thyme sprigs, 1 Tablespoon thyme
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 glass white wine
  • 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
  • Salt and pepper
  • Olive oil
Preheat oven to 350F.
Cut rabbit into manageable pieces. Warm a glug of olive oil in a large sauce pan on medium-high heat, and brown rabbit pieces on all sides. Remove rabbit and brown the bacon. Put meat in a casserole dish with the trotter, veg, thyme, bay leaves, wine, and enough water to cover. Bring to a simmer and cover, transfer to the oven and cook for about two hours.
Place sieve over a saucepan, and strain off the liquid. Boil and reduce to a little over one cup. While boiling, pull rabbit meat off the bones and shred into a bowl. Finely chop the bacon, add it to the rabbit as well as the mustard and tablespoon of fresh thyme. Season with salt and pepper and and loosely pack into a terrine.
Pour over the reduced cooking liquid, cool, cover and refrigerate until solid.
Remove from fridge 20 minutes before serving.

Apple Crisps

Medieval Apple Fritters

Medieval Apple Fritters

“For the sweet, Lord Caswell’s servants brought down trays of pastries from his castle kitchens, cream swans and spun-sugar unicorns, lemon cakes in the shape of roses, spiced honey biscuits and blackberry tarts, apple crisps and wheels of buttery cheese.” -A Clash of Kings

Modern Apple Fritters

Modern Apple Fritters

Thoughts:

This is my take on Martin’s “apple crisps”.  I considered making something more like a conventional apple crisp recipe, with the crumbled oats and such on top, but since the excerpt from the book mentions “crisps”, plural, I wanted to find something smaller to go with the other individual desserts in the feast. And after I found the first fritter recipe, I was sold on the idea.

The batter for the medieval fritters comes out surprisingly light due, and garnered much praise from my taste-testers.  The apples were perfectly crisp to begin with, but during the frying process transformed into a warm, soft texture just shy of gooey, while the outside batter stayed firm. The crunchiness of the fried batter is enhanced by the sugar coating, and the zest gives a hint of freshness to counter the oil. I swapped the ale in the original recipe for a sparkling hard cider, and I think it made all the difference. Add a little fancy presentation (medieval folks loved that), and all in all, the whole experience is Westeros-meets-State fair.

The modern fritters? I really liked the medieval version, but I’ll be honest: I ate a half batch of the modern fritters all by myself. They are less crispy than the old school recipe, and comes out with more of a dense, almost cake-like texture. The zest flavor is there, but helps compliment the apple flavors rather than interfering. I enjoyed mine immensely dipped in honey (maple syrup could be awesome, too), and could almost justify serving it as a breakfast dish, rather than a dessert.

Which one wins?  They’re both great, but I’ve got to give it to the medieval version!

Medieval Apple Fritters

Take whete floure, ale, zest, safroun, & salt, & bete alle togederys as thikke as thou schuldyst make other bature in fleyssche tyme, & than take fayre applys, & kut hem in maner of fretourys, & wete hemm in the bature up on downne, & frye hem in fayre oyle, & caste hem in a dyssche, & caste sugre theron & serve forth.  -Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks

Cook’s Notes: Although it’s not called for in the original recipe, I added a pinch of dry yeast to help simulate the more bready nature of old fashioned ale. This helps give the batter its lightness.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 bottle sparkling hard cider (6 fl. oz)
  • a few threads of saffron
  • pinch of dry yeast
  • pinch of salt
  • zest of 1/2 lemon or orange
  • 1 cup flour
  • 3-4 smallish apples
  • lard or shortening for frying
  • sugar for sprinkling over, the coarser the better
  • several whole cloves, and leaves (mint works well) to decorate

Heat the cider gently over low heat, then add the saffron. Allow to sit for about 30 minutes, which should let the saffron dissolve. Add the yeast, and stir (this should make the cider foam up impressively). Add the salt and zest, followed by the flour. Beat until the batter is light and smooth and there are no lumps of flour. You should end up with a thick, but not unworkable batter. Set aside.

Peel your apples. Using a sharp knife, take off the whole top in a slice about 1/2″ thick (this gives you a pretty top with which to top your reconstructed fritter-apples). Core the rest of the apple, then cut into 1/2″ slices. Pat dry with a paper towel.

Heat your lard or oil over medium heat; it may take some adjusting to get the temperature just right, especially as the oil is absorbed by the fritters. Dip each apple slice into the batter, then carefully lower into the hot oil. Let each slice fry for about a minute before flipping to cook the other side. The fritters are done when they are golden brown on both sides. Place on a paper towel lined plate to drain. When the slices are all cooked and cooled enough to handle, dip them in the coarse sugar.

To present, stack the fritters, small-large-small, and top them with one of the fried tops that you first sliced off the apple. You should hopefully end up with at least a couple of fritter-stacks that loosely resemble apples. If the top has no stem, place a clove in the very top, along with a leaf to add to the apple impression. Best served warm!

Modern Apple Fritters

Ingredients:

  • 2 eggs
  • 2 Tbs. sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. lemon or orange zest
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1-2 medium-sized apple, peeled, cored and diced
  • Vegetable oil, for frying
  • Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar, followed by the zest and milk. Gradually add the dry ingredients and the apples until everything is incorporated. Continue to add flour just a little bit at a time until the batter is thick enough that it doesn’t drip off a spoon on its own.

Heat the vegetable oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. When the oil is up to temperature, drop large spoonfuls of the batter into the pan, using another spoon or your finger to push the batter off. The fritters should flatten somewhat into thick shapes. Flip each fritter occasionally, until they are dark golden on both sides and cooked all the way through (you might have to check the first few until you get the knack). Place the cooked fritters on a plate lined with paper towel to drain.

Dust the tops of the fritters with confectioners’ sugar and serve with honey on the side.