Month: July 2017

So tonight was an epic GOT and an epic meal.  I had to start a while ago finding a rattlesnake to cook.  I was able to get one shipped frozen to me.  Here is what it looks like frozen.

Two days ago I made the dough for the Traditional Flatbread, and I made the Stuffed Grape Leaves.  The leaf dish is based on  A Feast For Crows, “The kid had been roasted with lemon and honey.  With it were grape leaves stuffed with a melange of raisins, onions, mushrooms, and fiery dragon peppers.”  The recipe called for a jalapeños pepper instead of dragon ones, and I replaced the ground lamb with our goat sausage.

This afternoon I baked the flat bread.  I then made the Chickpea Paste.  We love hummus, but this is my first time making it at home.  Per the cookbook, it has been a staple in the Arabic world since ancient times.  Here it is:

Tom grilled the rattlesnake (with a steak and potatoes for him to eat) while I assembled the rest of the ingredients.

While he was grilling I made Honey-Spiced Locusts.  This are, of course, featured in The Fighting Pits of Meereen.  I also gathered feta cheese and olives.

This was supposed to be served with a sweet red wine.  I chose this one from Bevmo.

I made the Fiery Sauce to go on the Dornish Snake.  The sauce is from A Feast For Crows, “The best snake sauce had a drop of venom in it, he had heard, along with mustard seeds and dragon peppers. ” The recipe though had no venom mentioned.  Ancho peppers were used instead of dragon ones.  Finally all the parts of this meal were ready.

The sauce was placed on the snake, and dinner was ready in time for the show.  The snake was fairly tough and stringy and had little meat and lots of bones.  The sauce was great though.  I love the stuffed grape leaves, chickpea paste, olives and feta, like always. The locust tasted burnt and were not tasty.  The wine tasted like grape Koolaid.

So now I can say I have eaten rattlesnake and locusts and never need to again.  The rest was like a good Greek restaurant meal so I am happy.  And I moved on to a favorite dry red wine instead.  And I got to watch Ellaria Sand get punished.

Although I like most of the food, I will not miss Dorne.

So today I decided to have the Breaktfast of Drone.  I am thinking that Dorne is not going to be featured in the future of this series after the events of last week.  This dish was featured in A Storm Of Swords, “a Dornish dish of onions, cheese, and chopped eggs cooked up with fiery peppers.”  Above are the peppers chopped up which are bell, jalapeño and poblano peppers.  I could not find cubanelle peppers for this dish.  Below is the egg dish with more peppers on the side and traditional flatbread.

The eggs dish was quite good.  It was not spicy, and it was kind of creamy with the cheddar cheese mixed in.  I like it.  I ate this while rewatching last week’s episode.    I want to see if that is Yara Greyjoy at the end.  Here is Ellaria Sand earlier in the episode.

 

So we were in Winthrop Sunday so I had to wait until Monday to watch GOT and prepared my medieval meal.  I had to pick something relatively quick as we did not get home until the afternoon.  So I bravely chose the Snail Soup.  This was served to Tyrion in King’s Landing in A Storm of Swords.  The recipe is based on 2 fifteenth century cookery books.  I could not find fresh escargot so went with canned.  The spices of ginger, cloves and mace were intriguing.  I was not sure I could eat a snail, but when the soup was ready it was hard to tell the mushrooms from the snails and since I like mushrooms it made it easier to eat.  And it was actually good although I probably will not make it again.  Needless to say, Tom did not try it.

I accompanied this with Crusty White Bread and Elizabethan Lemon Cakes.   I tried to make the bread dough in my machine, but it ended up overriding an making a big mess.  The Lemon Cakes are, of course, Sansa’s favorite.  The recipe is based on Lucayos Cookbook from 1690.  The only lemon in them is zest, but they are quite tasty.  And I like that they are not quite cookies and not quite cake but in between,  I was supposed to have white wine with the meal, but was out (and forgot about my quince wine aging in the cellar) so I had Alameda Yellow Wolf IPA instead.  It actually accompanied the soup quite well.    So all in all a great meal to watch these scenes in King’s Landing.

