Liquamen/Garum -- Making Roman Empire Fish Sauce from Fish

Previously I had made liquamen at home via Sally Grainger's recipe using a premade fish sauce and adjusting the flavor with reduced white grape juice.  See the results here.

But now it is time to try making it on my own, from scratch, using fish.  I had talked to people at last February's Culinary Symposium about it, and they assured me it was a reasonable task to undertake.

Many websites talk about how to make it, and many bloggers have tried.  Let's see how this goes!


WARNING:  Some of the pictures show dead fish parts.  Decide before you look if you can stomach it.


Day 1

I started with about 5 lbs of bonita parts:  heads, skeletons (the leftover parts after removing the tasty flesh), innards (it is important to use the intestines for the enzymes they bring), and bits of meat that just weren't worth trying to cook.  I put them in a clean plastic bucket **that had a lid** along with about 1 lb of kosher salt.

I first put in a layer of salt, then some fish parts, then sprinkled the parts with more salt.  Then I kept layering until about 1 lb (20% by weight of the fish parts) was used.  I stirred the whole thing as best as I could (to coat the pieces), put the lid on, and placed the whole container out on the back patio, where it would get a lot of sun.

Salted bonita parts.  

You really need a lid, to keep out dirt but also to keep out the flies that are very attracted to it.  I put a heavy weight on top of it to discourage nighttime visitors from getting into it.

The Romans used unglazed ceramic containers.  Most of the bloggers used glass jars.  I didn't have a jar or a ceramic container big enough to hold all this, so I was glad for the advice to use a plastic bucket.

You can see that the fish parts filled about 1/4 to 1/3 of the bucket.

Day 2

The next day, when stirring it, I decided it needed more whole fish, so I bought some frozen mackerel, about 73 ounces worth, and added that and another 10 ounces of salt to the bucket.  Again, I stirred the whole thing as well as I could.  I noticed some liquid was already forming.  The smell was fishy and a little rotten, so I was glad I could get the brown liquid to coat everything.

Salty mackerel, before stirring.

The blogs that talk about it say the salt-to-fish ratio runs from 1/10 to 1/5, so I figured I was in the right range, without obsessing over exact quantities.

Day 3

I stirred everything again.  The mackerel was starting to break apart, so they were easily pushed down into the dark brown liquid that was now deeper than the day before.  The smell was fishy, but not rotten, which surprised me.  It actually smelled better than the day before.

Day 4

This time I didn't stir as much as I used the spoons to push the mackerel down into the liquid.  This broke them up a little more, too.  The liquid level was almost to the top of the fish.

The smell was very faint.  Very mildly fishy and I could not smell it at all outside the bucket.  I am astonished.

Day 7

The fish parts are all broken up and the whole quantity has compacted down to about 1/4 of the bucket's volume.  The liquid was thick and brown on top, but when I stirred it, I found thinner liquid underneath.  I think that stirring it was a good idea, as it took the pieces that were on top and got them coated in the salty liquid.

Day 22

I left the whole thing alone until today.  There was a layer of "stuff" floating on the surface, and lots of liquid underneath.  I could see bones (backbone and ribs) that were completely devoid of muscle and flesh.  Instead of stirring, I rotated the bucket around to splash the liquid up on the surface stuff and mix it up a bit.  The smell was pretty fishy but not disgusting, so I am letting it continue.

My fingers are crossed for luck!

Day 30

This is the one month mark, so I took pictures before and after stirring.

Before stirring.

After stirring.

I scooped out about 1 cup of the mixture.

As it was, right out of the container.

First I poured it through a small strainer, which removed the biggest bits and some of the gritty-looking parts.  Then I put it all into a fine filter, a metal coffee strainer that had never been used for making coffee.  This was put over a container and covered with plastic, so it could drip through.

The odor was fishy but not disgusting.  The cats thought the smell was amazing, so I gave them several drops of the liquid, which they quickly licked up.

I filtered it but could not get it clear, so I put the liquid into the refrigerator to see what would happen.  I noticed that everything the liquid touched had a greasy film on it, which wasn't very pleasant at all.

I tasted it and it was very, very fishy.  It did not have that slightly sweet taste the liquamen I made from the fish sauce and grape juice had.  I really didn't like it much but I do have to note that it wasn't too salty, and it didn't taste rotten.

So after one month of fermenting, I think it should continue.

