Category Archives: Elizabethan

Potage Dyvers (Venison or Beef in Wine and Spices)

Potage Dyvers (Venison or Beef in Wine and Spices)

 007 (2)

Translation:

Noblys of the venison. Take the Nobles of Venyoun, and cutte him small whyle they been raw; than take Freysshe brothe, Watere, and Wyne, of eche a quantyte, an powder of Pepir an Canel, and leth them boyle to -gederys tyl it be almost y-now (done); an thene caste powder Gynger, an a lytil venegre an Salt, an sesyn it vp (up), and then serue it forth in the maner of a gode potage. (Renfrow, pp. 465)

This is almost exactly as it is in the book Take a !000 Eggs, except I had to make a couple of spelling adjustments. It’s not your eyes playing tricks.

Ingredients:

4lb Venison or beef

1 bottle red wine

1 tsp each salt, pepper, ginger and Chinese cinnamon.

1/2 C balsamic vinegar

 

Redaction:

This is pretty straight forward for a medieval recipe. I made a couple of changes because…I had to. For the first change I had to use beef instead of venison. I no longer have a venison supplier. I am very sad!

001

So I took half a brisket I had in the freezer. (I was running out of room) and trimmed off most of the huge chunks of fat cutting the meat into slightly larger than bite sized pieces. The meat, being a brisket, is very tough but very tasty. A long slow cook will not only make the meat very tender but also shrink the meat just a little.

002

I didn’t use quite a full bottle of wine, but you can.  You can also go as low as 2 cups.  The spices are to my taste and the balsamic vinegar is a very good sweet balsamic.  Go for the best you can in spices and vinegar.  The better the ingredients the better the taste!

Since I was doing a long slow cook, I decided to add all the ingredients instead of doing the ginger and vinegar at the end while using a slow cooker instead of doing a straight up boil for thirty minutes.

005

The meat cooked in the wine/spices/vinegar for 4 hours. The meat came out very tasty with just the right amount of spice to wine infusion. So yes, I took a few liberties however I think that in a period situation this dish could have been set over a low fire to cook for many hours if there was farm work to be done.

007 (2)

If this meal was for the lord and a feast, then yes, the meat would need to be cooked very quickly and part of the spices, in lower concentration because ginger is STRONG. I also prefer the taste of wine to vinegar though the slight vinegar bite was night from the long slow cooking. So in conclusion, have fun and experiment!

 

Daryoles (Marrow and Fruit Pies)

Being on a bit of a weird kick, I made a fruit pie with marrow.  The cooking sometimes looks…odd, but this is another trust me recipes.  It is very good!  Not a normal day treat but something to try out some day.

Daryoles Marrow and Fruit Pies

interior of pie

Daryoles. Take wine & fresh broth, cloves, maces & marrow, & powder of ginger, & saffron, & let boil together, & put thereto cream,…& yolks of eggs, & mix them together, & pour the liquor that the marrow was seethed in thereto; then make fair coffins of fair paste, & put the marrow therein, & mince dates, & strawberries in time of year, & put the coffins in the oven, & let them harden a little; then take them out& put the liquor thereto, & let them bake, & serve. (Renfrow, Vol. 2, pp. 551)

Ingredients:

1/2 C wine

1/2 C broth

1/2 tsp ea ground cloves, mace, and ginger

pinch saffron

Marrow (from one batch of bones…roughly 1/2 to 2/3 C.)

1/2 C Marrow fat broth (you’ll understand when you cook the marrow)

1/2 C Cream

2 egg yolks

2/3 C de-stoned ground dates

2/3 C de-stoned ground apricots

 

Redaction:

I gathered the ingredients together, having done a rough chop on the dates and apricots.  Yes the recipes calls for strawberries, I had to improvise as strawberries were out of season.

Spices and ingredients

Then I put broth into a pot with wine.

wine with brothThe broth was made from the previous marrow dish in which the chicken was par-boiled in wine and water.  I saved a little of the broth from the last dish for this one.  It helps to be a little prepared.

Next the spices are added to the broth.

cloves mace ginger safron in broth

Next comes the marrow.

marrow to spiced brothThen boil it a little and add add cream.

everything stirred looking grossThen add eggs, stirring well.

egg yolk to marrow brothAt this point it looks…weird and not tasty.  So what do we do?  We add well ground up dates and apricots.

minced dates with brothMix this up well.  Very very well.  If the filling is a little to soupy, let the mixture cook down a little.  Once the mixture is creamy but not soupy, pour into your bottom crust.

everything in the crustAdd the lid.

top crust onDon’t forget to add slits to let the escaping steam out and not deform the crust top.

New pics 121119a 086I’m afraid I don’t have the perfect slice of the fruit marrow pie.  Just an inside look with a very crumbly crust.

interior of pieThe pie was tasty though not my favorite.  The pie was more savory then sweet, when I expected sweeter then savory.  The flavors were magnificent though.  Don’t pass this up because there is no sugar, try this for a new taste!

 

The Kraken: A Orignal Subtlety

The Kraken

An Original Subtlety

By Honorable Lady Sosha Lyon’s O’Rourke

The Kraken

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/09/carta-marina/#slideid-412001

Kraken crawling

Dining in the Tudor and Elizabethan era was a time of great merriment and fabulous feasting, which sought to display a host’s wealth and dining creativity.  I have undertaken an original subtlety depicting the great ocean monster “The Kraken”.  This subtlety is based on historic president where subtleties could be great works from rolling pachyderm to re-skinned peacocks.

It is the nature of this creature to swallow men and ships, and even whales and everything else within reach. It stays submerged for days, then rears its head and nostrils above surface and stays that way at least until the change of tide. Now, that sound we just sailed through was the space between its jaws, and its nostrils and lower jaw were those rocks that appeared in the sea, while the lyngbakr was the island we saw sinking down. However, Ogmund Tussock has sent these creatures to you by means of his magic to cause the death of you and all your men. He thought more men would have gone the same way as those that had already drowned and he expected that the hafgufa would have swallowed us all.  (Orvar – Oddr)

I.  A History of Subtleties

Subtleties are works of art in food and story telling.  A subtlety should be, per Hunter, an intermission with in a meal between courses that entertains while heavily disguising the origins of the main ingredients.  Fooling, or tricking the eye into seeing the unusual and mythical, while using every day food items in unique ways, subtleties promoted thought and good will towards the host.