So the premier is finally here!!!  I have longed plan to have pigeon pie for this day.

I decided to have Sansa Salad with it.  The recipe is loosely based on a salad from the 14th century Forme of Cury.  The mint and rose petals are ours.  Unfortunate our spinach has bolted in the heat so I had to buy it as well as the other ingredients (prunes, candied walnuts, lemongrass and pomegranate vinaigrette).

The pigeon pie was a little more challenging. I had trouble finding the pigeon (squab).  I bought quail as a substitute but then thought, if you are going to have pigeon pie you need to have pigeon meat. So I finally purchased pigeon from Marx Meats and had it shipped.  (If you want some of the extra pigeon let me know.)  The chicken stock and egg are ours but the rest of the ingredients are purchased.  The recipe is based on A Proper New Booke Of Cokery from 1545.  It, of course, was served at Joffrey’s wedding just before  he died.

The meal called for red wine. So unfortunately I could not break out the GOT beer my cousin bought for me for the premier.  But I will break it out soon.  This is the wine I chose.

Here is the meal all assembled.  I had “Pumpkin” Soup as well.  I could not find any pumpkin this time of year and our Neon pumpkins are not ready.  So I settled for using butternut and acorn squash with sweet potato.

The meal was excellent.  The salad is flavorful and refreshing.  The soup tastes somewhat like a pumpkin pie filling but not as sweet.  The pigeon pie is rich and unique.  An excellent accompaniment to the new season.

Here’s to a new and exciting season!

This is my breakfast this morning while watching the final episode of season 6.  But first I had to assemble the ingredients.  The eggs are ours.  I gathered the blueberries and raspberries yesterday and the mint leaves this morning.  The rest I had to purchase.  The Matcha green tea I found at Uwajimaya in Seattle.

The hamsi were more difficult to find.  I resorted to using amazon to find these.  They are actually from Turkey!

I made the Traditional Green Minty Drink first.  I steeped the loose matcha green tea, honey and fresh mint leaves.  I served it hot, rather than iced, and serve it with a stalk of lemongrass.

Then I moved on to making Traditional Fingerfish.  I rolled the fish in corn meal.  Some of the fish came apart in this process.  I fried them and kept them warm while I prepared the rest of the meal.  This recipe comes from the Turkish coast of the Black Sea.

Next I cooked the soaked oats in milk.  I prepared the soft boiled eggs.  I assembled the plate to also include almond, blueberries, raspberries and raw honey.  Here it is all together.  This breakfast is from A Clash Of Kings: “Cersei Lannister was breaking her fast when Sansa was ushered into her solar.  “You may sit.” the queen said graciously.  “Are you hungry?” She gestured at the table.  There was porridge, honey, milk, boiled eggs and crisp fried fish.”

As I feared, I could not stomach eating fish in the morning.  I am guessing they are good but now now.  And even though I cooked the eggs exactly like I did for Breakfast at Winterfell, but this time they came out raw.  So I was left with oatmeal mixed with almonds, blueberries and honey, green minty tea and fresh raspberries.  This was all quite good.  And the first scene of the episode is of Cersei Lannister looking over King’s Landing in the morning before she destroyed the Great Sept.

How very appropriate.

Tonight’s dinner was from The Wall.  They like their ale there.  The above one was used for Mutton in Onion-Ale Broth. The below ale was used for the Elizabethan Buns with Raisins, Pine Nuts, and Dried Apple.

Here is the meal.  I used goat meal instead of lamb, and I managed to forget the old Black Bread like I was supposed to use.

The broth recipe is based on two fifteenth century cookery books.  It is good and hearty despite the complete lack of spices.  The Elizabeth buns are based on Banbury cakes.  Banbury tarts were one of my maternal grandfather’s favorite things. Despite the title they have currants and fresh apples in them,  The recipe is based on The Compleat Cook, 1671.  

