Online medieval cooking classes

Over the last year and a half I have given a number of live online medieval cooking classes, some of which were recorded.   Each class is an hour long, and recording quality is sometimes a little... mixed. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy them. 

• Three Spanish recipes from Ruperto de Nola (1529) part 1  Recipes are Marzipans for Invalids, and Renaissance donuts)
• Three Spanish recipes from Ruperto de Nola (1529) part 2 Recipes are Marinated mutton and Renaissance donuts)
• Cooking together; a Janete of Hens from Ruperto de Nola (1529).  Recipe is here

Macaroons - French Bisket Bread

Got spare egg whites because you made delicious doucettes?  Looking for a simple tasty biscuit recipe? I have you covered with these wonderful Elizabethan biscuits. 

Source: Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book, 1604

To make French biskit bread:

Take one pound of almonds blanched in cold water, beat them verie smale, put in some rose water to them, in the beating, wherein some musk hath lien,then take one pound of sugar beaten and searced and beat with your almonds, then take the whites of fowre eggs beten and put to the sugar & almonds, then beat it well together, then heat the oven as hot as you doe for other biskit bread, then take a paper & strawe some sugar upon it, & lay two spoonfulls of the stuf in a place, then lay the paper upon a board full of holes, & put them into the oven as fast as you can & so bake them, when they begin to looke somewhat browne they are baked inough.

Ingredients:

2 Egg whites

200g Ground Almonds 

200g caster sugar

Rosewater

Beat your egg whites until  fluffy.  Moisten your ground almond meal with some rose water (try a teaspoon first and taste because rosewaters differ greatly in strength) and then sift in the caster sugar. Mix all dry ingredients together, then fold in the beaten egg whites. 

Heat your oven to a moderate temperature, around 180 degrees. 

Line a baking tray (ideally a perforated tray but don't stress about it if you don't have one) with paper and sprinkle lightly with sugar.  Using a dessert spoon, spoon balls of the mixture on to the tray - don't worry if they don't look perfect, they will be perfect tasting!

Bake for 15-20 mins until they are light brown.  The outsides will be crisp and nutty, and the insides deliciously chewy.    

Elizabethan dish - Fartes of Portingale

Ahah!  I thought I had posted this recipe on my blog ages ago, and it was only when this recipe appeared on a recent episode Tasting History and I did a search for my version to compare that I realised that I had drafted this but not posted it. Oops!  I will have to cook these again so I can add some photos to this post. 

So anyway, this one of the most delicious dishes in my repertoire.  The combination of the sweetness of the dates and currants, with lamb mince and the beef broth is just divine.  It is also a really useful dish for catering feasts with because you can get easy portion control (eg. 3 meatballs per person) and the meatballs can be prepped beforehand and then just cooked up in broth on the day. 

The recipe I am giving is quite a large serving - if you are serving it as an entree, or for a smaller dinner, feel free to halve the recipe.  

The Good Huswive's Handmaid for Cookerie (1588) Handmaide for the Kitchin

How to make Fartes of Portingale*.

Take a peece of a leg of Mutton, mince it smal and season it with cloues, Mace pepper and salt, and Dates minced with currans: then roll it into round rolles, and so into little balles, and so boyle them in a little beefe broth and so serue them foorth.

Translation: Take a piece of a leg of mutton, mince it small and season it with cloves, mace, pepper an salt and dates minced with currants: then roll it into round rolls and then into little balls. and so boil them in a little beef broth and so serve them forth. 

Recipe

30 grams of dates (buy pitted ones, it is worth it!)
1 kg lamb mince (if you can find mutton, use it, and let me know where I can get my hands on some of it!!!)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1.4 tsp mace
salt
pepper
30 grams currants
3 litres of beef stock

Chop the dates finely - this is by far the most tedious part of the recipe - having some hot water on hand to wipe the knife down occasionally will help. I am told that the best method is to actually use a slicing rather than a chopping motion to cut up dates. Mince up the currants as well.  Mix together with the meat and spices, and then form into small balls (you will get about 25-30).  Bring your beef stock up to the boil, and add the meatballs. Cook until done - this will only take about 15 minutes.  Serve piping hot in the broth. 

