[Sca-cooks] Next project, next recipe II.Ambroyno

[Raphaella DiContini]

I made this for dinner last night. Rather than using a whole chicken I started with the chicken breasts I already had on hand. I'll likely do another trial next week with a cut up full fryer. 

II.Ambroyno.
Se tu voy fare ambroyno, toy polastri e smenbrali, toy cipole bene trita e frigeli in lardo colato, e mitili specie dolce e forte, e zenzevro, e cenamo, e garofali, e melegette, e taglia menuti con coltello, e mitili a frizere ogni cossa in sembre. E toy mandole non monde, e maxenate, e toy agresta, e zafarano, insema. Quando sono cocti meti sopra li polastri. A tri polastri vole libre ij de mandole. 

II. (2) Ambroyno (a sweet food) {Chicken in spicy onion and almond sauce}
If you want to make ambroyno, take a hen and chop in pieces, take onions well minced and fry them in strained lard, and put in sweet and strong spices, and ginger, and cloves, and grains of paradise, and cut them small with a knife and put them to fry everything together. And take un-peeled almonds and grind them and take verjuice and saffron together. When it is cooked put it over the hen. For three hens you want a pound of almonds.


I cooked dinner for 3 adults so I used 3 chicken breasts and as one of the diners doesn't eat pork or pork fat, I did two variations of this recipe. The first one was more true to the original, the two chicken breasts, minced onion, fried in clarified lard then spices and ground almond, verjuice and saffron added. 

The other chicken breast and onion was sauteed in a little extra virgin olive oil, then the rest added as above. 

Its interesting to me that this doesn't seem to call for straining out the almond solids as is usually done with almond milk, whether water, vinegar or verjuice based, whereas another just two down from this one "IV. Ambrosino bono e perfecto et cetera" specifies "when it is cooked first put in the almonds with the shell not peeled (un-skinned) and grind and distemper (mix) with little vinegar and when it is cooked the dish, strain the almonds". To me this doesn't sound like an over site, I think you're meant to leave the almond solids in to thicken the sauce. I think the sauce turned out perfectly and this is what I did, although at some point I may try it strained as well just to see what it yields. 

First run through was: 
3 chicken breasts cut into bite sized pieces
1 tsp clarified lard (or for one piece EVOO)
1/2 medium onion (I think I could have added more)
1/4 tsp sweet spice mix, from same manuscript... See More
1/4 tsp black and strong spice mix, from same manuscript
1/2 tsp ginger, 1/8 tsp clove, 1/8 tsp grains of paradise
sauce was
1 1/2 cup ground un-peeled almonds
1 1/2 cup Agresto/ Verjuice/ sour grape juice
6-10 threads of saffron
I probably could have cut the almonds by 1/2 cup, or increased the Agresto, still I was happy with the results. 

The spice mixes are one's I've done previously to donate to largess. Here's the source information: http://ayeshadream.livejournal.com/302581.html
Here's my interpretation, and what they look like in the bottles w/ lables: http://ayeshadream.livejournal.com/310674.html

In joyous service, 
Raffaella