Chicken in Sage Sauce

from Le Menagier de Paris

"Take your chicken and quarter it and set it to cook in salt and water, then set it to get cold.  Then bray ginger, cinnamon powder, grain of paradise, and cloves and bray them well without straining, then bray bread dipped in chicken broth, parsley (the most), sage, and a little saffron in the leaf to color it green and run it through a strainer (and some there be that run therewith yolk of egg) and moisten with good vinegar, and when it is moistened set it on your chicken, and with and on the top of the aforesaid chicken set hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters and pour your sauce over it all."

For one whole cooked chicken I mixed 1/4 tsp. of ginger and cloves, 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon and grain of paradise, then mixed about a cup of bread crumbs with 1/2 cup of the chicken broth, a tablespoon of dry parsley and a teaspoon of chopped fresh sage.  Fresh parsley would have been better. I added a tablespoon of white wine vinegar, but it took at least 2 or 3 more tablespoons plus some water to thin it after it was cold. More broth would have worked well.

I have no idea what "saffron in the leaf" could mean.  It appears that one species of crocus sativa does have edible leaves, but it isn't the saffron crocus.  To color the sauce greener, I could have added more parsley, or some chard or spinach.

The spices could have been stronger and it would have been good but it was good like this.

This recipe is directly descended from an earlier Anglo-Norman one called Saugee:
"Take good spices, that is, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and galingale, and grind them in a mortar; than take a handful of sage and grind well in the same mortar with the spices; then take eggs and hardboil them, remove the yolk and grind with the sage; blend with wine vinegar, cider vinegar, or malt vinegar; take the egg white and chop finely and add to the sage mixture; put in pig's trotters or other cold meat and serve."

medieval hummus

Puree of Chickpeas with Cinnamon and Ginger

from Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World by Lilia Zaouali

"Cook the chickpeas in water then mash them in a mortar to make a puree. Push the puree through a sieve for wheat, unless it is already fine enough, in which case this step is not necessary. Mix it then with wine vinegar, the pulp of pickled lemons, and cinnamon, pepper, ginger, parsley of the best quality, mint, and rue that have all been chopped and placed on the surface of the serving dish.  Finally, pour over a generous amount of oil of good quality."

Puree together:
2 cups cooked chickpeas
2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
1 Tbsp pulp of pickled lemons
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. powdered rue (optional, hard to find)
adjust seasoning to taste.

chop 2 Tbsp. fresh parsley, 2 Tbsp. fresh mint and sprinkle over the mixture in the serving dish. Drizzle with 2 Tbsp. olive oil or sesame oil.

ancient vs. modern sauce or pudding

I enjoy finding medieval equivalents to my modern favorites, and vice versa.  I understand a medieval recipe better when I have spotted its approximate type in modern terms.  For instance, Ein Buch von Guter Speise has an entry it calls a "lattwerk" of cherries.  After reading it carefully, I said, "oh, fruit leather!"  and it made perfect sense.

I very much enjoy Warm Lemon Curd over Strawberries from Peter Berley's Fresh Food Fast. I serve it at the group home where I work and the clients love it too.  So I was intrigued to find How to Make a Verjuice Pottage in The Art of Cooking by Maestro Martino of Como.

There is no verjuice in the recipe.  The orange juice listed would have been bitter (Seville) orange, so today we use half orange and half lemon.
"Pottage" normally  means soup, but this would hardly be eaten by itself in any quantity.  It is more of a sauce, possibly a pudding for dessert.

    "Take four fresh egg yolks, a half ounce of cinnamon, four ounces of sugar, two ounces of rose water, and four ounces of orange juice, and beat together, and cook as you would a sauce, and this pottage should be made yellow with some saffron. This pottage is best during summer."

I treated the "half ounce" as fluid ounce measure, i.e., a tablespoon.

For comparison, Berley's recipe uses whole eggs, not just yolks;  honey instead of rose water for the floral note, lemon juice and zest in lieu of bitter orange juice, no spices, a dash of salt, and 6 tablespoons of butter beaten in late in the cooking.  Proportions remain the same.

We tried both of these side by side at our  May meeting.  Martino's is very cinnamony, scarcely any other flavor detectable, and several members preferred it as to taste, but the texture is rather gummy.  Berley's is much more like a pudding or a dip.  Both were good on the strawberries, on toast, and Martino's was good on meat and sweet potatoes too.

  The next question is, which of Berley's tweaks is responsible for the improved texture?  The whole eggs, or the butter?  The honey?  To settle this, I will try Martino's recipe with each of these changes separately --  when I have a lot more eggs again.  The hens are really good at Hide the Egg.

February 18, 2015
Tried Martino's recipe with butter beaten in, this seems to be the key to texture.  Should be a great apple dip.