*Portingale was the Elizabethan way of saying Portugal. Fartes are essentially cooked balls of food - most often meatballs, sometimes dough.

Marzipans for Invalids

Marzipans for invalids who have lost the desire to eat, very good and of great sustenence

(Mazapanes para dolientes que pierdan el comer, muy buenos y de gran sustancia) 

The book of cooking, Ruperto de Nola (Robert), Logrono, 1529

Not the average marzipan, I encourage you to give this recipe a go! It is super simple to make, and unusually for a lot of recipes from this period, has provided the proportions of the ingredients. Don't let the fact that it contains of all things, chicken, put you off: trust me, they taste really good.

Take a very fat capon or a hen which is very fat, and cook it with just your salt until it is very well-cooked; then take the breasts from it, and all the white meat without skin, and weigh that meat, and take as much peeled almonds, and combine the meat and the almonds; and take as much fine white sugar as all of this, and grind the almonds a great deal, and then the meat with them, and then the sugar; and then grind everything together, and stretch that dough upon a wafer, and make little marzipans of the size that you wish; and make the edges a little high, and let it be a little deep in the middle; and moisten it with orange-flower water with some feathers.

And then sprinkle fine ground and sifted sugar over that water, and then moisten it again, and sprinkle it as before; and then cook them in the oven in some flat casseroles, and paper underneath; and let the fire of the oven be moderate; and upon removing it from the casserole, the paper must be cast off of each one, (70) in such a manner that the marzipan does not break.

And this is a very singular dish and of great support for the invalids who have lost the [desire] to eat; because the little of this that they eat is of more sustenance than any other thing; principally drinking in addition to it the sulsido of hens made in the jug; and this is beyond estimation.

Take a chicken breast and simmer it in salted water until thoroughly cooked - but try not to overcook as it will make the chicken dry. Weigh the cooked chicken breast and measure out the same weight of almonds (you can do this with peeled almonds, or save yourself some time and use ground almonds) and sugar.  Grind them all together in a mortar and pestle (you could use a food processor but just be aware that the texture will be a little different). 

If you don't have any wafers handy (who does? Maybe me since I did all those posts about wafers, here and here!), you can, at a pinch make these and just form them directly on to a sheet of baking paper. Make the sides a little raised.  Moisten with orange flower water, sprinkle with caster sugar and then sprinkle a bit more orange flower water on top. 

Bake in the oven at a moderate temperature until they are lightly browned.  They can be eaten either warm, or cold. 

You can see why this recipe would be a good food for an invalid - it gives an easy protein boost, the patient doesn't need to have good teeth as everything is ground up, and the sweetness makes it appetising. 

A medieval mustard

 This recipe for mustard comes from Le Menagier de Paris dated around 1393

The recipe is:

Item, et se vous la voulez faire bonne et à loisir, mettez le senevé tremper par une nuit en bon vinaigre, puis le faites bien broyer au moulin, et bien petit à petit destremper de vinaigre: et se vous avez des espices qui soient de remenant de gelée, de claré, d’ypocras on de saulces, si soient broyées avec, et après la laissier parer.

Translated that is:

Item: and if you want to make it good and at leisure, soak the mustard seeds overnight in good vinegar, then grind it well in the mill, and very little by little soak in vinegar: and if you have some remnants of spices from jelly, claré, hypocras or sauces, grind them with it, and then leave to rest.

I chose a white wine vinegar to soak the mustard in (honestly, because it is what I had). 

The next day, it was interesting to see the difference between soaked and unsoaked mustard seeds.

I then ground the mustard with a mortar and pestle. 

Grinding was a slow process

The final product: a quite spicy mustard

I had to make some hippocras!

Ypocras. Pour faire pouldre d’ypocras, prenez un quarteron de très fine canelle triée à la dent, et demy quarteron de fleur de canelle fine, une once de gingembre de mesche trié fin blanc et une once de graine de paradis, un sizain de noix muguettes et de garingal ensemble, et faites tout battre ensemble. Et quant vous vouldrez faire l’ypocras, prenez demye once largement et sur le plus de ceste pouldre et deux quarterons de succre, et les meslez ensemble, et une quarte de vin à la mesure de Paris.