 Hunter notes the coinciding of the change of venue for the banquet course (to another room) to promote conversation in the fifteenth century with the publication in the vernacular of Platos Symposium (defined as a meeting to exchange ideas after a meal… The qualities of wit and wisdom associated with the literary …appear to metamorphose sotil into the more modern sense of subtle through association with the sweetmeat course (Hunter 1986:38,39). Witty conversation was to work with the sweetmeats or confectionery subtleties to help the diner digest physically and mentally. Once the effects of wonder wear off, the need for quick wit, humor and subtle sayings represent the transfer of ingenuity from the chef to the guests. The subtlety is creative and prompts creativity; if the chef can make it, the guest should be able to comment on it. Unlike with many other performance genres, the subtlety relies on ingenuity from both the audience and the director in order to be successful. It also depends on a unique form of ingenuity: playing with nature. (Martins)

 An early example, written by an Egyptian caliph in the eleventh century describes from one Islamic feast day a hundred and fifty seven figures and seven table sized palaces made of sugar.   Another set of notations of subtleties, occurring from the book Satyricon, by Petronius, wrote that a Roman feast dinner included a rabbit that had been made to look like the mythological winged horse Pegasus.  From the 1300 through 1500, subtleties, also known as sotelite in English and an entremet in French, became popular for royal and noble displays as stiff competition between England and France developed during the fourteenth and fifteenth century.  (The Renaissance cornered the market on subtleties; art work in food started much earlier).  (Mintz, pp. 88/Martins. p 12)

These feats of food were put on by the nobility and very wealthy. These fleeting art works were for display and thought not for a monetary gain at first sight or taste.

The intention of a subtlety is to create an experience rather than something that can be given as a gift or sold.  Unlike permanent displays of power, the subtlety it not durable, it spoils, it has a fixed life-span that ends when it is eaten. The subtlety also enters the dining hall in motion: the set itself is wheeled in, fire blazes out of the mouths of beasts and the actors are put into life-like poses intended to be animated by other performers or the imagination. (Martins)

Monarchs put the feasts to good use as ways to make a vivid point, i.e. the inducing of guests to pledge allegiance to a planned crusade.  An example of this was when Philip the Fair, at the Feast of the Pheasant, showcased a giant Saracen entering the feasting hall leading an elephant (there is question about the edibility of said pachyderm), with a knight (Oliver de La Marche) playing the role of the captive Eastern church. (Wheaton, pg. 8/Martins).  Another example of the royal use of subtleties was by Henry VIII.  George Cavendish wrote about a feast sponsored by the great Tudor king in such waxing enthusiasm for the feast “…I do both lack wit in my gross old head and cunning in my bowels to declare the wondrous and curious imaginations in the same invented and devised.” (Henisch, pp. 236/Martins)  The feasting was a display to move men and women into wondrous thoughts, glossing over a harsh reality of court life or a grand and compelling gesture.

A subtlety could be simple items such as a redressed peacock on proud display or stuffed fowl riding roast piglets; or as elaborate as a full pastry castle with trees containing candied fruit, glazed and stuffed mythical beasts, and musicians.  Allegorical scenes were not uncommon, with themes like “Castle of Love” or “Lady of the Unicorn”.  A subtlety could made of just the edible, such as a re-skinned peacock, or as a combination of paper machie and lumber to accent the food in the display.  These decorative subtleties were for powerful displays and less about eating, with the production being done by carpenters, metals smiths and painters and very little with chefs. Horace Warpole describes a banquet given in honor of the birth of Duke of Burgundy, where the centerpiece was of wax figures moved by clock work at the end of the feast to represent the labor of the Dauphiness and the happy birth of the heir to the monarchy. (Martins, pp 2/Craig, pp. 17)

Creating a display:

Creating a display seem to rely heavily on allegorical content from myth, fantasy or biblical content, such as the Pegasus from myth at the Roman table (Scully, pp. 107) or Lady of the Unicorn.  Part of the thought process that goes behind making a display was how each animal was viewed in allegorical terms.

“…the horns of an antelope might get caught in a bush in

the same way humans might get caught in a life of sin. The nightingale represented love, the elephant implied chastity, the ape, ludeness and lust and the peacock, the purity of someone who never turns to sin.” (Martins)

The main display item, per these views, should play upon the strength of the subjects or as humorous joke on the subject presented.

Menu:

The menu for adding a subtlety could be during the end of a course or at the end of a meal.  One menu described a 5 course meal with a crown subtlety at the end.

“…At each end, outside the green lawn, was an enormous pie, surmounted with smaller pies, which formed a crown. The crust of the large ones was silvered all round and gilt at the top; each contained a whole roe-deer, a gosling, three capons, six chickens, ten pigeons, one young rabbit…

To serve as seasoning or stuffing, a minced loin of veal, two pounds of fat, and twenty-six hard-boiled eggs, covered with saffron and flavoured with cloves.

(www.elizabethan-era.org.uk)

This display put on for an honored guest shows the detail and extravaganza that went into each dish and for the visual delight for the guests, not only for the bodily need of food but also for the intellectual delight and discussion by the guests long after the meal had been consumed.

II. The Kraken Subtlety

This subtlety is done in the style of the Elizabethan subtlety.  I fell in love with the subtleties listed in the medieval cookbooks describing how a the front of a chicken was married with the back of a fish forming a cockatrice.

The Amphisien Cockatrice looks much like a cock with a long serpent-like tail ending with a second head. It is a rare charge in heraldic achievements.

http://yourarmiger.com/?p=2290

When I decided on the Kraken, I wanted something both medieval and original.  Some that combined several different foods that would not normally be touching let alone combined into one dish to create a spectacle type of food.

