Take three bottles of inexpensive red wine (don't waste your best Burgundy - by the time you've finished with this wine, the delicate nuances will have been trampled with hob-nailed boots). Gently heat the wine in a large covered pan (but don't boil it) and add ¾ or 1 cup of sugar (depending on your sweet tooth - or use honey) and these spices: 1 tbsp ginger, 4 cinnamon sticks (broken in pieces), 12 cloves, 1 tbsp galingale, and ½ tsp each of cardamom, nutmeg, mace, long pepper, and grains of paradise. Stir over low heat for a few minutes, then allow to cool. Strain through a clean cloth or filter paper ( the original source says to save the strained-out spices to put in your next stew!). This is an after-dinner drink - serve it either cold or warm, with wafers, sweetmeats, and comfits.
The recipe is not engraved in stone - you may omit or substitute for spices you lack (although, speaking as spicers, we frown on it) and you may vary the concentration by diluting with more wine (but don't cut it too far, or you lose that pungent potency proper to Ypocras). An alternative preparation method is to steep the spices in cold wine for a day or two.
Waes hael! Drinc hael!
Grind the mastic with some of the salt; grind the mahlab with the remainder of the salt; combine. Add 1 tbsp per 4 cups flour in your bread recipe. (Store mixture in a tightly closed container in a cool place.)
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HOW TO USE COCHINEAL AS A FOOD COLOUR
To use cochineal, it needs to be extracted. To do so, grind the bugs very finely (to a powder). By the way, a little bit of cochineal goes a long way. Take 1 tablespoon of powder and put it in 1 cup of water. Bring to a rolling boil, and boil for 15 minutes.
Be careful not to burn the dye. Add more water if necessary. Strain liquid through a fine filter or sieve. Return grounds to pot, with 1 cup of fresh water. Bring to rolling boil, and boil for 15 minutes. Strain as before, and return grounds to pot with 1 cup of fresh water. Boil again for 15 minutes. Strain and discard the grounds. You can reduce the amount of liquid by simmering to evaporate, if you wish.
This will give you a very concentrated liquid which can be used like food coloring. It must be refrigerated, and will mold. You can also evaporate this down to a powder, which can be stored indefinitely. I use air evaporation to do this to avoid burning the dye.
[instructions courtesy of Asha]
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EATING OUR WAY THROUGH HISTORY
We hope eventually to have here a representative selection of recipes which will allow the curious gourmet to recreate foods from across the ranch of recorded history. As a starting point, we are going back nearly as far as writing itself goes, thanks to the kindness of Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn (Heather Rose Jones), who has recreated dishes from "The Yale Culinary Tablets", written in Akkadian, an ancient Mesopotamian language, about 1700 B.C. [The modernized recipe is her copyright, reproduced here by permission; it should not be further reproduced without her permission (hrjones@uclink.berkeley.edu). The Akkadian texts have been published in Textes Culinaires Mesopotamiens / Mesopotamian Culinary Texts ed. Jean Bottero (Eisenbrauns, 1995).]
TUHU BEETS (Akkadian, about 1700 B.C.)
Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn (Heather Rose Jones) writes (about the Akkadian recipes): "I've done a lot of playing around with them -- I don't know that I've done exactly the same interpretation twice. There is enough uncertainty, not only in terms of what you're aiming for, but even in terms of the precise ingredients, that I don't think there can be definitive interpretations. (You're dealing with ingredients that are "translated" in the glossary with things like "unknown member of the onion family" or "non-liquid milk product".) Given that I can be reasonably sure that my interpretations are flawed in some way, I'm hesitant to put them forth as "the interpretation". It would be better for each person to make their own judgements and compromises, rather than having them add theirs on top of mine. But here's one that I didn't have to make too many guesses on (beyond the ones the translators have done). Just for fun, I've included the original text (in transcription) although I've had to eliminate some of the diacritics.
Tuhu shirum saqum izzaz me tukan lipia tanadi tusammat tabatum shikara shusikillu-sar; egengerum kisibirru samidu U-kamunu alutum tukamasma karshum-sar hazanum teteri; kisibirru ina muhhishipki tushapah shuhutinnu isharutu ...
"Tuhu beets (?). Leg (of mutton) (?) meat is used. Prepare water; add fat. Peel (?) the vegetables. Add salt, beer, onion, arugula (?), coriander (?), 'samidu', cumin (?), and the beets. Assemble (all the ingredients in the cooking vessel) and mash leek and garlic. After cooking, sprinkle the resulting porridge with coriander (?) and [raw] 'shuhutinnu' [...]."
