Dinner in Pentos

 “‘My fellow magisters have doubled the size of the city guard,’ Illyrio told them over platter’s of honey duck and orange snap peppers one night at the manse that had been Drogo’s. The khal had joined his khalasar, his estate given over to Daenerys and her brother until the wedding.”

Apologies for the delay in posting this, travel took me away from both the kitchen and the keyboard.  However, I hope this is worth the wait.  For Magister Illyrio's dinner, I decided a wealthy merchant would have access to all manner of spices and rich foods and, when dining with the potential future king whose royal butt he's been kissing, the dinner would be rich and succulent.

For the duck you will need:

• One whole duck.  You can truss it if appearances matter, but most ducks cook up fine on their own.  I did not truss mine.
• 1 tsp fresh crushed basil
• 2 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 orange cut into quarters
• 6 bay leaves
• 1 cup honey
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• dried crushed tarragon to taste

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix basil, ginger and salt and sprinkle on inside and outside of duck. (NOTE THIS SHOULD GO WITHOUT SAYING...but if your duck came stuffed with its neck and liver, remove these!) Stuff duck with quartered orange and 4 of the bay leaves.  Sprinkle tarragon on top of the duck.  Lay in a roasting pan breast up, and fill pan with 2 cups of water.

In sauce pan, combine butter, honey, lemon juice and 2 bay leaves and simmer until it reduces to a syrupy consistency.  Pour half over the duck and save the rest for basting.

Cover and back for 30 min.  Remove, flip breast side down, baste and continue to roast covered at 300 for 2-2.5 hours.

Turn breast side up and uncovered for last 15 minutes, covering the breast with the remaining syrup.

As always, steal the skin while no one is looking and eat it yourself!


For the orange snap peppers, I simply sauteed some orange peppers and sugar snap peas in a blood orange infused olive oil with sea salt, orange slices, ginger and curry powder. until the peas were soft but still had a nice crunch.  These images are odd because apparently "rotate image" is just a suggestion.  So, enjoy sideways peppers!

In a later post, I will show you what to do with any delicious leftover duck, but for now...I think I like Pentos!