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 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.

Rosee - Chicken and rose pate

My friend known online as Quatrefoil made this dish decades ago, and it was only recently when trying to find a dish that we could serve on starter platters for a feast for 200 people that I recalled it and asked her for details.


Let me start by giving my thanks to Constance B Hieatt and Sharon Butler for bringing so many 14th century recipes to the public eye!  So here are three versions:

1. An Ordinance of Pottage:  "Florey.  Take flourys of rosys; wesch hem & grynd hen with almond mylke. Take brawn of capons grounden & do thereto. Loke hit be stondyng. Cast theryn sugure, & cast theron the leves of floure of the rose, & serve hit forth."
2. Utilis Coquinario - book 3 of MS Cosin 14th C. Menus: " 32. To make a rosye. Tak braun of capounces or of hennes & hew it smal, & bray it in a morter & do perto grounde bred & tempre it vp with almounde melk, & and do into a pot & lye it with amodne & colour it with safroun. & do perto white gres & stere it weel, & tak roses & hewe hem smale & do into pe pot, & seth it all togedrere& ley it with eyre, & do perto sugre & salt, & dresch it, & strewe peron rede rose leaues & serue it forth."
3. Diuersa Servicia - book 2 of MS Cosin 14th C. Menus: "For to make rosee, tak the flowrys of rosys and wasch hem wel in water, and after bray hem wel in a morter; & than tak almondys and temper hem, & seth hem, & after tak flesch of capons or of hennys and hac yt smale, & than bray hem wel in a morter, & than do yt in the rose so that the flesch acorde wyth the mylk, & so that the mete be charchaunt: & after do yt to the fyre to boyle, & do therto sugur & safroun that yt be wel ycolowrd & rosy of leuys of the for seyde flowrys,& serue yt forth."

There are various modern versions of this recipe online but me being me, I couldn't possibly use them could I?

So let's look at the recipe bit by bit.  "Take flowers of roses". I would love to do some grand experimentation and research into what roses would have been around at the time, and what roses taste best, but unfortunately Spring had not yet sprung so I was stuck with my packet of dried rosebuds (these can often be found in middle eastern stores).  I made the decision though that I needed to add a little rosewater to the dishes to make up for the lack of flavour in the dried roses.

"Wash them and grind them with almond milk".    This seems pretty clear.  However, looking at the other contemporary recipes for the same dish the almonds seem clearly to be included in the main dish.  Hmm.... I decide that the almond flesh would add to the texture and stability of the pate and decide to include it.


"Take brawn of  capons grounden and do thereto".  Brawn nowadays is often known as head cheese and is made by boiling meat along with the bones to get gelatin.  But as a medieval term, the word is middle English and comes from the old French word "Braon", which means the fleshy part of the leg.  So we know what bit of the capon we are to use, yay! 


Sadly as I have no probably mourned in previous posts, capons aren't available here, and I had to make do with chicken thighs.   On a side note, apparently the Australian ban on capons was based on them being chemically castrated in the 60s and so if you can find someone to manually castrate the roosters and grow them, you could theoretically get capons here.  Anyone? Anyone? Pretty please with sugar on top?  Anyway, I have wandered off...


So, here comes for me, one of the big questions of the recipe. Is the meat cooked before grinding?  In the second and third versions of the recipe, the ground meat is cooked (whether for a second time or not is unclear).  Does it make a difference either way?


Well, guess I better find out eh?  So I try a few ways.  Method 1. Grind the almonds with water and rose petals and half a teaspoon of rosewater. Add ground chicken thighs and cook the mixture until it is thoroughly cooked. Season with sugar.  Result - ok, but a bit on the bland side of things. Texturally, the almonds were a bit grainy - I should have ground them more finely.  I was also concerned with cooking the raw ground chicken in the almond milk, that it would either burn around the edges (trying to cook a thick soupy liquid) or that the chicken itself would not be properly cooked through, which was a worry from a food safety point of view.


