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!

Love Knots for Tea

Thoughts:

As the cookbook says, “little cakes folded over in the form of love knots are nice for tea”, and I couldn’t agree more. The finished knots are somewhere between shortbread, sugar cookies, and cake. Delicate and doughy, they are not especially sweet on their own, but make an ideal conduit for clotted cream and jam.

I struggled a bit with the obscure directions to “lap across in a true love knot”, but after a bit of experimentation, I think I found a great method. It results in 2-3 bite little cookie-cakes that fit snugly next to a cup of tea on a saucer.

Recipe for Love Knots

Prep: 30 minutes Baking: 10-12 minutes

Makes: 3-4 dozen knots

Cook’s Note: I’ve given instructions for the knot shape I used, but feel free to innovate!

Ingredients:

1/2 tsp. baking soda
5 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
1/4 cup lard or shortening
2 eggs
3 Tbs. milk
grated nutmeg or cinnamon

Combine the soda, flour, and sugar, then rub in the butter and lard/shortening. When the mixture resembles small breadcrumbs, add the beaten eggs, milk, and any spices you’d like to include. You may need to tweak the proportions a bit in order to get a nice cohesive dough.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to a thickness of about 1/4″. Slice into strips about 1″ wide and 5-6″ long. Take each of these strips, roll into an even rope about 8-10 inches long.

To arrange in the shape of a love knot, take a rope and tie it into a simple knot. Looking at the knot, you’ll see that one end seems to come out the bottom, and one out the top. Fold the top end over and under the knot, and take the bottom end and fold it up over the curve of the knot and into the hole in the center. It takes some practice, but in the end, you should have a knot with no visible ends, and five strands that all lie in the same direction. You’ll probably get better as you go, and since the dough is forgiving, you can redo some of the uglier knots. :)

Arrange the knots on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 35o F for 10-12 minutes, until bottoms are nice golden brown and the tops are just beginning to color. Remove to cooling rack.

Tying a Love Knot

Tea Eggs

Tea Eggs

Thoughts:

I originally made these as part of Breakfast in Meereen, and liked them so much I have kept making them.

Their flavor gets into the egg, smoky and filled with spice. It makes them more unique than ordinary hard-boiled eggs. They’re great for parties, or just as a snack

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Nettle Tea

“‘Found some nettles and brewed a tea,’ Shadd announced. ‘Will m’lady take a cup?’

‘Yes, with thanks.’ She cradled the tea in her scarred hands and blew on it to cool it.” -A Clash of Kings

Nettle Tea

Our Thoughts:

Somewhat lacking in fresh wild greens in Boston, we sadly had to default to dried nettle leaves to make this nettle tea. However, if you are lucky enough to have fresh leaves at your disposal, we recommend using those. We’ve planted our own nettles, partly as a defensive wall around our garden, and will update this post once we’ve tried them fresh.

It’s high in iron and vitamins, making it a wonderful surprise infusion by the side of the road while travelling. We actually didn’t care for the addition of lemon to ours, although a good dollop of honey was more than welcome.

The tea tastes very green, without the sometimes unpleasant herbal quality present in many other infusions.

Nettle Tea Recipe

We have taken a few liberties with additional ingredients; it’s unlikely that Catelyn and her party would have had all of these items on hand, but it makes for a much better tea, so we hope you will indulge us. :)

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. dried nettle leaves, or slightly less fresh
honey to taste
other additions: mint leaves, star anise, cinnamon stick, lemon, etc.

Steep leaves for a few minutes, then season to taste with honey and any additional ingredients you like. The color should be a dark green, and the flavor strong

*Fun Fact: Nettle Brew is also a good plant fertilizer, rinse for soft and sleek hair, and can be used to make beer. Stay tuned for that one… ;)

Sweetsleep

“‘This will give you dreamless sleep,’ Maester Luwin said as he pulled the stopper from the jar. ‘Sweet, dreamless sleep.'” -A Clash of Kings

Sweetsleep Infusion Mixture

This post will benefit from a small bit of back story.

Several months ago, after suffering from bouts of fitful sleeping, I sought a remedy in the form of the huge bulk herb bins at a local co-op. I played around with a few combinations, finally settling on the one below. Then, being one of the biggest geeks I know, I started referring to it as “Sweetsleep”.

