SC - Three Easy Pieces, or Verjus Redux

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

The Shire of Crosston, with whom i camp, has a period pot-luck feast 
at every Crown Tournament (3 per year in the West). There are always 
guests, so there are around 2 dozen diners or so, and frequently 
other folks show up looking for food and we feed them, as well. 
Generally, there's plenty. At The West Kingdom March Crown Tourney 
just passed, I made three dishes from Barbara Santich's "The Original 
Mediterranean Cuisine" for the Saturday night feast. I didn't use her 
"redactions" for any of them, just referred to the originals and the 
translations.

VERJUS REDUX
I have now used the Fusion brand Napa Valley Verjus that i bought 
from Whole Foods and i thought it was quite nice. I tasted a spoonful 
of it before pouring some into the dish i was cooking - i'm weird, i 
probably could have drunk a juice glass of it - it was tart and 
fruity, but not bitter. I used it in a recipe for garbanzo beans 
cooked in almond milk.

This was not the unpleasant white grape Fusion brand verjus that 
Niccolo di Francesco wrote about. I used the Fusion red verjus, which 
was a lovely purplish red color and was neither unpleasantly tart nor 
at all bitter, as Niccolo says the Fusion white was. I don't have the 
recommended Navarro brand to compare it with, but the Fusion red was 
quite good.

PIECE ONE

Ciurons Tendres Ab Let de Melles
(from Sent Sovi)

ORGINAL: Si vols apperellar ciurons tendres ab let de amelles, se ffa 
axi: Prin los ciurons, e leva'ls be. E ages let de amelles, e mit-los 
a coura ab la let e ab holi e ab sal; e met-hi seba escaldade ab 
aygua bulent. E quant  deuran esser cuyt, met-hi jurvert e alfabegua 
e moradux e d'altres bones epicies [should be 'erbes'] e un poc de 
gingebre e de gras. E quant hi metras los ciurons, sien levats ab 
aygua calda, que tentost son cuyts.

TRANS: If you want to prepare tender chickpeas with almond milk, do 
it thus: take the chickpeas and wash them well. And take almond milk 
and set them to cook with the milk and with oil and with salt; and 
put in it onion scalded with boiling water. And when they should be 
cooked, put in them parsley and basil and marjoram and other good 
spices [should be 'herbs'] and a little ginger and verjus. And when 
you add the chick peas, wash them with hot water that they should 
cook more quickly.

[NOTE: the insert "should be 'herbs' is from Santich's book, i didn't 
add it. I cooked the recipe with herbs and no additional spices.]

WHAT IT DID:
(1) I used canned garbanzos, rather than soaking and boiling my own. 
I've cooked garbanzos from scratch, and while they are, hmmm, mealier 
(a good quality) than canned, which are sometimes a bit slimy (i 
usually rinse them), i haven't noticed a vast difference in the 
quality of a dish made with one or the other.

(2) I bought organic, whole, unroasted almonds to make almond milk, 
but i didn't have time to make it. I was going to make it Thursday 
night and bring it in a bottle, but I was appliqueing and 
embroidering my consort's fighting surcote as well as hand-sewing a 
couple wool tunics for myself, so i didn't get around to it. When it 
was time to cook, i used boxed organic almond milk that i'd bought to 
drink - it has a little, very little brown rice sweetener and some 
vegetable thickeners (guar, xanthan, carageenen, and locust bean 
gums). But not so much that it is a vastly different creature from 
homemade almond milk, which I would have preferred, but i don't think 
the dish suffered greatly.

I dumped the drained garbanzos into my kettle, then poured in enough 
almond milk to cover (i wasn't trying to make soup) and added some 
salt and a little olive oil. While it was beginning to heat, i finely 
chopped a small onion and added it without first scalding, as i 
didn't bring enough pans.

After warming and stirring, i began to add other seasonings. I added 
white pepper (for personal reasons i don't use black pepper) and 
dried ginger powder. It's an amazingly good dried ginger powder that 
i bought at the health food store. When i tasted the liquid it seemed 
as if i'd used too much ginger and white pepper - it was quite "hot" 
- - and while that doesn't bother me, i know some people at the feast 
don't like food that's too "piquant". But after i let it cook a bit, 
then tasted again with chickpeas in my tasting spoon, it was fine. I 
cooked it until the onion was tender and mild.

