Medieval Recipies 1

Take best white flour, made into a dough, and leave to rise. Put a basin on the fire, with some sesame-oil. When boiling, take in a reticulated ladle some of the dough, and shake it into the oil, so that as each drop of the dough falls in, it sets. As each piece is cooked, remove with another ladle to drain off the oil. Take honey as required, mix with rose water, and put over the fire to boil to a consistency: then take off, and while still in the basin, whip until white. Throw in the barad, and place out on a soft-oiled surface, pressing in the shape of the mould. Then cut into pieces, and serve.

1 tsp -- yeast	1 Tbspn -- warm water	1 cup -- flour	1 cup -- water
2 to 3 cup -- sesame oil	1 cup -- honey	1 oz--rose water	small amount--butter

Combine yeast and warm water and set aside.

Combine flour and water and beat until smooth.

Mix yeast and batter and let it stand 2 hours in a warm place.

Heat about 1 cup of sesame oil in a large frying pan until it is almost but not quite smoking. Do NOT burn oil.

Pour small amounts of batter into oil so it forms small balls.

Cook a couple minutes until light brown then remove and place on paper towels to drain.

Add oil as needed.

Mix honey and rosewater and cook on a medium heat until it begins to boil.

Stir constantly for about 2 minutes of boiling.

Remove from heat and whip the mixture as it cools.

It will reach the whipped consistency with a pale color.

Add the fried dough to the mixture and mix it together well.

Take a large plate and grease it with a small amount of butter.

Turn out the mixture onto the plate and press it down with a spatula.

You may need a second plate.

Chill well and then serve.

Take faire beef of the ribs of the forequarters, and smite in fair pieces, and wash the beef into a fair pot; then take the water that the beef was sodden in, and strain it through a strainer and seethe the same water and beef in a pot, and let them boil together; then take canel, cloves, maces, grains of paradise, cubebs and onions y-minced, parsley and sage, and cast thereto, and let them boil together; and then take a loaf of bread, and stepe it with broth and vinegar, and then draw it through a strainer, and let it be still; and when it is near enough, cast the liquor thereto, but not too much, and then let boil once, and cast saffron thereto a quantity; then take salt and vinegar, and cast thereto, and look that it be poynant enough, and serve forth.

4 lbs--cubed beef	4 large onions	1/4 cup -- chopped fresh parsley	2 cup -- beef boulillon
1 Tbspn -- cinnamon	1/2 Tbspn -- cloves	1 Tbspn -- sage	1/4 Tbspn -- mace
1/8 Tbspn -- grains of paradise	1/8 Tbspn -- cubebs	6 slices--sourdough bread	5 threads saffron
1 Tbspn -- salt	1 cup -- water	2 oz--vinegar

Combine water and bouillon with beef and bring to a boil.

Add the rest except saffron, salt and vinegar.

Simmer 45 minutes.

Draw 1 cup of broth and soak the bread in it.

Add vinegar to bread and mash it up well.

Combine bread and vinegar mixture with stew and stir well.

Add saffron and salt and remove from the heat.

Stir well and serve.

12--3" tart shells	6--egg yolks	1.5 lb--Brie cheese	3/8 tsp -- ginger
3 Tbspn -- sugar	8 threads--saffron	pinch--salt

Mash cheese and combine with egg yolks.

Add other ingredients and mix well.

Divide into tart shells and bake 45 minutes until golden at 350.

Knead the necessary quantity of flour, one time with water, another with oil, and to it add yeast and milk until it has the same consistency as the dough of fritters, and leave it until it has next risen. Next grease with oil a large earthen pot, stretch in it a piece of dough, and over it a bit of cheese, and over the cheese a bit of dough, and so a little of one, and a bit of the other until the last of the dough and cheese. Next cover it with dough as you did in the previous recipe and cook it in the same way in the oven. Afterwards, drizzle it with honey, sprinkle it with sugar and pepper and eat it.

2 cup -- whole wheat flour	1/2+ cup -- water	3 Tbspn -- oil	1 1/2 tsp -- yeast
3 Tbspn -- milk	12 oz--cheese	6 Tbspn -- honey	1 Tbspn -- sugar
1/4 tsp -- pepper

Combine warm milk and yeast.

