Cormary - Roast Loin of Pork with Red Wine

I decided to use one of those pork loins I bought on an incredible sale.  I wanted something medieval and different to serve to company (who know that I experiment with cooking on them!).

I found an intriguing recipe in The Medieval Kitchen:  Recipes from France and Italy by Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban, and Silvano Serventi.  

ISBN 0226706850

On page 107-8 they offer "Cormary," which they took from The Forme of Cury, where it was spelled "Cormarye."  The Cury book is a collection of 14th century English recipes that was republished in the 1800s.

Their translated version says this:

Take finely ground coriander and caraway, pepper powder, and ground garlic, in red wine; mix all this together and salt it.  Take raw pork loins, skin them, and prick it well with a knife, and lay it in the sauce.  Roast it when you wish, and save what falls from the meat as it roasts and boil it in a pot with good broth, and then serve it with the roast.

They also provide their redacted recipe, which I mostly followed.  I'll provide my version.

Cormary

1 pork loin, about 3 pounds (mine was boneless)

1 cup good red wine

4 large cloves garlic (mine were already chopped)

1 teaspoon whole coriander

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns

1/4 teaspoon salt

scant 1/2 cup chicken broth

The baking dish asked to join the picture.

Mix the coriander, caraway, peppercorns, and salt in a mortar.  Grind well.  Add chopped garlic and grind some more.  Grind it to a paste.

Put the paste into a glass baking dish; add wine and mix well.

Poke the meat all over with a knife.  

Put the meat into the dish, turning it several times to coat it with the marinade.  Cover the meat and dish, and refrigerate for at least several hours, up to overnight.  Turn occasionally.

Once the marinating time is almost done, preheat oven to 350 degree F.  Pour off the marinade into a cup.

Bake the meat, uncovered, basting every 15 minutes with the marinade.  Stop when the meat is done to your taste, roughly 60 to 90 minutes for a 3-pound roast.

Pour the drippings off the meat and let the meat rest.  Put the drippings and the broth into a pan and boil to reduce.

After 10 minutes of resting, slice the meat and serve with some of the gravy poured over the top.

Spices and salt

All ground up

Adding the chopped garlic

Resulting paste.

Stabbing the meat

Meat in the marinade

Ready to roast!

My Notes

The spices smelled wonderful while they were being ground!  It was an interesting combination of scents.  

I turned the meat three or four times during the about 7 hours it was marinating.  

I put the meat in the pan fat side up for roasting.

I basted mostly by pouring the marinade over the top.  I only did a little bit of brushing.

It helped to have a timer set to remind me to baste.

I think 1/2 cup broth was too much.  I would use at most that much, depending on how much pan juices you end up with.  I probably could have used less than 1/4 cup.

I sliced the meat to about 1/4-inch thick pieces for serving.

Done!

Too much liquid.

The Verdict

I served it with green beans and stuffing.

It smelled lovely.  The spice mix scent along with the wine which, combined, didn't smell like any one singular scent, just mouthwateringly-tempting: spicy and sweet.  (I have to add that the leftovers, when reheated, still smelled that way!)

My guest tasters noted that the basted top had a nice, almost crunchy layer.  

We all enjoyed eating it.  Several of us thought perhaps I could have cooked it less, say 15 to 30 minutes less because while it wasn't dry, there wasn't any pink and it wasn't as moist as we would have liked it to be.  We can have pink in the center because we are confident the pork supply in my area is clean.

I thought the marinade flavor had intruded into the meat somewhat, and not too much.  I liked the idea of poking it with a knife to allow the marinade in; it seemed to work well.  

So, success!  We had enough for four people at dinner to have what they wanted and some left over.  Reheated tasted just as good, because I saved the extra drippings/broth and poured a little over the meat before putting into the microwave.

That being said, I think I am torn between the feeling that 1/2 cup broth was too much for the first time it was served and was just right for putting over the leftovers.  So judge your table guests:  Will there be leftovers?  Then may don't add as much broth so the flavor of the drippings is not diluted.  

