[Sca-cooks] Substitutions... how do we know?

[Cassandra Baldassano]

One thing I've noticed in several of the extant texts is that the recipes
above and/or below the selected recipe can be very similar. Would this
recipe have such neighboring recipes in the text that would give more
insight?

Euriol

Euriol of Lothian, OP
Minister of Arts & Sciences, Barony of Endless Hills
Clerk, Order of the Pelican, Kingdom of Æthelmearc

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was
service. I acted and behold, service was joy."
-Robindranath Tagore, Poet/Playwright/Essayist 1913 Nobel Prize for
Literature

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Lilinah
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 1:25 PM
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Substitutions... how do we know?

Nichola wrote:
>Ok I am not doubting your typing in the recipe... I am sure you did it
>word for word with the few exceptions... but the way I am reading it...
>I have 2 dishes here....
>I have a sauce of well strained almonds with pomegranate juice on the
>side... (since it was strained...)
>AND
>Chicken and onions cooked with a paste of water sugar and spices.
>Thus a Chicken and onions with a Sauce of thickened Pomegranate Juice.
SNIP
>The recipe never says to mix the sauce with the chicken.

I believe it does.

Here are the steps in the recipe numbered by me:
1. Fry the chicken with lard and with onions.
2. Chop unpeeled almonds, temper them with pomegranate juice, and 
strain them well.
3. Mix a little water with sugar and spices.
4. Put this to boil for a little with the said chicken, and mix well 
with a wooden spoon, and put mixed spices above.

I interpret step 4 as telling the cook to add the almond-pomegranate 
mix and the water-sugar-spice mix to the chicken-onions and to cook 
it a while.

I realize the original is a bit vague, but i am quite familiar with 
this recipe in its various other incarnations, and all the stuff 
definitely gets cooked together. It's just that not completely 
specified "this" at the beginning of step 4 that's throwing you. I 
assume you're interpreting "this" just to be the water-sugar-spice.

The part i find unclear is step 2.

I've been through quite a few recipes lately in which straining is 
not a process of removing the big lumps of one ingredient from a 
blend with liquid, as in the usual European making almond milk. But 
rather, the straining is a way of making sure that small parts of 
some ingredient are incorporated with a liquid.

So is step 2 making basic almond milk using pomegranate juice? or is 
it a way of making a creamy mixture of finely chopped almonds and 
pomegranate juice?

Once i do the big reveal, i think the ambiguities should become clear 
- that is, not that this specific recipe will be that much clearer, 
but its antecedents and precedents will make clear that which is 
confusing you and what is confusing me.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

My LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/lilinah
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