Four Months

The mixture has been sitting on the patio for four months now, and it is time to finish it.  When I opened the container, I was really put off.  The smell was unpleasant and it looked weird, and I was unsure whether what I saw was fish oil or mold.  But before I reacted, I checked with my online friends who have done this before.



D G-T gave me this description:

Fishy salty sludge that looks like chucky mud?  That's OK.  Strain out the solids and you have liquid yuck.  Run that through a coffee filter or wet paper towel and you should get clear amber salty fishy goodness ... that's the goal.  It will flow through the filter VERY slowly.

I felt much better about my experiment and set about with the filtering.

The first round was done outside, using a ladle to get the liquid out of the tub and into two strainers, one a little finer mesh than the other.  I also had a trashcan nearby so I could empty the strainers regularly.  I worked quickly, so I could get it done before too many flies found me.



The result of this first round of filtering was, yes, liquid yuck.  I did notice that the scent wasn't bad at all:  fishy but not rotten or nasty, and I kept getting a hint of the fruity scent that the previous liquamen had.

First round yuck.

I could see all the particles in the liquid and knew I would have to filter them a lot to get it clear.

Filtering, round two, was done indoors.  I used the ladle to scoop the liquid into a strainer that was even finer mesh than the two I used in the first round.  One scoop would drain for a little while and then I had to rotate the strainer to put the liquid over areas that weren't clogged with particles.

Strainer after the liquid passed through.  Time to shake and rinse!

Then I shook the particles out into a bowl.  After every two or three shakes, I rinsed the strainer under clear water.  This worked well.

It didn't take long to accumulate 14 cups (3.5 quarts) of the second round filtered liquid.

Liquid not-so-yuck.

It is still not clear.  Next I will run it through my metal coffee filter to see how that works.

One aspect of this that made me laugh at myself:  All the while I kept thinking, "I need to find a place in the refrigerator for this big container."  Then I realized it had been sitting on my patio for four months and didn't need to be kept cold!  The beauty of salt!

Putting the liquid through the coffee filter helped a lot.  This left me with a slightly cloudy amber liquid, so I poured it through a wet paper towel to finish it off.

The result was an almost perfectly clear amber liquid that smelled fishy but was not bad.

The Verdict

Time for a taste test!

I put the fermented liquamen up against Thai fish sauce and my homemade liquamen that was a mixture of the Thai fish sauce and reduced white grape juice.

All about the same color.  Newest on the right.

I tasted a little of each one and drank a lot of water between tastes to clear my palate.

My fermented liquamen was very salty, slightly sweet, and had a deep umami flavor that I liked.  That umami really made my tastebuds dance and sing.

The Thai fish sauce was salty but not as much as my fermented sauce, it was not sweet, it had a tangy sensation that I didn't like much, and it had umami but the fermented sauce had more.

The fish sauce plus grape juice was definitely sweeter (remember that I mixed them so I controlled the sauce/juice ratio, and I like sweet), not as salty, no tang, and not as rich in umami. 

The fermented sauce had the most umami and the most salt.  The Thai sauce was thicker, almost syrupy, than the other two. 

D G-T says she gets the best results using 7 parts fish to 1 part salt.  Mine was about 6 parts fish to 1 part salt, so I am not surprised about the salt levels in mine.

So was there a clear winner?  Not quite but I would choose depending on my food prep goal.  The fermented sauce was very salty but very umami, so I would take that into account in my recipe.  If I didn't want so much salt, I would use the fish/juice sauce.  The Thai sauce will be used to make more of the fish/juice sauce. 

I declare this to be a success!

One point to note:  at the one month interval, I noted that there was a greasy residue that stuck to everything and bothered me.  This no longer was an issue.  I could see oil/fat in the mixture but it was not sticky nor did it make itself known. 

I'm so glad I did this; what a neat experiment!  My plastic tub resulted in about 14 cups of liquid yuck, which I am still filtering.  Trying to filter it 1/2 cup at a time in the coffee filter was not the best use of time, so I set up a jelly bag (cloth bag for filtering juice for making clear jelly) in a tall jar so I could put in nearly two cups of yuck to filter over time but still cover it to cut down on the fishy odor in the house and keep out bugs/dust/cats.

Very. Slow. Drip.

This can take its time filtering and then I can wash and reuse the bag for the next batch.  Each batch gets filtered through the wet paper towel as the last step, then stored in a corked bottle.  I suspect I will be sharing this liquamen with fellow foodies to get their take on it.  At least I hope I will.

