“Aggo gave an urchin a copper for a skewer of honey-roasted mice and nibbled them as he rode. Jhogo bought a handful of fat white cherries. Elsewhere they saw beautiful bronze daggers for sale, dried squids and carved onyx…” -A Clash of Kings
Our Thoughts
This was a dish from the books that we couldn’t actually make, but after giving it some thought, we came up with a fun solution.
These are tasty little morsels. The flaky pastry melts in your mouth, while the sausage pops with juices when you bite into it. Plus, they look like mice. There is a residual feeling of decadence that accompanies the eating of these tiny faux creatures, bringing you just a tad closer to your favorite Roman emperors and Dothraki bodyguards.
How to Make Them
Ingredients:
- your favorite variety of cocktail dogs
- packaged biscuit dough, or homemade pastry dough
- sliced almonds
- poppy or black sesame seeds
- honey
Wrap the cocktail dogs in the biscuit dough; 1/2 biscuit round should more than cover one small sausage. You can also do smaller sized mice, with half sausages and less dough. Pinch the dough into a point on one end for the nose.
Using a knife, poke holes in the dough/sausage, and insert two sliced almonds for ears. Likewise press two seeds in for eyes. If you like, add a bit of extra dough for tails.
Bake in the oven on a baking sheet for around 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees until they are golden brown. Allow the cooked mice to cool for a few minutes, then skewer them, and drizzle with honey.
Makes 20-30 mice.
How fun!!! I want to have a party just to make all your food, even if I’m the only one in attendance!
Are those sword-skewers I see in the background? Where did you get them? They’re perfect!
And your mice are SO adorable! :D
You’re positively craaazy! My mother will think I finally lost it when I’ll propose this appetizer for nearest family holiday:)
Hnnng!
So cute! :D
Next step – mock cats!
So basically, these are dormice-in-a-blanket. ;)
Exactly! They’d get cold, otherwise… ;)
Eee! Finally glad as a long time lurker to have something to add.
When I catered for a LARP event set in the Roman era, we made “dormice” by using a Roman recipe for the stuffing of a dormouse. This is essentially ground beef with wine, herbs and spices – and then we put that into mouse-shaped silicone candy moulds, with peppercorns for eyes, turned them out on a baking sheet and cooked them.
There’s a picture of part of the feast here, with the dormice on the left: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a104/eriathwen_bob/Romanfeast.jpg
Have you seen a picture of the edible dormouse, Glis glis? They’re enormous: like squirrels! Not what you imagine at all. I like that both you and I made more mouse-like approximations. They look delicious, too.
I’d eat the heck out of that spread. Really, you had me at dormice. But then you added figs? Just not fair… :) Lovely stuff!
These are almost too cute to eat! Almost being the operative word ;)
Have you tried SNIPPED ears, a la Swiss Mice? ^.^
http://youtu.be/V88vzDdpzpU
(I looked, but couldn’t find a non-youTube version to share with you, so I hope you don’t mind!)
http://www.panix.com/~nexus/cooking/cc34.shtml
Here is recipe for False Dormice. I made these once from ground chicken, hazelnuts inside to crunch like bone, and a piece of linen for the tail. All grilled over a fire and served with honey. Some people would *not* try them.
I definitely want to make these… probably with a whole-wheat spaghetti tail.
I use this recipe for my SCA cooking, but in place of the pork rounds, I use boneless skinless chicken thighs pounded out a bit. Then I drizzle then with Sapa before baking and again when they come out of the oven….. http://dream-designs.net/roxalana/?cat=40