SC - Apple butter

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

The Neapolitan recipe collection has a recipe for applesauce: cooked, 
ground apples are mixed with almond milk, rosewater, and sugar, and 
cooked until thick.  Scully says it is a parallel recipe to one in the 
Catalan sources.  I looked at the recipe for "Pomada" in Nola, and it is 
similar, except that the sauce is cooked with whole cinnamon, cloves, 
and peeled gingerroot which have been soaked in rosewater, and the 
almond milk is made with chicken broth.  (you could make a Lenten 
version with water, if you preferred).  Since the sauce is apparently 
cooked without applepeels, and the dominant spice is ginger, not 
cinnamon, I am not sure how much it would taste like modern apple 
butter.

Source: Ruperto de Nola, _Libro de Guisados_ (Spanish, 1529)
Translation: Lady Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann)

POMADA -- Applesauce

	Take apples which are sour and sweet; and quarter each of them; and 
prepare them; and remove the core and then put them in cold water and if they 
are very sour give them a boil and then take peeled almonds and grind them 
well; and put the apples in the mortar and grind them together with the 
almonds very vigorously and when they are well ground dissolve it all with 
good chicken broth and strain it all through a woolen cloth ; and put it all in 
the pot in which it must cook; and take ginger which is fine; peel off the skin 
until it is white and make of it little pieces the size of half a finger; and put 
them to soak overnight in good rosewater until the morning; then take whole 
cinnamon; and tie it with a thread jointly with cloves and scald them with hot 
broth and when the cloves and the cinnamon are scalded put the pot on the 
fire with the apples; and put a good quantity of sugar in it and when it is more 
than half cooked take the soaked ginger and the cloves; and the cinnamon; 
and put them all in the pot and if it does not taste enough of ginger put in a 
little which is ground and when it is cooked you will cast the rosewater in the 
pot and prepare dishes; on top of them cast sugar and cinnamon if you wish.


Note: "Tie it with a thread" is the standard direction in Nola for cooking with 
whole spices that are then to be removed.  Since the thought of tying threads 
to individual cloves is daunting to me, I think I'd make up a cheesecloth 
bundle and scoop it out afterwards with a slotted spoon.


Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
mka Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net