Translation: 

Hippocras. To make hippocras powder, take a quarteron of very fine cinnamon, sorted by the tooth, and half a quarteron of fine cinnamon flower, an ounce of fine white sorted mesche ginger and an ounce of grains of paradise seed, a sixth of an ounce of nutmeg and galingale together, and beat everything together. And when you want to make the hypocras, take half an ounce and some more of this powder and two quarterons of sugar, and mix them together, and a quarte of wine to the measure of Paris.

Waffling on about wafers

 

This post is a bit of a follow on from my previous post listing medieval and renaissance wafer recipes. In this article I will provide a modern wafer recipe that I have developed, and background information on wafers that I have gleaned. 

Because I get really irritated by blogs that have pages and pages of info before you get to the recipe, I am going straight to the recipe, and then you can read on as you wish. The recipe is from Le Menagier de Paris.

Recipe

1 egg

1/2 cup wine

1/2 cup flour

generous pinch of salt

When are they from?

Now, there is a really good question, which sadly I cannot provide a definitive answer to! The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America says that wafers “date back to ancient Greece, where they made obelios, a flat cake cooked between two hot metal plates.”
The earliest image I have spotted so far is from the Velislav Picture Bible (between 1325 and 1340)

What are they made of?

The basic wafer is pretty simple: flour, eggs, wine, salt.
But... you could get fancy, such as by stuffing them with cheese or adding ginger to the paste. Saffron wafers are mentioned in royal accounts from medieval Poland.
By the late 16th or early 17th century they might contain sugar and flavourings such as rose-water and cinnamon. A set of books in Gent, Belgium (bound together as one) dating from about 1560 has recipes that are made using white bread crumbs instead of flour.

What tool is used to make them?

A wafer iron just like this! -------------->

They did come in different shapes and sizes (including round), but this picture is quite a typical example of a medieval or renaissance wafer iron.
As you can see in this picture, there are two different sides. From my travels and research, they always seem to have two different sides in the medieval period – modern ones don't always. If you would like to see more examples of wafer irons, visit: www.larsdatter.com

When in the meal were they eaten?

They appear to have been served quite late in the meal, both in England and in France, and it seems, always with hippocras! There is a theory that they are a sort of final blessing at the end of the meal.
In Le Menagier de Paris (1393) the author gives details of the arrangements for two wedding feasts that include wafers. In both he lists them as being right towards the end of service, which goes in essentially this order:

• Service (butter, little pastries and fresh fruit)
• Pottages
• Roasts with sauces
• Entremets (jellied meats)
• Dessert (NOTE: not as we know it: frumenty, venison, pears and nuts)
• Issue: hippocras and wafers
• Boute-hors (translates literally as bottle out): spiced wine

Over the sea in England John Russell writes in about 1440ⁱ& þañ with goddes grace þe fest wille be do.

Blaunderelle, or pepyns, with arawey in confite,

Waffurs to ete / ypocras to drynk with delite.

now þis fest is fynysched / voyd þe table quyte

This basically says that after you have eaten the wafers and drunk the hippocras, you should leave the table.

How many wafers did people eat?

For the wedding feast Master Helye gave on a Tuesday in May for 40 people, altogether they ordered 18 stuffed wafers, 18 gros bastons, 18 portes, 18 estriers and a hundred sugared galettes.ⁱⁱ The final negotiation with the pastrycooks however, provided for 4 wafers for each guest.
It is worth noting that the gros bastons were the most expensive – I wonder if this is because they were simply larger, or perhaps were filled with something?
On the hippocras front: Le Menagier notes that two quarts of Hippocras was considered too much for a party of 14 guests: - a half pint between three people was considered to be sufficient.

Who made them?

Wafers appear to have been made by specialised Pastrycooks.  In France they were known as Obloyeurs (Oubloier - also spelled Oubloiier in medieval French or Obloyeurs) or Gauffriers – specialist wafer makers. 

Whats in a name?

