Category Archives: Ingredients and Spices

Egg seperating guide, Ingredients and Spices

Seperating an egg

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This post is a bit of a quickie.  A tutorial on how eggs were separated, yolk from the white with out using a plastic egg separating device.  I know these an be bought in the store and are soooo convenient.  Period wise not so much.

Now this works with most eggs.  I’ve found organic eggs have a thicker shell and tend to fragment a bit more then the generic white egg.

The first step is to gather your egg(s) and a small bowl.  Place the bowl under the egg and give the egg a quick sharp tap on the shell (as close to the middle as possible).

Open the egg and let the whites fall into the bowl, while holding the yolk in one half of the shell.

 

In this picture there is a good bit of white left with the yolk.  Tip the half shell, and the whites should fall into the bowl leaving behind the yolk.  The 2nd half of the shell can be used to cut along the whites, severing between the yolk and whites.

The yolks are safe to use in a sealed container for about 24 hours in the fridge.  The whites can be frozen for a few weeks or left in a sealed container for 3-5 days.

This is the method I use for separating out an egg yolk and whites.  I have seen a spoon extract the yolk, but this requires a deftness I’m not quite comfortable with.  I’ve also seen a complicated use of shell spoon and cup to separate everything, a bit production and wasted motion.  (an entertaining video on Youtube though)  However just using the shell is probably the most simplistic and most period method.  If for some reason you are not comfortable with this, get an egg separator for those times when a recipe calls for until you’re willing to experiment with just using an egg shell and break a few eggs and yolks.

 

 

 

Ingredients and Spices, Rose Water

Rose Water

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Now we all know that rose water is an easy ingredient to buy.  However this was not always the case.  Rose water actually was made by hand back in the day.  There was no going to the corner HEB and buying rose water so strong you only needed half a cap or even a whole cap full to flavor the cookies, bread or fish.  Rose water use to be made from fresh roses.  Enough roses to fill an English garden or in this case the Sultan’s garden.  It took many many flowers…oh the many flowers!

Rose Water

 Translation:

Take a ratl of dried roses, and cover with three ratls of boiling water, for a night and leave it until they fall apart in the water.  Press it and clarify it, take the clear part…

(Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the Thriteenth Century)

Ingredients:

4 oz dried roses/rose petals

4 C boiling water

Redaction:

Now this recipe is renders less then 4 cups of rose scented/flavored water.

Ignore the wine and wine bottle, the main focus is the Pakistani roses used.  That bag…is 4 oz or rose petals.

I didn’t want to use American rose petals but rose petals as close to period as possible.  Hence the use of Pakistani dried roses.  The 4 ozs of rose petals were place into a largish pottery bowl.

These smell soooo good.  The scent of roses with out being cloying.

4 oz of dried roses takes up a LOT of room.  This is roughly about 4-5 cups of rose petals.   The dried roses will absorb a lot of water so plan accordingly with amount of rose petals to the amount of water.

After placing the rose petals in the bowl, I poured the boiling water over them, and mooshed (yes this is a technical term) the rose petals down into the water to make sure they are thoroughly saturated.

Let this mixture sit for 24 hours.

The next day, start removing the rose petals a handful at a time.

Squeeze each handful tightly multiple times, over the rose water bowl, till the handful of rose petals no longer leaks scented water.  Do this until all the rose petals are removed from the original bowl.  You can strain the rose water to remove any remaining petals.

You’ll get about 3-4 cups worth of rose water back.  Now pour into a bottle.

This rose water is NOT like the rose water found in the stores today.  This is actually the color of the roses not clear for starters.  This rose water is milder, much milder, then bottles we buy today.  Today’s rose water is so strong that only a cap full at a time can be used, if that, so that a dish is not over powered with the scent and taste of roses.  The home made rose water is a) closer to period and b) far less pervasive then today’s so more can be used.

Ingredients and Spices, Measurements

Measurements

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This post will be important.  A lot of Medieval Middle Eastern recipes do not have measurements, those that do have period measurements.  Here is a listing with modern conversions.

 

1 lb (Ratl) = 400 g

1 ounce (uqiya) = 3.3 grams

1 dinar = 4.25 grams

1 dirham = 3 grams

1 rub (a quarter of a measure called qadah = 23.5 deciliters or about 1 measuring cup (American)

1 danaq = .5 grams

(Perry, pp. 22)

 

These are the measurements used for making mead when measuring out the spices.  Ok roughly.  I used the American grams that measured more in the 3 gram ranger then then 4.25 gram range.

