“Salladhor Saan got to his feet. ‘My pardons. These grapes have given me a hunger, and dinner awaits on my Valyrian. Minced lamb with pepper and roasted gull stuffed with mushrooms and fennel and onion.” (II: 115)
Medieval Lamb Meatballs and Modern Roasted “Gull”
Our Thoughts:
This is a really nice, comparatively easy meal. The lamb meatballs are simply made, soft and spicy. Because they only have pepper in them, the delicious flavor unique to lamb really comes through. The eggplant puree only adds to the experience of the meatballs. In the “gull” corner, the stuffing is what really makes it special. The fennel stays a little crunchy, providing a nice textural counterpoint to the flavor combo of the other ingredients. Pop a few grapes for dessert, and you’ll be feasting like a pirate king.
Medieval Arabic Lamb Meatballs
Buran. The way to make it is to take eggplant and boil it lightly in water and salt, then take it out and let it dry awhile, then fry it in fresh sesame oil until it is done. Peel it and leave it in a plate or large bowl, and mix it well with a ladle until it becomes like a pudding. Throw in a little salt and dry coriander. Then take Persian yoghurt, mix garlic with it, throw it on that eggplant and mix well with it. Then take lean meat and beat it well [and make it into small meatballs], and take fresh tail fat, and throw the meatballs into it and stir them until they are browned. Then cover them with water and boil them until the water dries up and they return to their fat. Put them on the surface of the eggplant, sprinkle with cumin and finely pounded cinnamon and use it. -Baghdad Cookbook (English translation of Charles Perry), 13th Century
Our changes: We substituted oil for the sheep fat. While something might be lost in flavor, it is no doubt made up for in the ease of obtaining the ingredients. We also added Aleppo pepper to the meatballs. If you’ve not tried this terrific pepper, you are missing out. It can be found in some large grocery stores, and in Middle Eastern markets.
Ingredients:
- 1 eggplant, cut into large chunks
- 3 Tbsp. sesame oil
- salt
- 1 tsp. ground coriander
- 3 fl.oz Greek yoghurt
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 pound) ground meat of lamb
- 1-2 Tbs. Aleppo pepper
- 1/4 cup Sesame or Olive oil
- 1/2 tsp. in all of ground cumin and cinnamon
For the Eggplant
In a large covered saucepan, boil the eggplant for five minutes in water with salt. Let it drain, cool and dry. Heat oil in a skillet or saucepan and add the boiled eggplant. Cover, and stew the eggplant over a low heat with the lid on until it is very soft. If need be, turn the eggplant a couple of time, cooking for about 15 minutes. Remove from stove. Pull the skin off the eggplant, and mince the flesh with a fork or in a blender. Temper to taste with yoghurt, garlic, salt and ground coriander.
For the Meatballs
Mix the ground lamb with the Aleppo pepper, and roll into small disc-shaped meatballs. Choose a casserole in which the balls fit snugly. Heat sheep fat or oil, fry the meatballs until they are brown. Pour enough water in to cover the balls. Let it simmer for around 5-10 minutes, then check one of the meatballs to see if it’s done. Add the eggplant sauce to the meatballs, heat through. The modern cook would add some salt and pepper to the meatballs.
Faux Gull
Cook’s Notes: Given the lack of readily available gulls in our local markets, we decided to swap in some Cornish game hens. A chicken could also be used, but the game hens provide a slightly quirkier presentation. They have a slightly different texture from chickens as well.
Ingredients:
- 3 game hens
- 1 cup diced mushrooms
- 1/2 cup diced fennel bulb
- 1 smallish diced onion
- 2-3 cloves minced garlic
- olive oil
- 1+ cup of rice or couscous (enough to bulk up the stuffing)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut up and combine the mushrooms, fennel, onion, and garlic. Toss with some olive oil and salt, spread out in an oven safe dish, and roast for about 15 minutes.