The Kraken, whose name derives from the Norse Draken, is an ancient maritime creature ranging from the cold northern coast of Norse legend to the warm seas of Greece.  The Kraken could be a sea dragon or a serpent with many legs, possibly even resembling an island, which could plunge to great deeps without warning and drag a large ship down. In the tales of the Kraken, ships were dragged into the sea by arms as long and massive as a ships mast.).  The Kraken has also been described as a crab-like creature that caused whirlpools when sinking to the depths. (Orvar-Oddr, pp 1/ancient-origins/mythicalrealm)

Erik Pontoppidan, the Bishop of Bergen and renowned naturalist, insisted that the Kraken was “the largest and most surprising of all the animal creation” lending credence that this creature actually existed and not the imagination of ship wrecked sailors with water starved fevered imagination. (mythicalrealm)

Aspects of the legends in common are that the creature was huge, huge enough to pull down a full sized ship with a complete and armed crew. Roughly, the size of an island, there could be tentacles that resembled those of a squid and possibly legs of a crab or a sea serpent.  All in all, a combination to give nightmares when sailing the briny sea.

My subject choice is fairly unique.  I chose the Kraken, not on whim but on sight.  Let me explain.  I saw this incredible unique dish and had a period epiphany on what might have been served as a subtlety dish.  I was moved and possessed to see this project completed to perfection both in looks and in taste.  I had the cooking skill and knew where to gather the ingredients.  The paper came together through various research projects and books.

 

Period Ingredients:

If this subtlety was served in England, the Turkey breed would be the Black Spanish (Spanish turkey) or a Black Norfolk (English Turkey).   (Albc-usa)  The squid, which would be more common around the English Channel and SW of England and parts of Scotland, could have been used in period being far more common then the cuttlefish. (bristishseafishing.co.uk) The brown crab would have been used for their legs, instead of the smaller crabs which are both period and abundant but do not match the size of the common brown. (bristishseafishing.co.uk) For the shrimp portion, an English cook would have used the common prawn (Palaemon serratus) or their near kin Palaemon elegans, adspersus and longirostris also would have been used.  These prawns are differentiated only by small external details such as different segments or leg paddle shape.  These prawns and shrimp live in the same areas around England and are devoured with great appetite. (bristishseafishing.co.uk)

Each portion of the Kraken subtlety was cooked separately except the turkey, bacon then assembled into the creature before you.

 

Kitchen:

An Elizabethan kitchen included whole spits from which to turn oxen and pigs in as well as a host of chefs and underling to present a note worthy subtlety for the royal courts pleasure. This varies greatly from a modern kitchen, which is lucky to be able to roast a piglet in…one at a time.  Trying to prepare a feast is a multi-week task for cooking of many animals where on a feast day many animals could be cooked at one time in these huge roasting pits.

Redon insists that the first part of an evolved kitchen is the knife.  The knife is the first line in slicing, cutting, and chopping the variety of items necessary to prepare a feast.  Modern knives are less likely to go dull with the serrated edges, making the process of cutting and chopping easier then in period where a kitchen knife would need to be sharpened periodically.

Next was the mortar and pestle for grinding up spices, herbs, breads and meats for measured inclusions into a chef’s careful creative dish. (Redon)  Personally I prefer to use a mortal and pestle for small items; however due to the fact there is only me and not a kitchen of help I find a small coffee grinder or a small cuisinart helps with the items that require more then a tablespoon.

I have used both hand ground and machine ground spices for various cooking projects.  I find the hand ground spices are usually a little larger and rougher, than their machine ground counter part, but only marginally, depending on the grinding determination of the cook.

The plates for serving dinner on were of baked bread (trenchers) during Henry VIII and prior ages. During Elizabeth’s reign, her plates were of silver instead of bread trenchers, showing a higher level of dinnerware than previous kings.  I used metal pots and pans, trying to duplicate the temperature range of medieval cooking oven and stove with my modern gas stove.

 

Spices: 

Spices included but were not limited to ginger, cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise, long pepper, aspic, round pepper, cassia buds, saffron, nutmeg, bay leaves, galingale, mace, cumin, sugar, garlic, onions, shallots and scallions (Taillevent, pp, 230)  Spices not only add flavor and color but were also testaments to the wealth of the host adding to the sumptuousness of any given dish.  This dish will be relatively light in spices due to the recipes used.  This does not negate the importance of spices, but will place an emphasis on the natural flavors of the meat and aquatic items used.

 

Color:

Some times the color was more desirable then the flavor and the spicing used would over power the dish so much so as to be less sumptuous than a less colorful dish. Vivid colors, Wheaton explains, were highly prized and were often achieved at the expense of flavor.  Taillevent also suggested more common spices for green coloring such as parsley, sorrel and winter wheat still green.  Gold and silver leaf was brushed onto the surfaces of food i.e pastries for a greater visual impact. (Wheaton, pp. 15/Martins pp. 5)

 

III. Making of the Subtlety

The overall idea for the subtlety is a gorgeous piece of edible artwork meant to invoke the awe and terror of the sea.  As I attempted each section, I realized that there were cooking steps within the main cooking dishes, which had to be done such as cooking squid separately from the turkey wrapped in bacon therefore each item is a separate cooking experiment.

With this rough and varied description, I have assembled a subtlety that could have been served at a medieval feast with a nautical theme.   The body of the “beast” would have to be from a creature that was very large but still portable and a delicacy.  This to my mind could be a turkey brought forth from the New World on a very long and arduous voyage across the sea.  To denote the scary but mighty tentacles, I have opted to stuff the arse end of the turkey with octopus, as if the mouth were covered in large tentacles out of a sailor’s nightmare.  The legs I made from snow crab for both a tasty treat and scary mobility.   The back is covered in bacon to represent the island for which it might lure sailors onto its back before plunging into the depths drowning them.  Olives were used for multiple eyes to finish off the truly magnificent and scary of watery beasts.