Deboning a Bird, Ingredients and Spices

Deboning a bird

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Let’s talk birds.  Small, medium or large.  NO feathers please!!  Unless the bird is a peacock or a pheasant with really gorgeous feathers, but that’s another post!  So back to birds.  There are a few recipes that require the whole bird, but the bones need to be removed.  Now modernly we could just use either chicken thighs, breasts or a combination with skin on.  Period wise, the whole bird was used and the bones were removed.  The bones were not trashed as we would do today but rather used to make a broth.  We’ll get to broth making another day.  Today it’s all about the bones!

Pick your bird.  I have pictures of small medium and large birds in various stages of deboning.  I started with quail.  I hate quail.  Lovely to eat…but 6 of the damn things at one time to debone just suck.

I know hunters who hate this part of the hunt as well.  It’s not because the birds aren’t yummy.  They are very very tasty.  The problem is they are SMALL!!!  This means small bones and small delicate slices needed to pull out the fragile bones from small fragile flesh.

First things first.  Remove the wings.

Then slice down along the breast bone.

Then move the meat from the sternum of the quail.

This is not a pretty picture.  If you’re squeamish you may want to ask a really really good friend to do this work.  I would suggest bribing with chocolate or a good steak dinner.  After deboning these, the friends may not want to see another bird for awhile even cooked birds!

The next step is to peel the back of the skin off the back bone.  This requires patients and a delicate touch.  You can’t just rip off the skin no matter how great the temptation.

When removing the ribcage and spine, you’ll need to break the hip socket.   The leg will still be connected just not to the back portion.

Next it’s time to slice down the leg bone.  This gets a bit messy.

This is actually a duck that I am removing the bone from.  The quail was a bit shy showing a little leg.  Once you get to this point slice through the connecting tissue.  Slice from ankle joint up to hip joint in one slice or at least in one line.  You want to keep the meat and skin portion in tact as much as possible.

Here is the quail with out bones.

As you can see this requires a delicate touch that I was not perfect with for so small a bird.

This is a deboned chicken.  This looks like some thing from a horror show but really it’s the legs and breasts folded back and the bones removed.

Deboned quail rolled over bacon (a different recipe yet to be covered).

If you are having to debone a bird for a recipe, no matter what size.  Give yourself lots and lots of time.  About 20-45 minutes depending on how much deboning has been practiced!  If you’re doing 9 birds in one sitting set aside 3 hours or a lot of bribery to really good friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roasted Hazelnuts

Roasted Hazelnuts

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This is a simple posting for roasted hazelnuts (then candied). Hazelnuts are also known as filburt nuts.  In period the nut was produced in Turkey, Italy and Greece. (Wikipedia)  This is a very period Middle Eastern type of nut (much like the almond) and used either whole, raw, roasted, chopped or ground.  Experiment and have fun!

I first tried a hazelnut raw.  Don’t!!  They taste terrible un-roasted in my opinion.  Hazelnuts are like olives in that they need a little help to be edible.  The nut can be eaten raw, but blech!!  no really blech!!

Take a cup or three of hazelnuts and lay them on a baking sheet.  Set the oven at 350 and allow to roast till the skins start peeling back (and are black) while the nut is golden brown.  I did not add any oil to the nuts as they are naturally oiled and require not assistance in this department.

Here the nuts are fresh from the oven and the papery skin has not been rubbed off.  Simply take a handful and rub your hands together like you are washing your hands.  This will peel off the blackened skin while leaving the nuts whole.  The roasted skin is a little to gritty and burnt to add a good flavor so try to remove as much as possible before cooking with the nuts.

Here is a bowl of hand rubbed nuts.  The roasted skins and overly cooked hazelnuts are left on the baking sheet.  These take a little bit of time but are very much worth the effort!

Here I’ve candied the nuts with figs (like the almonds and figs from another candied nuts posting).  They are even better then almonds after being roasted.  I almost gobbled up the batch except this was the last round of hazelnuts on hand and I needed more nuts for a display!  You can never have to many nuts you know.  (Don’t answer that!!!)

