A Good Sauce for Chicken -- 15th Century Italy

I was given a copy of a Ken Albala book I did not know existed:  Cooking in Europe 1250-1650, part of the Daily Life through History series published by the Greenwood Press in 2006.  (Thank you, DS!)

ISBN 0-313-33096-4

Some of the recipes I had seen before, but many I had not and it was a fascinating read.  It has several organizational lists which I found to be very helpful.  One is by era (Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Late Renaissance and Elizabethan Era), and within it, subcategories (Cold Foods, Soups, Meat, etc.)  The other is by country (France, England, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland) with subcategories by era.  There is a list of recipes for special occasions (novelty, holidays, illness).

Ken includes a glossary at the beginning of the book.  Each recipe has a title and cites the source, location, and time period it came from.  He also puts comments after the recipes to define unusual words specific to the recipe or to clarify a technique.  Some of his comments help interpret the recipe to more modern, smaller quantities, since most of us are not cooking for large groups of people.  Clearly he has tried most of the recipes, so his experience and knowledge of food history are a valuable aspect of this book.

I recommend it as worthwhile for a better understanding of historical cooking and to get a feel for how a master historical cook would approach these recipes.

Today was a cold and rainy day, which made it perfect for building a fire in my living room fireplace.  This inspired me to cook something over that fire, and I found a recipe in Ken's book.  On page 51 is A Good Sauce for Chickens, cited as from Italy in the 15th century, by "Anonimo Veneziano", which Ken says means "Anonymous Venetian."  

To Make a good sauce for chickens, take pomegranate and make wine by hand, and place in this wine good sweet spices, and if it seems too strong, add pounded anise, or rosewater.  Others use wine of sour pomegranates and wine of good sweet grapes, and place these two wines together with enough sweet spices.  If you don't have grapes put in a bit of honey and let it boil, the spices should be raw, you don't want to let it stand so it spoils.

Ken notes that "wine" means "juice" and that the goal is a sweet-and-sour fruit sauce with spices.

It is winter, and my grape vine is merely empty twigs, but I did have a bag of frozen grapes from it.  After they partially defrosted, I put them in batches into the blender to coarsely chop them.  Then each batch went into a small cloth bag, where I squeezed out the juice.  This resulted in grape juice that was light in flavor and tart, not sweet.  

Grapes, stems and all

Pulsed to coarsely chop

Squeeze to nearly dry

The juice, more than enough for this recipe

I also had a bottle of homemade pomegranate molasses.  Using fruit from my own tree, I had mixed the juice with a little sugar and lemon juice, then reduced it to 1/4 of its volume.  This stores the juice well for a long time and takes up a small space in my refrigerator.

I was ready to give this recipe a try.

My Redaction

3 large pieces of boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 2 pounds total)

olive oil

1/4 cup pomegranate molasses

1/2 cup grape juice

1 teaspoon poudre fines (a mixture of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, grains of paradise, pepper, and saffron)

1 tablespoon honey

The honey and olive oil were added later.

The chicken meat was coated on all sides with olive oil and placed on a hot, oiled grill over live coals.  While it was cooking, I kept track of the heat from the coals and added more coals as needed.  It took about 40 minutes to cook the meat through, turning it over once after about 20 minutes.

I mixed the pomegranate and grape juices with the spices, then tasted it.  Both juices were tart, and the mixture was less tart than the molasses but still too tart for my preference.  So I added the honey.  The mixture was put in a small ceramic pan near the fire to begin warming it.  Once the chicken was nearly done cooking, I put the pan on a trivet closer to the fire and with hot coals near one side.  I stirred it with a fork often to even the heating through the liquid.  Once it was steaming, I considered it ready.

Cozy, warm, and welcoming.

Starting to cook the chicken

Warming the sauce while the chicken cooked

Heating the sauce in earnest

The Verdict

Dinner is served!

A piece of chicken was set on top of a slice of sourdough bread, then the sauce was spooned over the top.  This put sauce and some spices on the meat.  Most of the sauce, though, ran off the meat where it was soaked up by the bread.  This was served with a simple side salad of greens, tomato, and croutons, with a raspberry vinaigrette dressing.