Also, I wish I had defatted the drippings before heating them with the broth.  They were pretty greasy, which didn't seem to impact my guests' enjoyment at all.  I did defat the leftover broth with ice cubes before storing it in the refrigerator.  (I know, I could have done that after the broth chilled in the 'fridge, but that is what I did.)

I would do this again.  

For to Make Murrey -- a Mulberry Pudding

My mulberry tree is producing great quantities of fruit this year.  I've been sharing with friends and finding different ways to utilize this bounty.

Project Gutenberg's digital version of The Forme of Cury, a collection of recipes from the late 1300s AD England, which can be found here, offers an intriguing, simple dish that I would call a dessert, but could also be served as side dish to a robust main course.

I interpret it as a pudding, that is, a thickened, sweetened dish flavored with fruit juice.  Back then it was called Murrey:

XXXVII. FOR TO MAKE MURREY [1].

Tak mulbery [2] and bray hem in a morter and wryng [3] hem thorth a cloth and do hem in a pot over the fyre and do thereto fat bred and wyte gresse and let it nazt boyle no ofter than onys and do thereto a god party of sugur and zif yt be nozt ynowe colowrd brey mulburus and serve yt forthe.

[1] Morrey. Part II. No. 26. [2] This is to be understood pluraly, quasi mulberries. [2] Read wryng. For see part II. No. 17. 2B. Chaucer, v. wronge and ywrong. [sic]

In other words,

Take mulberries and pound them in a mortar and wring them through a cloth and cook them in a pot and add fat bread [crumbs] and lard and let it not boil more than once and then add a good amount of sugar and if it is not colored enough, pound mulberries [and add them to it] and serve it.

My Redaction

2 cups mulberry juice (see My Notes below)

1 tablespoon shortening or lard  (I used vegetable shortening)

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups bread crumbs (dried, not fresh)

That is about 4 pounds of mulberries!

Put the juice and shortening into a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the fat is melted.  Add the sugar and stir until it is dissolved.  The juice might be steaming at this point.

Add the breadcrumbs.  Stir and cook over medium or lower heat -- as the mixture thickens, the heat may need to be reduced and the mixture stirred more often so it cooks without scorching.

Cook until the mixture is thick enough to pile up on itself when a spoonful is scooped up and dropped onto the rest.

Serve warm or chilled.

My Notes

The fresh mulberries went into a blender, which is a modern version of braying them in a mortar.  😀

Then I put the resulting puree into a cloth bag, closed the top with my hand, and used the other hand to start squeezing the juice out into a measuring cup.  The bag kept the seeds, stems, and some of the pulp out of the juice.  The juice was not clear and that did not matter to me.

I changed the order of mixing because I knew the bread crumbs would thicken the mixture, and I wanted the fat melted and the sugar dissolved before that happened.  Part of redacting is finding my way through the recipe to determine quantities.  I wanted to know that I added enough (but not too much) fat to achieve a good mouthfeel.  The same for sugar -- was it sweet enough but not too sweet?  I taste along the way, and I felt that the breadcrumbs would shift that test enough to make it hard to tell.

Early heating -- juice and melting shortening

So feel free to follow the order given in 1390 with my measurements.  

Also consider using butter instead of vegetable shortening or lard.  Be aware that your butter is probably salted, which will change the flavor -- it might even make it taste sweeter.

My bread crumbs were made from a few days old, slightly stale French bread loaf, so probably not a "fat bread".  If your crumbs are fresh, you made need a larger quantity to achieve a good thickness.  If they are very dry, you might need less.

The mixture with the bread crumbs did boil but only ever-so-slightly, more like a few "blurps" in the thickened version.

I felt the color was right, so I did not add any more berries or juice.

Starting to get thick

The Verdict

Still warm and very thick

We tried it still very warm from the pan, then cool, and then thoroughly chilled.

We felt it was thick enough even while warm to be just right.  It had a good mouthfeel: enough to taste rich (but not overwhelming) and substantial.  There were chewy bits from the larger chunks of bread crumbs, which we liked.