 

 

Ingredients and Spices, Marrow

Marrow

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Bone marrow while not a staple in the Medieval diet, does show up regularly especially during Lent for those of the Catholic persuasion and in Middle Easter as a primary ingredient, rarely.  Bone marrow is the tasty bit found in the round bones of mammals  i.e. leg bones.  The marrow can be removed from the bones either by roasting or boiling.  The easiest way to remove the marrow is to cut the bones in manageable size (roughly the size of the hand or slightly smaller), then cooked.   Once the bones have been cooked, the marrow can be pulled out and added to the dish of choice.  If soup stock is being made then the marrow just need to be cooked with the bones in the water and herbs for an excellent home made stock.

I am including a few pictures in the adventure of cooking marrow for a very tasty sauce used in a duck.  (no wood was used for weighing the duck!).

Raw bones:

These bones are still slightly frozen as seen by the ice crystals.  The bones are placed end up on a cookie sheet (well used cookie sheet) with out any oil or flavorings.  The oven was turned to 350 degrees until the house smelled of excellent bubbling melty marrow.

Here is the close up of roasted marrow still in the bone.

From here you insert a knife (a fork will just shred the marrow) or a spoon into the meaty bit and pull it out.

Now the next part is a little…well not pretty.  However the taste, oh my the taste!!

The marrow part should be tasted before going “YUCK!!!”  This is really good.  Modern chef’s are actually bringing this little tasty morsel back to be served in high end restaurants for the well to do.  Marrow is slathered on a bit of toasted artisanal bread and considered a delicacy.  You however can say “I learned to do this for historically accurate cooking that was being done LONG before the modern day cooks learned about this!”

 

 

 

Cucumbers, Ingredients and Spices

Cucumbers

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The English ‘gherkin’,  related to the German ‘Gurke’ meaning both cucumber and gherkin refers to cucumbers though the actual gherkin is a long rough skinned type of cucumber.  (Toussaint-Samat, pp. 529).  The cucumber is very period with seeds carbon dated from 9750 B.C. from Egypt.  (Staub, pp. 212)

The ways to eat the cucumber seems to range from drinking the squeezed pulp, cooked, eaten green or eaten raw with a little salt.   Another rather interesting way to drink a cucumber was to cut the top of a ripe cucumber off, stir the innards and let sit upright for a few days.  Now personally, I’m not so sure about this but I do come from the coke generation.  My drinks were made carbonated and sugared.  If this were not the case, I am sure I would find stirred cucumber innards rather tasty too!  The cucumber was considered a very versatile vegetable for both the edible and drinkable atributes and not just by one culture!

Figs, Ingredients and Spices

Figs

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Now that all vacation has been used (until the the great giving of gift high holidays), time can once more be resumed on important matters like cooking.

A little history on a very tasty subject first though.  Figs.  The fruit of a fig tree, I learned today, is not a fruit.  It’s a “hollow receptacle entirely lined with tiny flowers, which, in total darkness, manage to bloom and ripen seeds: that ruby or emerald flesh of which so many cultures have been so fond is actually a miniature (and nearly divine) interior carpet of spent blossoms!) (Staub, pp. 86).  This doesn’t make the “fruit” any less tasty or valued in medieval times.

The Greeks used the fruit as a preserver, fresh or dried.  A bit of cheese, bread and figs were considered a filling and nutritious meal.  However any where but the Mediterranean Basin, figs are considered a luxury.  In the Mediterranean and Middle East figs were so common that in some place figs went unpicked or unused being so very common.  (Toussaint-Samat, pp. 670-1/Rodinson, pp. 149).

Figs have been eaten with pleasure as early as 2900 BC by both the Assyrians and Sumerians.  Figs were in Crete by 1600 BC while Xerxes, King of Persia, consumed Attic figs as a reminder of his conquests that produced some thing so delectably exquisite.  (Staub, pp. 86)

With all this tastiness and enjoyment going around about a simple but unusual “fruit”, you’d think there would be more recipes dedicated to such an enjoyable item.  Unfortunately while the fig is employed IN a great many dishes; the fig is not a star player in recipes as being considered common, oh so very common.

 

Fennel, Ingredients and Spices

Fennel

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A few, or many, words about the edibility of fennel; also known as Tribonella foenum-graecum.  Fennel is one of those love/hate type of edibles.  The bulb and seeds have a mild licorices flavor that not every one is fond of.  My favorite way to eat fennel, is to eat the seeds when they are fully formed but still green.  A burst of wonderful yummy licorices!