I am thankful to the friends who gave me encouragement and advice on fermenting fish.  I would not have finished it without you.  Special kudos to D G-T!

Four Sauces for a Chicken -- Sauce #1: Roman Empire!

I had company coming, someone who has been experimented on before at my table, so I felt like trying something fun.  I decided to buy two roasted chickens and make sauces to be served with them.

But what sauces?  There are so many from a variety of cultures and eras.  Well, since my love for Roman Empire food is growing, I decided to try one that appeared to be a challenge to prepare.

This recipe comes from Cooking Apicius, by Sally Grainger.  I love this book and have used it several times before for this blog.  (Do a label search on "Roman Empire."  You will find them!)

ISBN 1-903018-44-7

This recipe is on page 60 and has the undistinguished title of

Sauce for Cooked Meat

Ms. Grainger explains that a person of the time would be eating while reclining on one side, using one hand to bring the food up to the mouth.  When at first she tried this sauce, she interpreted it in a modern fashion, making it "thin, hot, plentiful and pourable" and found it disappointing.  But "When I considered them more as a pickle or dipping sauce, the likely use of these sauces became clear."  In other words, the sauce needed to stick to the meat to avoid it dripping onto the diner.

The challenge, in my view, was to make this sauce and closely follow the complicated-looking directions.  Here goes!

1 heaping tsp cumin seeds
1 level tsp myrtle berries *  (see note below)
generous freshly ground black pepper
2 heaped tsp chopped fresh parsley
1/2 small leek with the dark green removed
2 hard-boiled eggs, shelled
2 dessert spoons honey
2 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp fish sauce

Ignore the dry parsley.  It butted its way into the picture unannounced.

Roast and grind the cumin and myrtle, mix with the pepper and combine with the parsley.  Chop the leek and cook in a little water.  Strain and place in a food processor or large mortar and grind or process into a paste.  Add the cooked eggs and process or grind again.  Add the spice and herb mixture, honey, vinegar, oil and fish sauce and blend by pulsing a few times.  Tip into a bowl and store until required.  Only store in the fridge if you are preparing or storing left-over sauce overnight.  Preparing it the day before does improve the flavour but bring back to room temperature before serving.

My Notes

*Special note:  I do not have any myrtle berries.  Apparently I could grow them but not in time for today's cooking spree.  To find a substitute I turned to The Epicenter which had a description:

Myrtle seeds are purple-black berries that are used whole or coarsely ground.  Its leaf is used whole or chopped.  Myrtle berries are sweet, with juniper and rosemary-like flavors.  The leaves have spice, astringent, and bitter taste [sic] with a refreshing, fragrant, and orangelike aroma.

Ah ha!  I decided to substitute in juniper berries, which I toasted, and then added a pinch of dried rosemary before grinding.

I toasted the juniper separately from the cumin seeds but combined them in the mortar.  I wasn't sure how long to toast the juniper but I stopped when I sniffed the berries and got a lovely resiny scent.

Toasted.

Ground (includes the rosemary).

I used about 1/2 teaspoon of ground pepper.

Honest, that was the smallest leek I could find in the store!  I used this much of it:

I used one of those big white pieces.

To cook the leeks, I put them in a pan with enough water to cover.  They simmered for a short while -- I stopped cooking them when most of the pieces were transparent.

In the beginning.

Processing that small amount of cooked leeks in my food processor was probably the most challenging part of making this sauce.  I had to stop it many times to scrape the leeks down off the walls.  But with persistence, I got it to nearly a paste consistency.

Adding the eggs helped even more.

I chose to use red wine vinegar for this recipe.

The instructions say to just pulse the mixture a few times after adding the herbs and spices and liquids, so I did.  But I wasn't convinced it was that well mixed.  So I stirred it after it went into the bowl.

It made about 3/4 of a cup.

The Verdict

I served it with thin slices of chicken for dipping.  We also had some fresh bread and a simple green salad.

Both light and dark meat.

I put all the sauces on plates.  There was one set of plates to be shared between every two people.

Roman sauce on the far left.  And this gives you a preview of the other sauces!

The idea was to dip your meat into the sauce and eat it but there was a problem.  The sauce was too thick to allow for easy dipping!  We ended up spooning some onto our plates and then spreading the sauce onto each piece.

You can see how firm the sauce is.

So how did it taste?

