Some Recipes

Here are some of the medieval recipes I've worked out (see also my other pages on sweets). I've linked to source material when it's available online. Happy cooking!

Drinks

Spiced Honey Drink
Unfermented mead, or a variation on Clarea de Agua. These are just the proportions and spices I happen to like, I recommend experimenting in small batches until you find something that pleases you.
My version:
1.5 lbs honey
1 gallon of water
Juice and zest of two small lemons (scale up or down to your taste)
Spices to taste (I use nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, clove, and cubeb)
More water (see note)

In a large pot, bring the honey and water to a boil. Foam will rise to the top – skim this off. Keep the pot boiling and keep skimming off and discarding the foam until no more rises. Add the lemon juice/zest and the spices, cover the pot, turn down the heat, and simmer for approximately 20-30 minutes, stirring periodically.

Note: You'll want to dilute this further before drinking. I usually dilute by half (my basic mead recipe is one part honey – by volume – to four parts water, and if I'm not going to ferment it I do one part honey to eight parts water). Alternatively, you can skip the dilution or even make a more concentrated version to take with you to a camping event – then just dilute it one serving at a time (it's easier to store in the cooler this way).

Sekanjabin
Medieval Persian drink. This recipe is for the syrup, dilute with water to taste before serving.

1.5 cups sugar
1 cup vinegar or verjuice
0.5 cup water
Lots and LOTS of fresh mint -- you are limited only by your tastes and the cost of mint (I typically use about a quart, loosely packed)

Bring the water, vinegar (or verjuice), and sugar to a boil. Add the mint and simmer gently for 10-20 minutes. Strain out the mint and let the syrup cool. The syrup will keep a very long time.

Sekanjabin is often used almost as a medieval sports drink by SCAdians. I love the stuff. To make it even more like a real sports drink, add just a pinch of salt.

Easy Spiced Cider
This is just hypocras made with apple juice instead of wine.

1 half-gallon bottle of apple juice or cider
1 cinnamon stick
3 or 4 cloves
3 or 4 whole cardamom pods
1 teaspoon chipped dried ginger
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup water
Optional: citrus juice and zest (orange or lemon)

Simmer everything except water for 30 minutes or more. Add water to make up for that lost while simmering. Alternatively, I usually do this in the slow cooker -- just put everything (including the water) in and turn it to high for 2 hours or so, then turn it down to low and leave it on. The slow cooker method is a great potluck contribution (if your pot is big enough, make a double batch). You can strain out the spices before serving, or put them in a muslin bag at the start to make fishing them out easer.

Pies

Lavender Pie

The first time I made Sambocade, I couldn't find any elder flowers. So I used dried lavender instead. The result was a rather alarming color, but was actually eaten when I took it to an SCA potluck -- even someone who professed a dislike of both lavender and rose water pronounced it good!

2 lbs cottage cheese (drain off the whey overnight -- you want just the curds)
2 egg whites
1/3 c sugar
2 T rose water (if you like it, more would be okay)
~2T lavender flowers (I just ground them into a powder in my spice grinder)

One nine inch pie crust

Blend the filling well (a food processor would help) and pour into the pie shell. Bake 45-60min at 350 degrees.

Cherry Pie

Period recipe and a redaction here.

One 1lb bag frozen cherries (sweet dark cherries, not pie cherries)
1 c ricotta cheese
1/4 c sugar
2 eggs
Spices to taste: cinnamon, ginger, and pepper
1/2 c parmesan

Crust:
1 stick butter
1.5 c flour
1 pinch salt
2 tsp sugar
some cold water

Let the cherries thaw in the 'fridge overnight, then drain off any liquid before you start. Make your pie crust (cut the butter into the flour/salt/sugar, add cold water until you can form a ball). Roll the crust out to whatever size pie you want and put it in your pan. Mix cheeses, eggs, sugar, and spices together and pour into your crust, then place the cherries on top. (This is a much more modern presentation than the glop filling suggested in the original, but I like it.) Bake at 350F for 30 minutes, or so.

TOTALLY DELICIOUS. For serious. It is a little bit unusual, but I really like it.

