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