SC - EK Crown Recipes, Part Deux

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Blank Maunger
"38     Blank maunger. Take capouns and see* hem, *enne take hem vp;
take almaundes blaunched, grynde hem & alay hem vp with the same broth.
Cast the mylk in a pot. Waisshe rys and do *erto, and lat it seeth;
*anne take *e brawn of *e capouns, teere it small and do *erto. Take
white grece, sugur and salt, and cast *erinne. Lat it see*, *enne messe
it forth and florissh it with aneys in confyt, red o*er whyt, and with
almaundes fryed in oyle, and serue it forth."

				--From Curye On Inglysch, Book IV, The Forme of Cury

What they did:
	As this type of recipe goes, this is pretty straightforward. Capons are
simmered in water to cook them and make a stock. The capons are reserved
while the broth is used to make an almond milk from some ground blanched
almonds. Rice is cooked to a thick porridge (the recipe doesn’t specify
how thick, but other recipes for blank maunger do) in the almond milk.
Then the reserved capon meat, skinned, deboned, and shredded, is added
to the hot rice, as well as some lard to keep it from congealing as it
cools. The dish is seasoned with sugar and salt, dished up, and
garnished with candied anise seeds and fried almonds.

What we’ll do differently: 
	First of all, we’ll be using chickens instead of capons, primarily for
budgetary reasons, but also because there is less difference between a
good-quality chicken and a capon today than there was between a somewhat
tough free-range chicken and a capon in period. Secondly, we’ll make our
almond milk from almonds and water, since we’ll be using a vegetarian
almond milk in another recipe, and it is more efficient to make one
large batch and split it. We’ll include some stock later on in the
cooking process for the flavor and texture. Thirdly, we’ll be using
walnut or vegetable oil instead of lard: life is too short to spend it
arguing with folks. Last, we’ll probably omit the candied anise seeds,
as they are called for elsewhere in our feast, and we don't want our
diners to get tired of them before the evening is over. So, we’ll be
garnishing with the fried almonds alone, a solution consistent with some
other blank maunger recipes.

What you should do to make eight servings:
 	1 breast of one large chicken, 	around 2 pounds
	1 cup white rice (short-vs-long-grain not really relevant in this
case!)
	4 oz. blanched almonds, ground
	2 oz. blanched almonds, shredded or sliced
	2 Tbs lard, butter, or oil 
	2 Tbs. white sugar
	optional 1/2 tsp ginger 
	optional 1/4 tsp white pepper
	~1/2 tsp. salt or to taste
 	
	Place the chicken in a 2-or-3-quart saucepan and add enough cold water
to cover. Add some salt, and a dash of white pepper if you want. Bring
to a boil, skim, and simmer over medium-low heat for 20-40 minutes, or
until a meat thermometer reads 165° F., or until done. Don't be shy
about poking with a knife if necessary; remember this is going to be
shredded.
	While the chicken cooks, toast the shredded almonds in an oiled skillet
over medium heat, or in a 325° F. oven for 5 or 10 minutes. Don’t let
them burn, and remember they will continue to brown after they are
removed from the heat source.
	When the chicken is done, let it cool a bit, remove any skin, bones,
etc., and shred it with a knife or your fingers, along the grain, into
two-inch strips. Pack it into a container and cover with some of the
broth to keep it moist as it finishes cooling.
	Make almond milk from the rest (anywhere up to five cups or so) of the
broth. Bring the broth to a boil, add the ground almonds and stir. Let
it sit for five minutes or so, then strain or whiz it up in a blender,
in which case straining is optional. It’s a good idea to strain it
anyway (in a fine strainer or one lined with a layer or two of
cheesecloth), as the great thing about the dish is its creaminess, which
is lost if it’s full of little crunchy almond bits.
	Return the almond milk to the saucepan, bring it to a boil, and add the
rice, stirring constantly until it all begins to thicken somewhat.
Reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for a combined total of
around 25 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid sticking and burning. If
the pottage is too thin, continue cooking it until it thickens enough
and the rice is soft, and if it’s too thick add some hot water to loosen
it up a bit. When the rice is done, add the chicken, stir in the fat or
oil, and season with the sugar and salt. Transfer the blank maunger,
which should be, as the name suggests, pretty dazzlingly white, into a
serving dish, topped with the toasted almonds.