Rosemary was used to mimic the seaweed and kelp of the deep ocean.  Salt was used at the bas to represent the sand and display the wealth of the nobility for whom the subtlety was created by.

 

The Kraken Recipe:

I have taken the liberty of combining a couple of excellent period recipes to build the Kraken.  I used the Scappi’s American Peacock recipe and the Roman Octopus recipe combined to form this very tasty and scary subtlety.

I took a turkey and wrapped it in bacon, weaving it tightly over the breast and legs to form a second skin that is not only allegorical but locks in the juices and flavor.

 

 wrapping turkey for kraken

 

I decided to incorporate shrimp for the eyebrows.  Unfortunately, the first round of eyebrows became exceedingly crispy after spending the same amount of time in the oven as the turkey.  I had to switch out the original “eyebrows” for less well-done bacon wrapped shrimp.  For the eyes I used oil cured black olives, which is another Italian food item.

While the turkey was cooking I went to work on the octopus and squid.  I was unsure how I wanted to use and display the squid but I didn’t want to use whole squid or whole octopus.  I would have preferred to have gotten a much much larger octopus or octopi, however there were no shops selling anything other then baby octopus.  I bought them knowing the octopus were to small for my imagined display but hoping to put them to use.  I did decide to get squid as they had longer tentacles which would be useful for the “mouth” of the Kraken.  I pulled out the beak of the squid opening them up and took off the heads of the octopus and the squid.

 

split squid

 

These were then dunked into boiling water.  This had the effect of curling both the squid and the octopi into much smaller and chewier bits with much stiffer arms.

IMG_0699

 

The crab legs were also dunked into boiling water so that they would be come edible.

The crab legs were placed on the plate.  The bacon wrapped turkey was then placed on top of the legs.  The olives were pinned into place with toothpicks and the squid arms formed both the lower portion of the Kraken mouth and an upper mustache on the turkey.

 

IMG_0701

 

IV. Period vs Modern

Period wise, the turkey would have been roasted in a large wood-fired oven instead of a gas stove either in a pottery or metal pan.  I actually used a large metal pan but not one made in a period fashion.  The bacon would have been homemade or bought from a supplier who made it in their kitchen.  I tried making homemade bacon using Master Gunther’s recipe.  I could not get the slices thin enough to actually wrap or drape properly, also my bacon was seriously odd tasting and way too salty.  The squid or octopus (depending on what was a fresh catch for the day) would be cooked in a metal or pottery pan.  Again, I used a non-period metal pan for this.  The same for the crab legs in cooking and market freshness.  The olives would have been brined on a farm then brought to the castle or nobles house (if the farm were in conjunction with the nobility or the market place if further away).  The olives I used were bought in a store, not exactly the same as a period market, and brined somewhere else for sale.  Hopefully, in a few years my own olive trees will be producing and I can experiment with brining and tasting then.

The display plate is hand thrown pottery in a period style.

 

V. Conclusion

My overall impression is that this type of project would have been a chef’s idea of how to both amuse and surprise the nobility with a grand feast for the eyes.  The visuals would cause both unquiet, due to the nautical scary tales told, and delight at the unique edibleness of the entire display.  If this display were served in period, the Kraken would do what it was suppose to.  The display would cause the guests pause while they contemplated the nuances of what was before their eyes.

When I first gathered the ingredients together, I was really nervous putting this piece together.  I had never put pieces together in a food item to create a towering monolith of frightful proportion.  I discovered that thin bacon just does not cover the turkey very well.  Thick cut bacon is needed to keep shrinking to a minimum and maximum coverage (larding) maintained.  Once I pulled the crab legs from the pot, things were much calmer.  The crab legs fit perfectly on the plate, the turkey looked awesome straight out of the oven and the octopi and squid had boiled very well.

This project was the most fun in making any subtlety I have yet tried.  The theme is tasty, unique, and odd.  Just the way I like it!  The overall project was not difficult, nor were the ingredients (other then the squid/octopus) hard to acquire.  Overall, I would gladly do this project again.

Works Cited/Works Consulted:

Craig, E., (1953). English Royal Cookbook, Favorite Court Recipes. Hippocreen books.

Damerow, G., (2010). Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens.

Hieatt, C., Hosington, B, Butler, S. (1979). Pleyn Delit: medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks. University of Toronto Press.

Hunter, L., (1986) Sweet Secrets from Occasional Receipts to Specialized:  The Growth of a Genre; as cited in Banquetting Stuffe.  Edited by C. Anne Wilson. Edinburgh University Press.

Markham, G., (1986). The English Housewife. McGill-Queens University Press.

Martins, P. (1998). Subtleties, Power and Consumption: A Study of French and English cuisine from 1300-1500). Nyu.edu

McDonald, W., (2004). Recipes from Banquet dels Quatre Barres.

Orvar-Oddr saga

Redon, O., (1998). The Medieval Kitchen, Recipes from France and Italy. University of Chicago Press.

Renfrow, C., (1996). A Sip Through Time. Pg.113

Renfrow, C., (1998). Take a Thousand Eggs, A collection of 15th century recipes. 2nd edition.

Toussaint-Samat, M., (1992). History of Food. Barnes & Nobles.

The Four Elements of Fire, Joachim Beuckelaer 1569

The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570). Translated by Scully., T.,  University of Toronto Press.

The Viandier of Taillevent , ed. Terence Scully,(University of Ottawa Press, 1988).  As present by http://www.reference.com/browse/subtlety and by Patrick Martins, nyu

The Vianderi of Taillevent., (1998) presented in “A Collection of medieval and Renaissance Cookbooks).

