SC - Long - Help with the sauce for Cormary recipe

[Elaine Koogler]

Stefan,
For what it's worth, your thoughts are exactly the same as what I arrived at
when i redacted the recipe.  I used Burgundy wine, marinated the roast in the
mixture, when finished roasting, added the pan juices to some fresh marinade (to
avoid problems with "nasties") and reduced the mixture by half to create the
sauce.  It all worked very well, and the end result was excellent.  This is, in
my opinion, one of the best pork recipes I've used!

Kiri

Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Lorix posted a recipe for roasted pork:
> > 'Take finely ground coriander and caraway, pepper powder and ground
> > garlic, in red wine; mix all this together and salt it.  Take raw pork
> > loins, skin them and prick it well with a knife and lay it in the
> > sauce.  Roast it when you wish, and save what falls from the meat as
> > it roasts and boil it in a pot with good broth, and then serve it with
> > the roast' (Forme of Curye).
>
> > Liking the faint sweet aftertaste that port gives to meet, I chose
> > port as the red wine.  So I mixed the spices & garlic together in
> > that.
>
> Why port? I thought port was a fortified wine? This I think would give
> a stronger taste than simply a red wine. Although if the sauce is
> thinner than wanted and you need to add thickener, a stronger tasting
> wine might be preferable.
>
> > I then read the recipe again & noticed that unlike a lot of recipes,
> > this required the meat to be cooked in the wine.
>
> But does it? It says lay it in the sauce. It doesn't specifically say
> to roast it in the sauce, does it? Couldn't "lay it in the sauce" simply
> be to marinate it? And then it is removed and put on a spit to roast.
> Would they have used the word roast to mean stew it or boil it in the
> sauce?
>
> If you are cooking the meat in the sauce, why say "and save what falls
> from the meat as it roasts and boil it...". The stuff that falls from
> the meat would already fall in the sauce and it would be difficult to
> prevent it from doing so anyway. I think this is saying take care to
> catch the drippings in a pan, so you can add them to the broth to make
> the sauce later.
>
> > The results were _really_ tasty.  The meat was cooked for a couple of
> > hours on a slow heat (along with the crackling on a higher shelf ;-).
> > The meat had a faint flavour of the marinade all the way thru, was
> > very tender & had a texture similar to a smoked meat.
>
> Yes, it sounds wonderful.
>
> > Now my question relates to how to improve this.  Would I have been
> > better to use fresh pieces of bread to thicken this up?
> > Alternatively, soak the breadcrumbs in a little wine for awhile, prior
> > to adding the sauce?
>
> I think another alternative would be to boil down the juice/drippings/
> wine mixture until it thickens some. Without adding anything. In your
> case, this may not be practical because of time contraints, though.
>
> Folks, I'm new to this redacting stuff, so if you see problems with
> my interpretation, please let me know.
>
> Thanks.
>    Stefan
> --
> Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
> Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
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