sauces-msg - 2/14/08 Period sauces. Sauce recipes. NOTE: See also the files: aspic-msg, fruits-msg, broths-msg, eggs-msg, dairy-prod-msg, almond-milk-msg, vinegar-msg, verjuice-msg, garum-msg, mustard-msg, Mustard-art. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: NRMOLL00 at ukcc.UKy.EDU (Nancy R. Mollette) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Garlic sauce at last Date: 15 Dec 1993 18:30:41 -0500 This recipe is a translation from a 16th century Italian text: _Libro novo nel qual s'insegna a far d'ogni sorte di vivande secondo la diversita de i tempi, cosi di carne come di pesca_ <sorry, no accent marks on this keyboard> by Cristoforo di Messibugo. Translation and redaction by Basilicus Phocas, a Dragonsmark cook and sometime fighter, MKA Charles Potter. Agliata (Garlic sauce) 8 oz walnuts (shelled) or almonds (shelled and skinned) 4 slices of white bread 2-4 large cloves of garlic, peeled 1 1/2 (one and one half) cups of strong chicken stock 1 tsp salt Remove the crust from the bread slices. Soak the bread in the chicken stock for 20 minutes in a crockery bowl. Place the nuts and garlic in a stone mortar and grind very fine with a wooden pestle, then transfer to the bowl containing the bread and broth. Add salt and stir continuously with a wooden spoon for 2 or 3 minutes. Taste for salt. Cover the bowl and place in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Serve the sauce in a sauce boat. Agliata may also be made by placing all the ingredients together in a blender or food processor. This is very good over rice mixed with butter. Yours in Service, Anna of Dragonsmark Nancy R. Mollette nrmoll00 at ukcc.uky.edu Your disclaimer here. From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com> To: sca-cooks at eden.com Date: Tue, 08 Apr 1997 12:16:57 -0400 Subject: Re: Saracen Sauce Sue Wensel wrote: > What are the ingredients of your Saracen Sauce? > > Derdriu Blanched (presumably peeled) almonds, toasted in olive oil until light brown, cooled, and ground into fairly fine meal. Rose hips are an optional addition, they would make the dish more tart than it would be without them. This is then either "drawn up" with hot almond milk, capon broth, red wine, or some combination thereof. It should be quite thick, and if it isn't thick enough, you can thicken it with rice flour. It should be red in color, traditionally alkanet is the standard coloring, but I'm not certain I'd use anything but standard red vegetable coloring, unless perhaps I used a bit of powdered red sandalwood, which is also a bit iffy. Standard garnish are a sprinkling of pomegranite cells, berries, seeds, etc (whatever you call them). I don't have a modern redaction at hand, but could probably produce one pretty easily... Hopeful regards, G. Tacitus Adamantius From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com> To: sca-cooks at eden.com Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 10:18:42 -0400 Subject: sca-cooks Re: Garlic Mark Harris wrote: > Ok. Now I'm not sure what a "jance" is, but I like Garlic. A jance is any of a variety of French ginger based sauces, usually, but not, I think, always made with milk. They are similar to a modern white sauce except for a thickening of bread and/or egg yolks instead of flour, and always contain plenty of ginger. A yellow jance contains some saffron, a green jance parsley, and garlic jance, well, use your imagination. You find recipes for them in the Viandier de Taillevent, and probably also in Le Menagier de Paris. > Stefan li Rous Adamantius From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu> Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 15:25:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SC - Re: sauces > My daughter had Roast Beef > with a pepper sauce at a Renn Fair and loved, but can't find the pepper > sauce recipie. Sauce Alepeuere (Ashmole Ms. 1429, Harl. 4016, etc.) "Take fayre broun brede, toste hit, and stepe it in vinegre, and drawe it thurwe a straynour; and put ther-to garleke smal y-stampyd, poudre piper, salt, & serue forth" I need to ask my wife's permission before posting her redaction, but she's served this with roast beef, venison, etc. at several feasts to rave reviews. We usually pronounce it "Sauce Aliper" or, for the still less linguistically adventurous, "Garlic Pepper Sauce". mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib Stephen Bloch sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/ Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 23:29:06 -0400 (EDT) From: Uduido at aol.com Subject: SC - sauces-longish << salmon is > tempered with sauce cameline....but are there not more flavorful things than > cinnamon to put onto salmon? >> There are several approaches to the sauce "problem". The one I use is to make my sauces vrey potent so to speak. In several attempts at doing period sauces I have found that the more concentrated they are the better they are. (e.g. the concentration of modern worchestershire or oyster sauce or catsup, etc. I think sometimes as SCA cooks we tend to mistakenly associate the word sauce with gravy and try to come up with something that can be "ladled" over the dish instead of , IMO, more correctly spooned over it. To support this theory, I would suggest you redact and try one of the fish recipes from Apicius. When I did this I thought YUCK! but after actually making the dish, the sauce turned out to be excellent and the serving size was approximately 1 tblsp. per portion. My mouth waters just thinking about it. Keeping in mind that modern sauces such as catsup contain things we wouldn't think appropriate (e.g. cinnamon, cloves, vinegar, etc.) or the anchovies and citrus fruits in Worchestershire, the long slow cooking necessary for a good sauce blends and reformulates the original raw flavors into a single amalgamated whole. Try it you might like it. :-) Lord Ras Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 03:30:44 -0500 From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter) Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #209 Hi, Katerine here. Anna of Dragonsmark asks whether, given that medieval sauces were designed to balance the humors of the meats, we should be devising new sauces better to suit current materials. I believe not, for two reasons. First, I'm not at all certain that I grant the premise. I know that Scully has a bee in his bonnet on this subject, but other scholars by no means universally agree. Certainly there are tracts from the middle ages that argue for this -- Magninus Mediolanensis is an example -- but there's no evidence for it in the *culinary* literature, and it isn't clear that the medical literature isn't rationalizing practice as opposed to guiding it. Further, the repertoire of sauces is stable with respect to names and general natures of sauces -- though not at all with respect to their details -- over a period of two centuries; and the changes do not reflect changes in the theory of the humors nearly so much as those we see throughout the cuisine as a whole. Second, I'd rather use the medieval main ingredient, or as close an analog as we can find, at which point rebalancing makes little sense. I think, in a sense, the quesion whether cinnamon is the most tasty spice to put on salmon gives the show away: the desire is to have a different sauce for *flavor*, not for any medieval reason. In that case, I'd be far more inclined to go with a different *medieval* sauce. There are many suggestions of sauces to go with fish; I would be far more inclined to find a medieval sauce I liked, and use it. So I don't think there's any rational argument that altering sauces for more flavorful ingredients according to modern prejudices is a medieval practice. Sauces *did* evolve -- but not randomly. If one wanted to study in detail the patterns by which specific spices augmented or replaced others, and then reproduce those patterns, that would