Cuskynoles
"45	A mete *at is icleped cuskynoles. Make a past tempred wi* ayren, &
so**en
nim peoren & applen, figes and reysins, alemaundes & dates; bet am
togedere & do god poudre of gode speces wi*innen. & in leynten make *i
past wi* milke of alemaundes. & rolle *i paste on a bord, & so**en hew
hit on moni parties, & vche an pertie beo of *e leyng*e of a paume & an
half & of *reo vyngres of brede. & smeor *y paste al of one dole, &
so**en do *i fassure wi*innen. Vchan kake is portiooun. & so**en veld
togedere o*e 3eolue manere, ase *eos fugurre is imad:

[Graphic got eaten by Netscape; check the source or ask Lord Ras to mail
you the photo]

 & so**e boille in veir water, & so**en rost on an greudil; & so**en
adresse."
Curye on Inglysch, Book I, "Diuersa Cibaria", c. ~ 1325 C.E.

What they did:
	This one is pretty confusing, and there’s a great deal of controversy
about exactly what some of it means. It all boils down to whether the
illustration above is of one portion or fifteen. My feeling is that the
illustration shows how several are made and cut from large sheets of
dough. If it’s one portion, then it’s pretty difficult to fill.
Observance of the principles known colloquially as Occam’s Razor and
K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid!) leads me to conclude this is fifteen
portions. You may not agree, but it’s a big world.
	So, a dough is made with eggs (probably yolks only), and somehow filled
with a filling of mashed apples, pears, almonds, and assorted dried
fruits. The cuskynoles are filled and sealed so as to follow the
illustration in some way, but exactly how is unclear. I’m betting on a
simple rectangular fruit ravioli, boiled and then fried on a griddle
like a pierogi.

What we’ll do differently:
	Apart from the fact that we’ll be omitting the almonds (we’re using a
lot of them elsewhere, and there’s the allergy question to consider),
we’ll be stuffing a pulverized filling of mixed fresh and dried fruits
as described above, into fresh pasta dough, in this case halved
Cantonese egg roll wrappers. We’ll boil them until they float, and then
saute them till crispy on one side, and serve with a dusting of sugar on
the crispy side. The recipe doesn’t call for this, but numerous sources
of the period suggest a dusting of sugar on "fryed metes".

What you’ll need for eight servings:
 	4 Cantonese spring roll wrappers ("egg roll" wrappers, raw pasta
dough)
	1 Bosc or other hard, tart pear
	1 Granny Smith or other tart cooking apple
	3 oz. dried figs
	3 oz. dried dates, pitted
	2 oz. raisins
	optional 1 oz. finely chopped almonds 
	1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
	1/8 tsp. powdered cloves
	1/8 tsp. powdered cinnamon
 	In a meat grinder or food processor set on pulse, finely chop the
filling ingredients, and let the filling mixture sit for 20 minutes or
so while the dried fruit absorbs some of the excess pear and apple
juice.  Lay out the wrappers on a clean, dry, cutting board (you might
need to dust with flour, but the wrappers will probably be coated with
starch anyway). Cut each large square in half (vertically), and brush
each half with water or egg wash, especially around the edges. Spoon 3-4
Tbs. of the filling in a little mound on the "lower" half (the half
closest to you) of each strip of dough. Make sure there is a clean
border of about 1/2 inch free of filling. Fold the further end down
towards the nearer end, sealing the edges with the edge of your hand.
You can crimp them or otherwise decorate the edges if you wish. Let sit
for ten minutes or so, covered with a clean dish towel, while the wet
"glue" hardens to seal the edges.
	Boil in lightly salted water in a deep skillet or casserole for 3-5
minutes, until the cuskynoles just float. Remove them from the water
with a slotted spoon or deep-frying basket (they’ll be delicate at this
stage). Allow to cool a bit and air-dry, then saute in a preheated,
oiled skillet over medium-high heat for 3 or four minutes, until golden
brown on one side. Flipping is an option, but I like the idea of the
contrast between crispy and soft. Serve crisp side up, dusted with
confectioner’s or other sugar.

