Maumenee
This is one of the stranger dishes I have run into. It is a sweet wine stew with foul meat and nuts. It is very much a medieval dish with all the spices and colouring and artificiality that was so priced. It is also a really tasty dish, but also very sweet dish. It works really well as a side dish for game – like we in modern time use a jam or cranberry sauce with game. The dish can be made with any kind of foul – the meat should be a game-meat as that adds to the flavour.
We made the dish with rook chicks that our friend had from a hunter she knows. The de-boning was quite a task but it was really delicious and exotic so it was worth the hassle.
The original recipe is from Forme of Cury, an english cookbook from around 1390.
Mawmenee. Take a portell of wyne greke and ii pounde of sugur; take and claryfye the sugur with a quantite of wyne & drawe it thugh a strynour in to a pot of wrthe. Take flour of rys and medle with sum of the wyne & cast gogydre. Take pynes with dates and frye hem a litell in grece oþer in oyle and cast hem togydre. Take clowes & flour of canel hool and cast þerto. Take powdour gynger, canel, clowes, colour it with saundres a lytel yf hit be nede. Cast salt þerto, and lat it seeþ warly with a slowe fyre and not to thyk. Take brawn of capouns ysteysed oþer of fasauntes teysed small and cast þerto.
The portion is very large – as you can see on the picture. I would recommend making a half portion unless you are serving ten or more people.
Mawmenee
Ingredients
- 1 bottle white wine
- 400 grams sugar
- 100 milliliters rice flour
- 200 milliliters dates fresh or dried
- 200 milliliters pine nuts we used chopped almond and that worked fine
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon cloves whole
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon bark
- 1 teaspoon ginger ground
- 400 grams fowl meat chopped/ground
- 1/2 teaspoon sandalwood or enough red food colouring to color it red
Instructions
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Heat the wine and sugar in a pot until the sugar is dissolved.
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Stir the rice flour with a bit of water and add it to the pot to thicken the dish. (You might need to do this again if it is to runny at the end)
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Fry dates and nuts in the oil in a separate pan. And add it to the pot.
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Add the spices - if you use whole spices add them in a tea bag so you can remove them.
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Colour the dish so it stops being grey.
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Add the meat and heat it though until the meat is cooked.
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Let it simmer for about 15 minutes. The finished dish should have a source consistency, if it is too thin - thicken with more rice flour.
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Take out the whole spices, before serving the dish.
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Take out the whole spices, before serving the dish.
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Serve the dish with game meat or foul
Recipe Notes
Source: Middelaldermad by Bi Skaarup & Henrik Jacobsen, 1999