be a medieval practice. But I've been engaged in a detailed study intended to reveal that kind of pattern for over five years, and I don't think I could begin to do it competantly. It takes a *great* deal of work; without doing that work, you're just making a modern sauce, and presenting it as medieval. I don't think that's appropriate. To be clearer: one can, of course, serve whatever tasty food one likes. If one wants to serve modern created dishes because one knows them, and does not know medieval dishes one would rather serve, well and good. That, in itself, is perfectly reasonable, though it is not what I would prefer to see. But I think we have a responsibility not to try to rationalize it, or "pretty" it over for SCA consumption, but claiming that it is in any way a reflection of medieval practice. It's a deliberate move away from medieval cuisine, based on a personal preference. I don't think there's any moral imperative to stick to the medieval repertoire (although I prefer to do so, and prefer meals where others have, provided that they've also done the cooking well). I *do* think there's a moral imperative to be honest about what we do. If we choose to be modern, we should be honestly and openly modern. Anything else is both miseducating and lying. Cheers, - -- Katerine/Terry Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 13:49:19 -0400 (EDT) From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu> Subject: Re: SC - sauces-longish Noemi writes: > Out of curiousity, and clarification, is a sauce something that is added to a > dish just prior to serving? I was thinking of things like, for lack of a > better and period example, things like a paprikas where it definitely has a > sauce, but it is what the dish was cooked in as well. At least for roast meats, a sauce was often added to a dish NOT prior to serving, but by the diners themselves. Sorta like ketchup in a modern restaurant. (Katerine, can you confirm this for me?) It can work very nicely to serve a single big hunk of meat with three or four different sauces on the side: it allows the diners to try a couple of different flavors, and takes less work than preparing four different dishes. mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib Stephen Bloch sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 10:16:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Uduido at aol.com Subject: SC - Period Chutney Recipe << I would love for someone to print a proper recipe and to note whether or not the basic chutney is period. >> Guess what I've been doing for the last 24 hours? Period Chutney research. :-) This recipe is from 'The Forme of Cury' It is to all intent and purposes a 'chutney'. Other chutney-like recipes appear in Apicius and Le Manigier. It is GREAT with cold cooked meat! COMPOST FC 103 Take rote of parsel, of pasternak, rafens, scrape hem and waische hem clene. Take rapes & caboches, ypared and icorue. Take an erthen panne with clene water & set it on the fire; cast all (th)ise (th)erinne. When (th)ey buth boiled cast (th)erto peeres, & perboile hem wel. Take alle (th)ise thynges vp & lat it kele on a faire cloth. Do (th)erto salt; whan it is colde, do hit in a vessel; take vinegar & powdour & safroun & and do (th)erto, & lat alle (th)ise thynges lye (th)erin al ny(gh)t, o(th)er al day. Take wyne greke & honey, clarified togider; take lumbarde mustard & raisouns coraunce, al hoole, & gynde powdour of canel, powdour douce, anys hole, & fenell seed. Take alle (th)ise thynges & castt togyder in a pot of erthe, & take (th)erof whan (th)oui wilt & serue forth. There is a redaction in 'Pleyn Delit which, IMHO, deviates away from the original in very significant ways so I am not posting it. My translation and redaction follows: Take parsley root, parsnips, radishes, scrape them and wash them clean. Take turnips and cabbages, pared and cored. Take an earthen pan with clean water and set it on the fire; cast all this therein. When they both boiled cast therein pears, and parboil them well. Take all these things up and let it cool on a fair cloth. Do thereto salt; when it is cold, do it in a vessel; take vinegar and powder and saffron and do thereto, and let all these things lie therein all night, other(wise) all day. Take Greek wine and honey, clarified together; take Lumbard mustard and raisins of Corinth (currants ?), all whole, and grind powder of cinnamon, powder douce, anys whole, & fennel seed. Take alle these things and cast together in a pot of earth, & take thereof when thou wilt and serve it forth. COMPOST FC 130 Copyright 1997 by L. J. Spencer, Jr. (a.k.a. Lord Ras al Zib) 1/2 cp parsley root, peeled and diced 6 parsnips, peeled and diced 1 medium black radish, peeled and diced 1 lb turnips, peeled and diced 1 gallon cabbage, cored and chopped 2 quarts winter pears, peeled, cored and chopped Salt 1 bottle Retsina (Greek wine) 2 cps honey 2 quarts cider vinegar ....................................... Powder: 1 cp sugar 1 Tblsp ground cloves 1 Tblsp ground cinnamon 2 Tblsp ground ginger) ....................................... 1 tsp saffron 1/2 cp ground white mustard (the supermarket variety) 1 lb dried currants 1 tsp cinnamon ...................................... Powder douce: 1 cp sugar 1 tsp ground cloves 2 tsp ground cinnamon 2 tsp ground ginger 1 Tblsp ground cubebs (opt.) 2 tsp groung galingal (opt.) 1 Tbsp grains of Paradise (opt.) ....................................... 1 tsp aniseed 1 tsp fennel seed Place parsley root, parsnips, radishes, turnips and cabbage in a non-reactive kettle (e.g. enamel, glass, or teflon. Cover with water. Bring to a boil. Addd pears. Reduce heat to medium and cook until pears are barely tender. Drain; spread on a cloth. Sprinkle with a substantial amount of salt and leave until cold. While mixture is cooling, bring wine and honey to a boil, removing the scum as needed. When the scum stops rising remove from heat. Put cooled cabbage mixture into a non-reactive kettle. Add vinegar, powder and saffron. Let sit in a cool place for 12 hours. Add remaining ingredients to the wine/honey mixture, stiiring well to make sure that the sugar is dissolved. Add wine/honey spice mixture to cabbage/pear mixture and blend carefully. Store in a cool place and use as needed. Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 12:17:11 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Period Chutney Recipe Uduido at aol.com wrote: > Guess what I've been doing for the last 24 hours? Period Chutney research. > :-) This recipe is from 'The Forme of Cury' It is to all intent and purposes > a 'chutney'. Other chutney-like recipes appear in Apicius and Le Manigier. It > is GREAT with cold cooked meat! > > COMPOST > FC 103 <recipe snipped> I second the motion! Just a couple of comments on compost: there are recipes for it in Le Menagier de Paris, as well as Das Buoch Von Guter Spise, which primarily gives the recipe for the spiced sauce, and suggests different vegetables that can be preserved/served in it. Also, a variant can be found, I think, in the XIIIth century Northern European cookbook, one version of which is also known as The Icelandic Medical Misellany. Best of all, I should point out that this stuff keeps for a long time, especially if you put it, while hot, into a sterile canning jar. You could do the whole thing with the pressure canner, I suppose, but I've never found it necessary in this case. I have a couple of jars of compost that are around two years old, and the one I opened last week was just fine. Adamantius Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 17:38:24 -0400 (EDT) From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu> Subject: Re: SC - Sauce Robert... Adamantius wrote: > I seem to recall a recipe for aioli in an earlier Spanish > source, but I'd have to look for the reference... . It appears in the 14th-c. Catalan _Libre de Sent Sovi_. I might be wrong, and it's in the 