Roman: Frontonian chicken (Apicius)

At one time I decided to try working my way through my copy of Apicius and trying all the recipes... Someday I'll actually do that. In reality what I did was have a go at the first one that looked easy and delicious - and stopped, because it was both; and because I had a baby and no more brain cells to rub together... so here I present: That time I got Organised Enough to Take Photos of me having a bash at Frontonian Chicken... which is Both Easy and Delicious.

Recipe

The original recipe (in latin)

[6.8.12] pullum Frontonianum: pullum praedura, condies liquamine oleo mixto, cui mittis fasciculum aneti porri satureiae et coriandri uiridis, et quoques. ubi coctus fuerit leuabis eum, in lance defrito perungues, piper aspargis et inferes.
-- from Apicius

The translation:

TRANSLATION: 6.8.12. Frontonian chicken : Sear the outside of the chicken, flavour with a mixture of liquamen and oil, to which you add a bundle of dill, leek, savory and green coriander and cook it. When it is cooked, lift it out, drizzle defrutum over it on the serving dish, sprinkle with pepper and serve
-- from Apicius

My redaction

Note that my version uses substitutions, doesn't have all the herbs, and uses my own previous attempt at defrutum. I'll present reasonable alternatives where I know them.

Ingredients

• 4 chicken pieces (legs work well)
• liquamen (or equivalent eg anchovies/paste)
• oil (for frying)
• leek
• savory
• fresh/green coriander (leaves, not seeds)
• pepper (to taste)
• defrutum (or equivalent eg Maggie Beer Vino Cotto is a great substitute)

Frontonian chicken: ingredients

Equipment

• One heavy pot and/or frypan with a lid
• Stirring utensils

Basic recipe (quick overview - full method is below)

1. Prep: Slice the leeks
2. Prep: make up oil/liquamen mixture
3. Sear chicken in oil
4. Add leeks and herbs
5. Cook over low heat until chicken and leek are thoroughly cooked
6. Drizzle defrutum over it and add pepper to taste
7. Eat and enjoy!

Prep: slice the leeks

I sliced normal leeks into long thin vertical slices - just for an interesting noodly texture. You can also use whole baby-leeks - which are delicious and easy to use. I found the long leeks a bit hard to fry and also to eat, at this size. I would probably slice them into shorter sections in future.

Leeks

Prep: make up oil/liquamen mixture

I chopped the anchovies finely and mixed into some oil. This makes a reasonable substitute for liquamen. The anchovies liquidise further upon cooking and melt into the dish. You really can't taste them at all - the dish is not fishy in any way. I've had die-hard fish-haters be extremely surprised to find out it had anchovies in it... it just adds salt and umami to the end result - and is offset by the sweet/sour of the defrutum.

Mix oil and liquamen

Sear chicken in oil

In this photo series I actually used duck legs that I'd cooked earlier (in bulk), so you won't see them actually cooking here - but they did need a good searing to give them a delicious browning.

Sear the chicken

Lightly seared

Add leeks and herbs

The savory I had was dried and the coriander was mush - so i didn't bother with "bundling". I also dislike dill so didn't add it.

Add leeks and herbs

Cook over low heat until chicken and leek are thoroughly cooked

I added the lid and cooked on low for about 25 min.

Add lid and cook

I left it to cook long enough for the leeks to fully wilt and to caramelise a little. As mentioned before, my duck was already cooked, so your cooking time might be longer. You will need to check the chicken is thoroughly cooked into the middle with the "prick and test for pink juice" test.

and done

Drizzle defrutum over it and add pepper to taste, eat and enjoy!

This is the "to taste" section. I added a couple of tablespoons of my defrutum. You need enough so that the sweet of this counterbalances the salty anchovies. It shouldn't be too sickly sweet - it's an enhancement, not the main flavour profile.

Then add pepper to taste and enjoy!

The result!

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Sources

Apicius

CHRISTOPHER GROCOCK and SALLY GRAINGER(2006)
Apicius
PROSPECT BOOKS

Relevant page to this recipe: p232/p233

Roman: Defrutum (Apicius)

Defrutum is a roman syrup made by boiling down grape juice with fruit, used as a condiment, to add some syrupy fruity flavours to a wide variety of dishes.

I took the recipe from the appendices of my book of Apicius[1], which describes it as being boiled with either quinces or figs, and that the best defrutum was boiled down to one half its original volume.

So I bought fresh figs, and dried, and added both to 2 litres of grape juice, and boiled them together until it was reduced to 1 litre.

Ingredients: fresh figs and grape juice

The fresh figs unfortunately suffered a tragic bout of shrinkage (nomnomnom) prior to arriving in the saucepan... but three fresh and three dried was more than enough to make it fruity and figgy.

I boiled it for a bit over an hour - until the volume had reduced by half.

Boiling the figs in grape juice

Then strained it and funnelled it into a pop-top bottle, which I now keep in my fridge.

Strained and bottled

I have since used this in a number of Roman recipes (also taken from Apicius) which I will link to when I get around to putting them up here on my blog :)

I also should point out that I happily ate "figs boiled in grape juice with yoghurt" for dessert that night and it was really yummy!