My guest taster, not knowing all that went into it, could taste the mulberries, thought there was lemon juice in it, that the sweet-tart balance was just right, and enjoyed it very much.  He liked it even more when it was cooler, and his favorite was when it was thoroughly chilled.

I agreed with his flavor assessment.  I liked it best warm or cool.  I liked it chilled but I felt the fat amount was too much; if I planned on serving it chilled, I would reduce the fat to probably 1 teaspoon.  I did not like the feel of grease on my lips while eating it chilled.

I wondered if it would be better with less sugar, and he felt that it would be too tart that way.  My mulberries were a mix of very ripe, ripe, and somewhat under ripe fruit, so the amount of sugar may vary depending on the overall sweetness of the juice.  

We both felt that the murrey did not need any spices.  The fruit flavor was dominant and didn't need enhancement from spices.  We wanted to taste the mulberries!

Success!

It would make a good side condiment to roast meat, especially when warm or cool.  But also as a dessert.  If a dessert, I think I would add some fresh berries on top when I served it.

Would 1/2 cup sugar to 2 cups juice have been considered a goodly amount in 1390?  I don't know, but the goal is always to produce a dish that is tasty, and I think I accomplished that.

I think the technique would translate well to using store-bought pomegranate or cranberry juice.  The sugar amount would have to be adjusted, so start off with less and add while tasting to get to just barely sweet.  The idea is to let the fruit flavor shine through.

Another variation idea is to mix some fresh pieces of mulberry into the finished pudding.  Or garnish the top with pieces or a whole berry or two, depending on the size.

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.

Pastés de poucins à la mode Lombarde (Chicken pasties Lombard)

I was describing how old recipes are not as detailed as what we are accustomed to in modern cookbooks and looked for some examples to illustrate it.  The following recipe, from Pleyn Delit, Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks by Constance B. Hieatt, Brenda Hosington, and Sharon Butler caught my attention and also tempted my tastebuds.  Chicken wrapped in bacon?  I'm in.

ISBN 0-8020-7632-7

This is one of my favorite books.  Find recipe #107, as the book has no page numbers.  The authors took it from the late 14th century manuscript, Le Ménagier de Paris.

Pastés de poucins à la mode Lombarde

In the Lombard manner, when the small chickens are plucked and prepared, take beaten eggs, both the yolks and the whites, with verjuice and spice powder, and dip your chickens in this; and set them in the pasty with strips of bacon.

Notice that the recipe does not tell you any measurements or what spices to use.  It also does not say to cook the pasties!

My Redaction

The authors provide their version but I wanted to try it myself without their help.  

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

4 slices of bacon

2 eggs, well beaten

1 tablespoon poudre fines spice mix (see ingredient list in the Notes below)

2 tablespoons verjuice (or you can substitute lemon juice, according to the authors)

1 batch of pasties dough or pastry dough, chilled (I used the pasties dough recipe from King Arthur Baking, click here for it.)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a medium-sized bowl, beat the eggs with the spices and verjuice.  Set aside.

Cut the chicken breasts into pieces about 1 inch thick and about 2 to 3 inches long.  Cut eight and aim for uniformity so they bake evenly.  You will probably have some chicken meat left over.

Cut the bacon slices in half.

Cut the dough into eight equal-sized pieces.  Roll out one piece to about 6 inches in diameter.

Place a piece of bacon on the dough.

Dip a piece of chicken into the egg mixture.  The spices are mostly on the bottom, so push the meat down there to pick up a nice coating of egg and spices.  Place the chicken on the bacon, then wrap the bacon around the chicken in a spiral shape.

Wet the edges of the dough with water, fold over the chicken, pressing out most of the trapped air, then seal the edges.  Flute them or press them with a fork.  Cut some venting slits in the top. 

Place the pasty on the cooking sheet and then repeat the process for the other pasties.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 350 degrees and cook for another 15 to 20 minutes.  The pasty dough should have some light browning on it.

My Notes

The King Arthur Baking recipe needed more water than they listed.  I put in about 8 tablespoons and it was still too dry for rolling well.  