15th-c. Catalan _Libre del Coch_ instead, but I'm pretty sure it's in _Sent Sovi_. mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib Stephen Bloch sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 09:41:40 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Sauce Robert... Anne-Marie Rousseau wrote: > Adamantius sez: > > >Well, yes, apart from my understanding that la Varenne uses pork fat for > >roux. It is at least recognizable, more or less. As for emulsified > > he only says to use lard. Unless the mammocks are particular to pigs? Funny, I don't remember mammocks from my anatomy classes... Jes' one a' those things modern science doesn't address...my dictionary sez mammocks are fragments or shreds. Since lard is by definition porkfat (other animals give things like suet and tallow) I'd bet anything mammocks are what we would call cracklings. > > la Varenne _The French Cook_ a 1654 English translation of the 1651 work > > THICKNING OF FLOWRE. > Melt some lard, take out the mammocks, put your flowre into your melted > latd, seeth it wel, but have a care it stick not to the pan ...Interesting that this appears to call for unrendered fat, something that would probably have been on hand in the kitchen, anyway. But yes, this is clearly a recognizable roux, in spite of the fact that using fats other than oil or butter has pretty gone out, except in special cases like beef gravy, etc. Adamantius Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 09:31:24 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - drawn butter? Mark Harris wrote: > What is drawn butter? All right. In the "Everything Most People Never Wanted to Know Department", I have my Official Drawn Butter Dissertation, which actually may come in handy for some. (Hah!) ; ) Okay. Things that are, in archaic versions of English, drawn, are mostly either eviscerated, which isn't an issue here, or made thick in some way, which is. Examples are the instructions to draw up a thick almond milk, or to draw something through a streynour, which more often than not means to force the item through a strainer to puree it and thereby make it smooth mixture, rather than lumps and water. Butter is an emulsion, a perfect mixture of an oil and water, which under normal circumstances don't want to mix. In this case, they do anyway. When you melt butter, it becomes a relatively thin liquid, and the emulsion "breaks" apart into its two parts again, which is why you can skim the clear butterfat off the top, and leave the rest behind, and it is this clarified butterfat that is what most modern people think of as drawn butter (which, by the way, is NOT the same thing as the ghee used in Indian and Midle Eastern cookery, but don't get me started). In [late] period cookery parlance butter would have been "drawn" by melting it VERY slowly and on a very gentle heat, like in a double boiler or some such, with another liquid, beating it as it melts. So you find sauces made from things like the vinegar that a fish was marinated in, with butter melted into it and whipped to form a relatively thick, creamy sauce, along the lines of modern beurre blanc or hollandaise. Yummers. Sauces like that are still made today on the Continent, especially in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. In England, however, somebody conceived the idea that drawn butter should be made by making a roux thickener of cooked flour and butter, turn that into a sauce by adding water or vinegar or a mixture, or ale, or SOMETHING, and simmering it for a bit, and then adding more butter, this time beating it in in the traditional way. I don't know if this was developed by someone who felt that the starch of the roux would keep the sauce more stable (so it wouldn't break or de-emulsify on high heat), or if the issue was expense, with flour and water taking the place of some of the butter, or if they thought that simple butter beaten into a flavorful liquid was just too rich, or what. In any case, flour-thickened drawn butter sauces appear to have originated in England in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries. In spite of the fact that the sauce in the packet of Lipton Rice or Noodles In Sauce is more or less made this way, with dried butter solids and Wondra or some other pre-cooked flour stuff, it's still a perfectly viable sauce. I like mine on peas, with a tiny pinch of sugar and some chopped mint. (And STILL Lady Aoife thinks I don't give English cooking a fair break! ; ) ) Some people like it on Lutefisk, which is how we got on this topic in the first place, IIRC. But, drawing butter up with a small amount of just water , or vinegar, or some other watery liquid is still alive and well (in dishes like REAL fettucine Alfredo, f'rinstance), just as it would have been done in period. At least in late period, anyway. Adamantius Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 17:32:39 -0400 (EDT) From: ANN1106 at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Substitute for bitter orange I have never heard of the orange/lemon juice as a substitute for bitter orange. When I make a Bitter Orange Sauce to be used with desserts, I cut the peel of half of the oranges that I will be using and add this to the juice. The sauce is then heated (with cornstarch, sugar and juice of a lemon). When ready, the peels are allowed to macerate for 30 minutes before straining and storing. Cointreau and Triple Sec are two alcoholic liqueurs that are made from Seville (Bitter) Oranges. Audrey (aaparker at aol.com) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 17:05:24 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU> Subject: Re: SC - Classes: Last Minute Tips Request <snip> But: check out the sauces that Lord Julian le Scot made for Known World A&S this year. He teaches a class on sauce making, and his redactions are very good indeed. I especially like his mustard. The sauce vert was nummy, too. http://www.math.harvard.edu/~schuldy/kwas.menu.html Tibor Date: Wed, 03 Dec 1997 10:44:13 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - hollandaise sauce Mark Harris wrote: > Ok, question time. This is Stefan, after all. > > What is Hollandaise sauce? I know it is some kind of fancy sauce but > what is in it? What makes it special? Is it period? Where is it from, > Holland? Sauce Hollandaise, as we now know it, is the modern descendant of earlier forms of a sauce believed to have been brought to France by the Heugenots. So, its prototype appears to have actually been a Flemish or Dutch sauce thickened with eggs, like a savory custard, and perhaps a little butter beaten in to smooth the texture. I'm not up on the finer details of Heugenot history, but that would put the prototype sauce at, what, late sixteenth, early seventeenth century? Francois Pierre de La Varenne, in "Le Cuisinier Francois" (1651) gives a recipe for a similar sauce, calling for "good fresh butter, a little vinegar, salt, nutmeg, and an egg yolk to bind the sauce; take care that it does not curdle." We have no ingredient measurements or proportions, though, let alone any additional method or instructions, so it's hard to say how close to Hollandaise this is. There are a number of examples of contemporary French and English sauces made by beating soft or melted butter into things like vinegar, and there seems to have been an equally prevalent tradition in Germanic countries of thickening sauces with egg yolks. Modern Hollandaise sauce is usually made by warming egg yolks in a bowl, over a pan of hot water, and whipping them until light with vinegar, lemon juice, salt, white and/or cayenne pepper. You then beat in melted or clarified butter, a tiny bit at a time, as you might with mayonnaise, until it is light yellow in color, thick, and the sharpness of the lemon and the vinegar is a bit more subdued. More daring cooks will often omit the bain marie / double boiler aspect, and do it right in a saucepan