There are a LOT of names for wafers, depending on the country, the period and the form. The earliest name appears to be the Ancient Greek obleios. This appears to have turned into oublies, and the name gaufre first seems to appear in the 13th century, from the Old French wafla, meaning “a piece of honeybee hive” (a reference to the honeycomb shaped pattern).In le Menagier de Paris (1393) for example, the author refers to Oubloie, gauffres, sweet Galettes, Supplications, Estriers and Portes, but I don't know for certain whether these are other names for the same or different wafers, or some other pastry item. I do have some theories about some of these.

For example because Porte is a medieval French word for a gate or portcullis, perhaps it was specifically a wafer using a wafer iron with a classic grid pattern. It is just a theory mind you!

A bit of research has a 1609 Castellan 'dictionary' describing oblea (the Spanish version of our Oubloie above) as “a leaf of very thin dough, and when made into tubes they are called supplicaciones”. So I feel it seems likely that our Gros Baston are referred to also as supplications. Phew, this is both exciting and tiring stuff to research!  In Germany they have oblaten which appear to be smooth wafers, and are probably related also to our oubloie.

16th century wafer iron - Switzerland

Renaissance Spanish donuts

Oranges of Xativa which are Cheesecakes

Toronjas de Xativa que son almojavans 

The book of cooking, Ruperto de Nola (Robert) Logrono, 1529

I experimented with a lot of versions of this recipe and finally settled on the one below.  These are essentially delicious renaissance sweet cheese donuts - I chose to form them into rings, which although it means they no longer resemble oranges, are definitely an acceptable shape according to the recipe which says that they can be formed into "whatever shapes and ostentations you wish". 

You must take new cheese and curd cheese, and grind them in a mortar together with eggs. Then take dough and knead those cheeses with the curd cheese, together with the dough. And when everything is incorporated and kneaded take a very clean casserole. And cast into it a good quantity of sweet pork fat or fine sweet oil. And when the pork grease or oil boils, make some balls from said dough, like toy balls or round oranges. And cast them into the casserole in such a manner that the ball goes floating in the casserole. And you can also make buñuelos (fritters) of the dough, or whatever shapes and ostentations you wish. And when they are the color of gold, take them out, and cast in as many others. And when everything is fried, put it on plates. And cast honey upon it, and on top of the honey [cast] ground sugar and cinnamon. 

However, note one thing: that you must put a bit of leaven in the cheeses and in the eggs, and in the other put flour. And when you make the balls, grease your hands with a little fine oil, and then [the balls] go to the casserole. And when it is inside, if the dough crackles it is a signal that it is very soft, and you must cast in more flour [into the dough] until it is harder. And when the fritter is made and fried, cast your honey on it, and [cast] sugar and cinnamon on top as is said above.

Redaction

150g new cheese (mozarella will do)
150g ricotta
2 eggs (~60g each)

2 cups of flour
1 tsp instant yeast*
cinnamon
sugar
honey
vegetable oil

Method

Grate the mozarella and grind in a large mortar with the ricotta and eggs. Stir in the yeast and allow to rest a little.
Measure the flour into a bowl and make a well in the centre**. Stir in the cheese and egg mixture to make a soft dough. Tip out onto a board and knead for 5 or six minutes.

Allow to sit somewhere warm for approximately an hour.

Form into balls and using your thumb press a hole in through the middle. Allow to rest for 20 minutes or so.

Fry at 190° C until golden brown. Drizzle with honey while hot and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Best eaten hot.

 

Notes
*As well as experimenting with instant yeast I also made this recipe using a sour-dough starter. It worked well but as is typical with sour-doughs, it took basically a whole day to make.

**The recipe says to mix the wet ingredients with a dough – I did make a version mixing the wet ingredients with a simple water and flour dough. The resulting 'donuts' were pretty good but it was very awkward to mix the two. As the final results were almost identical, I have settled on using the flour.

A collection of renaissance wafer recipes

FRANCE

Le Menagier de Paris (believed to date to 1393)ⁱⁱⁱ.

I note that the original says it provides four manners, but then lists another use for the wafer irons.
Rough translation (the title in each is my own designation and is not in the original text)
Wafers are made in four ways.