Cormarye
"54	Cormarye. Take colyaundre, caraway smale grounden, powdour of peper
and
garlec ygrounde, in rede wyne; medle alle *ise 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 *ou wilt, & kepe *at *at falleth
*erfro in the rostyng and see* it in a possynet with faire broth, &
serue it forth wi* the roost anoon."
Curye on Inglysch, Book IV, "The Forme of Cury", c. 1390 C.E.

What they did:
	This is simply a marinated roast, with a sauce made from the pan juices
and added stock. The ground garlic thickens the sauce slightly, as does
the further reduction in a possynet, which is a shallow pan like a
skillet. Pork loin is poked full of holes to allow the marinade to
penetrate, then red wine, pureed garlic, ground coriander and caraway
seeds, salt and pepper are added. The meat is marinated for an
unspecified time, and then roasted before a fire, over a dripping pan.
The pan drippings are boiled in a wide pan with added stock, until
syrupy. Slices or bite-sized chunks of the roast are served in a bowl
with the gravy.

What we’ll do differently:
	We’ll be roasting our marinated meat on a grill, so saving pan juices
may be a problem. Instead, we’ll save our marinade to help replace them. 

What you need for eight servings:
 	2 1/2 - 3 lbs. pork loin roast
	3 cups dry red wine
	1 Tbs ground coriander seed
	2 - 3 tsp ground caraway seed
	1 tsp ground black pepper 	 
 	8 cloves garlic
	1 tsp salt
	1 pint chicken, pork, or beef stock
 	Have the butcher remove the chine (spine) bone, or crack it, to make
carving easier. Otherwise simply remove all the bones, cutting between
the ribs and the main chunk of meat, rolling it away from the bones as
you cut. Finish by slipping your knife between the meat and the spine’s
"finger" bones, removing the meat from the mostly-clean bones in one
piece. There will be some waste, but not too much, and you can use the
bones to make the stock you’ll need for the gravy. Prick the meat all
over with a fork.
	Combine all ingredients except the stock in a deep glass or
non-reactive bowl, and marinate the pork for six hours or overnight.
Remove from the marinade and roast on a rack in a roasting pan, for 70 -
90 minutes at 350°F., or until a meat thermometer inserted in the thick
part of the meat reads 160°F. or so (trichinosis is killed at 137°F., so
anything over 140 is safe to eat, but most people don't like pork pink).
Let the meat rest for 20 minutes or so, while you make the sauce: boil
your pint of stock with a cup of the reserved marinade and any pan
drippings (degreased and including any dripping that come from the roast
as it rests). Cook the sauce until it begins to thicken slightly, to a
syrup. If this doesn’t happen (say, if you’re using canned broth) , you
can cheat by using unflavored gelatin. See the instructions for this in
the "Conynges in Papdele" recipe. Slice the roast, pour the sauce over,
and serve.  
	
Chyches
"73	Chyches. Take chyches and wrye hem in askes all ny3t o*er al a day,
o*er lay
hem in hoot aymers. At morowe waische hem in clene water, and do hem
ouere the fire with clene water. See* hem vp and do *erto oyle, garlek
hole, safroun, powder forte and salt; see* it and messe it forth."
Curye on Inglysch, Book IV, "The Forme of Cury", c. 1390 C.E.