Knead flour and water to a dry dough.

Mix oil and dough, knead it well.

Add milk mixture and knead until the dough is uniform.

Raise in a warm place about 45 minutes.

Divide dough into several portions.

Flour dough and work to the size of a bread pan.

Layer bread and then cheese. The type of cheese is unstated but I suggest Farmer's Cheese or a mild white cheese.

Bake 45 minutes at 350.

Turn out and drizzle with honey while still hot.

Serve with mixed pepper and sugar to sprinkle over it to taste.

Take colyaundre, caraway smale grounden, powdour of peper and garlec ygrounde, in rede wyne; medle alle thise togyder and salt it. Take loynes of pork rawe and fle of the skyn, and pryk it wel with a knyf, and lay it in the sawse. Roost it whan thou wilt, & kepe that fallith therfro in the rostyng and seeth it in a possynet with faire broth, and serue it forth with the roost anoon.

1 Tbspn -- ground coriander	2 Tbspn -- caraway, ground	1/2 Tbspn -- pepper	4 cloves--garlic
1/2 Tbspn -- salt	1 cup -- chicken broth	3 cup -- red wine	4 lb--pork roast

Grind the caraway and garlic cloves in a mortar.

Combine it with coriander, pepper, wine and salt.

Pierce meat well so it will marinade correctly.

Place pork in wine and leave it over night.

Preheat oven to 450 and then put pork and wine in.

Lower oven to 350.

Baste pork with wine every 15 minutes until well done, about 2 hours.

Combine wine and drippings from the pork with chicken broth.

Simmer for 15 minutes and serve over pork.

To a peck of fine flour take six pounds of fresh butter, which must be tenderly melted, ten pounds of currants, of cloves and mace, 1/2 an ounce of each, an ounce of cinnamon, 1/2 an ounce of nutmegs, four ounces of sugar, one pint of sack mixed with a quart at least of thick barm of ale (as soon as it is settled to have the thick fall to the bottom, which will be when it is about two days old), half a pint of rosewater; 1/2 a quarter of an ounce of saffron. Then make your paste, strewing the spices, finely beaten, upon the flour: then put the melted butter (but even just melted) to it; then the barm, and other liquours: and put it into the oven well heated presently. For the better baking of it, put it in a hoop, and let it stand in the oven one hour and a half. You ice the cake with the whites of two eggs, a small quantity of rosewater, and some sugar.

Cake:

2c--flour	3/8 lb--butter	2 cup -- currents	1/4 tsp -- cloves
1/4 tsp -- mace	1/2 tsp -- cinnamon	1/4 tsp -- nutmeg	1/2 Tbspn -- sugar
2 Tbspn -- sack	1 tsp -- dried yeast	2 oz--water	1 Tbspn -- rosewater
8 threads--saffron

Icing:

Mix flour, spices and sugar together well.

Add saffrom to rosewater and mix well.

Combine yeast and water.

Melt butter and add to flour mixture.

Combine sack, yeast and rosewater.

Add to flour.

Mix until smooth.

Add currents.

Pour into 10" round cake pan and bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

Remover from pan and spread with a thin layer of icing.

Let cool on a cake rack.

First take raisins of Courance, or else other fresh raisins, and good ripe pears, or else good apples, and pick out the cores of them, and pare them, and grind them, and the raisins in a mortar, and do then to them a little sweet cream of milk, and strain them through a clean strainer, and take ten eggs, or as many more as will suffice, and beat them well together, both the white and the yolk, and draw it through a strainer, and grate fair white bread, and do thereto a good quantity, and more sweet cream, and do thereto, and all this together; and take saffron, and powder of ginger, and canel, and do thereto, and a little salt, and a quantity of fair, sweet butter, and make a fair coffin or two, or as many as needs, and bake them a little in an oven, and do this batter in them, and bake them as you would bake flaunes, or crustades, and when they are baked enough, sprinkle with canel and white sugar. This is a good manner of Crustade.

