A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook (A Song of Ice and Fire) (39 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

Pairs well with exotic fruits,
Honey-Sweetened Wine

This Volantene recipe results in a sweet and spicy, super crunchy snack. It takes a bit of psychological adjustment to get over the idea of eating bugs … but the novelty and brag factor make it well worth the effort. Underlying the more familiar tastes of honey and spice is the real flavor of the crickets—a sort of smoky nuttiness that takes several crickets’ worth to savor.

4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter

1 cup freeze-dried crickets or locusts

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper or paprika

Preheat the oven to 200°F.

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add the insects and salt and stir gently for around 10 minutes, making sure to completely coat them in butter.

In a small bowl, combine the honey and the Aleppo pepper. When the bugs are suitably crisped, drizzle the mixture over them and stir a bit more.

Spread the crickets on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for around 10 minutes, until the bugs are no longer quite so sticky. Serve immediately, or store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Beet Soup

Sweet beets were grown in profusion hereabouts, and were served with almost every meal. The Volantenes made a cold soup of them, as thick and rich as purple honey
.
—A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

Roman-style Beet Soup

Concides porrum, coriandrum, cuminum, uuam passam, farinam et omnia in medullam mittes. ligabis et ita inferes ex liquamine, oleo et aceto
.

—APICIUS, 1ST CENTURY

Serves 4
Prep: 10 minutes
Cooking: 45 minutes to 1 hour

Pairs well with
Black Bread
,
Roman
Buttered Carrots
, red wine

This Roman recipe is the less familiar of the two beet soups in this book, and more rustic than your average borscht. The vegetables, especially the leeks, don’t quite break down when mashed, which gives the soup a hearty texture with an earthy taste.

Olive oil

2 leeks (white and light green parts only), well washed and cut into ½-inch slices

½ teaspoon ground coriander

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¾ cup wine (red or white, whatever you’re drinking)

1 cup beef or chicken broth or water

⅓ cup red wine vinegar

4 medium beets, peeled and finely diced

Drizzle some olive oil into a medium saucepan. Add the leeks and the spices and cook, stirring gently to keep them from burning. When the leeks are golden, after about 5 minutes, add the wine, broth, vinegar, and beets. Cover and simmer until the beets are fork-tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Drain off the liquid and reserve it, then mash the beets and leeks in the pot, adding the reserved broth as needed. Ladle into individual bowls and serve hot or cold.

Modern Beet Soup

Serves 4 to 6
Prep: 5 minutes
Cooking: about 40 minutes

Pairs well with
Crusty White Bread
,
Fish Tarts
, meat pies, red wine

This soup is simple, wholesome, and hearty, with a lovely smooth texture that borscht is known for. It showcases all the best aspects of root vegetables. For a seasonal change, make it with water in the spring and summer and with beef stock in the fall and winter. The beef gives it a little more heartiness that will warm you to the core in cold months, while the warm-weather version can be served hot or cold, like a gazpacho.

1 medium yellow onion

1 medium carrot

1 clove garlic

4 cups water or beef broth

2 potatoes

1 pound beets

Unsalted butter

Roughly chop all the vegetables, but keep them separate.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt enough butter to coat the bottom of the pan, then add the onion, carrot, garlic, and a splash of the water or broth, and cover. Cook until the vegetables are soft and the onion is glossy. Add the potatoes, beets, and remaining water or broth, and simmer, mostly covered, until you can slide a fork in and out of the potatoes and beets without any resistance, about 30 minutes. Remove the soup from the heat and puree it, either with an immersion blender, or in small batches with a standard blender.

Finished soup may be served hot or chilled.

Tyroshi Honeyfingers

“[W]e 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

Roman Honeyfingers

piper, nucleos, mel, rutam et passum teres, cum lacte et tracta coques. coagulum coque cum modicis ovis … ita ut durissimam pultem facias, deinde in patellam expandis. cum refrixerit, concidis quasi dulcia et frigis in oleo optimo. levas, perfundis mel, piper aspargis et inferes. melius feceris, si lac pro aqua miseris
.

—APICIUS, 4TH CENTURY

Makes 30 to 40 honeyfingers
Prep: 15 minutes
Cooking: 20 minutes

Pairs well with
Beet Soup
,
Rack of Lamb
,
Iced Milk with Honey

This recipe is a curiosity. The honeyfingers fry to a crispy crunch on the outside while remaining a bit chewy on the inside. The pieces are easy to cut into shapes, and could
probably even be rolled into logs. The flavor is really all about the honey, but the pepper and cinnamon on top, as well as the pine nuts, add a slight complexity.

⅛ cup plus ¾ cup flour

1 cup whole milk (goat or cow)

Olive oil

2 tablespoons cooking sherry or sweet wine

1 egg, beaten

⅓ cup pine nuts, finely chopped

Cinnamon to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

1 cup honey, or more if needed

Chopped pine nuts for garnish