Noodlies, Sydney food blog contributor Evie Chataway, recreates moment in ‘Game of Thrones’ where the Khaleesi eats a raw horse’s heart – with much tastier results.
Hosting a ‘Game of Thrones’ dinner has to have a touch of spectacle, and this Virgin Mary flavoured jelly which is the shape of a heart will certainly help set the mood. I managed to purchase a human heart shaped jelly mould online and used it as a substitute for a horses heart, but alternatively if you put a sandwich bag in an oval shaped bowl I think you could get a similar effect with a little trimming from a sharp knife.
In this recipe I used Aeroplane Create-a-Jelly, which will no doubt make serious cooks shudder. Yes, the best thing to use is gelatine leaves, and my online order did include these, however the supermarket was out of stock and so substituted it with Aeroplane Create-a-Jelly Crystals. I was annoyed but did a test drive of the recipe with the stuff anyway. It worked perfectly, and for that simple reason I kept on using them. If the idea of using gelatine crystals is too abhorrent for you then use gelatine leaves using the pack instructions they provide.
Ingredients
- Aeroplane Create-a-Jelly
- Lea and Perrins sauce
- Wasabi or tabasco
- 2 cups of tomato juice
- Passata
- Celery salt
- Lemon juice
- Bocconcini
Add two cups of tomato juice to a small saucepan along with a squeeze of lemon juice (quarter of a lemon should do), a good shake of celery salt, 7 drops of Lea and Perrins and a drop or two or tabasco or else a nip of wasabi (if you desire heat) in your Virgin Mary jelly. Bring to the boil.
Make up the jelly according to the instructions, in this case add 250ml of the boiling mixture on top of the jelly crystals and stir until the crystals are dissolved. Then top up with 200ml of pasatta and stir well. Set aside to cool.
Next take your jelly mould. I found no need to oil the inside of it. In the valve area of the mould I popped in some bocconcini. Pop the mould in a bowl to help steady it when you fill it with the tomato jelly mixture.
When the jelly has cooled a little pour it into the jelly mould and pop it in the fridge. Let it chill for at least twelve hours to ensure a good set.
When you are ready to unmould the jelly get a plate and wet it. By wetting the plate you’ll be able to move the jelly around to the position you desire once you have removed it from the mould, whereas if the plate is dry it will simply adhere to where it lands! To help ease the jelly out of the mould, take the bowl and mould out of the fridge, and add a little hot water into the base of the bowl that the mould is sitting in, being careful not to get any on the jelly itself.
After ten seconds, take the jelly mould out of the bowl, hold the jelly mould by the base and place a plate on top of it, then quickly flip it over so the plate is underneath and (all being well) the mould is on top of the plate. To help tease the jelly out of the mould you may need to tap it with a spoon, or if all else fails put a warm cloth on top of the jelly mould.
Once it is released from the mould and positioned on the plate take a sharp knife to cut in the indentations that will form the veins. Then take some balsamic glaze, pop it in a disposable piping bag (or sandwich bag), snip off the end and carefully fill in the indentations to create the gory vein look. You can do this several hours in advance of serving, just pop it in the fridge until you’re ready to delight/horrify your guests. Serve with an optional ‘pool of blood’ on the plate, otherwise known as a pouring of tomato juice.
Alternative serving
While you might all want to grab a soon and get stuck in to this gory creation, it doesn’t seem that appetitsing, so perhaps, after the spectacle, remove the heart from the table, and then cut it into little slivers. You can then serve it on some parmesan lace discs, along with some chopped up bocconcini, capers, and anything else you fancy.
To make the discs is simple. Grate 2 cups of parmesan, and then sprinkle into little circles on a lined baking tray (you can use a cookie cutter to help keep the circles uniform).
Then place in a hot oven, around 200 degrees for ten minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and let cool. When it comes to serving, place on a platter with slithers of the jelly, and any other toppings you desire.
