A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook (A Song of Ice and Fire) (12 page)

Read A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook (A Song of Ice and Fire) Online

Authors: Chelsea Monroe-Cassel,Sariann Lehrer

Pour hot water over the tea bags and steep them for a few minutes while you prepare the plates. Place the egg in an egg cup if you have one, or in the partially hollowed-out end of your bread loaf, as in the picture. Serve the eggs with the bacon, cheese, and toast alongside, accompanied by steaming cups of tea, and enjoy!
Cook’s Note:
To eat a soft-boiled egg, remove the top third of the eggshell. Use an egg cutter if you have one; otherwise, tap the shell with a knife or the edge of a spoon to crack it, forming a circle around the top. Carefully insert your knife or spoon into the egg and lever off the top. You’ll know your egg is perfect if the white is reasonably firm and the yolk is hot but still runny. A small spoon, such as a teaspoon or grapefruit spoon, is the ideal utensil for scooping the egg out of its shell—there is even such a thing as an egg spoon.

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-style Oatcakes
Makes about 10 oatcakes
Prep: 15 minutes
Baking: 30 minutes
Pairs well with
Breakfast at Winterfell
,
Leek Soup
, butter and honey, tea or ale
This recipe is loosely based on a traditional Scottish bannock, which at its core is a paste of oats and water cooked on a hot stone or griddle. We’ve assumed that the Liddle’s oatcakes were baked at home in his kitchen, and we included ingredients accordingly. The resulting oatcakes are a unique combination of crisp and soft, dry and moist. Because of their texture, they are equally wonderful with tea or on a hike.
3½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats, not the quick-cooking variety
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons honey, plus additional for serving
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, plus additional for serving
About ½ cup water
Handful of fresh berries of your choice (we used about 10 fresh blackberries)
Handful of pine nuts, roughly chopped
Jam for serving
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.
Combine the oats, salt, flour, and honey in a large bowl. Rub in the butter until the contents have a crumby texture. Add just enough of the water to dampen the dough so that you can roll it into a ball. Divide this mixture in two, pouring half into a second bowl. Add the berries to one bowl, and the pine nuts to the other, and mix thoroughly.
To form the cakes, pull off a piece of dough from one of your mixtures. Place a 3-inch-round cookie cutter on the greased baking sheet and press the dough into the cookie cutter. Alternately, you can form it into uneven rounds roughly the same size, sans cutter. In either case, your oatcakes should be no thicker than ¼ inch. Repeat with the other half of the dough.
Place the oatcakes on the baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, or until lightly browned. (The berry version needs just a bit longer than the plain/pine nut version.) Transfer the oatcakes to a wire rack to cool. They are delicious plain, or with butter and honey or jam.

Modern Oatcakes
Makes about 14 sandwich cakes
Prep: 15 minutes
Chilling: 1 hour
Baking: 20 to 25 minutes
Assembly: 10 minutes
These crunchy oat cookies, neither too sweet nor too savory, sandwich jam and pine nut fillings. They are great as dessert or a snack. Consider packing them with a lunch, taking them on a picnic, or serving them as an accompaniment to tea.
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup lightly packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
Pinch of salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup rolled oats
1½ cups flour, plus more for rolling and shaping dough
½ cup pine nuts
1 to 3 teaspoons olive oil
Blackberry jelly
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Mix together the butter and sugar until completely combined. Add the egg and vanilla, followed by the spices, stirring vigorously to mix everything. Add the remaining dry ingredients, making sure to fully incorporate each into the dough.
Divide the dough in half, then press each piece into a flat disk, wrap it in plastic, and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Roll one disk out on a floured surface to a ¼-inch thickness. Using either a 3-inch-round cookie cutter or a similarly sized heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out of the dough an even number of pieces. Arrange the cakes on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes, or until lightly golden. Remove cookies to a cooling rack. The finished oatcake sandwiches can be assembled while still warm, but not hot.
Meanwhile, finely chop the pine nuts in a food processor. Gradually add a small amount of olive oil at a time until the mixture takes on the consistency of a spread-able paste. Set aside.
When the oatcakes are baked, spread jam on ¼ of the cakes, then press another oatcake on top to form a sandwich. Repeat with the remaining oatcakes to make sandwiches with the pine nut puree.

Cold Fruit Soup

There were great joints of aurochs roasted with leeks, venison pies chunky with carrots, bacon, and mushrooms, mutton chops sauced in honey and cloves, savory duck, peppered boar, goose, skewers of pigeon and capon, beef-and-barley stew, cold fruit soup
.
—A CLASH OF KINGS

Medieval Cold Fruit Soup

Other books

Never Trust a Troll! by Kate McMullan
A Cowboy in Manhattan by Barbara Dunlop
The Silver Skull by Mark Chadbourn
Miras Last by Erin Elliott
Working It Out by Trojan, Teri
Spirit Breaker by William Massa
Runaway by Marie-Louise Jensen
Whisper by Lockwood, Tressie