So a little historical back ground.  Consulting 75 Exceptional Herbs, Staub writes that fennel is native to southern Europe and SW Asia.  Per Toussaint-Samat the Roman’s took fennel from Rome and transplanted the edible across northern Europe and Britton.  Fennel was thought to cure anything and everything (as well as weight loss).  A rather negative proverb, from the late Elizabethan period I believe went along the lines of  “Sow fennel, sow sorrow”.   I’m not sure about the sorrow part but I do highly recommend using fennel in many types of cooking.

The Florence Fennel is the one recommended for taste though the bronze fennel comes in a close second for both looks and taste for those curious on which to plant.  The stems and seeds can be used dried but the leaves are recommended fresh only, as they become very unpleasant dried.   To harvest the seeds, let the seeds start to turn brown on the stalk, then harvest the seed head.  Place a brown paper bag over the seed head till the seeds fully ripen and dry, then shake the bag, letting gravity do the hard work of separating seed from plant.  The bulb though is the star of the plant, being able to be eaten raw or cooked. Fennel works well with a variety of different types of meat and fruit, i.e. fish, chicken, pork and oranges.  For the blanched bulbs, let the bulbs get to the size of golf balls then mound up around the bulbs from which the plant naturally blanches the bulbs and doubles in size.  Or you can let the bulbs grow with out help and harvest as if you were on the wild hills of Italy!

A couple of dishes to try on whim:

Thinly sliced fennel with orange segments and dressed with a vinaigrette.  The other would be a roasting hen surrounded by cubed fennel, sliced carrots and new potatoes with a bit of olive oil, roasted till the hen were done.

I have yet to try these two recipes.  I do have another recipe to present shortly with fennel and pork and lots and lots of wine!

Ingredients and Spices, Rendering Fat into Lard

Rendering of Fat into Lard

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Rendering Fat into Lard

Lard is the rendering of animal fat into a solid(ish) state to be used in cooking or as a base for an herbal rub such as a bruise balm.  Rendering fat into lard isn’t hard, just time consuming.

The first step is to pick the type of fat to be used.  The fat from the back or the sides of an animal are usually considered better then the fat from around the organs.  (This is not including caul fat which has different cooking properties).  The fat from the organs, I am unclear as to why, seems to be more odiferous then the melting fat from either the back or the side.  I have heard that leaf lard is the way to go (as being the fat from the back) or that you should never use leaf lard (being the fat from the organs). So the naming of the fat differs depending on where you live, hence the reference as back, side or organ fat.  The exception to this is the ball of fat found on some sheep referred to as tail fat.  The rendering method is the same, just the location is different. Note: Do not use the fat found in the organ region but the fat around the organs (caul fat) is very good.

The type of lard you want is the next step.  Pork, beef, sheep, chicken or even duck can be made into lard or just fat for chicken or duck fat.  Why the fowl get fat instead of lard for theirs I don’t know…it just is.  All have very different tastes.  Each animal imbibes the fat with a flavor.  Some flavors are stronger then other.  Tail fat for instance tastes strongly of mutton while duck tends to have a smoother flavor that is not very strong, more like a hint of duck.

Once the type of fat for rendering has been decided upon, place the fat

into a pan and cover with either a lid or foil and cook until the meat parts turn brown.  2.5 lbs take about 2.5-3 hours.  Once the meat pieces in the fat start to turn brown take the pan from the oven and allow to cool a bit.  Ladle into molds.

I used muffin molds which measure ¼ cup per muffin round.  Once the liquid has been put into molds, put the mold pan into the freezer.

This makes the lard easier to remove from the pan and the individual lard cakes can be stored in plastic bags in the freezer for up to 3 months.

The crispy pieces left over, are called crackling and can be used for other dishes.

Save these!  Very period…but also makes an excellent addition in cornbread.

Upon occasion the timing is off when cooking fat and overcooking will occur.  This can be quickly spotted when the rendered fat is an amber color instead of clear gold.

If the cracklin part is burnt, toss the fat and cracklin away.  The liquid fat, in a prior picture is actually amber and from the burnt batch and was thrown away.  The fat needs to be clear and golden in color.  Burnt fat transfer the taste of burnt ash to the fat.  There is nothing to be done at this point.