[Sca-cooks] Two recipes from recent camping events.

[Kirrily Robert]

I redacted both these Elizabethan-era recipes for the first time over
campfires at the Skraeling Althing Baronial Muster and Ealdormere War
Practice over the last few weeks.


     To boile Chickins

     Strayne your broth into a pipkin, & put in your Chickins, and
     skumme them as cleane as you can and put in a peece of butter, and
     a good deale of Sorrell, and so let them boyle, and put in all
     manner of spices and a lyttle verjuyce pycke, and a few Barberies,
     and cutte a Lemman in peeces, and scrape a little Suger uppon them,
     and laye them uppon the Chickins when you serve them up, and lay
     soppes upon the dish.

     (from Thomas Dawson's The Good Huswife's Jewell, 1596)

     * 1kg chicken pieces
     * 1.5L chicken broth
     * 1 stick butter (about 60g)
     * 2 bunches sorrel or other green leafy vegetables, roughly chopped.
     * 1/2 to 3/4 cup dried cranberries
     * 3 lemons, peeled and sliced
     * 3 tablespoons verjuice
     * 1 teaspoon mixed spices (pepper, mace, cloves, cinnamon, ginger)
     * 3 tablespoons sugar
     * sliced bread (for serving)

   Simmer the chicken pieces in the broth until they're cooked.

   Add all other ingredients except the greens and bread. Simmer for 10
   minutes or until the dried cranberries have softened, adjusting
   sugar/verjuice/spices to taste.

   Throw in the greens, stir until they are just wilted, and serve
   spooned over slices of bread. You may want to use a slotted spoon to
   avoid getting too much broth.

   Notes

   This dish is brightly coloured, and has a very nice light/fresh
   flavour. It looks great served up... a nice change from the shades of
   brown that most meat dishes tend to be. I first redacted it and served
   at a camping event, and it was a huge success. This recipe would be
   very easy to make for large numbers of people, I think. The quantities
   above would serve about 6.

   Barberries are not generally available, so I substituted cranberries,
   which I have been told are similar in flavour. Fresh cranberries would
   work just as well for this recipe, but dried ones were what was
   available to me.

   The recipe specifies sorrell, but this wasn't available to me either.
   I substituted one bunch of spinach and one of red chard.



     The manner of Carbonadoing

     Now for the manner of Carbonadoing, it is in this sort; you shall
     first take the meat you must Carbonado, and scotch it both above
     and below; then sprinkle good store of salt upon it, and baste it
     all over with sweet butter melted; which done, take your
     Broyling-iron, I do not mean a Grid-iron (though it be much used
     for those purpose) because of the smoak of the coals, occasioned by
     the dropping of the meat, will ascend about it, and make it stink:
     but a Plate iron made with hoks and pricks, on which you may hang
     the meat; and set it close before the fire, and so the Plate
     heating the meat behind, as the fire doth before, it will both the
     sooner and with more neatness be ready: then, having turned it, and
     basted it till it be very brown, dredg it, and serve it up with
     Vinegar and Butter.

     Touching the toasting of Mutton, Venison, or any joynt of Meat,
     which is the most excellentest of all Carbanadoes, you shall take
     the fattest and the largest that can possibly be got (for lean meat
     is less of flavour, and little meat not worth your time :) and
     having scotcht it and cast Salt upon it, you shall set it on a
     strong fork, with a dripping pan underneath it, before the face of
     a quick fire, yet so far off that it may be no means scorch, but
     toast at leasure; then with that which falls from it, and wiht no
     other basting, see that you baste it continually, turning it ever
     and anon many times and so oft that it may soak and brown at great
     leasure, and as oft as you baste it, to oft sprinkle Salt upon it,
     and as you see it toast, scotch it deeper and deeper, epecially in
     the thickest and most fleshy parts where the blood most resteth,
     and when you see that no more blood droppeth from it, but the gravy
     is clear and white, then you shall serve it up either with Venison
     sauce, with Vinegar, Pepper, and Sugar Cinnamon, and the juyce of
     an Orange mixt together, and warmed with some of the gravy.

     (from Gervase Markham's The English Housewife, 1615)

     * 6 steaks, rather thick relative to their size, of whatever kind of
       meat you like
     * 1 stick butter (about 60g)
     * 2 teaspoons salt
     * 1/2 cup orange juice
     * 1/4 cup vinegar
     * 2 tablespoons brown sugar
     * 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
     * ground black pepper

   Score the steaks in a criss-cross fashion, cutting about half the
   depth of the meat, making diamonds about 1/2 an inch across. Using a
   flat grill or a large frypan over a fairly hot stove or fire,
   broil/grill the steaks until they are medium to well done. As you cook
   them, baste them constantly with butter and salt. If any of the steaks
   are thicker than the others, keep deepening the cuts so the heat can
   get into them.

   When the steaks are done, remove them and put them on a serving plate.
   Add all other ingredients to the pan juices, bring to the boil, adjust
   to taste (especially the sugar, vinegar and pepper), then pour over
   the steaks to serve.

   I first cooked this dish at a camping event, and it was a great
   success. Very easy to do, and easy for novice cooks to help with. You
   basically can't go wrong with what is effectively "Elizabethan
   barbecue".


--
Lady Katherine Rowberd (mka Kirrily "Skud" Robert)
katherine at infotrope.net  http://infotrope.net/sca/
Caldrithig, Skraeling Althing, Ealdormere
"The rose is red, the leaves are grene, God save Elizabeth our Queene"