SC - Help on rendering

Alderton, Philippa phlip at morganco.net
Fri Apr 14 08:53:05 PDT 2000


I *knew* organizing my recipes would come in handy!
BRUET OF LUMBARDY
Boiled Chicken in Almond Milk Pepper Sauce 

Take hennys, chikens, konyngs, or other flesch, sodyn; do hit in a potte.  Do 
therto mylke of almondys.  Do therin pepyr, and alay hit with bredde, & do 
therin yolkes of eyron sodyn hard, growndyn & drawyn up with percellye; & do 
therto a lytyll grece or claryfyd boture or the fat of pork, & sesyn hit up 
with poudyr, salt, & venyger, & make hit rede as blod.
MS Beinecke 163

(The almond milk may be made with the broth the chicken was boiled in.  I 
found it more convenient to make the sauce separately and add the chicken to 
it, rather than make the sauce around the chicken, as the original recipe 
implies.  I also added a quarter tsp. of cubeb to the spice powder mix.  Not 
having any period red food coloring on hand, and disliking the idea of 
loading this dish down with FD&C reds 40 and 3, I chose to serve this dish 
uncolored.)

1 Three- to four-pound chicken, cut into serving pieces
1 ½ C unstrained almond milk
¼ C white bread crumbs
3 hard boiled egg yolks
1 T parsley, minced
1 T butter
1 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp ea. powdered ginger, cinnamon, mace
Salt to taste
Red food coloring, optional

1. In a large pot or Dutch oven, over medium heat, put chicken and about two 
cups of water, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, covered, for about 
half an hour or until chicken is cooked through.  Remove the chicken and pour 
off stock, reserving for later use.  The almond milk may be made from this 
stock.

2. In a bowl, mash egg yolks and parsley together into a paste.

3. Combine almond milk and spices in the pot, and, over medium heat, bring to 
a boil and reduce heat, and simmer, stirring constantly, for five minutes.  
Stir in remaining ingredients, and continue to simmer, stirring constantly, 
for another five minutes.

4. Add boiled chicken to the pot, and stir it into the sauce completely 
covering the pieces.  Cover, and simmer for a further two or three minutes, 
stirring carefully, making sure the sauce does not burn on the bottom of the 
pot.  

Serves six to eight.

LOMBARD CHICKEN PASTIES  (MEDIEVAL COOKBOOK  P47)

350g shortcrust or puff pastry
2 Eggs beaten
2 tbsps Lemon Juice
Pinch Ground Black Pepper
½ tspn Ground Ginger
450g Chicken Meat in small thin slices
3 Large rashers of streaky bacon (trimed in fat)

1.   Divide the pastry into six portions
2.   Mix the beaten eggs with lemon juice, pepper and ginger
3.   Dip the slices of chicken meat in the mixture then divide them between 
the
pastry
4.   Lay  a piece of bacon on each pie
5.   Brush the edge of the pastry with any remaining egg mixture
6.   Fold the pastry and pinch the edges together
7.   Prick the pastry in several places
8.   bake at 220C for 15 minutes and lower the oven to 190C and cook for 
another
20-25 minutes

Lombard Pasties serves 150
(The Goodman of Paris c.1393; trans. Eileen Power)

ITEM in the Lombard manner when the chickens be plucked and prepared, take 
beaten eggs (to wit yolks and whites) with verjuice and spice powder and dip 
your chickens therein; then set them in the pasty with strip of bacon as 
above [large slices of bacon on the breast]

15# boneless chicken breast Bacon or dried, cured ham 
2 eggs, beaten   lard 
Verjuice or cider vinegar  flour 
fine spice powder   ice cold water 

As we do not enjoy eating whole chicks, I use boneless chicken breast.  Since 
the crust is so rich, a smaller pasty is sufficient.  (Simmer the chicken 
pieces in water until mostly done to ensure doneness of final product)  Cut 
each breast in half and dip chicken pieces in egg wash made with eggs, a dash 
of verjuice/vinegar and a little spice powder.  Place these pieces in pastry 
made of lard, flour and water.  Place on each piece of chicken, a piece of 
lean bacon or dried ham Smithfield would be good as it seems it would 
approximate European bacon better).  Seal pastry together and return to 
refrigerator to chill (15 minutes).  Remove form refrigerator and bake at 
400F 15 minutes or until golden and chicken is cooked.

  FINE [SPICE] POWDER.  Take of white ginger and ounce and a dram, of 
selected cinnamon a quarter, of cloves and grains [of paradise] eash half a 
quarter of an ounce, and of lump sugar a quarter and reduce them to powder. 
(p. 298)


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