over direct heat. Of course, then it is more likely to curdle and de-emulsify or break. Emulsified sauces in general appear to be rare in medieval cookery. I believe there's one calling for hard-boiled egg yolks, mashed with the other ingredients, and olive oil beaten in (kind of an early mayonnaise or tartar sauce), in one of the Spanish or Catalonian sources. Not sure which offhand. I'd have to say my feeling is that Hollandaise sauce as we know it today is OOP, but that there might be recognizable ancestors from within period. Adamantius Date: Tue, 02 Dec 1997 20:58:03 -0500 From: margali <margali at 99main.com> Subject: Re: SC - hollandaise sauce > Ok, question time. This is Stefan, after all. > > What is Hollandaise sauce? I know it is some kind of fancy sauce but > what is in it? What makes it special? Is it period? Where is it from, > Holland? > > Stefan li Rous well, you can buy something called hollandaise sauce in packettes, and something yellowish and drippy in jars they swear is hollandaise sauce... you take lots of butter, yolks of eggs beaten, either lemon squeezings and zest OR an herbal vinegar, salt and pepper to taste- get the butter melted but not boiling hot, put the eggs in a sauce pan, and start whisking. pour the butter in while whisking until it thickens. when the sauce is pretty much done, add the salt and pepper, and the tsp or so of liquid flavor. provided it hasnt curdled, you have hollandaise sauce. if you are in practice, it takes as long as the packette of powdered stuff. i use the egg whites in the scrambled eggs to fill the crepes, but you can use it to make anything calling for just the whites. a good hollandaise should make the capillaries scream for help! margali Date: Wed, 03 Dec 97 09:58:12 PST From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net> Subject: Re: SC - hollandaise sauce My step-mother makes a very good mock Hollandaise sauce which is both tasty and easy. 1/2 cup mayonaisse (Hellman's) 2 teaspoons prepared mustard 1 teaspoon lemon juice Mix and heat through, stirring. DON'T BOIL. It's nice for those occasions when you have forty-eleven other things to do, and don't really have the time to make a proper Hollandaise. The day she gave me the recipe, she was making a Holiday brunch for 15-20 people, and she had a recipe for Eggs Benedict in which you poached the eggs the night before, kept them in a pan of water overnight, and heated and served the next day. Folks, you have not lived until you learn to poach eggs by the pot of simmering water method, with 3 dozen eggs to have done! I got her an egg poacher for Christmas- we still laugh about it. Phlip Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 21:56:58 EST From: LrdRas <LrdRas at aol.com> Subject: Re: SC - Re: Cracknels << I'm finding it hard to imagine a sweet pudding-like dessert with pork or some sort of fatty cracklings in it, but just because it seems strange to me doesn't prove anything at all! >> Since so many recipes from period seem to me to resemble mincemeat and I have no aversion to sweet meat, I often serve a wonderful relish made with apples, onions, green peppers, garlic, pepper and brown sugar to accompany roast pork. Ras Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 20:10:04 EST From: LrdRas <LrdRas at aol.com> Subject: Re: SC - french cooking or is Ham mousse just a fancy sausage? dkpirolo at cts.com writes: << 3. Is mayonnaise period? In Ancient Cuisines , Jeff Smith cites an ancient Greek recipe which calls for a vinegar, oil and egg and indicates that he thinks this is a "mayonnaise" recipe. However, the majority of food experts place it well within the modern era. Ras Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 23:20:40 -0800 From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net> Subject: Re: SC - french cooking or is Ham mousse just a fancy sausage? > 3. Is mayonnaise period? The first example of an emulsion sauce I've seen is in la Varenne, 1651. Before that, sauces are all thickened with particulates or through reduction. So I would say no, mayonaisse is not period. - --Anne-Marie Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:40:16 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: SC - french cooking or is Ham mousse just a fancy sausage? > 3. Is mayonnaise period? I _think_ there's an emulsified (which is the key for the creaminess of mayonnaise) sauce in Manuscrito Anonimo, which is a puree of garlic, and, I think, hard-boiled egg yolks, with olive oil beaten slowly in. That's probably about as close as you'll find until the eighteenth century or so. If you look at one of the Spanish cold garlic soup recipes, or a French rouille recipe, you'll find something like it, except the period equivalent would lack the red peppers and occasional potato found in rouille. Adamantius Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 13:04:42 -0500 (EST) From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu> Subject: SC - hollandaise, aioli, almedroch Also in the Stone Ages, Gideanus wrote: > Emulsified sauces in general appear to be rare in medieval cookery. I > believe there's one calling for hard-boiled egg yolks, mashed with the > other ingredients, and olive oil beaten in (kind of an early mayonnaise > or tartar sauce), in one of the Spanish or Catalonian sources. Not sure > which offhand. In the c.1400 AD Catalan _Libre de Sent Sovi_ are the following two recipes (our translation; be warned that neither of us has formal training in medieval Catalan, or modern Catalan for that matter). Sorry I don't have the original Catalan on-line; it's on paper in a pile somewhere in this house. 141 Almedroch If you wish to do almedroch, take grated cheese and two or three cloves of garlic, and mince them [until they're stiff & can be shaped]. And when they are minced, temper them with hot water, and when you [axetars]? them, don't use the pestle to immediately disintegrate them, but only mince them finely. And it should be of a good thick consistency. And if perchance they are destroyed, take a large spoon, and heat it well on the fire; and when it is well heated, put it into the almedroch, and stir it around, and it will return to its state. 142 Almedroc with eggs If you wish to make almedroc, you will have 2 or 3 cloves of garlic and cheese, as in the previous recipe for almedroch. And crush them very well, and crush into them two or three eggyolks boiled in water. And when it is well mixed, [exetats] it with good broth and butter. And if you don't have butter, add a little oil and good spices. And make it a consistency that is thick, and don't cook it. And use it on pork, that goes on the spit. And it should not be tempered, which will destroy it, but left as flavored as it is. In the same way is made [esquesos] garlic, but make it with more garlic. And don't put in seasonings & spices, except to make it white and thick, and don't let it boil. And it serves to give heat when used thus with almedroc. The first, from the directions for how to rescue it if it is "destroyed", is apparently an emulsified sauce of cheese and garlic, and the second is the same thing with boiled eggyolks (which, as I understand it, help to stabilize the emulsion), as well as broth and butter. Marimar Torres, in her book on modern Catalan cooking, _The Catalan Country Kitchen_, gives a recipe for "allioli", which she translates as "garlic mayonnaise", made from minced garlic, a raw whole egg, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. She comments that "Purists in Catalunya insist on making their allioli in a mortar and pestle, but I always use a food processor...." I've read elsewhere that "purists" don't include egg in their allioli, relying on compounds in the garlic alone to stabilize the emulsion. On the subject of "eggyolks boiled in water", I recall that the 13th-c. Arabo-Andalusian _manuscrito anonimo_ contains LOTS of recipes calling for boiled eggyolks. In