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.

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.

Sauce piquant for conies - 3 period sauces from the one recipe

Sauce piquant to put on conies

3 period sauces from the one recipe

“Du fait de cuisine” was written by Master Chiquart on the behest of the Duke of Savoy in 1420. In it Chiquart outlines all his knowledge about creating banquets for the 15^th century French nobility. The recipes are often on a huge scale – for example, the book starts by listing the amount of meat to order, starting with 100 cattle, 130 sheep, 120 pigs plus 100 piglets for each day and 60 salted pigs for larding and making soups.

So when reading the recipes, one must consider that they are for feasts on a grand scale, and take this into consideration when devising a much more reasonable quantity.

The recipe I have chosen to make is the 14^th in the manuscript. Unfortunately the only original French version I have obtained so far is just that – the original manuscript and I have not managed to decypher the writing yet. So I have used the translation by Elizabeth Cook, who's translations have proven in my experience to be reasonably accurate. Here is her translation:

To make sauce piquant to put on conies, according to the quantity of it which one is making take onions and chop them fine, and take fair pork lard and melt it and sauté your onions, and so that they do not burn in sautéing put a little broth in; and then put in a great deal of white wine according to the quantity of sauce piquant which you want to make for the said conies; and take your spices, good ginger, grains of paradise, a little pepper which is not at all too much, and saffron to give it color; and season it with vinegar in such proportion that it is neither too much poignant nor too little; with salt also.

There are thousands of variations that can be made from any one original recipe. As I am ever curious about medieval cuisine and frequently make 10-20 versions of any medieval recipe, I decided to do three sauces from the one recipe, varying the type of wine, amounts, and the amounts of spices and onions. For the first two, I have made sauces that are quite thin. However with the third, I made the decision to make something that would be thicker and with a lot more onion, almost a spicy relish rather than what we would classically think of as a sauce.

The methodology was the pretty much the same for all three sauces, so I will describe that once, and note the differences after the ingredients list for each variation:

1. Chop the onions finely
2. Take a saucepan and melt the pork lard in it
3. Add the onions and sauté until soft, adding broth a spoonful at a time if the mixture starts looking dry
4. Add the wine, keeping on the heat (the original recipe does not specify but as the wine is added to the onions which are on the heat, it is a logical conclusion that it would stay on the heat)
5. Add the ground spices – the saffron was ground with a tiny touch of broth to release the colour before putting into the sauce.
6. Simmer for 15-20 minutes
7. Remove from the heat and add the vinegar, then season to taste.

Sauce for Conies Version 1.

1 onion

1tsp lard

2 tablespoons chicken broth

2 cups Sauvignon Blanc

12 threads saffron

1 pinch ground Grains of Paradise

1 tsp ginger

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 pinch of ground black pepper

1 pinch of salt

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

I chose Sauvignon Blanc as a wine variety that existed within period, in the south of France, so accessible to the Savoyard chef.

Sauce for Conies Version 2

2 onions

2 tsp lard

2 tablespoons chicken broth

2 cups Chardonnay

3 pinches grains of paradise

½ teaspoon ginger

8 threads saffron

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 pinch ground black pepper

1 pinch of salt

Chardonnay originated in Burgundy, in the mid-eastern part of France and would also have been accessible. The oak matured citrus notes of the chardonnay seemed to be appropriate for a piquant sauce. I chose to use more grains of paradise than ginger to make a less obviously spicy sauce.

Sauce for Conies Version 3

3 onions

3 tablespoons lard

2 tablespoons chicken stock

1 and a half cups McGuigan classic white wine

12 threads saffron

½ tsp Grains of Paradise

1 ¼ tsp ginger

a good pinch of black pepper

1 pinch of salt

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

I chose this as a reasonably generic white wine, without any dominant flavours.

I decided that this version should be more like a sort of chutney - a thick rich condiment.  With this much lard, it certainly is rich - but the fat is balanced well by the wine and vinegar.  Of the three redactions, this one is my favourite.

A short comment on cooking methods

The sauces in this recipe would most likely have been made in a large cauldron hung over a fire. While many cooks claim that this means that there was little control over the heat and cooking processes in a medieval kitchen, I challenge this claim.

An experienced cook, especially one of Chiquart's credentials, had a very good idea of how hot or cool the fires were on which he cooked. By changing from cooking over flame to embers, stoking, adding wood, removing wood, raising and lowering pots from above the fire-grate, a great deal of control can be made to the cooking process.

While modern cooking appliances are easier, stoves, whether gas or electric, still only have a range of numbers on them, so the cook is still left with decisions to adjust and change the heat on their cooking.