I actually used 3 eggs but there was so much left over that I wrote to use 2 eggs.  One might have sufficed.

The poudre fines spice mix contains cinnamon, cloves, ginger, grains of paradise, pepper, and saffron.  

I cooked the batch for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Reasonably uniform in size

Too much egg.  

First, bacon

Then chicken

Spiral wrap

I really need to work on my pastry finishing skills.

The Verdict

They were tasty!  The chicken and bacon were both thoroughly cooked, and I think they would have been better if I had taken them out at 15 minutes to make the chicken moister.

Good with green beans.

The dough was just right -- flexible enough to roll and fold and sturdy enough to hold the ingredients without (much) leaking.  My guest tasters and I commented on its good flavor.  I was happy with its texture and crispiness.  It was not a pie crust but more like a step between pie crust and bread.  I suspect the dough absorbed most of the bacon fat, which added to the overall flavor.

Chicken wrapped in bacon was, of course, flavorful, and you can't beat that.  Chicken breast always strikes me as dry, and I felt that way about this, although it was not too dry.  However, the bacon contributed some fat to improve that.  I think using chicken thigh meat would be an improvement for me.

As a group, the dough, chicken, bacon, and spices were a good blend, an enjoyable meal, and we ate them all at dinner.  

I wished to taste more of the spices, and one of my guest tasters agreed.  The spices weren't always present in a bite, and only showed themselves sometimes.  If I were to do this again, I would sprinkle the spice mixture on the dough before wrapping it around the meat.  That would ensure enough spice and that it was spread evenly across the pasty.  Still, I am not complaining about the flavor.

We also decided to try eating the pasties with a sauce.  I created a sweet-and-sour one with verjuice, honey, salt, pepper, and some ground, toasted bread crumbs as a thickener.  We poured spoonfuls over the pasty, which was a very good addition, making it moister and adding more flavor.  If you do this, aim for more verjuice than honey, and it should tingle your taste buds with that balance of sweet with sour.  I didn't measure anything, I just combined.  I heated it up in the microwave to help the breadcrumbs absorb and thicken the sauce just a little.

With sauce.  The breadcrumbs helped keep all of the sauce from running out of the pasty.

While the batch of pasties were cooking, I decided to use up the rest of the bacon and more of the egg mixture.  First I cut more chicken breast into the same size pieces I made for the pasties.  After dipping each piece in the egg and wrapping it with bacon, I rolled it in dried bread crumbs.  Those baked for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees when the pasties came out.

These were also well-received.  Quite tasty!  They were perfect little two bite morsels, and the bread crumbs added a nice crunch.

Success!  In several ways!

Another Medieval Syrian Dish! Eggplant, The Third Kind

 I was inspired yet again by Charles Perry's translation of Scents and Flavors.  This time I had two big eggplants that were just asking to be made medieval.

This one, under the category of eggplant dishes, is on page 241 and is recipe #8.90.

The Third Kind

Fry the eggplants in sesame oil, then take the crumb of cold kumāj bread and put it through a sieve.  Mince parsley, mint, and rue -- predominantly parsley -- and rub each herb separately with salt until they wilt.  Rub the bread crumbs with them until mixed and add sesame paste and rub until mixed.  Then put in mixed spices, coriander seeds, caraway, wine vinegar, lemon juice sweetened with sugar, and a little olive oil.  Put the mixture on the eggplants along with a little pounded garlic, which will perfume and enhance the flavor.

My Redaction

1/4 cup fine, soft bread crumbs

1/2 cup minced parsley (measured "fluffy", not compacted)

1/4 cup minced mint (fluffy)

1/8 cup minced rue (fluffy, as much as rue would fluff, anyway)

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon tahini

1 bay leaf

1/5 of a nut of nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon each of ginger, black pepper, cardamom, mace, caraway seed, ground coriander

dash of cloves

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon sugar

drizzle of olive oil

1/2 clove garlic, peeled

2 large eggplants, sliced and ends removed

sesame oil, about 1 cup for frying

My Notes

Kumāj bread is listed as "a thick flatbread of Turkish origin, cooked in a pan set on embers." (page 290).  I didn't have this, so I used a whole wheat bagel.  I broke the bagel in half, then tore up one half into small pieces.  I then rubbed it through a wire sieve until I got a lovely pile of crumbs.