While the stuffing is in the oven, make some rice or couscous according to the directions on their package. Rub the game hens with olive oil and salt them. You may also sprinkle with a little pepper, if you like. When the rice/couscous and the vegetables are both done, combine them and stuff the game hens with the mixture.
Cook the hens for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the juices run clear and they are a nice golden color.
I would have thought that a muttonbird would have been a better switch rather than a gaming hen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-tailed_Shearwater
As you can see the meat is quite different from what you would have gotten from the cornish hen or a chicken, and like the muttonbird I feel a gull would taste of the sea.
Would there be anything like these in the US that you could have tried?
Not that I know of! Unfortunately, we’re fairly limited with regards to unique meats! We considered a goose or duck, but wanted to keep the expenses down and make it accessible to more people. If anyone with access to different birds wanted to try this recipe out, we’d love to hear how the meal changes!
I’ve actually found myself using the stuffing in regular old roaster chickens. Maybe not the same as the book, but an awesome use of parts of the recipe. Even my family members wary of fennel’s licorice associates really enjoy it! The flavors and textures just work so well together.
My Uncle was in the Marines during world war ll and the island he was on sometimes did not receive needed supplies of food on a regular basis. He told me they ate sea gull when nothing else was available and it tasted like a tough old rooster and had the smell of stinky dirty feet, and truthfully there was not much meat on them. He said it was a lot of work for a bit of stringy tough meat but at the time they were thankful to get it!
Cornish hens are so festive. I love the idea!
Question on the lamb. Do you feel they were tender enough, without the addition of breadcrumbs and egg, as in traditional meatballs? I love the taste of lamb, and hate to dilute it, but in retrospect, do you think that is something you might change?
This will be Sunday’s dinner, I might add. :)
You know, I worried the same thing about the meatballs, but because they’re sort of stewed in the water/oil mixture, they come out fairly moist.
Sounds like a perfect GoT Sunday dinner!
Fantastic. Thanks for letting me know!
This looks great! Aleppo pepper is awesome. For people in the US, Penzey’s spices is fabulous, you can get almost any kind of obscure spice from them. They have actual spice stores around the US, but they also sell everything over their website. http://www.penzeys.com/
First of all, I want to beg your forgiveness in that I am a laymen in the field of culinary arts so I hope you can indulge me. I am a bit confused in regards to the eggplant puree and the lamb meatballs. For the puree, after boiling the eggplant, you say to “Heat oil in a casserole and stew the eggplant on a very slow fire with the lid on until it is very soft, about 15 minutes”. Did you mean putting it in a casserole dish and putting it in the oven? Or would frying it on the stove top in a sauce pan with a lid work just as well?
Also, for some odd reason, I cannot find Aleppo pepper in the city I live ANYWHERE. I tried looking up substitutes and I found a site that said you could use 3 parts sweet paprika and 1 part cayenne pepper. Don’t suppose you could tell me if this substitute would take much away from the flavor of actual Aleppo pepper?
Hi! I’d say that pepper substitute would work pretty well, actually. Aleppo pepper has a sort of slow burn kind of warmth, but with a nice flavor also. As for the eggplant, you can stew it on the stovetop in anything you’ve got that works. I apologize for the lack of clarity in the directions; I’ll fix that asap!
Hope that helps, and that your meal is a terrific success! :)
Did you consider bulgar wheat instead of couscous or rice as a binder? I think it would add a more interesting texture and greater flavour.
Bulgar would also work very well in this recipe. We chose rice/couscous because it struck us a slightly more foreign than bulgar, just like Salladhor Saan is not from Westeros. Something like bulgar wheat would be extremely well suited, in our opinions, to Winterfell. However, the key to many of these and other medieval recipes is innovation, so feel free to experiment!
That Persian eggplant puree sounds a lot like Baba Ghanoush… except that this is made by grilling the eggplant and then also adding tahina (crushed sesame seeds) rather than cooking it and frying in sesame oil. Should work just as well.
I’ve made the meatballs several times, and there always a hit with my parents. I don’t use Aleppo Pepper, and I up the cinnamon and cumin to a teaspoon in total.