Carnel of Pork

I was perusing Project Gutenberg's copy of The Forme of Cury, a collection of recipes compiled around 1390AD "by the Master Cooks of King Richard II", which you can access here.

My goal was to find recipe(s) that I could successfully do at an historical cooking demonstration location.  I finally was able to get back to doing some demonstrations this year!  The site had a lovely outdoor kitchen with tables for preparation, many platters/bowls/cooking pots, a big fire pit, and a wood-fired oven.  I decided I wasn't ready to try baking as I needed to get back into the techniques needed to prep and cook over fire in front of the public.  The venue was set in Elizabethan England, so recipes prior to 1600 would work just fine.

One that caught my attention was

CARNEL [1] OF PORK. XXXII.

Take the brawnn of Swyne. parboile it and grynde it smale and alay it up with zolkes of ayren. set it ouere [2] the fyre with white Grece and lat it not seeþ to fast. do þerinne Safroun an powdour fort and messe it forth. and cast þerinne powdour douce, and serue it forth.

[1] Carnel, perhaps Charnel, from Fr. Chaire. [2] ouere. Over. So again, No. 33.

In other words, 

Take pork, parboil it, grind it small, and thicken it with egg yolks.  Cook it with lard and cook it slowly.  Add saffron and powder forte, and put it on a platter to serve.  Sprinkle with powder douce, and serve.

 My Redaction

1 pound pork tenderloin (boneless)

3 egg yolks, well beaten

1 tablespoon vegetable shortening or lard

1 teaspoon powder fines (see note below)

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon saffron

1/4 teaspoon salt

a sprinkling of powder douce (see note below)

Notes:  My powder fines is a spice mix containing cinnamon, cloves, ginger, grains of paradise, pepper, and saffron.  Powder forte is supposed to be a strong (forte) flavored mix, which is why I took the fines and added more pepper to it, along with salt to more suit modern palates.  

My powder douce is a spice mix containing cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, and star anise.  Powder douce is supposed to be a sweet (douce) mixture; what I used was a Baker's Spice Mix -- good for sweet breads.  It was mild enough to be a garnish.

The powder douce did not make it into the picture.

Grind the spices and salt together.  Set aside.

Cut the pork into chunks -- I did four 1/4-pound pieces.  Bring a saucepan of water to a boil, then put in one chunk.  This will drop the temperature to below a boil.  Set the timer for 5 minutes and watch the water.  You want at most a slow simmer for a parboil, so adjust the heat as needed.  When the time is up, remove the meat and place in a bowl to drain.  Keep parboiling the pieces like this.  The goal is to lightly cook them without making the meat tough; they don't even have to be cooked all the way through.  Just not completely raw.  

If a piece looks only slightly cooked, put it back into the hot water for a few more minutes.

Before parboiling

Parboiled:  the two pieces on the left went back in for 3 minutes each

Let the meat cool until you can easily handle it.  Cut it into small pieces or grind it (I cut it).  Mix well with the egg yolks.

Melt the fat over medium heat in a saucepan.  Add the meat and stir well.  Cook slowly over a low to medium heat (2 to 4 out of 10), stirring occasionally to mix the meat, yolks, and fat together.

Cook until the meat is no longer pink, 15 to 20 minutes.  Remove from the heat.

Mix in the spices thoroughly while the meat is still hot.

Put the mixture into a bowl or other container that functions as a mold for the final product.  Compress the mixture using a flat-bottomed cup or similar object.

Put a plate over the bowl and quickly turn the bowl and plate over to unmold the meat.

Sprinkle with powder douce lightly as a garnish.

Serve and enjoy!

My Notes

I first made this for a public demonstration.  I parboiled the meat at home in advance, then completed the preparation in front of the public.  I chose to cut instead of grinding because I didn't want to pound all the meat in a mortar.  For the demonstration I used 2 pounds of pork, 5 egg yolks, and double the amount of spices listed above.  It turned out well and I wanted to make it for this blog.

The meat is much easier to cut up into small pieces after parboiling.  Well worth the time.

I pounded and rubbed the spices together in the mortar until they looked reasonably blended.  The saffron threads did not all break up, which was fine with me.

It took some time to cut the meat up in small pieces, about 1/4 inch cubes.  Smaller pieces would work, too, or grinding/pounding them to more of a paste.  Notice the pink in the pieces below, but none of them looked completely raw.

Meat and yolks before mixing.

The idea of the yolks is to coat the meat pieces before cooking.

Ready to cook!

The slow cooking and regular stirring keeps the yolks from turning into hard-boiled egg consistency.  It acts like a sauce.

No pink.  It is done.

With the spices mixed in.

Packed into the mold.

You can see flecks of color where the spices are.  The saffron displays as orange threads.  They smelled good while I was mixing them in.

Unmolded and garnished.  Ready to serve.

The Verdict

I served it as the main course along with sliced tomatoes garnished with minced shallots, green onions, and parsley dressed with a mixture of olive oil (lemon infused), balsamic vinegar (lime infused), and a little salt.  Also toasted sourdough bread.

My guest taster and I spooned some of the carnel onto our plates.  We ate it like that or spooned onto a piece of toast.  At the public demonstration, the carnel was part of a larger potluck and was placed on the main dish table, and served as it was presented.

We both loved it.  Meaty, creamy, and the spices were zesty!  My tongue got little blasts of spice while I was eating it, not quite like having chiles but close.  If the spice level was lower, I think the carnel would have been bland and uninteresting.  

I felt the same way about it at the public demonstration -- I almost underspiced it then; I'm so glad I didn't.

The meat was very tender, which we both appreciated.  

Success!  

This is so easy to do, and I think it would be a good dish for a potluck.  

Grinding it would make it more of a paté, so it could be spread on toast or crackers.