particular, one entitled "Cooking Stuffed Eggplants" (which I included in my T.I. article of c. 1994, "Some Recipes of al-Andalus"), that says "...boil eggyolks and also fry them a little..." One possible interpretation was to boil eggs, peel them, extract the yolks, and then fry them, but on a lark I tried separating raw eggs, dropping the yolks gently into near-boiling water (which I had handy, having just boiled eggplant in it), then fishing them out with a slotted spoon and frying them in oil (which I had handy, having just fried the eggplant in it). This works, and the yolks have a rather different texture from what they would have if boiled inside the rest of the egg. mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib Stephen Bloch sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 23:11:21 -0800 From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net> Subject: Re: SC - Garden time > On the same line, Horseradish recipes????? Please? There's a recipe for a horseradish sauce in the German corpus. Horseradish root, vinegar, a bit of sugar and spice, if memory serves. Tasted just like the non-cream style stuff out of the jar. - --AM Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 21:25:51 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Pine nuts For a nice fish sauce (Greek, and probably period), heat a cup of pomegranate juice, thicken it with bread crumbs, and stir in about three tablespoons of pine nuts. Bear Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 10:12:07 -0500 From: vjarmstrong at aristotle.net (Valoise Armstrong) Subject: Re: SC - Jellies vs. aspics Allison wrote: > As for cooked, sweetened, mashed fruit, you get 'mus' in >the German corpus, which turns out like applesauce, etc., depending on >the fruit. It is used generally as a sauce. Actually mus refers more to dishes of a certain consistency than to fruit sauces. That's why you can find not only grape, fig, cherry, or apple mus, but also mus recipes for wine, fish, egg, crayfish, chicken, rice, etc. Some of them (even the fruit ones) are thickened with bread crumbs or eggs. Probably the closest thing to conserves or fruit paste would be latwerge, basically fruit thickened by cooking it down. I think Kuchenmeysterei (c. 1490) might have a recipe, I don't know of any others. Valoise Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 16:16:17 -0500 From: "J. Scott & Arisa Ballentine" <ballentine at earthlink.net> Subject: SC - RE: roux from a newbie Philip & Susan Troy quoted: >> How long you brown > > the flour determines the final color of the gravy, short time for white > > gravy, browned well for up to 10 minutes for really dark gravy. It > > develops a stronger, nutty flavor the longer it cooks (this is what the > > Cajuns call a roux, BTW). Well, the French certainly use the term roux as well. There are 3 classic stages of roux: white: cooked just enough to get rid of the starchy taste - no color change - very strong thickening power. blonde: also called "popcorn" roux because there is only a slight change of color, but a distinct nutty flavor like fresh popcorn - strong thickening power. brown: dark, rich roux, usually takes up to thirty minutes to fully establish this roux - very little thickening power - very flavorful - most people stop here. The Cajuns have added an additional step: black: extremely dark roux, cooking time is usually at least one hour (note: this is usually taken from brown to black in a slow oven), extremely flavorful, this is the difference between good gumbo and gumbo - virtually no thickening power. Fergus Stout [editor's note - roux are a post-1600 development, but I thought this message interesting and useful.] Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 02:47:36 EDT From: DianaFiona at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Yikes! I'm teaching a class! A Garlic Sauce with Walnuts or Almonds Platina book 8 To almonds or walnuts that have been coarsely ground add as much cleaned garlic as you like and likewise, as need be, grind them up well, sprinkling them all the while so they do not make oil. When they are ground up put in white breadcrumbs softened in juice of meat or fish, and grind again. And if it seems too stiff it can be softened easily in the same juice. (See next recipe.) A More Colored Garlic Sauce Platina book 8 Prepare this in the same way as above. But do not moisten it in water or juice, but in must of dark grapes, squeezed by hand and cooked down for half an hour. The same can be done with juice of cherries. 1/8 c walnuts 1/2 T garlic 1/4 c bread crumbs about 1 1/2 c grape juice, then boil it down. about 4-6 t vinegar 1/4 c water For that matter, one of the pasta-and-cheese recipes would be a nice, easy, and familiar start. And, at least to me, the Benes yfryed recipe seems dead easy. Cook beans until done (Limas make a reasonable substitute if favas are unavailable or too "weird" ;-) ), strain and saute' in oil with chopped onions and garlic. The dusting of powder douce to finish can be ommited if prefered--I don't care for it much in this case, myself. Spinach tarts are also simple if you use frozen spinach and pie shells. Thaw the spinach, press the moisture out of it, saute' (That word again! Well, just tell 'em to fry it. Even the younger kids know what that means....... ;-) ) in butter with spices to taste, put it in a pie shell and bake it. I seem to remember other recipes that have either cheese or eggs included also, but I'm not sure from whence they might have come............ A number of the desserts are easy, too--and, if you can get the equipment on hand, doing the "period funnelcakes" would be great fun! I swear one of these years I'm going to set up as a food merchant beside the tourney field and sell these--I have a feeling it would be *very* proffitable..................... ;-) Hope one or two of these ideas will appeal to your crowd--and good luck with the class! Ldy Diana, who *should* be working on the class *she's* teaching Mon. instead of playing with cookbooks! Vulpine Reach, Meridies Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 16:23:15 EDT From: Mordonna22 at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - low calcium diet help ghesmiz at UDel.Edu writes: << or if it is possible to make a cream sauce out of "non-dairy creamer"? or any simple and quick multi-purpose sauces that would be low calcium? >> An easy cream sauce can be made with powdered non-dairy creamer: Easy "Cream Sauce" 2 cups stock, milk, or water Salt and pepper to taste garlic to taste 4 heaping tbs creamer 2 rounded tbs corn starch 1/4 c water Heat liquid to slow boil, add seasonings and creamer, mix corn starch with cold water and add to boiling liquid. stir vigorously with whisk until thickened and smooth. Mordonna DuBois Cook, Warrior Haven (who has lived and eaten on a meagre budget at times) Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 21:45:52 EDT From: RuddR at aol.com Subject: SC - Re: Walnuts <Salut! I know that Juglens nigra is native to the US, but is there an oldworld walnut? If so, has anyone tried making "walnut milk," or seen recipes using walnuts?? Bogdan> Sauce for stockysshe in an-other maner (Ashmole MS 1439, Two 15th Cent. Cookery Books, p109), has walnuts, garlic, pepper, bread and salt ground together and thinned with fish broth: thick garlic walnut milk. It goes great with more than fish, and very easy in a blender. Rudd Rayfield Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 13:11:54 EDT From: RuddR at aol.com Subject: SC - 16th c. German Roux David Friedman writes: <A standard modern technique for making a sauce or gravy is to stir flour into hot fat then add liquid, creating a suspension. So far as I know, this technique is unknown in medieval cooking, where thickening is typically done with bread crumbs, egg yolks, amidoun (wheat starch) or rice flour. This raises the interesting question of when and where the technique originated. At Pennsic, I acquired a copy of the recent translation of the cookbook of Sabrina Welserin, which is mid 16th c. German. Several recipes early in the book (5, 9, 11, ...) seem to be describing the modern technique. Does anyone know of an earlier example elsewhere?