[Gauffres:] The first is that you beat eggs in a bowl, and then salt and wine, and throw in it the flour, and mix one with the other, and then put in two irons little by little, and each time as much paste as a slice of cheese is large, and press between two irons, and cook on one side and the other; and if the iron does not get release the paste well, anoint it before with a small cloth wet in oil or in fat.

[Gauffres frommage:] The second way is like the first, but you put in cheese, which is to say that you make sure that the paste is spread out as if to make a tart or pastry, then put in slices of cheese by slices in the middle and cover the two ends so the cheese remains between the two pastes and thus is put between two irons.^*

[Gauffres couleisses:] The third manner, is a strained wafer, and are called strained only because the paste is more light and is boiled clear, made as above; and enjoy it with fine grated cheese; and all mixed together.

[Pestrie a l'eaue:] The fourth way is the flour paste with water, salt and wine, without eggs or cheese.

[Gross Bastons:] Item, the wafer irons also do a different service, called big sticks which are made of a flour paste which eggs and powdered ginger powder beaten together, and these are large and in a shape similar to andouilles**; put between two irons.

*Yes! Toasted cheese wafers!

**Andouilles are a form of sausage. It seems likely that this means the wafers are cooked in the iron and then rolled up while hot to make tubes.

 ENGLAND

Waffres.^iv 15th century. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books

Wafers. Take the womb of a luce (pike), & boil it well, & mash it in a mortar, & add soft cheese, grind them fair; then take flour and egg whites & beat together, then take sugar and powdered ginger, & put them all together, & look that the egg is hot, & make a thin paste, & make thin wafers, and serve them.

The English Housewif, Gervase Markham, 1615

To make the best Wafers, take the finest wheat-flowers you can get, and mix it with Cream, the yelks of Eggs, Rose-water, Sugar, and Cinamon, till it be a little thicker than Pancake-batter, and then warming your Wafter Irons on a charcoal-fire, anoint them first with sweet Butter, and than lay on your batter, and press it, and bake it white or brown at your pleasure.

To make wafers, 1658 Archimagirus Anglo-Gallicus; Or, Excellent & Approved Receipts and Experiments in Cookery (London: 1658)

Take Rose-water or other water, the whites of two eggs and beat them and your water, then put in flower, and make them thick as you would do butter for fritters, then season them with salt, and put in so much sugar as will make them sweet, and so cast them upon your irons being hot, and roule them up upon a little pin of wood; if they cleave to your irons, put in more sugar to your butter, for that will make them turn.

BELGIUM

Belgian 15th/16th century recipes^vAll credit to Christianne Muusers who has painstakingly transcribed and translated these two recipes. 

To bake good wafers.

Take grated white bread. Take with that the yolk of an egg and a spoonful of pot sugar or powdered sugar. Take with that half water and half wine, and ginger and cinnamon.

[To make] egg wafers.

Grate white bread, [add] as many eggs that the dough is liquid (litt. “soft”). Take for a dosen eggs about one glass of wine and a little sugar to sweeten the wine well, and some melted butter in it. They are also made with wheat flour. [Made] with [grated] bread is the best.

ITALY

To make wafers with crumb of bread and sugar. Scappi 1570 , folio 420, book 6

Take crumb of bread and let it moisten in cold water and strain it through a sieve. Make a paste of it and wheat flour, rosewater and sugar and simple water and fresh egg yolks.  Because otherwise you won’t be able to make wafers make the paste liquid and firm.
When you have the irons add a little malmsey wine, and make the wafers. If you want it with pulp of capons boiled in water and salt. Paste this meat in a mortar and temper with a little cold water and pass with the bread crumb through the sieve and mix together with the other things and make wafers. One can also make with almond milk and egg yolks.

