SC - Past subjects

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

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 ****