[Sca-cooks] Elizabethan chickeny goodness

Laura C. Minnick lcm at jeffnet.org
Wed May 19 19:54:24 PDT 2010


>
> I made this last weekend for dinner on Saturday, at our annual Black 
> Hills event (Hi, Mistress Aldyth!). This is from The Good Housewife's 
> Jewell:
>
> To boile a Capon with Orenges and Lemmons. Take Orenges or Lemmons 
> pilled, and cutte them the long way, and if you can keepe your cloves 
> whole and put them into your best broth of Mutton or Capon with prunes 
> or currants and three or fowre dates, and when these have beene well 
> sodden put whole pepper great mace, a good piece of suger, some rose 
> water, and eyther white or claret Wine, and let al these seeth 
> together a while, and so serve it upon soppes with your capon.
> **********
>
> What actually happened was that three boneless/skinless chicken breast 
> halves got cut into largish chunks and put in the crock pot with two 
> cans of chicken broth, a goodly amount of prunes, about eight dates, 
> the innards of two navel oranges sliced the wrong way, some 
> peppercorns, a few cloves, and about an inch of cinnamon stick because 
> it was in the jar with the cloves.
>
> I skipped the sugar on the theory that the oranges in the original 
> recipe were probably sour oranges (since the other option is lemons), 
> skipped the rosewater because the Consort has almost no sense of smell 
> and wouldn't notice it anyway, skipped the mace because I neglected to 
> pack it, and totally forgot the wine.
>
> It was in the crock pot on high for at least 6 hours. What happened 
> was that the prunes, oranges, and dates lost most of their structural 
> integrity--I imagine that if I submitted it all to something like a 
> blender or mortar & pestle it would make a thinish sauce. It got 
> served over slightly dry untoasted rolls (sliced in half like 
> hamburger buns) because the toaster turned out to not work.
>
> So since what I *did* make was extremely tasty, I am going to try it 
> again with all the correct ingredients this time and see what happens.
>

It really is quite different with the wine.

About the rosewater- it was a very nice touch, * but * when reheated it 
tasted unpleasantly of soap. Definitely not a 'better the next day' 
dish. :-/

Liutgard


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