End notes (original language versions)

1. Boke of Nurture by John Russell, 1440-1470

The iijd Course.
“Creme of almondes, & mameny, þe iij. course in coost,
Curlew / brew / snytes / quayles / sparows / mertenettes rost,
Perche in gely / Crevise dewe douȝ / pety perueis with þe moost,
Quynces bake / leche dugard / Fruture sage / y speke of cost,
and soteltees fulle soleyñ:
þat lady þat conseuyd by the holygost
hym̅ þat distroyed þe fendes boost,
presentid plesauntly by þe kynges of coleyñ.
Afftur þis, delicatis mo.
Go we to þe fysche fest while we haue respite,
& þañ with goddes grace þe fest willebedo.
Blaunderelle, or pepyns, withcarawey in confite,
Waffurs to ete / ypocras to drynk with delite.
now þis fest is fynysched / voyd þe table quyte
and for some dietary advice:
Bewar at eve/ of crayme of cowe & also of the goote, þauȝ it be late,
of Strawberies & hurtilberyes / with the cold Ioncate,
For þese may marre many a mañ changynge his astate,
but ȝiff he haue aftur, hard chese / wafurs, with wyne ypocrate.

 2.Le Menagier de Paris:

A l’oubloier convient ordonner: _primo_, pour le service de la pucelle, douzaine et demie de gauffres fourrées[719], trois sols; douzaine et demie de gros bastons, six sols; douzaine et demie de portes, dix-huit deniers; douzaine et demie d’estriers, dix-huit deniers; un cent de galettes, succrées, huit deniers.
Item, fut marchandé à luy pour vint escuelles, pour le jour des nopces au disner, et six escuelles pour les serviteurs, qu’il aura six deniers pour escuelle, et servira chascune escuelle de huit oublies, quatre supplications et quatre estriers.

Le Menagier de Paris.

Gauffres sont faites par quatre manières. L’une que l’en bat des œufs en une jatte, et puis du sel et du vin, et gette-l’en de la fleur, et destremper l’un avec l’autre, et puis mettre en deux fers petit à petit, à chascune fois autant de paste comme une lesche de frommage est grande, et estraindre entre deux fers, et cuire d’une part et d’autre; et se le fer ne se délivre bien de la paste, l’en l’oint avant d’un petit drappelet mouillé en huille ou en sain.
La deuxième manière est comme la première, mais l’en y met du frommage, c’est assavoir que l’en estend la paste comme pour faire tartre ou pasté, puis met-l’en le frommage par lesches ou milieu et recueuvre-l’en les deux bors; ainsi demeure le frommage entre deux pastes et ainsi est mis entre deux fers.
La tierce manière, si est de gauffres couléisses, et sont dictes couléisses pour ce seulement que la paste est plus clère et est comme boulie clère, faicte comme dessus; et gecte-l’en avec, du fin frommage esmié à la gratuise; et tout mesler ensemble.
La quarte manière est de fleur pestrie à l’eaue, sel et vin, sans œufs ne frommage.
Item, les gauffriers font un autre service que l’en dit gros bastons qui sont fais de farine pestrie aux œufs et pouldre de gingembre batus ensemble, et puis aussi gros et ainsi fais comme andouilles; mis entre deux fers.

3. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888.

Take þe Wombe of A luce, & seþe here wyl, & do it on a morter, & tender cheese þer-to, grynde hem y-fere; þan take flowre an whyte of Eyroun & bete to-gedere, þen take Sugre an pouder of Gyngere, & do al to-gerderys, & loke þat þin Eyroun ben hote, & ley þer-on of þin paste, & þan make þin waffrys, & serue yn.

4. The first volume of the convolute KANTL Gent 15: W.L. Braekman, “Een belangrijke middelnederlandse bron voor Vorselmans’ Nyeuwen Coock Boeck (1560)” (An important Middle-dutch source for Vorselman’s New Cookbook’) . In: Volkskunde 87 (1986) pp. 1-24
The second and third vols of the convolute: W.L. Braekman, Een nieuw zuidnederlands kookboek uit de vijftiende eeuw. Scripta 17, Brussel, 1986.

Om ghode waffellen te backen.

Nempt gheraspt wijt broet. Nemt daer toe enen doijer van enen ey ende enen lepel pot sucars of melsucars, ende hier toe nempt half waters ende half wijns ende ghenbar ende canel.

Om eyer wafelen.