View from above.

My guest taster had no idea what was in the sauce, so I had him describe what he tasted.  He thought there was citrus in it, and said it was fruity.  He could taste some spices but none were dominating.  He did not think it needed salt and that the sweet-and-sour ratio was just right.  Over all, he loved it and had seconds.  He particularly enjoyed how the bread soaked up the sauce; he cut a piece of soaked bread with each bite of chicken, which I did, too.

See how the bread soaked up the sauce?

I thought the sweet-and-sour ratio was just right, too.  It was not "balanced" as it was more on the sour side.  The sweet was just enough to temper the sour; the sour was just enough tempered to make my taste buds tingle, my mouth water, and inspire me to take another bite.  If it had been any sweeter, I don't think I would have had the same physical reaction, and I wanted that reaction.

It is possible I could have put in more spices, but I'm not sure I wanted them to be more prevalent.  They were there and they added depth to the sauce.  I really enjoyed the emphasis on the fruit flavors.  

Success!

It was great fun cooking over fire in my home.  It doesn't get cold enough in sunny Southern California to build fires often, so I take advantage of it when I can.  It reminds me of the times I've spent demonstrating historical cooking to the public, which I miss.  And the chicken, by itself, had that wonderful grilled meat flavor you can only get from cooking it over fire.  Mmmmmmmmm!

A Red Mulberry -- A Medieval Main Course

My mulberry tree is producing, and I am loving it.  Fresh mulberries!  They are excellent just on their own, and they are also good paired with gouda cheese and white wine.  

But I wanted to do something historical with them.  For this I returned to Cindy Renfrow's Take a Thousand Eggs or More, a collection of 15th century recipes for my inspiration.  I had previously made a recipe from it named "Tart de ffruyte".  Click here to see it.

ISBN 0-9628598-2-6

What appealed was on page 200, taken from the Harleian MS. 279 - Potage Dyvers:

Early English above, modern English below

My Redaction

I was not convinced that this was served as uncooked meat and eggs, and it looked to me like a fruit-and-spice meatloaf.  That is approach I took in redacting it.

2 pounds boneless beef round steak

1 pound, 13 ounces fresh mulberries

2 egg yolks

2 ounces dried bread crumbs

2 + 1 teaspoons poudre fines

2 teaspoons sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place a handful of mulberries in the center of a damp cloth (I used a thin cotton cloth normally used for drying dishes), gather the cloth around them, then use your hands to squish the berries, letting the juice flow into a waiting bowl.  Twist the cloth around the berries, extracting more juice, until the mass feels firm and no more juice flows.  Discard the spent berries, then repeat until all the berries are juiced.  This gave me 1 cup of mulberry juice.

Cut the meat up into cubes then run them through the meat grinder.  (Or buy pre-ground beef.)

If the bread isn't already in crumbs, run them through the grinder after the meat.  Mix them into the meat.

Mix the meat mixture and the juice, then add the sugar and 2 teaspoons of spices and mix again.  Then mix in the egg yolks.

Shape the mixture into a loaf.  I made a round that was about 8 inches in diameter and 2 to 3 inches high.  Sprinkle the top with one teaspoon of the spices.

Bake for 30 minutes or until cooked all the way through.  Serve it forth.

My Notes

The poudre fines mixture I have contains cinnamon, cloves, ginger, grains of paradise, pepper, and saffron.  You can mix up your own version using most or all of these, and I believe you will still be mimicking the medieval time period well.

Meat and bread after grinding

A handful ready for juicing

Squeezed and twisted

Mulberry juice

Beginning to bake

Serve it forth!

The Verdict

It was cooked just right:  no pink left but everything was still juicy.  Also, the loaf was firm enough and held together when cut and served.  I would not change the number of egg yolks, although I usually use whole eggs when I make a meatloaf.  (I enjoyed the leftover whites for breakfast the next day.)

Don't ignore those juices!

The flavor was interesting!  The mulberry juice didn't taste like mulberries, but it added a lovely fruit element to the meat and spices.  The spices were a nice support for the juice and did not conflict with the meat.  

