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!

Catalan Horchata & the Evolution of the Flip -- a Pinedo recipe and more

Happy 2024!

This begins my 13th year of blogging.  I continue to be astonished that I was able to continue blogging for so long.  My experiences have been many and my education has been vast.  I've learned techniques and recipes from a variety of time periods and cultures.  It is fun to taste something completely different or a riff on something that is familiar.  Sometimes I review my early posts just to remind myself of what I have done, because this is my 289th post and some of them have faded in my memory.  

As of this writing, my blog has had over 144,000 page views from all over the world.  Mostly it averages around 1,000 page views a month, but occasionally I have months where the views are 2,000 or 5,000 and one month over 12,000.  I am pleased to share my writing with so many people.

For my "Happy New Year" 2024 post, I chose to explore Encarnación Pinedo's recipe for Catalan Horchata (page 123).

My Translation

My Redaction

Making the full recipe that uses a quart of brandy was too much for my guest taster and me, so I reduced the recipe to 1/4 her suggestions, thus making the amount I want.  : )

1 cup brandy

2 egg yolks

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon orange flower water

2 ounces ground almonds

Put the brandy into a small saucepan.  Beat the yolks thoroughly.

Begin heating the brandy over a very low fire.  Slowly drizzle the beaten yolks into the brandy, beating vigorously with a fork the entire time.  The yolks cook and the mixture looks like egg drop soup, but because of the beating, the strands of yolk are very small and fine.  

Once all the yolks are in, add the brown sugar, cinnamon, orange flower water, and almonds.  Stir well.  

I let it sit without any heat for about 5 minutes to start infusing the almonds into the hot liquid.  But I noticed the brandy wasn't very hot at all, so I returned the pan to low heat to warm it, stirring often, until it started to simmer.  

I tasted it with the ground almonds in it and was not happy having to deal with them as part of the beverage.  So I strained them out.  

There was enough to make two servings of about 3 to 4 ounces each.

Yolks before beating

Beaten yolks

Pour a very thin stream of yolks slowly into the pan.

While beating continuously with a fork

The look with all the yolks incorporated.

And with everything mixed in.

The strained mixture to drink.

The Verdict

It was warm, sort of.  Straining out the almonds took time so the drink cooled in the process.  But oh, it was definitely warming!  

It had a good mouthfeel -- thicker than just brandy.  My guest taster said it had body.  The flavors were bold:  we could taste the cinnamon, the sweetness, the brandy, and (with contemplation) the almonds.  I think the orange flower water was there, but it didn't stand out.  That was acceptable.

It was creamy and had the brandy kick without being too strong.  An alcoholic dessert, really, in the same category with hot buttered rum.  We were both pleasantly relaxed after sipping our share.  A little goes a long way with this!

I think this is a good beverage to serve on a cold winter's night, on New Year's Eve, or at a gathering of good friends.  I recommend it to those who enjoy the stronger spirits.

Success!

But wait, there's more!  When I was translating Miss Pinedo's book, I did some reading about horchatas, which are not typically alcoholic beverages, and discovered that this recipe is more like an horchata-inspired version of an old beverage called a brandy flip, an ale flip, or a "Yard of Flannel." 

I needed to explore flip recipes to learn more about them.  Considering the amount of alcohol involved, I tried one recipe a day.

The earliest reference I found was about Thomas Jefferson (so late 1700s to early 1800s) and his "Yard of Flannel", found in The Early American Cookbook, page 36:

This recipe is given in more detail in William Kitchiner's The Cook's Oracle.  It's first edition was published in 1817 and went through at least seven editions through 1830.  

This was the recipe I tried next.  Again, I reduced the amounts to one-fourth.

1 cup ale

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 cup brandy

For a Yard of Flannel

The ale went into a saucepan and was heated.  The brandy, sugar, egg, and ginger went into another container where they were mixed vigorously with a fork until the egg was fully blended -- I couldn't see any white or yolk floating in the brandy.

It didn't take long for the ale to start boiling, although it was hard to tell if what I was seeing was boiling or just fizzing.  It was important to look for steam.  I put the ale into another container.  

I followed the usual technique for mixing a hot liquid into beaten eggs and not making scrambled eggs:  I put a little hot liquid into the eggs, swirled the mixture to warm the eggs, then poured in more hot liquid, swirling it to keep mixing.  That worked.  Once I had the two together, I kept pouring them back and forth between the containers until I thought they were "smooth."

You can see it was foamy.

The final result looked like this:

Does this look like flannel?

The Verdict

It was fruity, lightly spiced, lightly sweet, and had a thinner mouthfeel than the first recipe.  The ginger was not dominant.  My guest taster and I both liked it, although we disagreed on one aspect.  I felt it needed more sugar and he thought it was just right.  I wanted it to have a more syrupy mouthfeel (I was not aiming for sweeter, honest!).  Perhaps a second egg instead of more sugar would have accomplished that.

It wasn't very warm, so I warmed some of it again over the stove.  I noticed some small chunks of egg appeared, although the flavor didn't change and it didn't stay hot for long.  I don't think it was worth doing.