The Well-Stocked Kitchen, Joachim Beuckelaer, 1566

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/89/ca/80/89ca809248a0a901d1ab824dcca82b98.jpg

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/09/carta-marina/#slideid-412001

http://www.angelfire.com/ia3/kraken/myth.index.html

http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/browse/D4.HTM

http://www.mythicalrealm.com/creatures/kraken.html

http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-europe/legendary-kraken-00267

http://www.reference.com/browse/subtlety

http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-banquet-feast.htm

http://www.godecookery.com/cookies/ingred.html

http://www.albc-usa.org/

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_eggs_can_a_turkey_lay

http://thecoolchickenreturns.blogspot.com/2006/05/chickens-in-ancient-rome.html

Other Crab and Lobster Species

 

Appendix 1

Recipes

 

Translation:

Turkey:

To roast turkey cock and turkey hen, which in some places in Italy are called ‘Indian Peacocks.

A turkey cock and turkey hen are much bigger in the body then an ordinary peacock; and the cock can spread its tail like the peacock….Its breast is broad…its flesh much whiter and softer then that of the common peacock and it is hung for a shorter time then any similar fowl.

If you want to spit-spit roast it, do not let it sit for more then six days in winter before being drawn or in the summer for more then two.  Pluck it dry or in hot water…If you want to stuff it, use one of the stuffings of Recipe 115…stick it with fine lardoons of pork fat, although if it is fat, an stuffed there will not be any need for larding; you will have to stud it though with a few whole cloves.  Mount it on a spit and cook it slowly, that bird cooking much more quickly that a common peacock. (Scappi, pp. 208-209)

Stuffing:

…for every four pounds of beaten pork fat get two pounds of parboiled veal or goat-kid sweetbreads…four ounces of sugar, four egg yolks, a handful of herbs, nine not-too-ripe plums or else muscatel pears…instead of sweetbreads you can use calf, kid or pig brain, parboiled. (Scappi, pp. 193-194)

Ingredients:

1 small young turkey

1 lb chopped bacon ends

1 lb bacon strips

3 Tbs sugar

4 egg yolks

Herbs –sage, rosemary, basil, thyme, bruised laurel leaves, parsley – rinsed and chopped

½ lb sweetbread

Whole cloves for studding

 

Redaction:

I have cooked turkey on many occasions; however cooking a period recipes require a slight mind shift.  The stuffing is very different as the main ingredient is pork fat not bread crumbs and there is the inclusion of sugar to counter the savory, not to mention egg yolks instead of whole eggs.

The first thing to do is try to get a heritage turkey, from either a specialty shop or raising one.  Should a heritage turkey be unattainable, go for a young turkey NOT an old turkey.  The older the turkey, the tougher the meat.  Young and sweet is what you would want to serve to the pope or visiting royalty.

 

Turkey raw

Clean out the giblets and set to the side while gathering and mixing the stuffing ingredients.

My first task was to pick herbs from the garden.  A handful of or a few stems of each of the above listed herbs were gathered then rinsed well.

Herbs in strainer

Once they were patted dry, I de-stemmed the leaves from woody stalks.  The bay laurel I left intact but bruised the leaves for maximum flavor.  Everything else was then chopped and set to the side.

 chopped herbs

The sweetbread was chopped into small chunks and set to the side as well

 

chopped sweetbread

I used bacon ends for the pork fat instead of raw pork fat.

 chopped smoked bacon

I could have used rendered pork fat but I don’t think that is what was really used.  Rendered pork fat would drip and slide with out actually staying inside the turkey for flavoring, as it has a fairly low melting temperature.

I did not have slightly tart plums on hand.  I used dried un-sugared plums with the thought that in period if plums were not in season dried plums (prunes) would have been used instead.

dried plumsI also added more then 9 as I actually like the flavor of dried plums and wanted to offset the bacon ends with a bit more sweet.

chopped dried plums

The bacon ends were placed in a bowl.  From here I added the sweetbread, herbs, sugar, egg yolks, and dried plums.

Mixed all together

Then I mixed well.

final mix herbs

 

I was now ready to stuff a turkey.

stuffed raw turkey

The turkey was stuffed to just the right amount.

endview of bacon wrapped turkey

 

Once stuffed, I laid bacon strips across the top of the turkey breast “as fine lardoons” (Scappi, pp. 193-194) .  A fat turkey is subjective and I like bacon.  Bacon is never a bad thing when it comes to meat.  So bacon it was on top of the turkey in a criss-cross decorative patterning.

 roasted turkey on platter

The bacon will shrink so lay the bacon half over the first strip when laying out your pattern.  You’ll understand once you’ve cooked the bacon on top of the turkey once.

I did not have a spit handy so had to use a gas stove oven and a rack.  From here it was 2.5 hours at 350.

The turkey is incredibly moist while the stuffing is very meaty with savory and sweet flavorings.

Modern vs. Period:

I did not have a period turkey.  I could have bought a “heritage turkey” however the packaging did not say what “heritage” and I really wanted a Black Spanish or Black Norway.  I am just going to have to raise my own I think.

The herbs came from my garden and were mostly period.  The dried plums were from California and did not designate the type which means that a period type of plum was probably not used.  The eggs were organic but the sugar was regular table sugar instead of brown or turbinado; however fine sugar was known in Italy at this point.

 

Sugar- Considered very expensive till the late 1500.  Loaf sugar given the name due to the conical shape derivded from refining into a hard and very white refined form. Caffetin or Couffin (English equivalent of “coffer” or “coffin”) named for the form, packed in plaited leaves palm and from the city shipped from called Caffa in the Crimea.    Casson a very fragile sugar also considered the ancestor to castor sugar.  Muscarrat considered the best of all sugars, reported to be made in Egypt for the Sultan of Babylon.  The Italian name mucchera denotes that it had been refined twice. (Toussaint-Samat, pg. 553-555)

 

I did not have a wood fire spit on which to roast the now stuffed turkey.  I had to rely on the modern convenience of a gas stove and a roasting pan with a rack.  This does not give the wood flavor that a smoke fire would thought the smoked bacon helps with this; however the heat was maintained at a regular temperature which precludes charred spot or raw and undercooked areas.

