Game of Thrones…It’s What’s For Dinner!

Sunday marked a very special day for me. No, it wasn’t that time of year where I could spread plastic wrap on an open toilet bowl to wreak havoc on my family, it was the Game of Thrones: Clash of Kings premiere! As I began preparing for the onslaught of questions from sister and mother (both of whom have never read the books) and dealt with their emotional wreckage following the deaths of Eddard Stark and Khal Drogo, I decided to ease them into the ensuing deaths of season two and what better way than to cook dinner. I wanted to choose dishes from several regions and I also wanted these dishes to be fairly easy on the off chance I liked them enough to corporate them into future dinners. I remembered a post Kaitlyn did on Thanksgiving dishes and set off to InnAtTheCrossroads.com to peruse the menus.

I definitely wanted something Dothraki for the main course and thank the seven, I quickly found an easy (and relatively cheap) recipe. I substituted the goat for beef chunks and chicken, simply because Texans charge an arm and an ass for some goat but I think it worked well in the marinade.

Dothraki Goat with Sweetgrass, Firepods, and Honey

Dothraki marinade (I chose Modern out of the two versions suggested on the website)

I made my dish for a lot of people so I tripled the amounts here and as stated, used beef chunks (or stew meat) and cubed chicken breast.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. goat meat, cubed
• 2 tbs. olive oil
• 4 dried pepper pods (I had to use big ones cause i couldn’t find small ones)
• 1/4 cup tart cherry juice – available in the quirky foods/ethnic section  <—could NOT find at several stores so I used a tart cherry marinade in a bottle :(
• 1 tbs. tomato paste
• small handful raisins
• 1-2 tbs. honey
• 1 tbs. chopped lemongrass stalk

Heat oil on stove top.  Add the cherry juice (marinade in my case), tomato paste, raisins and the pepper pods, then stir gently.  The peppers will start to soften and release their seeds, and the sauce will start to reduce slightly.  Stir in the honey, and remove from heat.  Give the marinade a taste at this point, and add more pepper if desired.  Marinate the goat meat at least an hour (keep the peppers) then thread onto skewers.  I let mine sit for about 3 hours, tossing them every hour or so. I then broiled them for six minutes, turned them over and broiled them for six more minutes. Garnish with the chopped lemon grass and peppers before serving.

Tasty!!

End result? They were very tasty but the chicken made the flavors explode in my mouth. Lemongrass was a fantastic touch and it added a burst of citrus to the meat.

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Side dishes I took a lot more time deciding on and after clicking various regions and their accoutrements, I chose white beans from Pentos and Sansa salad, named after the wayward ginger headed daughter of the late Ned Stark. Unfortunately, by the time my trip to grocery stores numbered two, I was in no mood to find the purple edible flowers needed for Sansa salad, so I opted to just do the beans from Pentos. Again, I chose the modern style, because it added color to the dishes with the addition of endives.

White Beans and Bacon

Again, with this recipe, I was making it for a group so I doubled the quantities here and made a large casserole dish’s worth of these beans.

Ingredients

• 4 pieces bacon, roughly chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 head curly endive, leaves rinsed and torn (I only used one head cause it looked like a LOT but I wish I had used more)
• 2 large garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 cups white beans

Cook bacon over medium to high heat in a large saucepan until crisp. Remove bacon from pan and set on paper towel to drain. Add onion to drippings, and saute till tender. Add half the endive leaves and cover pot, cooking till endive is wilted which takes roughly 3 minutes. Add remaining endive and garlic, cover and cooked till endive is wilted. Add beans and bacon, cooking until the beans are heated through, stirring often.  Season with salt and pepper and serve.

End result? Fucking. Delicious. I should have quadrupled this because there was not enough!! The dish I served it in was licked clean (so to speak) and I was sad to not have more to go with the copious amounts of Dothraki skewers.

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Lastly, I was going to do berries in sweet cream but I was exhausted from my shopping trips so I cheated and bought black seedless grapes, strawberries and light cool whip and mixed all that shit together for a light dessert that oddly complimented everything. I don’t have any pictures of that cause we gulped it down too quickly for me to even snap one.

Hopefully you enjoyed this glimpse into my Sunday meal planning for a themed dinner. If you’ve made a Westerosi meal, how’d it come out? Share your stories!!