Four Sauces for a Chicken -- Sauce #2: Cameline Sauce

I had decided to make four sauces to serve with the roasted chicken I had purchased.  The first sauce was a Roman Empire era sauce called "Sauce for Cooked Meat."

Today's post is about the second sauce, a classic medieval recipe from one of my favorite books, Pleyn Delit, by Hieatt, Hosington, and Butler.

ISBN 0-8020-7632-7

Recipe 48 is Sawse Camelyne, about which the authors say,

Cameline sauce is one of the most ancient and ubiquitous sauces of the Western Middle Ages.  It is difficult to define it, except that is contains, perhaps 99 per cent of the time, cinnamon.  Thus, any version that does not contain cinnamon may be suspected of being the result of careless copying ... We particularly like the version with currants and nuts as an accompaniment to roast lamb, but medieval people liked almost any version of this sauce with most meats:  eg, veal, pork, rabbit.  Currants and nuts are unusual options and may be omitted; with or without them, consider this as an appropriate sauce if you want to do something particularly festive, like a roast suckling pig.

I thought this sauce was very appropriate for my company because they are wine aficionados and this recipe gives wine as an optional ingredient.

One aspect of this book I love is that the authors give the original recipe along with their modern redaction.

Sawse Cameline

Take raysouns of courance & kyrnels of notys & crustes of brede & powdour of gynger, clowes, flour of canel; bray it wel togyder and do therto salt.  Temper it up with vyneger, and serve it forth.

Cameline Sauce

2 tbsp breadcrumbs
1/3 cup vinegar, or 1/2 cup red wine
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 - 1 tsp ground cinnamon
optional:  1/4 cup each currants and walnuts; 1/2 tsp nutmeg and/or 1/4 tsp cloves

I chose the wine, nuts, and currants version

Blend ingredients, preferably in a blender.  May be served without cooking, but if you use wine rather than vinegar it should be simmered for a few minutes.


My Notes

My breadcrumbs were dry.  I chose a good quality Cabernet Sauvignon, and I had no walnuts so I used almonds.  I used a little less than 1/2 tsp of salt and a full teaspoon of cinnamon.

I put all the ingredients in the blender and ran it until the mixture became finely textured but very thick.  It was not going to pour out of the container!  So I added a little more wine and blended it until it was soft enough to pour.

Since I was using wine, I took the authors' advice and simmered the mixture for a few minutes.

Fresh out of the blender

The sauce was still very thick.  The heat on the pan was kept very low and I stirred the mixture often to keep it from sticking and scorching.

Then I poured it into a bowl to cool.  It was still very thick so I stirred in a bit more wine to thin it.

It made a bit more than 1/2 cup.

The Verdict

I served the four sauces on plates.  Each set of plates served two people.

Cameline sauce is the second from the left

You can see how thick the sauce was.  I had it at about "mayonnaise" consistency when I was through making it but the sauce sat around for a few hours before serving and it thickened up again.  I should have thinned it again with more wine.

The idea was to dip pieces of chicken into the sauce before eating but the sauce was so thick that we all ended up spooning the sauce onto our plates and spreading it on the meat.

How did it taste?

My wine aficionados declared it to have a "complex" flavor.  The wine, the spices, the fruit and nuts all contributed to what was recognized as a medieval dish.  To me it was a strong wine flavor (but moderated off the "out of the bottle" wine flavor -- I suppose because of the simmering) with a medium strong spice dance-on-my-tongue.  It was only slightly sweet and slightly rich.

I liked it on the chicken and so did all my guest tasters.  I would not want to eat it by itself as I did the Roman sauce.  It was my second favorite sauce although one of the guests declared it to be his first favorite.

When I was making this sauce I was tempted to put in a little red wine vinegar just to get an acidic tangy sensation but I decided to let the wine do that by itself.  I am glad I left it as it was.  There was some acidity from the wine and that was enough.

It occurred to me that the ground almonds may have contributed to the moderated wine flavor.  Since they were simmered in liquid, they may have formed some almond milk, which is creamy.

I declare it a success and would gladly make it again.  Perhaps I would use fewer bread crumbs or more wine to make it thinner and more "dip-able."  And I would check it just before serving to make sure it was still thin enough to serve.