I think I would not put a full teaspoon of spice over the top; a half teaspoon would probably be better.  That was too strong.  But I liked the amount in the meat.  In fact, I think I could put in more and still enjoy it.

I'm glad I didn't put in much sugar.  I didn't taste it, and I was glad.  

My guest taster and I both enjoyed this meatloaf.  We found ourselves spooning the pan juices over the  top of our pieces just because they made it taste even better.  A piece of bread also did a good job sopping up the extra juice.

Success!  Definitely worthwhile repeating.  If I didn't have fresh mulberries available, I would try mulberry molasses diluted with water.  

When I make meatloaf, I typically soak the liquid (red wine!) in the bread crumbs for 10 to 15 minutes before mixing them into the meat.  I think I would do this with the juice if I did this recipe again.  It might disburse the flavor throughout the meat better, although you do not hear me complaining.  

Just in case you were worried, the juice did not stain the white cloth.  Most of the color left when I rinsed the cloth out in the sink, and the rest washed out in the laundry.

Tart de ffruyte - A Tart of Fruit (with salmon)

I was looking for interesting recipes that used figs, and this time I found one that wasn't a dessert or other sugary preparation.   It is from the book Take a Thousand Eggs or More, a Collection of 15th Century Recipes by Cindy Renfrow.  In particular, this is Volume Two.

ISBN 0-9628598-2-6

Ms. Renfrow gives us the original recipes from a variety of medieval English manuscripts and also her translations.  Some recipes she adapted for the modern kitchen.  The recipe I chose is on page 58, under the section labeled "FISH -- salmon".  

Tart of fruit

Take figs, and seethe them in wine, and grind them small, And take them up into a vessel; And take powdered pepper, Cinnamon, Cloves, Maces, powdered ginger, pine nuts, great raisins of Corinth, saffron, and salt, and cast thereto; and then make fair low coffins, and put this stuff therein, And plant pine nuts above; and cut dates and fresh salmon in fair pieces, or else fresh eels, and parboil them in a little wine, and put them thereon; And cover the coffins fair with the same paste, and glaze the coffin without with saffron & almond milk; and set them in the oven and let bake.

My Redaction

1 lb. fresh figs, stems removed, about 20.  (Or less if dried, see notes below.)

1/2 cup red wine

A small handful of almonds, about 1/2 ounce by weight; chopped, ground, or pounded into small pieces

4 or 5 threads of saffron

About 1/2 cup boiling water

enough pie crust dough to make a double crust

1/4 tsp. ground pepper

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/16 tsp. ground cloves

1/8 tsp. ground mace

1/8 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 cup pine nuts, divided in half

 1/2 cup currants

another 6 or so threads of saffron, crushed between your fingers

1/8 tsp. salt

8 ounces fresh salmon, cut into bite-sized pieces

6 ounces dates, pitted and sliced

Everything except the dough, almond milk, and fig-wine filling.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Chop the figs.  Put them in a small saucepan with the wine.  Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and then cover and simmer until they are tender, about 5 to 7 minutes.  Allow to cool while you are making the rest of the recipe.

Then make the almond milk by mixing the ground almonds and threads of saffron with boiling water and allowing it to steep until cool.  Strain the resulting almond milk from the mix by pouring it all through several layers of cheesecloth, a fine sieve, or a cloth bag.  Set the almond milk aside for the end of the recipe.

Line a pie pan with the lower crust, leaving some extra dough at the edges to help seal the second crust.

Mix the spices, 1/4 cup pine nuts, currants, broken saffron, and salt in a bowl, then add the cooled figs and wine.  Mix well and put into the pie crust.

Sprinkle the surface with the rest of the pine nuts, add a layer of the chopped dates, and then the salmon pieces.

Cover with the second crust.  Cut some vent holes.  Brush the top of the crust with the almond milk.

Bake at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees F and bake another 30 to 40 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

Let cool a little before cutting and serving.

My Notes

I suspect the recipe was designed to use dried figs.  Most recipes seemed to call for them dried, and I can understand why -- the fresh fig season is short and drying figs makes them last through the year.