The marathon tonight included Hodor trying the hold the door which still makes me cry. I did name a ram after Hodor and sincerely hope that Hodor manages to live, hopefully not as a White Walker.  Here is another scene from tonight’s marathon in the north.

Here is some of the food I ordered from Amazon after I could not find it in local stores.  This is for upcoming GOT meals.

And here is last night’s dinner while our marathon slowly continues.  We started season 6 last night.  These recipes are both from across the Narrow Sea.  The Biscuits and Bacon were made on the trip to Volantis by Ysilla.  This has not made it into the TV series however.  It is very much like the biscuits and sausage gravy my husbands loves so much so this was a hit.

The beet soup is from Volantis as well.  The authors based the recipe son Apicius from the 1st century!  It was good.  I served it hot and could not help but put sour cream on it.  Tom is not a fan of beets so did not have any.

 

This was a great dinner tonight while continuing the marathon.  The recipe is based on King’s Landing which figured prominently in these episodes.  It is based on a recipe from The Forme of Cury from the 14th century.  I used 4 Walla Walla Sweet onions, Havarti cheese, our eggs, our herbs and there are currants in it.  The Poudre Dulce was used as well.  It is quite tasty.  Almost all of these recipes call for Saffron so I have finished my supply of this expensive spice and will need to get more.

So Tom had purchased fruit last week to make a salad not realizing that he was soon not able to eat fruit.  Now he is off his pre-colonoscopy diet and can eat anything he wants.  So I made the fruit salad for him.  It is not from the A Feast of Ice & Fire cookbook but went well with the pie.  He even bought dragon fruit for it which we have never had before.  The fruit salad turned out great.

And here is the dinner.

And here is Cersei in prison..

Happy Throning!

I chose duck tonight as we more slowly continue our marathon.  I partially picked this because Tom is on his temporary diet and definitely does not like duck.  This is based his experiences surveying a pond at a sewage treatment plant.  I cannot remember ever having duck before and I am curious about it.  So duck it was.  This recipe is from Dorne and has a lemon chile sauce.  There are potatoes and carrots cooked along side it.

This was really flavorful and tender.  The flatbread worked to soak up all the juices.  The lemon sweet is made with fresh squeezed lemons and oranges.  It is tasty but quite sweet.  The recipe for it came from Le Confiturier Francais from the 17th century.  The poached pears are yummy, warm and spicy.  It is based on food from Highgarden rather than Dorne.  It is based on recipes from two fifteenth century cookery books.

I started the Tyroshi pear brandy last week.  It is supposed to age for 1-3 months but I decided to steal some to accompany this dinner.  It was interesting while I was cooking this dinner and the marathon was going on, Dario Naharis was telling Daenerys Targaryen about his mother and her Tyroshi pear brandy..  I am noticing more of the food references in the series now.  Food is still more highly described in the books but you do notice food in the background of many of the scenes in the show.  And, of course, they are almost always drinking.

This was my dinner and dessert tonight while completing my marathon for now.  I have been sick with a cold this weekend and need to work tomorrow so really need to get some sleep tonight.  I will finish the marathon using HBO Go at more sensible hours.

The Sister’s Stew was really an adventure for me. Despite growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I am not a fan of seafood.  This has cod, clam meat and crab meat in it.  But I actually really like it and its creamy texture.  I am not sure how authentic evaporated milk is though.  This is a recipe from the South.

The Medieval Fish Tarts are an appetizer.  They have salmon, figs, almonds and dates.  I do not have a mini-tartlette mold so made them a little bigger in a regular cupcake pan,.  I am finding out that they do not like to use salt in these recipes, and this one could really use some,  Otherwise really good.  This recipe was adapted from two fifteenth-century cookbooks and is from the King’s Landing.

The Medieval Arya Tarts were dessert.  They are from King’s Landing when she stole tarts in the A Clash Of Kings book.  They have dates, currants and figs in a honey-wine sauce over fried pastry.  They are yummy and also based on two fifteenth-century cookery books.

Unfortunately Tom is on a low-fiber diet now so could not try any of these items due to the fruits and vegetables in them.  So there are lots of leftovers.