 

Boiled Octopus

 

Translation:

For octopus: pepper, liquamen and laser. Serve

(Faas, pp. 341)

 

Ingredients:

1 octopus

2 TBS ground pepper corns

1 Tbs fish sauce

1 tbs garlic or 1 tsp of Asafoetida

 

Redaction:

The notes say that there are several ways in which octopus was cooked.  One of the fastest being, unskinned to preserve the beautiful colors to start.  The next cooking method would be to poach for no more then 5 minutes and allow to cool slowly or cook for hours in a very low temperature in white wine, water and herbs.  Garlic or asoafoetida could have been added to the water as well.

 

I gathered the octopus with asoafoetida and peppercorns (pre grinding) next to the stove.

baby octopi w spices

Next the spices were added to a pot of boiling water.

peppercorns in simmering water

Once the water and spices were at a rolling boil, I added the octopi.  Here are the cooked octopi.  They look very different from their raw state.

 cookied ocotpi

A Baked Meat Royal

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

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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.

New pics 121119a 078Here 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.

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Next add in the marrow.

New pics 121119a 081 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.

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Then mix well!

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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”.

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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.

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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.

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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.

 

 

 

Tomatoes in Period (Love Apples)

This recipe sort of took me by surprise.  I wasn’t expecting tomatoes to be in period.  I had bought into the history myth that tomatoes weren’t actually eaten until the late 1880’s. Sooooo not correct.  The research was fun doing this.  The recipe very tasty!

Tomatoes in Period:

 Translation:

Likewise they doe eate the Apples with oile, vinegre and pepper mixed together for sauce to their meat, even as we in these cold countries doe Mustard. (Gerard’s Herbal, pp. 81).

Ingredients:

3 C Cherry tomatoes

Olive oil

Vinegar

1 tsp Fresh ground pepper

 

Redaction:

This was a really easy recipe.  I gathered up all the ingredients.

tomatos and spices

 

Quarter the cherry tomatoes into a bowl.

sliced cherry tomatoes with viniger

Here I am adding the vinegar.  Next grind up the pepper corns.

 Ground pepper

Add the pepper then the olive oil.

add Olive oil

Mix together.

At the time I made this, I did not make any steak or chicken to put this on.  Instead I took one bite of this and ate the entire bowl as a wonderful tomato salad.  I have not tasted better.  Simple, elegant and so good!

 

Hippocras (Mulled Wine)

Spring has sprung!  Yet the nights can be a little bit on the cool side requiring a little warming.  I had this recipe on hand from the cold nights at Gulf Wars this year.  The wine, excellent blankets and a faux fur ankle length coat kept me warm during 2013 freezing nights!

Hippocras

 Translation:

To make hippocras, take a pottle of wine, two ounces of good cinnamon, half an ounce of ginger, nine cloves, and six pepper corns, and a nutmeg, and bruise them and put them into the wine with some rosemary flowers, and so let them steep all, night and then put in sugar a pound at least; and when it is well settled, let it run through a woollen bag made for that purpose: thus if you wine be claret, the hippocras will be red; if white, then of that colour also.

(Markham, 150)

Ingredients:

Chinese Ciniman stick

½ oz ginger peeled,

9 cloves

6 pepper corns

Nutmeg whole (1/8 tsp ground if not)

1 cup brown sugar

Optional:

Rosemary flowers if in season.  Not rosemary stems just the rosemary flowers.

 

Redaction:

I had to take a few liberties with this excellent recipe.  I used a descent wine but not a great wine.  Some thing that I could and would drink plainly but one that would not be ruined by adding of spices.

I put roughly 1 Tbl spoon of a hippocras blend that contains Saigon cinnamon, allspice, Ceylon and Madagascar cloves, blade mace and inner cardamom seeds.  My opinion is that each house or even each bar had a different recipe containing some the brewers favorite spices.  My spice blend did not have the ginger nor the pepper corns, though it did have mace instead of nutmeg as well as cardamom seeds and all spice.  I can live with this substitution!  I do plan on using the ginger and peppercorns as I love both flavors; a spiciness that combines very well with sweet.

Instead of letting the wine settle over night (as the event was an hour away when I made this) I settled for warming the wine to just at simmering (the bubbles just are forming) when I turned off the pot and added a Tbs of spicing and 1 cup of brown sugar.

I  used a combination of the hard Mexican sugar and regular brown sugar.  Roughly about ½ of each.  I have since made this recipe with just the hard Mexican brown sugar found in specialty sections or stores, with excellent results.   If you are unsure, do ½ and ½ or just regular brown sugar.

I let the wine sit for roughly 30-45 minutes, then cleared out the spices.  Once the spices were skimmed from the wine, I poured everything into a clean bottle and served.

This is really good to drink.  Almost to good, you can get very toasted on the hippocras and never realized you drank 2 bottles worth on a cold night!

 

A Minced Pie

So I was drooling over the holiday recipes that every one has coming out and had wanted to do a mincemeat pie for ages.  Well along comes a recipe I could not wait to try out going “Hey!  This looks close to period!”.  I was soooooo wrong.  The period recipe goes like this…

A Minced Pie

Translation:

Take a leg of mutton, and cut the best of the flesh from the bone, and parboil it well: then put to it three pound of the best mutton suet, and shred it very small: then spread it abroad, and season it with pepper and salt, cloves and mace; then put in good store of currants, great raisons, and prunes clean washed and picked, a few dates sliced, and some orange peels sliced: then being all well mixed together, put it into a coffin, or into divers coffins, and so bake them: and when they are served up open the lids, and strew store of sugar on the top of the meat, and upon the lid.  And in this sort you may also bake beef or veal; on the beef would not be parboiled, and the beef will ask a double quantity of suet.

Ingredients:

1 lb Beef

½ lb Suet

8 dates

10 prunes

½ C raisons

Peel from 1 orange

1 tsp Cinnamon

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ground mace

2 Tbs sugar

Pepper and salt to taste

 

Redaction:

Now my redaction is mostly spot on.  I had to make one (1) change to the recipe.  I had NO currents.  My favorite shop for odd or not common items was totally out for once, so I had to substitute an apple.  Apples are a) period and b) can be found in other recipes, so I’m thinking it’s a “close enough” type of thing.  Due try to use currents though if give the chance!