In comparing the two recipes, this one was my guest taster's preference.  It was not as strongly alcoholic and, I thought, not as robust in its presentation.  I liked both recipes, and I would choose between them based on the situation I was addressing or what I felt like having at the time.

We were curious about how the egg, sugar, spice, and brandy changed the flavor and look of the ale, so we taste-tested them to compare.

Flip on the left, ale on the right

You can see that the flip is darker, creamier, and foamy.  The ale itself was a little bitter but the flip was not at all.  We both preferred the flip over the ale.

Success again!

I found another version of the Yard of Flannel that allowed for no brandy (or rum) being added.  It was in Ziemann and Gillette's 1903 version of The White House Cookbook, on pages 446-7.

I thought it interesting that they suggested adding butter (which I think would improve the mouthfeel) and to serve it with dry toast.  I did not try this recipe, but I did put butter into another recipe (see below).

Something I had seen in a variety of sources suggested that originally the flip was heated with an iron rod (a "flip dog" or "loggerhead") that was heated in the fire, plunged into the mixture, and stirred until the beverage was hot and foaming.  From there, the technique changed to heating the ale on the fire and then pouring the liquids between two pitchers to mix.  The modern recipes for flips don't heat them at all -- they still use an egg but it is served cold.

An example is this entry from the Food Lover's Companion, on page 238.

I wanted to explore the idea of heating the flip with a hot iron.  I chose to repeat the second recipe for this but used 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg instead of ginger.  I mixed all the ingredients together, including the eggs, until they looked smooth.  

I used my hand-forged skewer and heated it to red-hot in my most convenient fire:  my stove top!

Not quite a fireplace, but it meets the need.

The challenge was to stir the liquid well despite there not being very much of it to work with.  

My first attempt was with Kitchiner's recipe, using nutmeg instead of ginger.  I mixed all the ingredients together in one pitcher, making sure the egg was well-incorporated.  The iron was red hot but when I plunged it into the liquid and the mixture hissed and steamed a little.  However, it did not heat the liquid much at all.  I reheated the iron and tried again, several times, but I did not get much of a change.

We tasted it -- it was much like what we had before but not hot and I didn't feel the egg was cooked.  So I heated it on the stove until it was steaming.  We both liked it with the nutmeg as much as we liked it with the ginger, so our choice was to pick the one we felt like having if we made it again.  

I still wanted more body to it, so after drinking about half of it, I added about 1/2 teaspoon of butter to each mug, stirring it well.  The butter definitely improved the body, and my guest taster thought it was fine.  I liked it but it was not what I wanted.  

It was then I realized I made a big mistake:  the ale was cold right out of the refrigerator, which made it a challenge for the iron to get it hot.  We decided to try again the next night, and I left the ale out to come to room temperature.

This time I used Kitchiner's recipe but modified with the inspiration of The Gentleman's Companion, page 52.  Notice the subtitle of this book, "Being an exotic drinking book or, Around the world with jigger, beaker, and flask."  This is funny!  Mr. Baker was quite serious about his drinking skills.

The inspiration was to mix the spices (I used 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and ginger mixed together) and to use dried lemon zest, which Kitchiner also suggested.  I also increased the amount of sugar to 4 tablespoons.

Alas, starting with room temperature ale did not change the outcome of the experiment.  The liquid did not get hot, even after several attempts with a hot iron, so I heated it on the stove while stirring vigorously with a fork until it was very steaming hot.

We enjoyed it!  The lemon was too strong for me, but my guest taster thought it was fine.  I wanted some lemon, just less.  I particularly liked the cinnamon and ginger mix.  The mixture had more body (I was right about adding more sugar!) although none had as much as Pinedo's recipe.  Perhaps another egg or just a yolk would have done it.  

It wasn't too sweet, and it had a lovely flavor with just the right amount of alcoholic bite.  My guest taster thought that was his favorite mixture.  Mine was the Pinedo recipe because of the flavors and the mouthfeel, although I wished it had less alcohol in it.  Heating it longer could take care of that problem.

At this point we had tried flips five times in four days, and we were seriously done with drinking brandy and ale for a while.  Not that we regretted it!  It was just more drinking than we were used to.

Regarding heating with an iron:  I suspect that I needed to have more liquid and a thicker iron that could get very hot and stay that way for a while.  I can see why the heating and mixing process changed -- using a saucepan was much more reliable for heating, then mixing between two pitchers allowed the frothing that was so desired.  

Just to wrap up the survey of flips, I wanted to share a version from Lobscouse & Spotted Dog, page 114, which suggests using sherry instead of ale and does not suggest brandy at all.  We did not try this.

As an added bonus, I redid a recipe from this blog to keep from being wasteful...

I used the strained out almonds from the horchata recipe to make emeles, a fried medieval cookie.  I added the leftover egg whites and enough dried bread crumbs to make a dough that was reasonably thick and stuck to itself.  I heated oil and dropped in spoonfuls of dough, flattening each cookie, and frying it on both sides until golden brown.  As they drained on a paper towel, I sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar.  They look just like pork sausage patties!  But the brandy kick came through along with the cinnamon and almond flavors.  Click here for the original post on emeles.

Not sausage patties!

What a way to wrap up the old year and prepare for the new!  I wish you all a wonderful 2024 filled with good food and friends.

Cheers!