It was very intriguing.  Creamy, lightly spiced, slightly sweet, a little rich with a good mouthfeel.  It was hard to taste individual flavors but the blend was lovely.  The more I eat food with cumin, the more I love it and this sauce was no exception.  Success!

My guest tasters all enjoyed it.  Most of us agreed it was the best sauce of the four.  I certainly did.

I think the thickness was just right once I took it all out of the food processor, however the sauce sat for several hours before dinner and I think it thickened up.  If this happens again, I would double check the consistency just before serving and thin it with a little vinegar as needed.

As for the preparation challenge, I was pleasantly surprised to find it easy to make.  I thought the toasting, grinding, cooking, processing steps would be difficult but they weren't.  It is a definite do-again recipe.

I think I could just eat this sauce with a spoon.  Yes, it is that good.

Dulcia Domestica -- Roman Empire "Dates Alexandrine"

I have returned to my The Roman Cookery of Apicius book.  This time I have a dessert made with dates and almonds and cinnamon.

ISBN 0-88179-008-7

"Dulcia Domestica" means "homemade sweets".  The author who translated and redacted the recipes, John Edwards, said in the footnotes,

The word Alexandrine when used as an adjective by Apicius implied "expensive" or "best quality."  Alexandria itself was the great port of arrival for spices from India and China.

Dulcia Domestica:  The Original Recipe (Translated)

Take palms or dates, with the stones removed, and stuff them with nuts or nut kernels and ground pepper.  Salt the dates on top and bottom and fry in cooked honey, and serve.

Mr. Edwards also comments

In the preparation of sweets, Apicius used the word "pepper" loosely.  In the first century A.D., cinnamon and nutmeg were thought by the Romans to have common points of origin with pepper.  They were, in those days, prohibitively expensive.

So in his redaction, Mr. Edwards has us using cinnamon.

Dates Alexandria (page 173)

20 whole dates
20 blanched almonds
1 t. cinnamon
butter
salt
liquid honey

And olive oil for the pan

Remove pits from dates.  Roll almonds in cinnamon and stuff one in each date.  Place dates on a greased pan.  Sprinkle salt over the dates, then coat each one with honey.  Glaze in a 450 degree F oven for 10 minutes, then serve.

My Notes

I bought pitted dates, which was really convenient.  To slice them open to allow the almonds, I inserted the knife into the side hole and cut outwards.  This kept the date from being crushed by the knife.

It was easy to blanch the almonds.  The benefit was that the almonds were still damp so the cinnamon stuck to them well.  You really want a light dusting of cinnamon all over the almond.  Some will rub off on your fingers while stuffing and some will rub off to the inside of the date.

I kept rolling the almonds in the extra cinnamon as I was taking some out.

Some dates were big enough that I put in two almonds to make it look filled.

I think they would be better pushed closed, if possible.

I used kosher salt and sprinkled just a little over the tops.  None on the bottoms.

A little more is acceptable.

The pan was greased with olive oil (I think this is more realistic than using butter).

Then I drizzled each date with a bit of honey.  I did not try to coat each one thoroughly.

Just a zigzag drizzle across each.

I cooked them in a toaster oven.  Because of the close quarters and high heat, I cooked them for 5 minutes instead of ten.

I pulled it out when the honey smoked a little.

After they came out of the oven, I let them cool to the touch.  But get them out of the puddle of honey before it gets too cool, or they will stick to the pan despite the olive oil.

The Verdict

Confession time:  I made these once before but didn't document it.  They were good!  This time around didn't disappoint, either.

The nice part about cooking them in the honey is that the honey gets less sticky, making it a pleasure to eat the dates instead of a mess.

I loved the crunchy texture and cinnamon, sweet date flavors.  At first I thought the honey glaze was going to be too much sweet, but it really was just a back up flavor.  It made the overall taste deeper.  But what really startled me was the addition of the salt.

I know salt and sweet together can be good.  In fact, a little salt can make the sweet taste sweeter.  But this was a stronger salt sensation and, once I expected it, was a lovely complement to the sweet.  It reminded me a little of kettle corn, a sweet and salty crunchy version of candied popcorn.

Dates Alexandrine were a solid success.

Now here is the good part:  The second day they tasted even better!  What I noticed is that the salt dissolved into the honey and spread out over more of the date.  It was a lighter salt experience but still good.

I shared the dates with my colleagues.  I had wanted more cinnamon flavor (as did my guest tasters at dinner) but several of my colleagues admitted to disliking cinnamon.  However they did like the dates as given to them and thought the amount of cinnamon was just right.