I gathered up all my dry ingredients.

Note I am missing the beef, the lard and the chopped up orange peels in this shot.  Those will be shown a little bit later on.

Chop the dates, raisins, and prunes very well.

Here I have the apple shown chopped.  It’s not finely chopped.  I wanted some texture but not huge mouth filling pieces.

Cook the beef and chop fine if it isn’t already.

This is regular hamburger meat, in small bits.  The meat used is a bit lean actually.  The recipe was not specific on cut of meat or fat content just that the meat be chopped fine.

Chop the suet very fine and put with the beef.

Now this is a little on the hard part to find, unless you have beef fat laying around, which I did.  I trimmed up a brisket a while back and froze the fat.  Here the fat is thawed and finely chopped.  You want this pretty small as the fat does melt a bit but not completely.  It’s not butter.

Add the spices EXCEPT the sugar to the meat and suet mixture.  The sugar is for another step waaaay down the line.

Chop up the currents, raisins, prunes and dates.

Let me show the orange peels here.

This is the peel from one orange.   For a bit of added flavor not dependent on just orange peel, I added the juice of the orange as well.  Not all of it but just what I could squeeze out by hand.

Chop the rind up very fine.

This adds a brighter taste over all, in my opinion even though the recipe doesn’t call for that.  So adding the juice is extra addition on my part.

My thoughts on why orange juice is not called for or “the juice of an orange”;  is that period oranges were mostly very bitter.  The skin though, with the proper application of sugar and spices, is tasty.  So period orange juice = bitter while a modest application of modern orange juice, cuts down on the amount of orange peel needed for that orange taste,helping the taste along.

Once the peel has been chopped fine.  Add this to the rest of the cooking ingredients.  Cook everything till the meat and lard are well done and everything has a chance to blend a bit.

Make the dough.

Here is where a bit of research is needed.  Meat pies with red meats were suggested to be in heavy duty rye pastry shells, which were probably never meant to be eaten but used as a cooking vessel that could handle the heavy meat inside and being heated and served more then once.  No recipe was given, a person just knew this when cooking, which makes the modern attempt an iffy prospect.  So a little experimenting had to be done.  I did a 1/3 rye/ 2/3 flour approach.  1 Cup of rye flour and 2 cups of regular white flour with butter water and salt.  Period wise this may not have been eaten but I like my crusts tasty!

Add everything together.

And here you have dough!  Amazing isn’t it! /grin

Roll out the dough.

If a large “coffin” was to be made then this would be forming a rectangle.  However there is some debate on if the pies were square or round.  I have seen wooden forming “pins” fairly wide and deep used to form pies however as this is food there are no left over’s to examine.  This I think is an either/or thing.  Either way may be right.

Form into a “coffin”.

Instead of a round forming pin I am using a ceramic ramekin. Be sure to oil or butter up the outsides!  It gets messy other wise.

Here is the peeled off dough that has been re-pinched back into a cup like shape.

Fill the cup with the mincemeat.

Next add a lid but do NOT seal the lid to the pastry cup.  The lids need to be detachable to add sugar in a later step.

I added a bit of decoration to the edges so they did not look so rough, by pressing the tines of a fork around the edges.  The three cuts in the middle are to help escaping steam not bulge out the dough and possibly make things expand to much out of shape.

Cook the un-sugared pies at 350 for 20 minutes or until the top turns golden brown.  When the pies have been removed from the oven, lift the lid and sprinkle with the sugar.

Replace the lid.

And here is the edible pie broken into and ready for munching on!

This is not a modern day mincemeat pie.  There is no juice to add or sugar at the start.  Period wise this is a meat pie with a few rare treats (dates oranges and sugar) to add to the festive occasion.  Any juice was produced by the meat and lard as a broth to be soaked into the pastry.

As for the pastry, well, I wasn’t very thrilled with it.  The pastry did the job of holding every thing in and cooking very well but it was not very tasty.  Next time I will make this with a flour pastry and add egg to the crust as that is suppose to make the period pastry edible per the period manuscripts.  We shall see!

 

Pumpes (Pork Meatballs)

I was asked to help do a Nobles Luncheon a little bit ago.  I like luncheons.  I do!  They are fun more intimate and one person can cook for 20 instead of arm wrestling a horde of kitchen help to feed 120 who will laminate the feast is cold and late instead of pondering the wonderful tasty period food that was devised for their enjoyment.  (That’s another story for another day though).  So the original cook had to bow out, leaving me in charge of finding a period foods from England and France.  These were not my specialized area of cooking research but I had a few ideas.  Then the kicker part came down.  The entire luncheon had to be of finger foods.  Drat!!!  There went my idea of pork loin studded with garlic, cooked in wine and rosemary.  Soo I had to hit my library of cook books and come up with period food that was both tasty while cold and easily held in hand.  Here is the meat portion of that luncheon.

Pumpes

Pork Meatballs

Translation:

Take and seethe a good gobbet of Pork, & not to lean, as tender as though may; then take them up & chop them as small as though may; then take take cloves & Mace, & chop forth withal, & also chop forth with Raisins of Corinth; then take them, & roll them as round as though may, like to small pellets & at two inches round, then lay them on a dish by themselves; then make a good almond milk & mix it with flour of rice,   let it boil well but look that it is clean running; & at the dresser, lay five meatballs in a dish, pour thine pottage thereon.  And if though will, set on every meatball a field-flower, & above strew sugar enough &  maces:  serve them forth.  And some men make pellets of veal or beef, but pork is best & fairest.

(Renfrow, pp 152-153)

Ingredients:

1 lb ground pork

½ tsp ground cloves

1 tsp mace

½ C currents

2 C low sodium beef broth

 

Redaction:

When I did this recipe for the first time I was not in my kitchen.  I was at another house with out all of my ingredients such as raisons/currents so I had to improvise.

