This is the new and improved and thoroughly tested version of lutendranck. The recipe is based on a recipe from a original German cookbook by Anna Wecker from 1598 (from the Danish edition).
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Pearl Barley Salad
One of my favourite salads is one based on boiled pearl barley. I love it because it is filling, fresh and easy to make. I often serve it instead of pasta or potatoes and people generally seem pretty happy with that. More often than not we have fish or a steak on the side but sometimes I serve it with some fried goats cheese on top instead of meat on the side. I do quite a few variations on this salad, but the boiled barley is at the core of each variation.
Maumenee
Maumenee is a kind of sweet wine stew with game meat, dates and nuts. It is a lot tastier than that sound. It works really well as a sauce for other game dishes.
I think it can be made with any game meat. We used rook, the original recipe calls for chicken or hare.
The original recipe from 1390 from Forme of Cury1
Mawmenee. Take a potell of wyne greke and ii poude of sugur; take and clarfye the sugur with a quantite of wyne & drawe it thurgh a strynour in to a pot of erhe. Take pynes with date 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 feauntes teysed small and cast þerto.
I will recommend using less sugar than the recipe calls for. I will post an updated recipe once I have tested it. We used powdour fort in addition to the spices listed – because we like it. But this is the recipe as it is in Middelaldermad, I added our variations in parentheses. I would also recommend making a half portion unless you are cooking for a lot of people as the portion is really big.
You can find other versions of the recipe @medievalcookery.com
Maumenee
Ingredients
- 1 bottle white wine preferably sweet German white wine, but any white wine will do
- 400 grams sugar use less than this - the wine mixture should be sweet but not overly so.
- 100 milliliters rice flour
- 200 milliliters pine nuts we used chopped almonds which worked fine
- 200 milliliters dates quartered (without stones). Fresh or dry
- 2 tablespoons olive oil for frying
- 400 grams rooster or pheasant or rook. Diced
The spices
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon bark
- 0,5 teaspoon cloves whole
- 2 teaspoons salt or to taste
Instructions
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Wine and sugar is heated though until the sugar is dissolved. Dissolve the rice flour in a bit of water (I used about half a cup) to prevent lumps and thicken the wine with the rice flour.
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Fry the dates and nuts in the olive oil and add it to the pot.
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Tie the whole spices into a piece of cloth or a tea bag and put them into the pot. Add the other spices. Color the stew with the sandalwood or the food coloring. You want it to stop being greyish.
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Let it simmer for a bit. Take up the spice bag (it is easier that way) and add in the raw meat.
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Let the stew simmer for 15 minutes until it reaches a sauce consistency.
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Add salt to taste. Serve warm
Recipe Notes
Source: The original recipe from 1390 from Forme of Cury. Form of Cure, originally from Curye in Inglysch, edited by C. B. Hieatt and S. Butler, London 1985). From Middelaldermad by Bi Skaarup & Henrik Jacobsen. There are many other transcriptions of this recipe, but this is the one I used.
You can find other versions of the recipe @medievalcookery.com
Experimenters in Spiced Wine – Anno 2017
On the blog I have talked about medieval spiced wine before. My boyfriend and I have decided that we want to start going to medieval reenactment markeds as spice wine merchants. To do this we of course had to get the clothing and gear, more about that in another post. We are going to our first marked in little under two weeks.
For the last month I have done experiments to source the best (cheap) wine to use for the spiced wines.
Carrots in lemon and theme
This is a super simple recipe for lemon steamed carrots, that we cooked for the medieval inspired larp event this winter.
Carrots in lemon and theme
Ingredients
- Carrots
- lemon peal and juice, uncoated (or organic)
- handful of theme fresh
- A bit of water
Instructions
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Clean the carrots and cut them into similar sized pieces.
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Peal the lemon and juice it.
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Place the carrots in a pot and pour the juice over it. If it seem like it is a bit too dry add a bit of water. You only need a little bit of liquid to cook the carrots.
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Add the lemon peal to the pot.
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Cook the carrots under a lid. Remember to test them so they don't got too soft. You want them with a bit of bite.
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Drain the carrots and place them in a nice dish and sprinkle the theme over.
Recipe Notes
Source: Smag på maden
Midwinter Feast – a larp event
Midvinterfesten
This weekend I hosted a larp event themed as a medieval (inspired) midwinter feast. Most of the food served was medieval or renaissance inspired. I thought I would gather the recipes together here and show a few pictures.
The event went extremely well both as a larp event and as a dinner. Everyone loved the food, though some of course didn’t like everything. The roleplay was the type we were hoping for, we had no battles or combat at all but rather a lot of character development and political maneuvering. I really couldn’t be happier with how it played out.
Green Peas to serve with meat
This is a side dish of spiced green peas that goes well with meat. The recipe is from the 1400’s.
Grene Pesen. Take yonge grene pesen, and sethe hom with gode broth of beef, and take parsel, sage, saveray, and ysope, and a lytle brede, and bray all this in a morter, and sume of the pesen therpyth, and tempur hit wuth the broth, and do hit in a pot to the other pesen, and let hit boyle togedur, and serve hit forth.
From Pleyn Delit, no 20
I used fewer spices than the original recipe calls for, just because it is in the middle of the winter and I wasn’t able to get hold of hyssop or savory or mint at this time of year. Instead I used thyme – I am sure the real version is more complex, but my version did taste good.
Green Peas to serve with meat
Ingredients
- 700 grams frozen peas
- 200 milliliters beef stock
- A bunch of flat-leaf parsley
- 3 pinces of fresh mint
- 6 leaves of sage
- a bit of fresh hyssop (or 0,5 tsp dried)
- a bit of fresh savory (or 0,5 tsp dried)
- 1,5 slices plain white bread for fresh bread crumbs
Instructions
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Defrost the peas, if you are using frozen ones, like I did.
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Cook the peas in a bit of stock.
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Bend the bread to make breadcrumbs - remember to remove the crust.
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Take 100 ml of peas and blend them with the stock and herbs.
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Heat the pea source and let it thicken a bit.
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Mix it with with the cooked peas and heat them if needed.
Recipe Notes
Source: Pleyn Delit 1400's
Powdour Fort
Powder fort is a strong spice mix used primary in meat dishes. Like all medieval spice mixes this one has a number of different recipes. This is the one I use right now.
Powdour Fort
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon cloves ground
- 1 tablespoon ginger ground
- 1 tablespoon black or white pepper
- 1 tablespoon galangal ground
Instructions
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Measure the spices out and mix them together
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Store in a dark place and it will keep for months.
Recipe Notes
Source: Middelalder mad af Bi Skaarup og Henrik Jacobsen s. 135