So it is your choice!  If you think your diners love cinnamon, consider putting on more on the almonds or sprinkling some into the dates.  If you are not sure, go with the recipe.

I liked the author's idea to bake the dates.  However if I were to do this as a public demonstration, I would fry them as the original recipe indicates.

Finally, I would like to try this with pepper only, or a mixture of cinnamon and pepper, some time.  I think the bitter from the pepper would be intriguing and the whole flavor surprising.

More on Liquamen - Oh Wow!

Last May I wrote about my experiments with the Roman condiment called "liquamen."  You can read about it here:  Liquamen.  I was working from the book Cooking Apicius by Sally Grainger.

I didn't make it from fermented fish but used a more convenient recipe involving reduced grape juice and premade fish sauce.  My taste test showed that the best ratio of juice to fish sauce was 7 to 1.

Well, that turns out to be a good ratio if you are tasting the sauce from a spoon.  When it comes to using it as a base for a sauce, Ms. Grainger's recommendation of 3 to 1 is much, much better.

I have been experimenting with using the liquamen as a base for a variety of uses.  My favorite so far is as a steak sauce.  Another good use is as a dressing for steamed green beans.

Liquamen in a Sauce

Reduced grape juice and a purchased fish sauce or liquamen made from fermented fish
Olive oil
White wine vinegar
Salt
Pepper

For the steak sauce, I used

6 tablespoons grape juice
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper (or to taste)
1/8 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

Mix well in a bowl and serve with a ladle so your guests can pour on the amount they want.

For the green beans dressing, I used

3 tablespoons grape juice
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper (or to taste)
1/8 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

Mix well in a bowl and then pour over the hot, steamed green beans.  Toss to coat.  Good to toss them again before serving.

Very peppery

The Verdict

The steak sauce is very thin and runny.  I liked it poured over the steak, using enough to have the sauce make a puddle around the meat.  It is amazingly tasty and inspires the eater to want more!

In analyzing the flavors, I would say it touches all five of the tastes our tongues can sense.  It is salty, it is sour from the vinegar, it is sweet from the grape juice, it is bitter from the pepper, and the fish sauce makes it richly umami.

I wondered if the spices I used on the steak influenced my interpretation of the sauce.  Probably they do as I use a salt-free blend with black pepper, garlic, onion, brown mustard seeds, lemon peel, chile pepper, allspice, coriander, marjoram, and oregano.  Hey, I use this blend because it tastes good on the steak!  But the steak is even better with the sauce.

One of my guest tasters smoked a tri-tip and tried my sauce on it.  He said he couldn't get enough of the sauce once he started putting it on the beef.  He was surprised at its flavor because he expected it to taste fishy and it didn't.  He was also surprised at the pleasant sweetness.

And the wine!

The dressing stuck to the green beans because of the olive oil.  I liked the stronger pepper flavor and the other tastes, most of which were like the steak sauce.  I think the dressing might be even better with some vinegar in it, like an oil-and-vinegar dressing.

These mixtures are so much of a success that, once the meat and beans were eaten, we cleaned up the rest of the sauce on our plates with the pesto crescent rolls.  A simple and yet very tasty meal.

I have the ingredients to make more liquamen, so I will post updates if I find any other uses.

Baked Ham in Pastry with Figs

After making liquamen (fish sauce) in the previous post, I perused my Cooking Apicius (by Sally Grainger) book looking for a recipe or two that I wanted to try.

ISBN 1-903018-44-7

One that caught my attention did not use liquamen as anything more than an optional seasoning but I wanted to try it anyway.

Baked ham in pastry with figs (page 62)

1 kg piece of gammon, pre-soaked if necessary
5 dried figs
3 bay leaves
250 g plain white flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
100 ml water
100 g set honey
olive oil for brushing
fish sauce, or salt and honey for seasoning

Cover the gammon in cold water, add the figs and bay leaves and bring to the boil.  Simmer for 20 minutes per 500 grams plus an extra 20 minutes.  Remove from the heat and cool in the water.  

While it is cooling, sieve the flour and salt together into a bowl and add the oil and the water gradually to form a dough.  Knead until smooth and pliable.  This amount of dough should cover at least a two-kilo joint so adjust the amount to suit the size of your joint.  

Cut the dough in half and roll one portion out into a large thin sheet.  Follow the method in the recipe for tracta on page 37.*  The pastry sheet should resemble that used for apple strudel rather than filo and the thicker edges of the sheet should be trimmed before you begin to wrap the meat.