Here everything is on hand.  Luckily you can’t hear me swearing at the lack of raisins while rummaging for a suitable substitute.

The spices look like they are in insufficient quantity here.  They aren’t.  Do NOT be tempted to over spice your pork balls.  Adding spices is easy but once added impossible to remove.

Here I put in about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of black raspberry jam.  A quick (and available) substitute for raisins that would at least give me an idea of what raisins would taste like in the finial cooking. (Remember this was the trial cooking here).  Improvising is very period so don’t be afraid of having to add or subtract if necessity dictates.

Now some people will say currents and raisons are the same.  They really aren’t.  Currents are much smaller and a bit sweeter; however if currents are out of your price range/feast budget go with raisins.  You’ll be much happier that way.  The first improvising was not the use of raisins in the recipe (though I did do that on the 2nd batch that was used in a Nobles Luncheon) I had to use a dark raspberry jam so that the sweet would permeate the meatballs.

I mixed the spices and the jam into the meatball.

I know…this looks so very very inelegant and totally not appealing.  This gets much much better soon!

Then the making of the small balls and setting them to the side, until all the balls were formed.

I made these about 1 to 1 1/2 inches large.  I wanted finger food that wouldn’t choke a horse and allow sampling of more then one type of sauce for dipping.

Once all the balls were made, I placed them in a pan that had beef broth.

Now the original recipe calls for cooking in an almond milk with rice, being not in my house I had to improvise again.  I had no ground almonds from which to make the milk or powdered rice to add to this.  Hence the beef broth per the cookbook.

The first time I did this recipe I used regular canned beef broth.  Wow…that stuff is so salty!!  Use LOW SODIUM beef broth.  I can not stress this enough for this recipe.  The first batch was still very tasty but the second batch with the low sodium blew the first batch out of the water in taste.  There was a pork/beef taste but the flavor of the spices and the raisins also came through and not just a mouth full of salty meatball. (No jokes please!)

Place the balls in the pan for cooking in the broth.  Make sure the broth comes about ½ way to ¾ of the way to the top.  You could cover the meatballs but I would not suggest that.

When small fissures show at the top of the meatballs you know they are ready to be turned over for about 3-4 minutes to finish cooking through.  A batch of about 10-12 at a time takes 8-10 minutes total to cook.  Test out one or two off the stove to make sure your broth is hot enough and the cook time is long enough just to get an idea.  Also a taste test is a good idea.  The cook should be smiling when they are cooking not starving!

The recipe also calls for sugar and mace toping.  Since I knew I would be serving this at a luncheon to a bunch of fighters and their consorts I decided to forgo the sweet topping and just have a dipping sauce on the side.  Manly men don’t do flowers and sugar after a hard day of hitting each other up.  They don’t.  They want meat and lots of it.  So I did a mustard dip and a plum jam dip and made the recipe by 6.

The balls were greeted with great enthusiasm as were the sauces.  The balls were not served the same day they were made but the next day and were still moist and very tasty for having been essentially boiled the previous day and served cold.

Savory Toasted Cheese (aka Cheese Goo)

Some recipes translate to the modern palate easier then others.  This recipe is one of the best I have ever tasted and made that I willingly take to parties or serve to my more culinary challenged friends.  You can not go wrong with this dipping sauce ever!

Savory Toasted Cheese

(aka Cheese Goo)

Translation:

Cut pieces of quick fat, rich, well tasted cheese, (as the best of Brye, Cheshire, & or Sharp thick Cream-Cheese) into a dish of thick beaten belted butter, that hath served forth sparages or the like, or pease, or other boiled sallet, or ragout of meat, or gravy of Mutton: and if you will, Chop some of the Asperages among it, or slices of Gambon of Bacon, or fresh-callops, or onions, or Sibboulets, or Anchovis, and set all this to melt upon a Chafing-dish of Coals, and stir all well together, to Incorporate them; and were all is of an equal consistence, strew some gross White-Pepper on it, and it it with toasts or crusts of white-bread.  You may scorch it at the top with a hot Fire-Shovel.

Cariadoc’s Miscellany http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/sauces.html#1

 

Ingredients:

1 wedge of Brie

1 stick of butter

1 bock of cream cheese (or farmer’s cheese)

¼ tsp of white pepper (or to taste)

 

Optional items:

Asparagus

Pease

Bacon

Anchovies

Mutton

Redaction:

Gather all of your ingredients into one spot.

Peel the rind from the Brie but do NOT discard.

Place butter into a metal pot and start to melt.

Add in the cream cheese and stir.

When the butter and cream cheese have started to incorporate

add in the brie and brie crust.

Keep stirring! Do not let the cheeses and butter burn.  If you wish add pepper.

At first the sauce looks totally weird and very unappealing.  It gets better!

With in moments of continual stirring the cheese goo turns into a smooth creamy tasty sauce!  You just have to push through the gooey ooey stage first.

For the optional items, the original recipe calls for  incorporating any of these tasty treats that catch your eye,  into the mixture then serving on toast.  My choice would be to fry up bacon then add into the recipe as well as peas and asparagus, though I did not do so for this display.  However that’s just me.  Mix and match as your taste buds desire.

I did use home made rye bread and sliced onions as a mode of transportation from plate to palate.  This is sooooo good!  This is a period dish that translates into a wonderful modern side dish for dipping.

Almond Milk

This post was originally put into another post which is well buried now.  Almond milk is not a stable to all soups, broths or drinks but it’s not uncommon either.  I thought a quick re-posting as a separate post for those who were searching would be helpful.

So a quick run down on how to make.  Take ground almonds (here they are with a french press but you can use just a regular cup or glass you would normally pour water into).


Next add water.  I use the ratio of 1 cup of almond meal to two cups of water.


Then drain off the milk liquid, known as almond milk.


Nutritious and mildly decadent in period.  SAVE the wet ground almonds.  They are still very useful.