But I don't care.  I'm using fresh because I have them!  Dried figs simmered in wine will rehydrate and be easier to eat.  I think I would use 15 to 20 dried figs, chopped, and simmer them longer.

Figs and wine.  Could be the whole meal right there!

Before cooking

After cooking

Next, make the almond milk.  You need so little that it is easier to make it than to buy it, and you know you are getting something without additives.  I keep the leftover ground almonds and mix in a little cinnamon and honey for a small snack.

Almonds before pounding.  You just need a few!

Pounded.  Making the pieces smaller is fine.

With boiling water and saffron.  Ready to steep.

Strained milk.  The yellow is from the saffron.

While this is steeping, mix up the spices, pine nuts, and currants.  Add them to the cooling fig and wine mixture.

Spices, pine nuts, currants

The entire bottom layer of filling

The fig, wine, and spices filling needs to be cool enough not to melt the fat in the lower crust.  I put mine in the freezer to chill it faster.

Here is how I sliced the dates and chunked the salmon:

The quantity of the fig and spice filling seemed just right for the cast iron skillet I was using as a pie pan.  The other layers were spread evenly across the top.

Bottom layer

Pine nut layer

Date layer

Salmon layer

Top crust with glaze

After my tart had baked for 20 minutes at the 350 degree F temperature, I thought the edge of the crust was at risk of burning, so I put a foil cover on it.  Then it baked for another 20 minutes.

The Verdict

This is the tart right out of the oven.

The bit of salmon I could see through the vent slits looked cooked.  I wasn't worried that it didn't cook enough, but that it was overcooked and dry.  I let the tart cool until it was still warm but not putting my mouth at risk of being burnt.

My guest taster wanted me to write that the crust was excellent.  I mostly agreed - I thought it was a little too crumbly - but it was flaky and tender and flavorful.

You can see that the layers were distinct enough:  fig layer, then the nut-date-salmon layer above that.  

The salmon was cooked thoroughly but not dry (whew!).  The rest of the filling was moist and cooked.

The flavors were interesting in a very good way.  First, recognize it is a fruit tart with salmon, not a salmon tart with fruit.  My guest taster wished there was much more salmon in it.  I can understand that sentiment.  

What we got was the lovely mixture of fruits that was lightly spiced.  The fig seeds added crunch and the pine nuts added chewy.  Fruit was the dominant flavoring.  The salmon was a fascinating diversion from what could have been a dessert dish -- you would bite into the crust and fruit and suddenly taste the meaty flavor of the salmon.  It reminded you it was a main dish, and that surprise was pleasant.  It also helped that the fruit was not too sweet.  

I declare it a success.  I loved the fruit-and-meat combination, and the subtle spicing.  I loved that it was only lightly sweet and that I got that savory salmon as part of most bites.

If I were to grant my guest taster's wish to make it a salmon tart with fruit, I think I would put half of the fig mixture in the crust, then top it with a layer of salmon, using 12 to 16 ounces to pack the layer densely.  Then I would spread the rest of the fig layer on top and use fewer dates on top of that.  I believe the fig mixture would keep the salmon moist.  Maybe some day!

The "Making Do" Challenge -- Stuffed Eggplant

I decided that I needed to "up" the challenge of maintaining an historical food blog during a pandemic by cooking an historical recipe without running to the store for all the ingredients.  This is what they had to do:  cook with what you have and still make it taste good.  (I've been doing that a lot lately and love the creativity it inspires!)

Two eggplants were telling me they needed to be used.  I kept thinking about a recipe I did a long time ago for this blog,  Eggplant -- The Perfect Way.   It is wonderful, with cheese and basil and spices.  But I did not have the right cheese and definitely no basil -- the snails made short work of that in my garden and the seedlings are not big enough yet.

But I did have a packet of ground lamb in the freezer.  Lamb and eggplant are a good pairing, and both together suggested a particular geographic location to consider for recipes.

ISBN 978-0-520-26174-7

I really like this book.  The foreword was written by food historian Charles Perry who deftly puts the recipes and time period into context.  It even contains a description of how to make murri, a soy-sauce-like condiment used at the time.  The recipes themselves are easy to understand and enticing to make.  The color plates are mostly of art, servingware, and kitchenware from the time period.