Place the meat on a board and remove the skin.  Score the fat with a knife right through to the flesh to create a criss-cross pattern.  Spread the honey over the fat and into the cuts.  Spread it over any surfaces of the lean meat too.  

Brush your first pastry sheet with olive oil  and lay the meat at one end.  Roll the meat up in the dough, fold over the edges to make a parcel, and brush its exterior with more oil.  Trim away any excess pastry.

Roll the other half of the dough into a sheet and brush its upper surface with olive oil.  Wrap the meat again, this time tracking the minimum amount of excess dough under the joint.  Brush the exterior with more oil.  

Bake in a medium oven (375 degrees F, 190 degrees C, gas 5) for 1 hour until the pastry is crisp and light brown.  Remove and allow to stand for 10 minutes.  

Strain 250 ml of the cooking liquor into a small pan and season with a little fish sauce or salt if desired, and a little honey. Taste and adjust the balance of flavors.  Carve thick slices of meat and spoon a little of the liquor over them.  Serve it forth.

*To paraphrase these directions, you would roll the dough, turn it over, roll it more, and repeat until very thin.  Do not push from the center but use brisk "back-and-forth" motion at the edges.  Make it as thin as possible without it tearing.

My Notes

Gammon is a hind leg of pork that is cured like bacon by dry-salting or brining.  It is sold uncooked.  The difference between it and ham is that ham is already cooked.

I do not know of any place in my area that sells gammon.  Ham is easy to obtain and that is what I used.  However I was concerned about the amount of cooking time called for in the recipe as I did not want to overcook the already cooked ham.  So I shortened the amount of time simmering in the water to 30 minutes.

It took about 15 minutes of kneading to get the dough smooth.  Then I let it rest while the ham finished cooling and the dough's pliability improved because of it.   I rolled it out to what I thought was very thin (I could read through it) then used my hand to spread the oil on its surface.

Note that when you remove the ham from the simmering liquid you want to keep that liquid for later (that is the "cooking liquor" mentioned for the sauce).

My honey was runny, not set (solid), and that created a problem in keeping it on the ham.

The second layer of dough made a nice, neat little package of the whole thing.  It looked great!

It cooked about an hour in order to get the dough browned.

The Verdict

Meh.

I will call this a success but not anything glorious.  I don't think there is anything wrong with Ms. Grainger's recipe and feel that the problems were all mine from making too many changes.

The shortened cooking time did not appear to adequately flavor the ham with anything more than a light herbal scent from the bay leaves.  The figs did not seem to add anything at all although the water and the ham's exterior became darker.  The bay flavor was nice but weak.

The runny honey did not add anything to the tasting experience.  Ms. Grainger says, "The meat finishes cooking in its case while retaining the juices, which caramelize with the honey -- wonderful!"  My already-cooked ham did not have any juices and the honey was just a thin layer.

I probably could have gotten the dough layers thinner.  I thought they were thin enough and I even baked the scraps to see what they would be like as crispy.  They were very tasty but the wrapped ham layers were tough and dry.  Only the parts that were absolutely thin were pretty good.

The cooking liquor's flavor was weak and watery, so I added in about two tablespoons of liquamen and then reduced it by about 1/3 on the stove.  This tasted pretty good but only added a little bit to the ham's flavor.  It did soften and moisten the crust.  If I had a weak liquor again, I would reduce it first and then add the liquamen.

My guest taster thought it was fine.  I thought the ham was fine but not much different from the ham as it was purchased and the crust was okay.

I really liked the concept, though, and would love to try it again some time using a piece of uncooked pork, like a tenderloin or roast.

I looked around the Internet to see if I could acquire a gammon and found I would have to import it at a cost of around US $80 before shipping fees.  I will pass on this!

Liquamen -- Fish Sauce from the Roman Empire

In 2007 I was fortunate enough to travel to England; in particular I got to visit Vindolanda and Bath, both sites that were influenced by the Roman Empire about 2000 years ago.  At one of their museum stores (I can't recall which!), I purchased -- what else? -- a cookbook!

Not just any cookbook, though.  It was Cooking Apicius, Roman Recipes for Today by Sally Grainger.