I find that it is a sweet, fruity syrup that has no real modern substitute that I know of. It is a great condiment to add to offset salty dishes and add depth and sweetness.

The full set of photos is in my Defrutum album on flickr

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Update

The lovely Leoba of Mordenvale has pointed out that Maggi Beer's "Vino cotto" might be a plausible modern substitute. I haven't tried it yet, but it is made of boiled-down grape must and a little red wine vinegar. The latter would make it slightly more sour than the defrutum recipe (I suspect), but it would most likely keep longer. Given that this is not boiled with figs, it would be more fittingly a replacement for roman sapa (which was likewise grape must boiled down, but with no fruit), but Leoba also informs me that Maggie Beer make a version boiled with figs: Fig Vino Cotto and also Quince vino cotto, which I think I'll try too...

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Update

"Vino cotto" is a great substitute. It's not exactly the same - I found my hand-made one to be far sweeter. But it's still got the fruity/sweet balance that is necessary - and it;'s far easily available to people not wanting to hand-make. Plus who knows if original roman defrutum might have used grapes that were tarter.

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[1] Apicius

Cristopher Grocock and Sally Grainger(2006) Apicius
Prospect Books ISBN 1-903018-13-7

Relevent page to this recipe: p345

"lemmon mead"

I've been making a lot of home-brew wines in preparation for festival. Over the next indefinite-time-period I'll put them all up here as tutorials. To start with, though, here is the one I put on just this weekend.

I've been making home-brew wines for quite some time now, but my speciality is in meads - which are wines made from honey instead of grapes. So I quite like to try new mead recipes.

This one piqued my interest because it not only has "lemmons", but rosemary and ginger and a little spice - so it looks set to become quite a tasty brew. It's also made with a ratio of honey-water that puts it fairly within my preferred sweetness-range.

Recipe

The recipe comes originally from the "Complete Receipt Book of Ladie Elynor Fettiplace", but I have the redaction from Compleat Anachronist #120.

What I did

Ingredients for ~1 gallon batch:

• 1.7 kg honey
• water as needed
• 2 lemons
• 2 lumps of ginger
• 4 cloves
• 2 blades of mace
• 1 stick of fresh rosemary
• Ale yeast

I guesstimated the amounts for all these based on the ratios in the recipe, and my own personal experience and taste.

Equipment:

A heavy-bottomed-pot - it will need to be about a gallon and a bit in size.

A heat-resistant spoon

A few bowls

A primary-fermentation container of some kind. It must be big enough to hold a bit over a gallon of liquid and have a lid that can be closed almost-completely. I use a giant tupperware container and close it up except for one corner.

A "proper" fermentation vessel - eg a 1 gallon carboy and fitted airlock. You can get this at your local brewing shop

Step 1: "take... water and honey... and set them on ye fyre"

Put the honey into the pot. Add about 3 litres of water and stir them well together. It'll look quite cloudy.

Turn the heat onto medium and let it begin to heat up.

Set a timer for 45minutes, or just mark the time on the clock and keep an eye on it.

Meanwhile...

Step 2: "take... six penniworth of cloves & mace, one race of ginger and as much of rosemary"

Prep your spices. Take your ginger and slice it reasonably thinly. Put aside the cloves and mace, and rinse the rosemary.

You might as well cut your lemons in two while you're at it.

You should also start your yeast now by putting into a warm cup of water.

Meanwhile, back at the farm..

Step 3: "...keep them continually skimming"

By now, the honey-water will be boiling. Keep it to a simmer, and skim the scum that riseth - tipping it out into a bowl.

Step 4: "then add [the spices] and boyle them one quarter of an hour longer"

Once you've boiled and skimmed for 45min, drop the spices and ginger into the pot and let it boil for another quarter of an hour.

Step 5: "take [the lemmons] and put them into a vessel ... take the liquor boyling from the fyre & pour it into the vessel"

Your primary fermenter is likely plastic, so it'd be a bad idea to follow the directions literally and pour the hot water into it. Instead, drop the lemons into your pot, put a lid on it and allow it to stand somewhere to cool down.

Step 6: "put them into a vessel of fit bigness... when the liquor is almost cold... [add] good yest"

Hopefully your yeast has started frothing now. When the liquor is blood-warm, pour it into your fermenting vessel (lemons and all) and mix in your yeast.

Step 7: "when it hath done working, stop it up"

Now just leave it to go for a while. What the instructions mean here is that when it has done with the really super-frothy stage - you should transfer the liquid to your main carboy (without the lemons), and let it continue to ferment.

It's done when it's clear, and the recipe suggests you bottle it in sparkling-wine glasses with a small amount of sugar in each.

Makshufa - Arabian almond-meal Halva

Not so long ago, I realised that while I do a lot of cooking, I don't have a very big range. Mainly I cook the same kind of pseudo-italian pasta-sauce-like things over and over in slightly varying degrees, with the occasional fusion-thai-style dinner for variety.

To kick that, and push my boundaries a little, I've been pushing my cooking comfort-zone. Partly with new mundane things (eg bread), but also with the occasional medieval dish - because why not?