I had bought fresh organic herbs. At this point i added lots of 
chopped flat-leaf parsley and fresh basil. I didn't see fresh 
marjoram at the store, so i tossed in fresh thyme and oregano, going 
easy on the oregano so it wouldn't take over. When the herbs were 
cooked and the broth was well flavored, i added the verjus, stirred 
to distribute, then left it to warm for a minute, and removed the pot 
from the fire. Personally, i'd like to have added more verjus, as i 
like strong flavors. But it was fine, adding a bit of tang to the 
dish.

PIECE TWO

Cauli Verdi con Carne
(from Libro della Cocina)

ORIGINAL: Togli le cime de' cauli sane, e gittale nelle pentola 
bugliente con le carne, e falli bullire; e cavali e metti nell'aqua 
fredda. Et tolto d'altro brodo in un'altro pentola, mettivi del 
biancho dei finocchi; et quando e ora del mangiare, poni i detti 
cauli con brodo nella pentola predetta; fa' bullire un poco, e puoi 
mettervi brodo di carne di caponne, o oglio.

TRANS: Take the tips of fresh cabbage, and throw them into the 
boiling pot with the meat, and boil; and take them out and put them 
in cold water. Then take another broth in another pot, put the white 
part of fennel; then when it is the time to eat, add that cabbage in 
the broth in the previous pot; make it boil a little, and then 
chicken stock or oil.

"Green cabbage" and finocchi/fennel cooked with meat. Santich says 
"In the text it is not clear exactly what is intended by 'green 
cabbage' nor by cime - which could refer to the tips of the cabbage 
or to the infloresence, which might have meant broccoli [which, she 
notes, was known by the 15th century]. In these recipes I have used 
both"

WHAT I DID: I did not follow this recipe exactly.

(1) I used frozen broccoli flowerets to save prep time on site. It 
was Crown and i knew i'd be busy. As it turned out, i was much busier 
than i'd expected - i didn't even get to set up the Moorish Science 
Reading Room.

(2) Besides the broccoli, i tossed in some quartered Brussels 
sprouts. Since so many folks say they don't like Brussels sprouts, i 
didn't want to make the dish using nothing but them (as "cabbage 
sprouts"). And i didn't hear any protestations from diners, who 
probably didn't even realize they were eating the dreaded vegetable.

I cut the white part of the fennel in medium-large cubes (about 3/4").

(3) The recipe says to cook each vegetable separately in meat stock. 
As it was Lent, i cooked them in vegetable stock. Also we have a 
couple vegetarians in our Shire and other who are guests, so i like 
to make sure there are filling meatless dishes available.

(4) Also, i didn't have enough pans or serving dishes with me, so i 
cooked the vegetables together. I'd have done them separately, but i 
couldn't. The broccoli was still just about frozen, so i added all 
the vegetables at the same time.

When they were done i tossed them with a little olive oil. I didn't 
even salt them, since the vegetable stock they'd cooked in was well 
seasoned.

I was concerned that the flavor of the fennel would be strong, a 
taste i don't care for. In fact, it was quite mild, and the dish was 
a nice blend of green and white. I left the vegetables a tad firm 
from personal preference.

PIECE THREE

On Preparing a Salad of Several Greens
(from de Honesta Voluptate)

ORIGINAL: not included in Santich
TRANS: A preparation of several greens is made with lettuce, bugloss, 
mint, catmint, fennel, parsley, sisymbrium, origan, chervil, 
cicerbita which doctors call teraxicon, plantain [the herb], morella, 
and other fragrant greens, well washed and pressed and put in a large 
dish. Sprinkle them with a good deal of salt and blend with oil, then 
pour vinegar over it all when it has sat a little; it should be eaten 
and well chewed because wild greens are tough. This sort of salad 
needs a little more oil than vinegar. It is more suitable in winter 
than in summer, because it requires much digestion and this is 
stronger in winter.

I used arugula/roquette (long narrow grey-green leaves with rounded 
notches), radicchio (a tight ball of maroon and white leaves), large 
leafed cress (as Santich says, " 'sisymbrium' seems to be a variety 
of cress"), flat-leaf parsley, fresh basil, fresh sage, fresh 
oregano, fresh thyme, fresh mint, and some of the tender green fennel 
stalks. I dressed the leaves with salt and a good olive oil, and 
tossed to distribute. After letting them sit a while, i sprinkled the 
dish with balsamic vinegar and tossed again.

- ---------------

I picked these dishes because they were relatively quick and easy to 
prepare at a busy event, yet authentic. I was actually done cooking 
before the others who cooked on site. (i mention this because i'm 
usually still cooking when everyone is already eating)

Anahita al-shazhiyya