ISBN 1-903018-44-7

Ms. Grainger is a researcher interested in experimental archaeology, food history, and food in antiquity.  I have seen references before to Apicius, "a collection of Roman cookery recipes, usually thought to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century AD." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apicius)  The problem I had with it was most of the references were to recipes we would consider very strange, like cooked dormice.  It was almost enough to make me believe the Romans ate nothing but weird (to us) food, however I know that old cookbooks often give us recipes that were for feasts or other special gatherings.  Thus the food tends to be exotic.

Ms. Grainger has, in my humble opinion, focused on reasonable recipes:  ones where we can easily find or make the ingredients.  When I read them over I get excited rather than revolted about making them.

In the Introduction, she discusses "fish sauce" as a fundamental ingredient to Roman food.  There are various types, depending on how they are prepared.  I focused on liquamen:

This was made by dissolving whole small fish, as well as larger pieces of gutted fish, ... into a liquor with salt.  The fish, often anchovy, were layered with salt in a barrel or pit and left for anything up to four months.  The whole mixture cleared from the top and settled into layers.  The paste at the bottom was called allec and was used as a pickle in its own right.  The liquor was called liquamen.

(If you would like to learn more about the different fish sauces, read her paper here.)

Fortunately she gives us a recipe that does not require us to buy fish or to wait four months.

Adapted fish sauce  (page 29)

1 liter carton white grape juice
1 bottle "Oyster brand" fish sauce or a pale variety of fish sauce

Note the color of the grape juice

Tip the grape juice into a large saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer.  Cook at the lowest setting for however long it takes to reduce by half.  This is never set in stone as grape juice can have a higher or lower sugar content.  Cool and store.  

You can use this for other recipes in Apicius as well as for your fish sauce.  The ratio that works for me is two-thirds fish sauce to one-third grape syrup.  This produces a blend that is neither too salty, nor has it lost too much of the cheesy/meaty elements that you need.  

You might find that you need to adjust this ratio depending on the type of fish sauce that you have.  The darker varieties tend to be saltier but unfortunately this is not always the case!  You might try half and half to achieve the correct blend.  Experiment!  The initial cost is low and well worth the effort in the long run.

My Notes

It took several hours to reduce the grape juice to half its original volume.  The first hour was spent trying out different heat levels:  I wanted to reduce it quickly but not boil or burn it.  The lowest setting wasn't enough to produce any visible evaporation so I bumped it up to just below a simmer.  I would not recommend this as a project to start in the evening when you need to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Once it was at half volume (I measured it!), I poured it in a heat-proof container and put it in the refrigerator.

Now a beautiful golden color

The fish sauce I had already was not even close to being pale.  I just decided to hope I could find the right blend as Ms. Grainger suggests.

Experimentation

First my guest taster and I tried the fish sauce by itself.  This gave us an idea of how salty it was as well as the "cheesy/meaty" flavor it had.  My taste buds said, "too strong, too salty, and a very fishy aftertaste."  My guest taster said the same thing and he loves anchovies on his Caesar salads (I don't).

We also tried the reduced grape juice by itself.  It was a pleasant, grapy flavor.  As he said, "What's not to like?"

Then we started tasting different ratios of fish sauce to juice.  I used a teaspoon measure, a separate spoon for each liquid, put the liquids in a little bowl, and stirred them to mix.  Between samples we cleansed our palates with water crackers and plain water.  Here are our results:

1 part fish sauce to 1 part grape juice:  Too fishy!  I found that the salt was almost burning my mouth.

1 part fish to 2 parts grape:  Still too salty.  The fish was overwhelming the grape.

1 part to 3 parts:  Better.  We could still taste the fish but started tasting the grape.  It was more balanced but still not good.

1 part to 4:  Starting to like it.  Getting to a balance.

1 to 5:  Still too salty but finally not too fishy or grapy.

1 to 6:  Seems just right!

1 to 7:  Very good.  Less salty than 1:6 and we liked it better.

1 to 8:  Too grapy.  Not enough fishy/umami flavor.

The Verdict

We decided that for the very dark and strong-flavored fish sauce I had, the best combination was 1 part fish sauce to 7 parts grape juice.  It was good enough that after tasting a spoonful, we actually wanted to taste more. Success!

Since liquamen is mostly an ingredient to recipes and the reduced grape juice can be used alone or mixed with other items, I did not turn the juice into a big batch of liquamen.  I kept the two liquids separate but with the ratio marked on them so I could mix up what I needed when I needed it.

Now I have to decide which of Ms. Grainger's mouthwatering recipes I want to try using the liquamen!