This recipe is from book 10, chapter 1,
recipe 13 of Apicius - a Roman 1st century cookbook. The translation is
by Grocock and Grainger.
The original recipe has no quantities and is translated as:
Pepper,
lovage, oregano, green coriander, onion, de-seeded raisins, passum,
vinegar, liquamen, defrutum, oil and cook it. This sauce is also
suitable for boiled fish. If you wish, add honey too.
No quantities, no hints, just that.
So....
how did we turn this into a recipe that you and I might use? After all
there are some ingredients here that you are unlikely to be able to buy
off the shelf! Well with a bit of research you will find that liquimen
is a form of fish sauce also known in roman recipes as "garum garos"
& "muria". An acceptable replacement for every day use is Thai fish
sauce. Defrutum is made from reducing sweet wine or sweet grape juice
(must) to 1/3 of its original volume. Passum is sweet raisin wine
(muscat is the perfect thing).
So,
my friend Steve and I got busy playing with his beautiful new craticula
- a Roman stove, based on one found in Pompei. He also has a lovely
matching Roman pot to use as well.
Here
is the recipe we came up with - it is very easy and we decided a
definite two thumbs up from all of those who ate it. The sauce is enough
to go with fish for four people.
3 tsp Thai fish sauce
1 cup muscato reduced to 1/3
1/3 cup muscat
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
3/4 cup water (Roman vinegar was much weaker than our modern 5% acid vinegars)
2 tblspn chopped coriander (we used 1 because one of our eaters is not keen on coriander)
2 tblspn lovage (we couldn't find lovage in fact on the day, so used 3 tblspn flat leaf parsley)
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 a large onion
1 tsp freshly squeezed pepper
1/3 cup oil
1 tsp dried oregano (if using fresh then 2 tblspns)
700g tuna
Slice
the onions into fine rings (you can chop finely instead - we did the
first time but think the sliced rings would be prettier).
Place
all the ingredients in a pot. Raise to a slow boil and simmer for about
half an hour. Grill your fish and then serve with the sauce on top.
You can stir a little honey in if you like a little sweetness in your
sauces.
We tried this both with tuna and a
milder flavoured fish (haddock) and recommend you stick to a good meaty
fish as the haddock was overpowered.
This was so yummy that we sopped up the left over sauce with bread... mmm....
