So I had a great idea for doing a body of work on organ meats.  Due to real life, this project got about half way done before I switched projects in midstream.  I had to go from really LARGE body of work project to a singular item.  Mostly due to injury, as I just could not stand for hours in the kitchen trying awesome new recipes.  Don’t ask, unless you want to know about a sprained butt.  No really, I sprained my butt in a very round about way.

Despite injuries and bruised ego, this is one of my more favorite types of organ meat recipes.  Well not organ meat but not a food group most modern people would consider.

A Baked Meat Royal

Chicken and Marrow Meat Pie

Translation:

A baked Meat Royal,  Take & make little coffins, & take Chickens seethe: or pork seethed, & small hacked; or of them both: take coves, maces, cubebs, & hack withal, & mix it with crumbled Marrow, & lay on sugar enough; then lay it in the coffin, & in the middle lay a gobbet of marrow, & sugar round about, and let bake; & this is for supper.  (Renfrow, Vol. 1, pp. 79)

Ingredients:

Dough (for the coffin)

4 ckicken thighs

roasted marrow (about 1/4 C)

1/4 C sugar

1 tsp each cloves, mace, cubebs

Redaction:

I used 4 chicken thighs (with skin and bones).  These were cooked in water till done.  Save the broth for the base of a chicken stock and chicken soup!!  I can not stress this enough.  The medieval mentality saved and used everything.  Resources were scarce to everything was used. If you want to make this really awesome you can cook the chicken in wine for a wine based broth later.

Here is the cooked chicken with spices, sugar and marrow.

Pull the chicken into bite sized pieces, removing the skin and bones, and mix in the spices.

Next add in the marrow.

I know this looks a bit yuck! But marrow is a wonderful meaty fat that just melts on the tongue.  A must try for any medieval cook!

Next add the sugar.

Then mix well!

For the modern palate, these flavors are just going to make your head spin.  We have sweet and sweet spices with meat and fat.  This is just so weird to most of us, but in period this was considered a real delicacy.  Give it a try, you may find this flavoring just your thing!

Finally place the meat into a “coffin”.

Now my coffin is not truly period.  A period coffin is just dough.  I lined a pie pan with dough, filled with meat then added a crust with vents for steam to escape from.

I did this as an experiment for a hand held but round shape modern eyes are more use to.  These pies are also miniature, fitting into the palm of one hand.

I have to admit…I also have dough issues.  Dough and I just aren’t on good terms.  I can make really tasty dough, I just can’t make a dough so stiff it stands on it’s own and asks for my car keys.  I’m still working on this!  Don’t let my inability to build a true “coffin” keep you from experimenting!  Keep on keep on with the dough and the building.

Here is the cooked pie.

As you can see the crust is overly crumbly (but very very tasty) while the meat and spices are well cooked and blended.  This was an amazing tasting dish.  I just could not get over how much I enjoyed eating this.  I could eat 1/2 of these minis for any one meal (breakfast, lunch, or dinner) and feel that I had been treated to an awesome meal.