A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook (A Song of Ice and Fire) (16 page)

BOOK: A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook (A Song of Ice and Fire)
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Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Weave the bacon strips into a lattice, alternating each strip under and over the others. Make your lattice as wide as you can, reserving any extra strips of bacon. Place this woven bacon and any extra strips on a baking sheet with high edges to catch the bacon grease. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the bacon is crispy. Set aside to cool, but leave the oven on to bake the pie.
Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, and potato, and cook gently until the onion is soft and golden. Toss the beef with flour until each piece is covered. Add the beef to the vegetables and stir over low heat for 5 minutes, or until brown. Stir in any extra flour and cook for 1 minute longer.
Add the broth, salt, pepper, and rosemary; mix well, and simmer for 10 minutes, until a gravy has formed. Let the meat mixture cool.
Place your empty pie pan facedown on top of your lattice-work bacon. Using a sharp knife, cut around the pie pan until you have a circle of lattice. Crumble the leftover cooked bacon and add it to the filling.
Roll out the pastry dough and line your pie pan, allowing any extra dough to drape over the edge of the pan. Pour the filling mixture into the shell. Cover with the bacon lattice, pinching off any excess, then fold the extra dough over the top of the bacon. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the crust is golden.

Aurochs Roasted with Leeks

Such food Bran had never seen; course after course after course, so much that he could not manage more than a bite or two of each dish. There were great joints of aurochs roasted with leeks, venison pies.…

—A CLASH OF KINGS

Serves 4 to 6
Prep: 15 minutes
Sauce: 15 minutes
Cooking: 1 to 1½ hours
This is a very tasty main course, fit for any feast. The roasted vegetables are delicious—a counterpoint to the tender meat. They almost steal the thunder from the roast beef, but the addition of the black pepper sauce really kicks the meat up a few notches.
Top round of bison or beef, about 3 pounds
6 leeks (white and light green parts only), well washed and cut into ¼-inch slices
4 carrots, cut into ¼-inch slices
1 head of garlic, broken into individual cloves and peeled
Small bunch of fresh thyme, rosemary, bay, sage, or a mixture
Olive oil
Kosher salt and ground black pepper
Broth or water, if needed for basting
1 recipe
Medieval Black Pepper Sauce
for serving
Preheat the oven to 400°F and take the beef out of the fridge 30 minutes before it goes into the oven.
Place the vegetables, garlic, and herbs into a roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil. Toss to make sure everything is coated. Drizzle oil over the beef, then liberally sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place the meat directly on top of the vegetables.
Place the roasting tray in the preheated oven and cook for around 1 hour. Near the end of this time, check for doneness with a meat thermometer; 145°F should be about medium.
Check the vegetables halfway through the cooking process; if they look dry, baste them and the meat with juices from the tray. You can also add a splash of broth or water to keep them from scorching.
When the meat is cooked to your satisfaction, transfer it to a cutting board and allow it to rest for 15 minutes. Slice it thinly and serve it, drizzled with the sauce, with the vegetables alongside.

Honeyed Chicken

“Hungry again?” he asked. There was still half a honeyed chicken in the center of the table. Jon reached out to tear off a leg, then had a better idea. He knifed the bird whole and let the carcass slide to the floor between his legs. Ghost ripped into it in savage silence
.

—A GAME OF THRONES

Serves 3 to 4
Prep: 15 minutes
Sauce: 30 minutes
Cooking: 1 to 1½ hours
This dish has a Northern feel. The apples, vinegar, honey, and dried berries invoke the chill of frosty evenings spent in the warm feast hall of Winterfell. The sauce reduces down to a thick, syrupy consistency, which melts enticingly when drizzled over the hot chicken. The dried fruits soak up the sauce and are bursting with flavor by the time they grace your plate.
1 whole chicken for roasting, about 6 pounds
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Salt
1 cup apple cider vinegar
¾ cup honey
1 to 2 teaspoons mint, dried or fresh, chopped
½ cup currants, raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries, etc.
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Preheat the oven to 450°F.
Pat the chicken dry, then rub it down with melted butter and sprinkle with salt. This will make the skin crispy and delicious. Cook for approximately 1 hour, or until
the juices run clear when you pierce the thigh meat with a sharp knife and the breast meat is no longer pink.
While your chicken is roasting, combine all the remaining ingredients in a saucepan and allow the sauce to simmer until the dried fruit plumps and the sauce reduces to half its original volume, about 30 minutes. When the chicken is done, spread half the sauce and currants over the bird and reserve the other half to serve as gravy.
Baked Apples

[T]here were baked apples and berry tarts and pears poached in strong-wine. Wheels of white cheese were set at every table, above and below the salt, and flagons of hot spice wine and chilled autumn ale were passed up and down the tables
.
—A CLASH OF KINGS

17th-Century Baked Apples

Pommes au sucre. Pelez des pommes, fendez les en deux, ostez en le coeur, & le picquez par dessus. Emplissez en vostre plat a moitie, avec un peu d’eau, canella, beurre, & quantite de sucre. Faites les cuire a loisir avec un couvercle de four ou tourtiere. Estant cuites, seruez les sucrees
.

—LE CUISINIER FRANCOIS, FRANCOIS PIERRE DE LA VARENNE, 1651

Serves 2 to 4
Prep: 5 minutes
Baking: 1 hour

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