I did not fry the eggplant first.  The sauce looked complicated so I decided to tackle it first.  

Notice there are no quantities listed for the sauce ingredients.  I had to wing it!  I tried to keep in mind that I needed enough of a flavorful sauce to put on the two big eggplants (I decided not to use the small eggplants, even though they were from my garden), but I didn't want to make a huge amount.

I started with the herbs.  First I minced them and then guessed at the proportions:  one part rue to two parts mint to three parts parsley.  This made it "predominantly parsley" while hopefully allowing the flavor of rue to enter without the bitterness being too strong.  When I estimated their quantities, they were "fluffy" measurements -- the minced herbs were not packed down at all.

I have never before rubbed herbs with salt to make them wilt.  I wasn't quite sure what changes to expect.  So I sprinkled them and rubbed and also used at pestle to pound them a little.  I'm not sure I saw much of a difference, but this is where I stopped:

I put in a little scoop of bread crumbs and mixed those in with a spoon.  Then the tahini.  

The spice list was really long!  On page 41, there is a list of what constitutes "mixed spices", so I chose what I had from there.  Everything was supposed to be pounded separately, but have you ever tried powdering a bay leaf by itself in a mortar?  It wasn't going to happen.

I tried putting a piece of nutmeg in with it, hoping that pounding them together would break up the leaf.

Nope, that strategy didn't work.  The nutmeg went to powder and the leaf stayed about the same.  So I put all the spices into the mortar (pounded or not) and started pounding.

After a lot of it was powdered, I sifted the fine spices into the herb mix and returned the chunks to the mortar and kept pounding.  This worked really well to reduce the bay leaf to powder.

Next up:  the liquids.  I decided that the primary flavor should be from the white wine vinegar, with the lemon and sugar to balance out the sweet-sour blend.  I also included just a drizzle of olive oil.

It took several adjustments to get it right.  At first the texture was a damp paste that tasted really good!

But I really wanted a spreadable, wet sauce, so I kept adding vinegar and lemon and sugar until I got this:

I decided to pound the garlic in the mortar and add it directly to the sauce.

Then I began to fry the eggplant.  The slices were about 1/2 inch thick.  The pan was heated to medium, I put in some sesame oil, and added the eggplant.  They soaked the oil up like sponges!  I had to keep adding oil until they stopped drying the pan out and then the slices actually cooked in the oil.

It took two large fry pans to cook all the eggplant in a timely manner.  

As the slices cooked to browned and tender all the way through, even at the edges, I moved them to a platter and spread a little of the sauce over them.  

They stacked nicely and looked good when they were all cooked.  I ran out of sauce with one slice left.

The Verdict

I served it with a pine nut couscous and apple slices.

The eggplant was really good!  The sauce was spicy, tingling on the tongue, bright in flavor, and well-balanced between sweet and sour.

My guest taster and I agreed that the sauce made the dish exciting.  We tasted the eggplant without the sauce and liked it, but with the sauce, it was just that much better.

The sesame oil made it rich, the eggplant added body and moisture, and the sauce added a zing.  

I couldn't really taste all the spices and I couldn't really tell that there was specifically vinegar and lemon juice in it, but overall, it had the sour and the spicy and the mint.  We loved it and ate most of it.

Success!

I honestly think it would be hard to mess this sauce up.  I just guessed at the amounts and it all came together.  Even if you put in too much of one ingredient, you have opportunities to balance it out with some of the other ingredients.  

I'm really glad I made it as liquid as I did.  That made it easy to scoop a little in a spoon, drop it onto a slice, and then spread it over the slice.  It helped me portion it out over most of the slices.  Although having some extra sauce would not be a problem!