Method 2.  Cook the chicken thighs in stock.  Use a bit of the stock to grind the almonds and rose petals and rosewater.  Grind up the cooked thighs and mix in with the almond milk.  Result? Tasty tasty.  The flavour and salt from the chicken stock was a big help to the blandness and the texture was more pleasing.


250g chicken thighs
8 dried rosebuds
1/2 teaspoon rosewater
1/3 cup blanched almonds
2 cups of chicken stock

Lassis de blanc de chapon - Le Viandier de Taillevent recipe number 189

Mettez cuire vostre chappon avec trumeauix de beuf, puis prendre tout le blanc de chappon et le charpire ainsi qu'on charpiroit lainne, et prendre des autres membres du chappon et mettre par pieces et les frire en sain de lart tant qu'ilz soient ung petit roux, et les dreciez en platz et mettez par dessus ladicte charpie; puis pelez amendes, broiez et deffaictes de vostre boullon et y mettez du vin blanc et du verjus; et prenez gingenbre de Mesche pare et le mettez en pouldre, et grainne de paradis le deux partz et du succre competemment et qu'il soit douix de succre; puis fault des amendes blanches pelees et les frire en sain de lart ou en sain de porc doulz, et que les amendes soient piquees dedans le potaige quant il sera drecie; et soit assez liant tant que les amendes se puissent tenir droictes; et semez par dessus de l'annis vermeil.

My translation

Cook your capon with a knuckle of beef, then take all the white capon and shred it as you would card wool, and with the other members of the capon pull it into parts in parts and fry in good lard in the manner till it is not at all pink, and arrange on a plate and spread the shreds, on top, then peel almonds and grind and mix in with your boullion and put into it white wine and verjuice, and take ginger of Mesche and pare it and then make a powder, and grains of paradise in two parts, then take fine sugar and make sweet with sugar; then take peeled white almonds and fry them in clear beef or pork fat, and take the almonds and prick them into the potage so they will stand upright, as the sauce is sufficiently thick so that the almonds can stand upright, and sprinkle over with the red anise.

1 chicken (cleaned)

1 ½ cups beef stock

lard for frying

2 cups blanched almonds (plus a handful extra for decoration)

2/3 cup white wine (I used a “fruity classic white”)

1/3 cup verjuice

1 gm pared then ground fresh ginger

2gm grains of paradise

1 tsp sugar

a pinch of ground star anise

Cut the chicken into large pieces. Simmer in beef stock for about 20 minutes, until it is cooked. Strip off the white meat of the chicken and shred it. Take the rest of the chicken pieces and brown them in lard. Place them on a platter and spread with the shredded white meat. T

Grind two cups of almonds and mix it into the stock with the white wine and verjuice. Spice this sauce with ground ginger, grains of paradise and sugar. Pour over the chicken and then stud with blanched almonds that you have lightly browned in lard. Sprinkle with ground star anise and serve.

A few notes on the recipe and some of the decisions made:

Anise: For this recipe, the interesting question for me lies with the anise. In French, generally “Anise” refers to the anise plant (Pimpinella anisum ), which produces aniseeds. This is a green plant,with some similarities in both appearance (and flavour) to fennel, and is common in period in eastern Europe. However, in no way shape or form is it red. Could the text potentially be referring to star anise? Star anise (Illicium verum) is red. In modern French they call star anise 'badiane', however I have found no references within period to it being referred to as 'badiane'. Star anise was growing in south east China but it is believed not to have travelled to Europe until the 16^th century. However, I hypothesise that this reference to red anise may well be proof that that star anise was in fact found in Europe much earlier than is generally understood.


 

Capons: One of the sad limitations of living in Australia is that you cannot purchase capons (I gather that it is an animal cruelty issue - apparently it is less cruel to kill baby cocks and throw them away than to desex them and let them grow up and then eat them). So this recipe uses chicken.

Knuckle of Beef: I have also used beef stock rather than cooking the chicken with an actual knuckle of beef. I also broke up the chicken into pieces before cooking – this is not indicated in the recipe but is a sensible thing to do to fit the chicken in a pot!

Wine: The sweeter choice of wine blended perfectly with the verjuice and the finished sauce was seriously tasty.