Makshufa - what is it?

Medieval Arab Cookery: Papers by Maxime Rodinson and Charles Perry with a Reprint of a Baghdad Cookery Book

This dish is a medieval sweet-meat - an almond Halva, made from the Medieval Arab Cookery book (here pictured). This book combines a number of period arab cookery books and contains heaps of fantastic and tasty recipes - and I plan to cook a whole bunch of them in time.

The recipe is:

MAKSHUFA. Take equal parts of sugar, almonds (or pistachios), honey, and sesame-oil. Grind the sugar and almonds, and mix together. Add saffron to colour, mixed with rose-water. Put the sesame-oil into a basin, and boil until fragrant: then drop in the honey, and stir until the scum appears. Add the sugar and almonds, stirring all the time over a slow fire until almost set: then remove.

What I did

Ingredients:

• sugar
• almond meal
• sesame oil
• honey
• saffron
• rose water

You will need equal amounts of the first four ingredients - to make a small "loaf" of halva (see pictures below).

Equipment:

You will also need a heavy-bottomed-pot preferably a much bigger one than you'd need to fit the ingredients, as it will bubble and froth like crazy.

You will also need something onto which to pour the hot halva. I find that a lightly-oiled lamington tin is perfect.

I'd also recommend setting aside a couple of saucers for testing "done-ness" of the halva-mix during the toffee-making phase.

A big, heavy knife and a cutting-board are also good for cutting it into pieces. Do this if you think your halva will be fairly solid, as cutting it while it's still warm is much easier than when its gone solid.

Step 1: start the saffron

Before

After

Saffron takes a little while to steep, allowing the colour to come out so I'll generally start it early. The recipe just calls for it to be added... but I'm quite certain that the cooks of the period would have realised that it was the steeped saffron, rather than the strands alone, that is to be added.

To prepare, put a very small amount of warm water into a bowl, and add a pinch of saffron. I also add the rose-water (just a half a teaspoon full) so there's a little more liquid without there being too much plain water.

Then leave it to one side while you do all the next steps - but don't forget about it!

Step 2: prepare your equipment

Getting your equipment ready early means you're prepared to quickly move to the next stage no matter what happens, and I find that in this recipe, things move quickly! So I prefer to have mine prepped and ready to go from the beginning.

In this case, you need your big pot on the stove, and your lamington tin very lightly oiled (a teaspoon smeared out to the edges works for me). Put the lamington tin in easy reach onto a heat-proof mat or trivet.

I'd also put two saucers into the fridge (for testing done-ness). Being cold makes it much quicker to test whether the hot toffee-like stuff is ready.

Put a knife and cutting board to one side for cutting it up while still warm.

Step 3: prepare the main ingredients

The recipe calls for pounding the almonds and sugar - but I cheated and just bought almond meal and table sugar. You can grind your own if you like - fresh-ground almond meal does have a much better flavour... but there's also something to be said for convenience. So at this stage, all I did was mix them together.

Meanwhile, in a pot I began to warm the sesame-oil. Once it's warm it will indeed begin to smell wonderfully fragrant - at this point you can pour in the honey. It's unlikely that modern honey will have very much scum - as mostly modern honey is filtered for all the bee-parts, pollen and wax. You will get a small amount of scum, which is the proteins of the honey. It's up to you whether or not you want so skim it off - it's in no way bad for you, and this recipe doesn't require crystal-clear clarity, so I'd just mix it back in.

Don't let it get too hot - leave it on a low simmer.

Step 4: Add the ingredients to the pot

When your oil and honey is nicely warmed and starting to simmer, it's ready for you to add your other ingredients. Don't let it be too hot, because it will burn the almond-meal. Just a light simmer will do.

Please be very careful when adding the other ingredients - they will cause the very hot, very sticky mixture to bubble and froth!

Add the almond meal/sugar mix, and the saffron/rose-water too; stirring quickly to get it mixed in well and not all lumpy.

Step 5: "stir it over the fire until almost set"

The next stage is to just let it simmer on low, letting the sugars caramelise. Determining how long this should be is a black art, with the answer being "until it's ready".

You can tell it's ready if you drop a half-teaspoon-ful onto a *cold* saucer (from the fridge). If you tip the plate and it runs across the plate - it's nowhere near done. If it doesn't move at all it's done! take it off the heat! If it kind of gloobs over to one side, carefully push at it with a fingernail or spoon - it should feel like treacle - at which point, take the pot off the heat and go to the next stage.

Step 6: pour it forth

Pour it out onto the lamington tin. Now and then, push at it with a spoon. You'll want it to be not too hot to manipulate, but you want to get to it before it goes too solid to play with.

The runniness can be deceiving... the picture at right is when it's just been poured out and it still too runny to move - it looked to me like it'd be way too soggy to cut, but this halva actually went nearly rock-hard when cool.

Step 7: roll and cut

Roll it up

and cut.

Roll it up, then cut it into bite-sized chunks and serve it forth. Enjoy.

I recommend keeping it in an air-tight container to maintain the texture.