Neemt ende raspt witte broot, daer eyer in alsoe vele dat is al morw deech, ende tot eender dosijnen eyer omtrent een gelas wyns, ende een lutken zuycker om den wyn wel zoet te maeken, ende wat gesmelter booteren daer in. Men maeckse oeck wel alsoe van terwenbloemen. Vanden broot eest best.

Eggs in Mustard Sauce

Seeth your Egges almost harde, then peele them and cut them in quarters, then take a little Butter in a frying panne and melt it a little broune, the put to it in to the panne, a little Vinegar, Mustarde, Pepper and Salte, and then put it into a platter upon your Egges.

--J. Partridge, The Widowes Treasure, 1585

This is a nice easy dish great to be taken to a picnic or potluck.

Redaction

1/2 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon mustard
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
salt & pepper

Hard boil the eggs – old eggs are best for this as they will peel much more easily than new.

When you’re ready to serve, peel the eggs and quarter them.

Melt the butter in a saucepan and allow it to brown just a little, add the mustard and vinegar, season with salt and pepper.

Pour over the eggs and serve.

A Janete of Hens

 This recipe is from "Libro de Guisados" by Ruperto de Nola. 

The earliest edition of this manuscript is in Catalan, and is known as the Libre del Coch by Maestre Robert. The first Spanish edition (1525) was titled Libro de Cozina and referred to the author as
Ruperto de Nola. The translation for this session is from the 1529 Spanish edition entitled Libro de Guisados, which was translated by Robin Caroll-Mann. 

The translation reads: 

Take a hen which is more than half-cooked and cut it up as if to make portions; and take good bacon which is fatty, and gently fry it with a little bit of onion. And then gently fry the cut-up hen with it. 

And take toasted almonds, and grind them, and mix with them quinces or pears which have been conserved in honey. 

And take the livers of the hens, and roast them on the coals. 

And when they are well-roasted put them in the mortar of the almonds, and grind everything together; and then take a crustless piece of bread toasted and soaked in white vinegar, grind it in the mortar with the other stuff.

And when it is well-ground, blend it with hen's broth that is well-salted; and strain it all through a sieve; and cast it in a pot; and cast the hen in also; and cast in all fine spices, and a good quantity of sugar. 

And this sauce must be a little bit sour. And when the sauce is cooked, cast in a little finely shredded parsley, and prepare your dishes, and then [cast] upon them sugar and cinnamon.

I have not provided quantities as this will depend very much on your own tastes, and the number of people you are serving. 

• Chicken pieces
• Chicken stock
• Bacon
• Onion
• Chicken liver/s (you really only need around 1 liver for a serving for four)
• Bread
• White vinegar
• Almonds (almond milk as an alternate)
• Spices (cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, coriander)
• Quinces conserved in honey (quince paste)
• Parsley

Basic Steps

Chop your onion and bacon into small pieces. Peel the almonds if required. Toast a slice of bread, then cut off the crusts and cool. Finely chop parsley and set aside. 

Toast the almonds in a small fry pan. Once browned, remove from the pan and put into whatever vessel you will use to grind them to cool. Add the quince paste and grind up. 

Using the same pan, fry your prepared livers in just enough oil or bacon fat to stop them sticking too badly to the pan. Cook until cooked all the way through. Add them to the mortar. 

Soak your slice of bread with white vinegar. 

Add to the mortar with the almonds, liver and conserved quince, and grind everything together.  

In a pot, heat enough chicken stock to cover your chicken pieces to a low boil.  Add your chicken pieces, bring back up to the boil and then drop down to a simmer.  Cook them in stock until almost entirely cooked (about 10-15 minutes), and then pull out of the stock to drain for a short while (reserve the stock!)

In the meantime fry your bacon and onion until the onion is starting to go clear but isn't yet brown. Add your chicken pieces and brown them. 

Blend the mixture in the mortar with the chicken stock.  

Push it through a strainer, and add to the pan with the chicken, bacon and onion – let the chicken simmer in the sauce on a low heat until you are certain it is thoroughly cooked. 

Spice to taste – it should be just a little bit sour  

Not long before serving stir in the chopped parsley.  

Sprinkle (LIGHTLY!) with cinnamon and a tiny bit of sugar and serve.