2/3 cup -- raisins	3--pears or apples	1/2 tsp -- cinnamon	1/4 tsp -- ginger
pinch--saffron	1/2 tsp -- salt	3 large--eggs	4 Tbspn -- breadcrumbs
1/2 cup -- whipping cream	5 Tbspn -- butter	9"--pie crust	2 tsp -- sugar
1 tsp -- cinnimon

Blend all ingredients except cinnimon and sugar.

Bake at 375 for an hour.

Turn out onto a wire rack.

Combine cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle over hot loaf.

Let cool and then serve.

From the haunch of veal take the lean meat and slice it into long thin slices; stroke them with the back of the knife so that they do not break; right away sprinkle them with salt and ground fennel, then on the meat spread marjoram and parsley, with finely diced lard, and sprinkle aromatic herbs over the slices and immediately roll them up and put them on a spit near the fire, taking care that they do not dry out too much. When they are cooked serve them immediately to your guests.

1 lb--lean veal; leg	1 Tbspn -- salt	1 Tbspn -- ground fennel	1 Tbspn -- fresh marjoram
3 Tbspn -- fresh parsley	1 Tbspn -- lard	1 Tbspn -- fresh basil	1 Tbspn -- fresh savory
1 Tbspn -- fresh thyme

Slice the meat into strips along the grain of the meat.

Chop fresh herbs coarsely.

Combine salt and fennel and sprinkle over meat.

Spread marjoram and parsley over meat.

Dot the meat with lard.

Place the rest of the herbs on the meat.

Roll the slices in the direction of the grain.

Place carefully in a pan with the open side of the roll down.

Roast at 350 until done, about 45 minutes.

1 cup -- dry cottage cheese

4 Tbspn -- sugar

4 large--egg whites

2 Tbspn -- sugar

Combine cheese, first sugar and egg.

Spoon into a hot frying pan that is lightly oiled. They should be like small pancakes, maybe 2" in diameter.

Fry until brown, about 1 minute per side.

Remove from pan and spoon out some more.

Sprinkle with sugar and serve.

To make gingerbrede. Take goode honey & clarifie it on the fere, & take fayre paynemayn or wastel brede & grate it, & caste it into the boylenge hony, & stere it well togyder faste with a sklyse that it bren not to the vessell. & thanne take it doun and put therin ginger, longe pepper & saundres, & tempere it vp with thin handes; & than put hem to a flatt boyste & strawe theron suger, & pick therin clowes rounde aboute by the egge and in the mydes, yf it plece you, &c.

1 cup -- honey	1 cup -- breadcrumbs	1 1/2 tsp -- ground ginger	1/4 tsp -- pepper
1/4 tsp -- saunders	1 Tbspn -- sugar	30--whole cloves

Heat honey until it boils and turn it down to a simmer for 3 minutes.

Add breadcrumbs and mix until uniform.

Remove from heat and add ginger, pepper and saunders.

Leave it to cool so you can handle it.

Knead the mixture to mix everything well.

Place it in a cake pan and press it down.

Sprinkle with sugar and place cloves around the edge and middle in a decorative pattern.

Cover the pan with wax paper and let it sit at least over night.

Cut it into pieces. Do not eat the cloves.

Take fine dry bread, or biscuit, and grind up well. Take a ratl of this, and three quarters of a ratl of fresh or preserved dates with the stones removed, together with three uqiya of ground almonds and pistachios. Knead all together very well with the hands. Refine two uqiya of sesame-oil, and pour over, working with the hand until it is mixed in. Make into cabobs, and dust with fine-ground sugar.

2 2/3 cup -- bread crumbs	1 lb--pitted dates	1/3 cup -- ground almonds	1/3 cup -- ground pistachios
7 Tbspn -- sesame oil	to coat--icing sugar

Use a blender to combine everything but the sugar.

Roll into balls, about 1".

Roll balls in sugar.

These keep well and are wonderful.

To make powdered hippocras, take a quarter of very fine cinnamon selected by tasting it, and half a quarter of fine flour of cinnamon, an ounce of selected string ginger, fine and white, and an ounce of grain of Paradise, a sixth of nutmegs and galingale together, and bray them all together. And when you would make your hippocras, take a good half ounce of this powder and two quarters of sugar and mix them with a quart of wine, by Paris measure. And note that the powder and the sugar mixed together is the Duke's powder.