'Samidu' and 'shuhutinnu' are unidentified members of the onion family (but must be different from the identified ones: onion, leek, garlic). I substituted shallots for the first (on the principle of availability) and chives for the second (since they fit the "garnish" function nicely).
Make a broth using mutton or lamb. Peel or scrape 5 medium beets and slice thinly. Add equal amounts of broth and beer to cover. (Keep in mind that unhopped beer would be more accurate.) Add: 1 medium onion, chopped; a handful of arugula leaves, chopped; 1/2 tsp. each coriander and cumin seed, pounded in a mortar (note: "coriander" could refer to either coriander seed or fresh leaf, i.e., cilantro -- in the absense of guidelines, I've used both in the two places it is called for); 1 shallot, chopped; 1 medium leek (white only) sliced; 6 cloves garlic, chopped. Simmer until the beets become mushy -- if you need more liquid, add more beer and/or broth. Mash into a porridge-like consistancy. Garnish with chopped chives and cilantro. (Go easy on the cilantro or it will overpower the other tastes.)
ALITER ASSATURAS (SAUCE FOR ROAST MEAT)
(Late Roman 4th or 5th century)
This recipe gives an interesting example of the elaborate and powerfully flavoured sauces of spices and herbs which were common in ancient Roman cookery. (A scruple is 1/24th of an ounce)
"6 scruples each of parsley, hazelwort, ginger, 5 laurel berries, sufficient seasoning, 6 scruples each of asafoetida root, origan, and cyperus, a little costmary, 3 scruples of pyrethrum, 6 scruples of celery-seed, 12 scruples of pepper, and sufficient liquamen and oil." [Apicius, the Roman Cookery Book, translated by Barbara Flower and Elisabeth Rosenbaum (London: Harrap, 1958), pp. 161-163.]
Over-Spiced Red Wine -- A condiment used in cooking
1 cup (8 oz.) red wine -- a good one, not cheap or thin
20 cloves
1 small shred of mace
1 stick cinnamon
1 chunk of galanga
ginger -- don't skimp
8 or so allspice berries, crushed
6-10 corns of black pepper, crushed, or 6-10 cubebs, or ½ tsp. grains of paradise
1 tbsp. honey if the wine is not sweet
Combine in a glass jar. Let sit a week before use. This is a pleasant flavouring for teas, plain cookies, jellies, wherever you would use a flavouring. Use 1 or 2 tbsp at a time except for in Hot Wine Toddy (4 oz. boiled water or weak hot tea, 1 oz. over-spiced wine, 1 tsp. sugar or honey) [Recipe courtesy of Shannon Dickson].
Nearly Plain Chicken Soup (Shannon Dickson's own recipe)
1 chicken
1 large chunk of galanga
1 star anise
about a gallon of water [n.b. imperial gallon=160 fl. oz.]
1 leek, both greens and white, cut and washed
Bring the chicken, spices, and water nearly to a boil. Leave simmering for a couple of hours. Remove the chicken; pour broth into a taller, narrower container. Cool and remove the fat (which may be used for cooking savouries but is highly flavoured). Remove the meat from the bones, chop it up, and add with the leek to the broth. Heat until leeks are tender. Noodles, potatoes, rice, and/or vegetables may be added at this stage. Serve. [Recipe courtesy of Shannon Dickson.]
A Moroccan recipe using Ras el Hanout, courtesy of Robert Shands:
TAJINE
MSIR ZEETOON
(Chicken with Lemon and Olives)
| one-half of a chicken | Ras el Hanout |
| ¾ cup lemon juice | one cup chicken broth |
| 8 cloves garlic, minced | one cup chopped cilantro |
| 2 tbs minced thyme | 1½ cup green & black olives |
| 1 tbs sweet paprika | cornstarch |
| 1½ tsp ground cumin | lemon slices (optional) |
| ¾ tsp cayenne pepper |
Mix the first column of ingredients and pour over the chicken. Marinate in the refrigerator six hours or overnight. Remove chicken from marinade. Dust with Ras el Hanout. Grill chicken on a barbeque grill until chicken is brown but still pink inside. Place chicken in a greased casserole dish. Strain the marinade and mix with one cup chicken broth, one cup chopped cilantro, 1½ cup green and black olives mixed, one tbs Ras el Hanout. Cover and bake in a 325°F oven for 45 minutes or until chicken is very tender.
Remove chicken and place on a bed of couscous. Thicken broth with cornstarch and pour lemon-olive mixture over chicken and couscous. Garnish with lemon slices (optional) and serve.
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Author: David Dendy © 1997-2002
This page was last updated on 17/02/02.