What they did:
	This is yet another porridgy spoon food. The passage instructing the
cook to roast the chick peas in ashes or embers probably refers to
fresh, whole, chick peas, which have a fairly tough husk like a fava
bean. A slow roast overnight would help separate the ceci from the outer
layer, which will have dried to a papery texture, with the chick pea
slightly shrunken inside. The chick peas are simmered in water with
olive oil, whole garlic cloves, saffron, and powdered "strong" spices
like pepper, grains of paradise, and cinnamon [I’m fascinated by the
idea that cinnamon does double duty as both a strong and a sweet spice;
it leads me to suspect that the spice mixtures were more of a "cook’s
choice" thing rather than a mixture prepared in advance according to a
formula -- offhand I can only think of one period recipe for a prepared
spice mixture, and that is for the fine spice powder used by Le Menagier
de Paris.]

What we’ll do differently:
	We’re using canned chick peas, run through a food mill to a rough
puree, and simmer with the garlic and other ingredients. The oil will be
beaten in at the end of the cooking process, which will give a fresher
flavor and a better mix. We’ll probably also garnish with copious
amounts of chopped parsley.

What you need for eight servings:
 	2 16-oz cans chick peas, drained (reserve some liquid)
	8 cloves garlic
	3 oz. extra-virgin olive oil
	1/4 tsp saffron (a large pinch)
 	1/4 tsp ground black pepper
	1/8 tsp ground grains of paradise
	1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
	1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt
 	Simmer the chick peas in just enough liquid (water or can liquid) to
keep them from sticking. Stir with a wire whip, which will semi-puree
them as they cook. Peel and add the garlic and powdered spices. When the
garlic is almost falling apart, add the saffron. Cook gently for five
minutes more, beat in the olive oil, season to taste with salt, and
serve.
	
Green Porray on a Fish Day
"There is a kind of porray called spinach and it has longer leaves,
thinner and greener than common porray and it is eaten at the beginning
of Lent...

"...Green porray on a fish day. Let it have the outer leaves removed and
be cut up and then washed in cold water without parboiling it and then
cooked with verjuice and a little water, and put some salt therein, and
let it be served boiling and very thick, not clear; and put at the
bottom of the bowl, underneath the porray, salt butter, or fresh if you
will, or cheese, or old verjuice." 
Le Menagier de Paris, trans. Eileen Power; Harcourt, Brace  New York
1928

What they did:
	Greens in some form seem to have been a common springtime food, since
it was a way of replenishing the body’s supplies of vitamins and
minerals that the winter diet lacked. Scurvy seems to have been fairly
common in late winter, but dishes like this one, a salat, or an
arbolaste (herb omelette) were among the common springtime curatives for
the nobility, and a simple dietary necessity for the lower classes as
well. Greens were washed and boiled/steamed in a small amount of water
(cabbagy greens like mustard or kale would be parboiled first) and
seasoned with salt and verjuice (essentially a vinegar made from the
juice of crabapples, green grapes, green wheat, or sorrel). The
resultant broth could be thickened with butter or grated cheese, and
further seasoning with more verjuice was an option. Non-Lent versions of
this recipe would include ham or bacon for the well-off, which suggests
the modern American dish of ham or bacon and greens, pot likker, call it
what you will, is a direct linear descendant, even down to the dash of
vinegar added at the end (although Tobasco or other chili sauce is
favored today).

What we’ll do differently:
	We’ll be using frozen spinach, which is prewashed, compact, and of a
more or less predictable price. Our feeble modern butter will be added
at the end of the cooking process, in small chunks, beaten into the
spinach likker/broth, producing a greenish butter sauce similar to
beurre blanc, especially when verjuice or vinegar has been added. The
emulsified butter sauce will also help protect the greens from turning
black in the acidic broth, as will adding all of our acid at the end of
the cooking process, instead of at the beginning.