4 oz--cinnamon sticks	2 oz--ground cinnamon	1 oz--ground nutmeg	1 oz--ground galingale
1 oz--ground ginger	1 oz--grains of paradise

Crush the cinnamon sticks to a coarse consistency and mix it with the powders.

This is combined with sugar to make the Duke's Powder.

And mixed in hot wine when you want hippocras.

Heat wine until it is close to a boil but do NOT actually boil the wine.

Add powder and sugar.

Continue to cook, stiring, until all of the sugar is disolved.

You may strain the drink through a cloth if you like or just let the powders settle to the bottom.

2 lb--lean beef	1/4 Tbspn -- cloves	1/4 Tbspn -- saffron1/2	t--pepper
1 Tbspn -- ginger	1 Tbspn -- onion juice	1 Tbspn -- green coriander	1 Tbspn -- mint
1/4 cup -- parsley	2 Tbspn -- vinegar	1/2 Tbspn -- salt	enough--oil for sauteing
8 slices--bread [various]

Chop meat in a food processor to a coarse grind.

Mix everything except bread and oil.

Heat oil at medium in a large frying pan.

Cook for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Serve on bread.

1/2 lb--ground almonds	4 cup -- water	2 cup -- rice	1/4 lb--slivered almonds
2 Tbspn -- sugar	1 Tbspn -- salt

Combine ground almonds and water.

Let sit for an hour.

Add all but slivered almonds.

Cover and bring to a boil.

Simmer 20 minutes.

Take off the heat and set aside for 30 minutes.

Fry slivered almonds in a lightly oiled frying pan on low until golden.

Top rice with fried almonds and serve.

Take nine pints of warm fountain water, and dissolve in it one pint of pure White-honey, by laving it therein, till it be dissolved. Then boil it gently, skimming it all the while, till all the scum be perfectly scummed off; and after that boil it a little longer, peradventure a quarter of an hour. In all it will require two or three hours boiling, so that at last one third part may be consumed. About a quarter of an hour before you cease boiling, and take it from the fire, put to it a little spoonful of cleansed and sliced Ginger; and almost half as much of the thin yellow rind of Orange, when you are even ready to take it from the fire, so as the Orange boil only one walm in it. Then pour it into a well-glased strong deep great Gally-pot, and let it stand so, till it be almost cold, that it be scarce Luke-warm. Then put to it a little silver-spoonful of pure Ale-yest, and work it together with a Ladle to make it ferment: as soon as it beginneth to do so, cover it close with a fit cover, and put a thick dubbled woollen cloth about it. Cast all things so that this may be done when you are going to bed. Next morning when you rise, you will find the barm gathered all together in the middle; scum it clean off with a silver-spoon and a feather, and bottle up the Liquor, stopping it very close. It will be ready to drink in two or three days; but it will keep well a month or two. It will be from the first very quick and pleasant.

10 pints--water	1 Tbspn -- sliced fresh ginger	1/2 Tbspn -- ale yeast	1 pint--honey
1/2 Tbspn -- orange peel [no white]

In a large pot bring the water and honey to a boil.

Continue to boil, slimming periodically, for 2 1/2 hours.

Add ginger and boil another 1/2 hour. You should now have about 8 pints of liquid left.

Add orange peel and boil another minute or so.

Let cool to luke warm then add yeast.

Cover and leave for 2 to 3 days.

Bottle in good bottles - I suggest beer bottles because there will be a lot of pressure from carbination.

Refrigerate after 3 days. Be careful about exploding bottles.

Leave it for several days. It gets better with time and keeps a couple months.

Combine and bring to a boil. Boil until it thickens.

You may serve this while it is still hot or allow it to cool. It's a strong drink and you'll want it in small quantities. As you can see, it was believed to be a medicinal drink.

Foods From the Past All original text is public domain, but the modern interpretation is © 1999 by Timothy Emil Birch

Cake:

Icing:

Foods From the Past
All original text is public domain, but the modern interpretation is © 1999 by Timothy Emil Birch