This version of Sweetsleep is true to its name, if not strictly like the concoction described in the books. The biggest difference: ours won’t result in death. I’d say that’s a pretty good improvement. It does, however, result in a nice knockout sleep (although not strictly dreamless), and is absolutely delicious with honey.

And for extra fun, why not get a fabulous IatC Sweetsleep Jar to put it in?

Sweetsleep Recipe

Cook’s Notes: I usually just wing the amounts on this one, with a pinch here and there, going by intuition. However, that makes for a lousy recipe, so the measurements below should be just about right.

Ingredients:

3 Tbs. dried chamomile
3-5 small dried rosebuds
2 tsp. willow bark
2 tsp. lemonbalm
1 tsp. valerian
1 tsp. saigon cinnamon, or a cinnamon stick to stir with
honey to taste

Combine all ingredients in a medium teapot, then add 3-4 cups of boiling water. Allow to steep for several minutes, then pour through a strainer into serving mugs. Adjust sweetness to taste with honey, and enjoy!

Makes enough for ~ 3 small mugs.

Daenerys Targaryen's ideal meal

We were swamped with terrific ideas and suggestions for this meal. Combining our ideas with yours, this is what we’ve got:

We started with Kati’s idea that the meal would have to include lots of small dishes of nibbles for Dany to daintily pick at. Dylan is also probably correct in that there would have to be a “crap ton of fresh fruit”. We shopped at the local Asian market for some extra strange fruit varietals.

As per the suggestion of many, we served some spiced lamb over a bed of mixed grains. Also savory, the tea eggs from our Meereenese Breakfast. Equally exotic were the roasted grapes- half raisins with a burst of sweetness.

For a sweet finish, we followed Total Zelanity’s observation that Tyroshi Honeyfingers needed to be included. Add to that a side of Anne Clark’s suggested yogurt with honey and pomegranate, and some honey-cinnamon roasted chickpeas.

Our drinks consultant recommends a South African mead, such as the coffee, fig, or chili varietals from IQhilika, or a spicy Corsican witbier such as Pietra Columba. We also served up some of our home brewed persimmon wine. For a non alcoholic beverage, we suggest a minty green tea- a superior shade of green can be had by brewing matcha with fresh mint sprigs.

Our Thoughts:

Dany really feasts like a queen (or a khaleesi, if you prefer). The grapes on their own are wonderful, but for a really incredible experience, combine a bite of yogurt, roasted grape, and lamb. The three combine for a really amazing flavor. The extra fresh fruits are luscious, but in my opinion, can’t hold their own against the amazingness that is Tyroshi Honeyfingers. I mean, fried dough, soaked in honey. Yes.

We also employed an old Jacobite tradition for toasting: Fill a small glass with water. Take your beverage of choice, and, while passing it over the water, say, “To the Queen”. In this way, any Targaryen loyalist in Westeros can secretly toast Daenerys, their queen over the water. :)

Honorable Mention:

Doug suggested Ethiopian-style lamb tips, from lamb plundered from the weak Lhazareen

Min’s suggestion of something flambeed

EVERYTHING in Tami’s extensive list of courses

Faris’ suggestion of a course for each of the seven kingdoms, so she could metaphorically devour them

kkw for playing to my weakness for Turkish cuisine

Nate’s suggestion of a vintage Madeira, because it and Dany have gotten better with travel, are complex, and survive exposure to extreme heat

Melon and Hard Cooked Eggs

“But the only sound was the wind in the fruit trees, and the only creatures in the gardens were a few pale moths. Missandei returned with a melon and a bowl of hard-cooked eggs, but Dany found she had no appetite.” (Dance with Dragons)

Roman Melon and Boiled Tea Eggs

Our Thoughts:

We paired a Roman recipe for melons with a previously successful recipe for tea eggs. The result is a very quirky, flavorful light breakfast, full of unexpected tastes. The sweetness of the melon competes with the spicy, peppery sauce, finishing with just the slightest tang of vinegar and mint. The eggs are a subtle experience, dark and smoky with a great spiced flavor. If you can come by duck eggs, they up the ante on this dish, but it’s also wonderful made with chicken eggs.

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