> Although it is not a true roux, since there is no grease or butter mentioned, there seems to be a "proto-roux" described in Ashmole MS 1439 (Two Fifteenth- Century Cookery-Books, p. 110): "Sauce gauncile Take floure and cowe mylke, safroune wel y-grounde, garleke, and put in-to a faire litel pot; and se(th)e it ouer (th)e fire, and serue it forthe." A flour and milk base does seem to be unusual for a medieval sauce; this is the only one I recall seeing. Rudd Rayfield Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 20:05:09 -0800 From: Anne-Marie Rousseau <acrouss at gte.net> Subject: RE: SC - > Feeding Gunthar and Thyra Hi all from Anne-Marie For her Highness, there is are several outstanding creamy yet slightly tart sauces in ther period and Elizabethan repetoire. Sauce Robert comes to mind (butter, mustard, vinegar, capers and chives), as does la Varennes "white sauce" (an egg yolk emulsion sauce with vinegar. Sound familiar?) Then Ber sez... > I also love beef Wellington and anything Anne-Marie cooks! aw shucks :)... well, here's some recipes. The text is from my pbulications "French Food in the Renaissance". All rights reserved, no publication with permission, blah blah blah. SAUCE ROBERT This rich, creamy, slightly tangy sauce appears in many of the French sources. There is some variation, for example le Cuisinier franois updates his with capers, but all use verjuice and mustard and butter. What it's served on seems to vary as well, with le Menagier a Paris putting it on poached sole (M30), le Viandier de Taillevent on poached or baked John Dory (a North Atlantic flat fish) (T115, T207), and le Cuisinier fran=E7ois on Poor John (another fish, maybe a regional name for a John Dory?) (V80), goose (V33, p41), pork loin (V56, p48), or wild boar (V39, p67). We've enjoyed this sauce on fish, pork, and even veggies, though there's no documentation for the latter. Heck, it's even good with bits of bread... Poor John with a Sauce Robert. (V80) You may put it with butter, a drop of verjuice, and some mustard, you may also mixe with it some capers and chibols. Barbe Robert [Sauce] (T207) Take small onions fried in lard (or butter according to the day), verjuice, vinegar, mustard, small spices and salt. Boil everything together. (A 1583 cookbook quoted by Pichon et al., p109) (M30) "POLE" and SOLE are the same thing; and the "pole" are speckled on the back. They should be scalded and gutted like plaice, washed and put in the pan, with salt on them and water, then put on to cook, and when nearly done, add parsley; then cook again in the same liquid, then eat with green sauce or with butter with some of the hot cooking liquid, or in a sauce of old verjuice, mustard and butter heated together. Our version: 1 tsp. rinsed and minced capers 2 tsp. minced green onion, just the white part 2 tsp. fine ground prepared mustard 1/2 stick butter 1 tsp. cider vinegar or verjuice, if you have it Mix all over heat till well blended. If it separates, whip with whisk till reblended. Makes about 1/2 cup. Serve on poached fish or roast pork or goose. LA VARENNE'S WHITE SAUCE The primary sources considered for this work show an interesting development in the use of thickening agents. The middle ages saw the use of bread crumbs and almonds, as well as the technique of reduction, or thickening by protracted boiling. There was an occasional use of eggs, both hard boiled (which thickened by particulates) and raw (thickening as the proteins in the raw egg coagulated). The work Epulario seems to rely heavily on raw eggs rather than the particulate thickener of the earlier works. Le Cuisinier franois has an entire chapter discussing a number of preparations that one could use to thicken sauces and dishes. It suggests making these ahead of time and keeping them "against future need=92, stating that these are "useful for all, or instead of eggs". Several of these preparations are familiar, as they include the ubiquitous almond (thickening using particulates), along with the old standby of bread crumbs and egg yolks. but, Lo! le Cuisinier fran=E7ois specifies one method ("A Thickning of flowre", Vp120) whereby flour is cooked with fat, and onion, broth, mushrooms and vinegar are added and the preparation strained before use. It's a roux! The basic ingredient of most modern French sauces is this cooked emulsion of flour and fat. Another example of the burgeoning art of French sauce making is la Varenne's white sauce. It's a real emulsion sauce; like hollandaise, bernaise and mayonnaise. Recipes in le Cuisinier franois call for this sauce on leeks (V38, p157), cauliflower (V16, p84), asparagus (V77, p113), artichoke bottoms (V62, p108), as well as chicken pie (V4, p126), veal breast (V11, p126) and lamb pie (V23, p113; V26, p134). It has a delicate yellow color and is a creamy, slightly tart accompaniment to anything you fancy. I found myself incapable of producing this sauce on the stovetop without it curdling. With vigorous whisking, it was still presentable, but only if eaten immediately, and would tend to curdle out again. The blender version of this sauce, while not authentic in preparation method tastes the same and is ideal for any situation where the sauce may not be served immediately, or the temperature of your stove may not be gentle and steady enough (like, say, most of the time?). This sauce can cool off and it won't curdle or go ropy. If it starts to separate at all (we only noticed it after over an half hour), whiz it for a second or so more in the blender. Sparagas with White Sauce (V77 p113) Choose the biggest, scrape the foot of them, and wash them, and seeth them in water, salt them well, and let them not seeth too much; after they are sod, draine them and make a sauce with very fresh butter, a little vinegar, salt, nutmegg, and the yolk of an egg to thicken the sauce, and have a care that it doe not curd or (turne) and serve them garnisht with what you will. Our version: In a small pan, melt 1/4 lb. butter till it's all bubbly hot. To the blender, put 3 egg yolks 2 T. vinegar (cider or balsamic or white wine) 1/4 t. salt 1/4 t. nutmeg Cover, flick on and off at high speed. Remove cover, turn on high and gradually add the hot butter. Blend on high for 4 seconds or so. Serve on anything that doesn't move. Makes about 1/2 c. sauce. Optional modern variation: 1 shallot minced 2 T white wine vinegar 1 T water 1/4 t. fresh ground pepper boil till dry in a small pan (i.e. the shallots have soaked up all the liquid), and add the butter and melt as described above. Continue with rest of instructions. - --Anne-Marie Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 23:00:35 +1100 From: "Phillippa Venn-Brown" <p.vbrown at tsc.nsw.edu.au> Subject: Re: SC - Isles Anniv Feast April 25, menu vers 1.1 > Sorrel Sauce (Take a 1000 eggs or more) - will have to taste test this one, > see if it goes with anything served above. This Sorrel sauce goes brilliantly with Roast Pork or suckling Pig which I made it to accompany for Charles of the Park's "Fine Food Feast" posted to the list last Sept/Oct. I have it on authority from my friends who can eat seafood that it also goes well with light flavoured fish. Filippa Ginevra. Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 14:19:39 EST From: Balano1 at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Fruit sauce/Rdegrd med Flde Hopefully, someone else can help document this but it is and has been a standard throughout Scandanaivia and Western Europe for time unknown. I'm told it's one of those that everyone's grandma can make and no one really has a recipe for but I can attest to its pervasive appearance throughout Sweden and Germany...this is a modern adaptation - Rdegrd med Flde 2 ten ounce packages frozen mixed berries, strawberries and rasberries 2 Tblsp sugar 2 Tblsp arrowroot powder 1/4 cup cold water slivered almonds 1/2 cup light cream Blend berries until pureed or rub through a fine sieve. Place puree in a 1 - 1 1/2 quart saucepan and stir in sugar. Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Mix 2 Tbsp arrowroot powder and 2 Tblsp cold water to make a smooth paste. Stir into sauce, let mixture thicken and remove from heat and cool. Chill for at least 2 hours and serve with slivered almonds on top and cream on the side. - - Sister Mary Endoline Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:36:46 SAST-2 From: "Ian van Tets" <ivantets at botzoo.uct.ac.za> Subject: SC - Sumac revisited (Italian sauce) Back in the not too distant past there was a brief flurry of discussion on a middle eastern flavouring known as Sumac. I recently tripped across a description of a European sauce using Sumac and thought that one or two of you might be interested. Francesco Datini, a merchant from Prato near Venice in the late 14th century, was rather fond of his food. He travelled regularly and his correspondence (much of which has survived) often covers important topics like "what I would like for dinner when I come home". Among his favourite sauces was savore sanguino, which was made by "pounding raisons, cinnamon, sandal and sumac together and mixing them with wine and meat". My source for this sauce is Iris Origo's "Merchant of Prato", (the revised edition published in English by Penguin in 1963). Origo cites the following as her source: Biblioteca Marucelliana, Florence, Manoscritti, C. 226 (a miscellaneous codex of the 15th century), p. 128 Jan van Seist Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 18:58:01 -0500 From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow) Subject: Re: SC - Blue Sauce - Maybe chestnuts? Hello! I don't recall if anyone mentioned it, but there is a recipe in Epulario (p. 32) for 'skie color sauce in summer' which calls for mulberries: "Take wild mulberies which grow in the Hedges, and a few stamped Almonds with a little Ginger, temper all this with Veriuice and straine it." Cindy Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:12:23 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Sauces for Roast Pork Bronwynmgn at aol.com wrote: > I am the head cook for our shire's event in May. The main dish for the feast > will be spit-roasted pork (ie we are having someone come in to do a pig > roast). I would like suggestions for 2-3 sauces that could be spooned onto > the meat after the diner gets it on his plate. The remainder of the feast is > primarily 14th century English and French, and I would prefer recipes that fit > into those parameters. Taillevent recommends roast pork be eaten with verjuice, and says some people put garlic, onions, wine, and verjuice in the pan with the drippings from the meat and make a sauce with that. Kind of like sauce Robert without the mustard. He says of stuffed roast suckling pig that while some lazy persons eat it with Cameline Sauce, it should be served with a hot Yellow Pepper Sauce. Of that, Poivre Jaunet, he says to grind ginger, long pepper, saffron -- and some people add in cloves with a little verjuice -- and toast; infuse this in vinegar (or verjuice) and boil it when you are about to serve your meat. Something Taillevent doesn't recommend for roast pork, but which happens to be excellent with it, is Garlic Jance, made from ginger, garlic and almonds, ground, infused in verjuice and boiled until thickened. He says some people put white wine in it too. It's a little like a modern Greek Skordalia... Adamantius Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 14:13:38 +0100 From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de> Subject: SC - Opusculum de saporibus (was: Welcome ...) / sauce for lamprey << Oh, and then there's Maino de Maineri's early 14th century Opusculum de Saporibus, roughly, Little Book of Condiments, a sauce book in Latin, which appears to have been plagiarized by Arnald de Villanova in his much-more-well-known Regimen Sanitatis. >> As you all know, Arnald of Villanova died 1307 or 1309 in a shipwreck. Magninus died about 1364. The first texts of Magninus mentioned by THorndike are from the 1320ies, when Arnald was long dead. If I understand correctly the incipit of the Regimen sanitatis, quoted by THorndike, it was the other way round: "Incipit liber de regimine sanitatis Arnaldi de villa nova quem Magninus mediolanensis sibi appropriavit addendo et immutando nonnulla" (p. 184 note 8, continued from p. 183). Roughly: Here begins the book about the healthy way of life by Arnald of Villanova, that Magninus of Milano 'made his own', whereby he added and changed quite a bit. On the other hand, Terence Scully in his "The _opusculum de saporibus of Magninus Mediolanensis_" (Medium Aevum 54, 1985, 178-207) holds, that the Regimen is the work of Magninus. In this case, the Regimen could have been incorporated into the collected works of Arnald by the _editors_ of Arnalds collected works. Here is a sample recipe from the opusculum for the translators on this list: "Pro lampridis magnis assatis et murenis recipe zinziberi albi gariofilorum gallange granorum paradisi ana 3. m. panis assi infusi in aceto medium. Distemperetur cum pinguedine piscis et agresta et bulliat. Vel potest fieri gellatina superius scripta. Et sicut dictum est de lampreda similiter intelligatur de murena." (p. 188) The latin text of the _opusculum de saporibus_ is at: http://www.uni-giessen.de/~g909/sapor.htm or via http://www.uni-giessen.de/~g909 (choose "Alte Kochbuecher") Thomas Date: Thu, 7 Oct 1999 05:42:14 +1000 From: "Craig Jones & Melissa Hicks" <meliora at macquarie.matra.com.au> Subject: SC - Sauce recipe for Lamb Shanks Artemis, > Yet another quick question. I'm currently looking for a good > (and preferably simple) sauce recipe to go over some roasted > lamb shanks I'm serving at a feast. Something from around > 1200-1350 would be ideal, but with a month to go I'm open to > all suggestions. A new variation that Drake & I have been using is as follows from Redon's Medieval Kitchen. The recipe is for Chicken but the sauce is really yummy with lamb!!! Roast Chicken. To prepare roast chicken, you must roast it; and when it is cooked, take orange juice or verjuice with rosewater, sugar and cinnamon and place the chicken on a platter; and pour this mixture over it and send it to table. (Maestro Martino, Libro de Atre Coquinaria, no 127) Redon's redaction of the sauce is: juice of 3 bitter oranges (sevilles) OR 10 tablespoons verjuice plus 1 tablespoon rose water 1/2 tea sugar 1 pinch ground cinnamon salt to taste Drake's Variation: Instead of pouring this over the meat, we heat it separately and thicken with cornflour. Presto - Gravy for Coeliac (allergic to gluten) people. Meliora - from Polit. Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 21:10:01 EDT From: Elysant at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - white sals LrdRas at aol.com writes: > margali at 99main.com writes: > << Any chance of getting Cariadoc's white sals recipe we made at Pensic? > margali > The white sals recipe 'we' made at Pennsic was my recipe. The translation of > the recipe was in Cariadoc's Collection of Medieval and Renaissance > Cookbooks, Vol. II, The Book of the Beloved; 'White Sals'. Hello Margali, Here's the recipe for White Sals for you. Credit for redacting this recipe actually goes not only to Lord Ras, but also to myself, and to Puck. :-) Elysant -----Original (translation)-White sals. Walnut meats, garlic, pepper, cinnamon, white mustard, Tahini andlemon juice.Redaction-White sals (copyright c 1999 Ras, Elysant, Puck) 1 cp. Walnuts 2 cloves Garlic 1/8 tsp. Black pepper, ground 1/2 tsp. True cinnamon, ground 3/4 tsp. prepared mustard (see notes below) 2 Tblsp Tahini Lemon juice, as needed In a food processor combine walnuts and garlic until they form a smooth paste. Put walnut mixture in a bowl. Add pepper. cinnamon, mustard and Tahini. Mix thoroughly adding lemon juice by the teaspoonful until a smooth very thick mixture is achieved. NOTE: There is a description of mustard as prepared in the medieval middle east in another section of Caraidoc's Collection. We used a modern mustard that most fit this description. Any country-style mustard would work. Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 09:40:15 EDT From: WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Preserves & Sauces - recipes wanted This one freezes well, and besides being a great sauce for roasted meats, also makes a great condiment for burgers on the barby. From The English Hous-wife, Gervase Markham, 1615 Sauce for a Roast Capon To make an excellent sause for a rost Capon, you shall take Onions, and having sliced and peeled them, boyle them in fair water with Pepper, Salt, and a few bread crummes: then put unto it a spoonfull or two of claret Wine, the juyce of an Orenge, and three or four slices of Lemmon peel: all these shred together, and so pour it upon the Capon being broke up. 2 cups minced onion (save yourself the last step of "shredding") 1/4 tsp. minced lemon peel 2 Tbsp. dry red or white wine (Your choice, I've used both with equal success) 1 1/2 cups OJ (fresh-squeezed is best, but country-style with the pulp works fine) 2 Tbsp bread crumbs Salt Pepper (both to taste) Put the onions in a saucepan with enough water to cover, add salt & pepper as you like it. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients, bring back to a boil, and simmer until it thickens up a bit. Serve it forth, as the saying goes. This was served at an Elizabethan feast I did this past February. I had leftovers, so I chucked it in a zip-loc baggie and put it in the freezer. I thawed it out in August for a roast beef dinner, and it was just fine. Be aware that freezing this will cause the onions to somehow become more onion-y. I don't know why (that's the science of cookery). But it worked quite well. It also worked well as an ingredient in everyday meatloaf. Came out quite yummy. Wolfmother Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 16:47:30 -0500 From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net> Subject: SC - Apicius Venison Sauce Recipes I just typed this in for a friend, and I thought some of you who don't have Apicius yet might like a copy. Flowers and Rosenbaum , Book VIII, section II 1. Ius in Cervum- Sauce for Venison Crush pepper, lovage, caraway, origan, celery-seed, asafoetida root, fennel-seed; pound well, pour on liquamen, wine, passum, a little oil. When it comes to the boil thicken with cornflour. Moisten the cooked stag inside and out, and serve. 2. In Platoneum- For Fallow Deer and for every kind of venison you can use the same sauce. 3. Aliter- Venison, Another Method Boil the stag, and roast lightly. Pound pepper, lovage, caraway, celery-seed; add honey, vinegar, liquamen, and oil. When hot thicken with cornflour and pour over the meat. 4. Ius in Cervo- Sauce for Venison. Pepper, lovage, Welsh onion, origan, pine-kernals, Jerico dates, honey, liquamen, mustard, vinegar, oil. 5. Cervinae Conditura- Sauce for Venison Pepper, cumin, herbs, parsley, onion, rue, honey, liquamen, mint, passum, caroenum, and a little oil. Thicken with cornflour when boiling. 6. Iura Ferventia in Cervo- Hot Sauce for Venison Pepper, lovage, parsley, cumin, toasted pine kernals or almonds. Add honey, vinegar, wine, a little oil, liquamen, and stir. 7. Embamma in Cervinum Assam- Sauce for Roast Venison Pepper, spikenard, bay-leaf, celery seed, dried onion, fresh rue, honey, vinegar, Liquamen: add Jerico dates, raisins, and oil. 8. Aliter in Cervum Assum Iura Ferventia- Hot Sauce for Roast Venison, Another Method Pepper, lovage, parsley, soaked <dried> damsons, wine, honey, vinegar, liquamen, a little oil. Stir with a bunch of leek and savory. Phlip Philippa Farrour Caer Frig Southeastern Ohio Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 23:23:28 -0500 From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net> Subject: SC - Duck with garlic sauce The duck came out nice and crisp. The sauce, alas, did not thrill me. I was redacting Ajete Para Ansarones -- Garlic Sauce for Geese -- which I posted to this list a while back, along with some other garlic sauces. It's nut-milk made with almonds, pine nuts and broth, flavored with roasted garlic, sugar, and a touch of cinnamon and rosewater. The latter two weren't at all noticeable, but the sugar was, and I felt the sweetness didn't blend well with the garlic. It wasn't horrible, just not to my taste. The quantities were specified in the recipe, so I gather how it's supposed to be. I threw the leftover sauce into the freezer, to test how well almond-milk based sauces freeze. The good news is that I already have my eye on a couple of other recipes that look promising. There's a sauce in which the almond milk is drawn up with pomegranate juice (I bet it's a lovely color) and a Lenten dish -- Mirrauste de Manzanas -- which has apples cooked in almond milk with sweet spices. Brighid, getting hungry again Lady Brighid ni Chiarain Settmour Swamp, East (NJ) Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 16:40:08 -0500 From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net> Subject: SC - Recipe: Mirrauste de Manzanas Someone asked me for this recipe, so I thought I might as well post it to the list. Source: Ruperto de Nola, _Libro de Guisados_ (Spanish, 1529) Translation: Lady Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann) MIRRAUSTE DE MANZANAS -- Mirrauste of Apples You must take the sweetest apples and peel off their skin, and quarter them. And remove the core and the pips, and then set a pot to boil with as much water as you know will be necessary. And when the water boils, cast in the apples and then take well toasted almonds and grind them well in a mortar. Dissolve them with the broth from the apples, and strain them through a woollen cloth with crustless bread soaked in said apple broth. And strain everything quite thick, and after straining it cast in a good deal of ground cinnamon and sugar. And then send it to the fire to cook and when the sauce boils remove it from the fire. And cast in the apples which remain, well drained of the broth, but see that the apples should not be scalded, so that you can prepare dishes of them, and when they are made cast sugar and cinnamon on top. Notes: This is a Lenten version of Mirrauste. The meat day version has no apples. It is a sauce made with toasted almonds, broth, bread crumb, sugar and cinnamon, and is served with roast birds. De Nola always specifies when almonds are to be blanched, so I assume that these almonds are not. I would be inclined to cook the apples in just enough water to cover, so as to make a more intensely flavorful broth. The direction not to scald the apples probably means not to overcook them, so that they will retain their shape and not turn into applemoyle. Brighid, who has the stomach flu right now, and is not going to redacting anything more interesting than oatmeal for a while... Lady Brighid ni Chiarain Settmour Swamp, East (NJ) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 14:49:35 -0500 From: Christine A Seelye-King <mermayde at juno.com> Subject: SC - Digby's Horseradish Mustard > Digby has a Ginger horseradish mustard sauce: can someone get that > for me? > > Caointiarn Here you go - From Sir Kenelme Digby's Closet Opened "To Make Mustard <snip - see mustard-msg> And here is another plain horseradish sauce. "Sauce of Horse Radish Take Roots of Horse-radish scraped clean, and lay them to soak in fair-water for an hour. Then rasp them upon a Grater, and you shall have them all in a tender spungy Pap. Put