It’s that time of year again. Candlemas and Kingdom A&S. Which means I’m busy….busy busy. Yes, after this I’ll be having even MORE recipes. However here is one more Roman until I can get back the regular scheduled cooking and not writing of research papers on chickens and peacocks. Not to worry, you’ll be seeing those soon!
Pine-nut Sauce for Medium-Boiled Eggs
Translation:
For medium-boiled eggs: Pepper, lovage, and soaked pine nuts. Pour on honey and vinegar; mix with garum.
Ingredients:
Medium-boiled eggs 1 tsp pepper 1 cup pine-nuts
3 Tbs. honey ¼ cup vinegar 1 tsp garum
Giacosa, pg. 47
Redaction:
First gather all the ingredients into one area. This step always helps especially if short on time!
Soak the pine-nuts, the time is dependent upon the whim of the cook.
This is after 24 hours.
After soaking the pine-nuts, separate the nuts from the vinegar,
and grind the pine-nuts into a paste,
pour the vinegar back into the pine-nuts adding honey, garum and pepper.
When I did this recipe the very first time, I did not read carefully enough on soaking the pine-nuts. The first time I did this recipe I used a spice grinder for the pine nuts. They were un-soaked and chewy. The next few times I made this, I soaked the pine nuts for 24 hours, which caused them to swell slightly and become soft and grindable. These I ground in a mortar and pestle. Note of caution, when grinding in a mortar and pestle…don’t put the full cup of pine nuts to be ground in it, unless the mortar is very very large. I had to do a half cup per grinding so that I was not having to stop and pick up falling nuts every other moment. The vinegar soaked nuts were very squishy and formed a nice paste though by hand grinding the pine nuts I did not get as smooth a paste as I really had hoped for. I believe that in Roman times the kitchen slave(s) would have done nothing but this one task to smooth perfection. I did not have the luxury of grinding one item for 20 minutes for smoooooooooth perfection. I like how I did the grinding, it just took a lot longer then I wanted to!
The peppers used were peppercorns, of various colors, ground in a mortar and pestle.
I didn’t see the need to go with one type of peppercorn over another. I like them all! The honey in period would probably have been a wildflower variety; unfortunately I did not have access or a good supplier for Italian wildflower honey. I had to do with the Costco honey. The vinegar originally used was a common variety apple cider vinegar. I believe that wine vinegar would be used for a richer taste, there for I did this batch with a red wine vinegar. (I was out of the rose hip wine vinegar).
The finished tasty mix!
The dish I used to mix everything together really is to dark for a vinegar and peppercorn mix. However give this a try. You will be amazed!
The eggs are organic, the chicken type that laid them unmentioned at the grocers.
My over all impression of the sauce over boiled egg is a rich, sweet, salty taste that highly complements an egg’s natural mildness. Very good if not what I would call a common taste. Some thing to grow into, I’m sure!