I chose Recipe 44, on page 94.

Stuffed Eggplant

Ibn Razin, in one of seventeen recipes for stuffed eggplant, calls for extra stuffing to be spread over the eggplant before it is put in the oven.

Take some of our large eggplants.  Remove the head [ris] of each eggplant and hollow out the inside in order to extract the pulp while taking care not to cut the skin; indeed, [the skin] should be of a good thickness.  Then take some meat and pound it in a mortar and boil it.  When it is cooked, pound it in the mortar [again] in order to make it still more tender.  Put [it] in a pot [dast] and add fresh sheep tail fat, dry coriander [seeds], caraway, pepper, Chinese cinnamon, and fresh chopped coriander [cilantro] and parsley in great quantities.  Fry all of it until it is roasted.  Add salt and stuff the eggplant with this mixture.  Close up [the stuffed eggplants] with what was cut off [i.e., the head].  Insert [in each eggplant] three sticks of good-quality wood that has been smoked [in order to reattach the head], then put them in the pot and cook over a lively fire in the sheep tail fat until they are well cooked.  Then put them on a serving dish [zubdiyya] and sprinkle with dry coriander.  At the moment of serving, remove the sticks and throw them away.



My Notes

I had no cilantro so I decided to use just parsley (from my garden!).  Instead of sheep tail fat, I used olive oil.

I thought it interesting that there was no mention of "purging" the eggplant, after having read Perry's discussion of how eggplant was unpopular until it was discovered that salting it would remove the bitterness.  I decided to follow the preparation directions in order -- that is, hollowing the eggplants before cooking the filling -- so I put the prepared eggplants into salted water while making the filling.

Honestly, I wasn't sure which end of the eggplant was the head.  I decided it was the big end so it would be easy to hollow it and still leave thick walls.



I used a knife with a long, slender blade to roughly cut a circle into the length of the eggplant.  This defined the thickness of the walls.  Then I used a sturdy spoon to scoop out the flesh.  Sometimes I poked the flesh a few times with the knife to make it easier to scoop.

Considering the meat I had was already ground, I decided I didn't need to pound it, boil it, and pound it again in order to make it tender. 

The one pound of lamb was sauteed in olive oil and I added

     1/4 teaspoon powdered coriander
     1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds
     1/2 teaspoon pepper
     1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
     1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Nearly done

Once it was cooked, I added 1/4 teaspoon salt and stirred it in well.

Stuffing the eggplant was easy.  I just spooned the filling in, pushing it down to compact it after every few scoops.  My goal was to stuff it to the brim and just a little past.

Stuff it!

I didn't happen to have any smoked sticks around so I decided to use toothpicks instead.  Then I fried the eggplants in olive oil, turning them to cook on all sides.

The picks were angled a little to help hold on the head.

I cooked them until the head fell off and the stuffing starting coming out. 

To serve them, I put them on a plate with the head next to it, after removing and throwing away the toothpicks.  Then I sprinkled them with some powdered coriander.

The Verdict



I served them with a tossed green salad and some of the sorrel puree that had been thinned and flavored with beef bouillon. 

The stuffing was great -- very flavorful and I think I got the spice balance just right.  The eggplant was slightly undercooked in places, making it harder to cut than the well-cooked parts.  But the combination of eggplant and filling was tasty! 

The eggplant was a little bland by itself, which served as a good support for the filling.  The combination was savory, spicy, creamy (the eggplant), slightly chewy (the filling).  I noticed that the coriander sprinkled on top was warmed by the hot eggplant and provided a lovely, enticing, spicy scent when I sat down to eat.

Success!

The ends of the eggplant were not cooked well at all.  I believe this is because they never touched the hot oil in the pan.  The sides were all that were eaten.

The note in italics at the beginning of the recipe came to mind at this point.  If I had baked the eggplants instead of frying them, I think they would have been thoroughly cooked, even at the ends.  I would not have had the issue of needing to stop cooking when the head fell off, either. 

If I did this again, I would try baking them.  I might even spread more of the filling over the top before doing so!

I did have extra filling, which went well in a quesadilla for my lunch the next day.