Greens Tart

You can use any greens you like.

One 9" pie crust
1 standard salad baggie of baby spinach (or chard, or mixed salad greens, or...)
One small onion, chopped
6 eggs
1/2 cup fresh cheese (ricotta or farmers cheese)
1/2 cup (or more) grated cheese (cheddar, mozzarella, etc.)
To taste: salt, pepper, fresh rosemary or other herbs.

Chop the spinach and fresh herbs as finely as you can. Slice the onion. Put the onion and grated cheese at the bottom of the shell, lay the spinach over this. Beat together the eggs and fresh cheese and pour over spinach. Bake for approximately 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Pasta

Gnocchi

The original: (I found it on Gode Cookery)

The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy
Odile Redon, Francoise Sabban & Silvano Serventi
translated by Edward Schneider

Chapter: Soups and Pasta: Potages
Recipe 9. Cheese Gnocchi
p. 63-64

"If you want some gnocchi, take some fresh cheese and mash it, then take some flour and mix with egg yolks as in the making migliacci. Put a pot full of water on the fire and, when it begins to boil, put the mixture on a dish and drop it into the pot with a ladle. And when they are cooked, place them on dishes and sprinkle with plenty of grated cheese. (from Grammento di un libro di cucina del sec. XIV)"

In period gnocchi were eaten with a single pointed stick, kind of like a chopstick.

1 (fifteen-ounce) container of ricotta
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt

Mash the salt into the ricotta using a fork. Beat in the egg, then the flour. Drop by spoonfuls into gently boiling water, only a few at a time, cook 4-6 minutes per batch. Stirring seemed to break them up rather than do anything useful. Fish them out and let them drain in a colander. Serve with olive oil or butter and grated cheese. Easily scaled up.

Very nice with nutmeg and parmesan added.

Ravieles

There's a 13th century English recipe for ravioli that reads:

"Take fine flour and sugar and make pasta dough; take good cheese and butter and cream them together; then take parsley, sage, and shallots, chop them finely, and put them in the filling. Put the boiled ravieles on a bed of grated cheese and cover them with more grated cheese, then reheat them."

(This is found in Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections by Hiett and Butler)

I have made this several times with great success, although I have yet to pin down proportions (I always end up with too much filling). For the dough, use any basic fresh pasta dough recipe but add a pinch each of sugar and ginger. For the filling, the cheese I prefer is soft farmer's cheese (it's very similar to -- and can be replaced by -- ricotta).

Soup, Grains, Glop

Yellow Pea Soup

1 large onion, chopped
2 cups yellow peas (un-split if you can find them)
2 quarts water
To taste: salt, pepper, bay leaf, other dried or fresh herbs (sage is good)

Wash and sort the peas, soak overnight. Discard soaking water. Place all ingredients in a pot (works well in the slow cooker) and simmer until peas are soft (often several hours).

Basic Barley

1 cup pearled barley
3 cups water, almond milk, or broth (I like chicken)
Salt to taste

Simmer for 1 hour. Also works well in the slow cooker. Plain barley is pretty dismal – I recommend serving this with a collection of additives, like butter, honey, herbs (especially chives), sour cream, grated cheese, etc. For sweet barley, cook with almond milk, butter, and honey. For savory barley, cook in chicken broth with pepper, bacon, onions, and fresh herbs. The fuel of the worker.

Apple Glop

You can make glop from almost any fruit like this. I happen to like fruity glops.

4 apples, sliced and cored (they need not be peeled)
4 cups water
1 cup ground almonds
1/4 cup sugar or honey (or more to taste)
Spices to taste, depending on the fruit (my favorites with apple are cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves, or try peaches with ginger)
Optional: coloring agents such as saffron (or modern food dyes)

Boil the water and add the almonds. Steep 10-15 minutes, strain and discard almond bits. Simmer the apples and almond milk, covered, until apples are soft. Blend with a stick blender or pass through a sieve. Add sugar and spices and continue cooking until glop thickens sufficiently. You may wish to add coloring agents – apple glop would have usually been colored red in period.

Sauces