What you need for eight servings:
 	2 10-oz. packages frozen spinach
	4 oz. (1 stick) unsalted butter
	1/4 tsp salt
 	1- 2 Tbs white wine or cider 
	vinegar
	optional 1/2 tsp white pepper
 	Thaw the spinach at room temperature or under cold running water, and
press out some of the juice. Simmer over low heat with a teaspoon of the
butter, until some liquid begins to accumulate in the bottom of the pan.
Raise the heat slightly when that happens, stirring frequently. Cook the
spinach, uncovered, until tender but still green and whole. There should
be about 1/4 cup of liquid left in the pan.  Lower the heat and push the
spinach to one side of the pan, checking to see how much liquid is left.
Remove any excess, and if there isn’t enough, add some water or a dash
of vinegar. Add another teaspoon of butter, stirring it around in the
liquid and shaking the pan until it is melted into the liquid and
incorporated. Add another teaspoon of butter and repeat the process,
until all of the butter is used and you have a creamy emulsion. Season
this sauce to taste with salt, optional pepper, and vinegar. Stir the
spinach into it and serve.

Daryols
"191	Daryols. Take creme of cowe mylke, o*er of almaundes; do *erto
ayren with
sugur, safroun and salt. Medle it yfere. Do it in a coffin of ii ynche
depe, bake it wele and serue it forth."
Curye on Inglysch, Book IV, "The Forme of Cury", c. 1390 C.E.

What they did:
	This is a simple custard tart. Cream and eggs (either whole, yolks, or
a mixture) are sweetened with sugar (or, in later versions of the
recipe, honey is an option) and seasoned with saffron. The mixture is
poured into a pie shell and baked. The pastry would probably have been
made with flour, egg yolks, sugar, saffron, and possibly butter, and in
lent with almond milk and possibly some oil instead of the egg yolks and
butter. The recipe doesn’t tell us how the dough is made, but the pastry
would have had more of a cookie-like texture than modern short/flaky
pastry.

What we’ll do differently:
	We’ll be borrowing some of the better aspects of later recipes for
daryols and doucetys: our custard mix will go into pre-baked pie shells,
to limit soggy bottom crusts. A 15th-century recipe speaks of baking the
shells partway, opening the oven, attaching a bowl to the end of the
handle of a baker’s peel, and pouring the filling mix into the shells as
they bake. The same recipe also suggests the option of honey instead of
sugar, and instructs the cook to bake the tarts until the filling puffs
slightly, which is good advice, especially when cooking in quantity. Who
wants to go in with a toothpick 40 or 50 times? Some recipes seem to
suggest that these tarts are small, probably six inches across for two
servings, but we’ll be using 9-inch pie shells.

What you need for eight servings:
 	1 9-inch pie shell
	3 cups cream or half-and-half
	3 eggs
	3 egg yolks
 	1/2 cup honey
	1/8 tsp saffron
	1/8 tsp salt
 	Preheat your oven to 350° F. Bake the empty shell for 10 minutes or
so, either using "pie beans" or being careful to watch for puffing of
the pastry. Push it back down if it occurs; an empty pie tin is a good
tool if it happens. Don't let the pie shell brown too much.
	While the shell bakes and cools, prepare your filling. In a large
mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, the yolks, the honey and the salt.
Scald the cream with the saffron: heat in a saucepan until steaming and
bubbles form on top. This is not boiling, which would impart a burnt
flavor. (The scalding helps prevent curdling of the eggs.) Ladle the
cream into the egg mixture, beating with a whip and fully mixing after
each ladleful.
	Pour the filling into the shell (don’t overfill!) and carefully
transfer to the middle rack of the oven. Bake for around 25 minutes,
until a knife or toothpick inserted into the center of the filling comes
out clean, which means the eggs have set. The filling will still be a
very liquidy gel, but it will set as it cools. Serve just warm, or at
room temperature.

Suggested Reading
1. Curye On  Inglysch, Ed. Constance B. Hieatt & Sharon Butler, Oxford
University 	Press, Oxford 1985

2.  The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages, Terence Scully, © Terence
Scully 1995, 	Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, 1995

3. The Goodman of Paris, trans. Eileen Power, pub. Harcourt, Brace, New
York 1928

Adamantius
- -- 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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