Hand Washing Waters

Hand-washing Water

There is a curious medieval custom that evolved through the ages of having scented water on dining tables with which to wash one’s hands. I remember as a child being delighted that my grandmother had china finger-bowls, even though they were never used. Although this doesn’t make an obvious appearance in Song of Ice and Fire, I imagine that it would fit very well with the more well-heeled families. The Lannisters would use expensive ingredients such as ambergris, while the Tyrells might use rose petals, the Starks juniper and spruce tips, and so on.

The basic version is a fun, easy recipe to make, and adds a fun upscale element to a dinner party! It makes enough for two small bowls, and is a pale green-yellow color with the slightest of pleasant herbal and citrus elements.

Recipes for Hand Washing Waters

TO MAKE WATER TO WASH THE HANDS AT TABLE. Boil sage, then strain the water, and let cool until it is luke-warm. Or instead you can use camomile or marjoram, or rosemary : and cook with the peel of an orange. And also laurel leaves [bay leaves] are good for this. –Le Menagier de Paris, 1393

Ingredients:

2 cups water
1/2 cup fresh sage, chamomile, marjoram, rosemary, bay leaves, etc.
1 heaping Tbs. orange peel

Here’s another later recipe that calls for distilling the liquid, which is a different approach as it seems to make a kind of concentrate for scenting water; I particularly like the quirky pairing of lavender and cloves:

This is an excerpt from Delights for Ladies (England, 1609)

An excellent hand water or washing water very cheape. Take a gallon of faire water, one handfull of Lavender flowers, a few Cloves and some Orace powder, and foure ounces of Benjamin: distill the water in an ordinarie leaden Still. You may distill a second water by a new infusion of water upon the seces: a little of this will sweeten a bason of faire water for your table.

Medieval Strawberry Tart

Thoughts:

Last year, when we posted the recipe for a modern Strawberry Pie, many of you objected that there was no medieval version accompanying it. We’d tried several recipes, and thought they were all gross, so never posted them. To make amends, I’ve been looking for a good medieval recipe ever since, and finally found one.

It’s simple, easy, and perhaps best of all, filled with sweet wine. None of the blah almond milk mush that I found so objectionable in previous recipes- just vivid, strawberry color and sweet juicy filling. The sweetness comes mostly from the strawberries themselves, but also from the port. The filling seized up somewhat once the tarts were cool, but I think with the right balance of baking times, might do so more. I’ll have to test that. In the meantime, this recipe makes for a delicious, authentic dessert that’s right at home in the world of Westeros.

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White Leek Bruet

Thoughts:

This medieval leek recipe is flavorful and interesting.

The leeks and salt pork cook until they are so soft that they almost melt, leaving the slivered almonds to make a textural statement. Each bite transitions from the saltiness of the broth, to the soft flavors of the leeks and pork, then ends with a strong nutty, crunchy finish. I’ve made it as in the original, but if I were to make it again, I might include a sprig or two of herbs for some added nutrients and complexity. It would also be tasty paired with a nice toasted slice of dark rye bread.

Proposed Location?

I’d guess that this could be a strong contender for any of the smaller noble houses. It doesn’t rely on a wealth of fresh ingredients, but is strong and tasty. Given the inclusion of pork, I’m going to be funny and say it should be served at the Tarly residence, Horn Hill.

Recipe for White Leek Bruet

“To make white leeks, he who is in charge of them should arrange that he has his leeks and slice them small and wash them very well and put to boil. And take a good piece of salt chine of pork, and clean it very well and put it to boil therewith; and when they are well boiled take them out onto fair and clean tables, and let them save the broth in which they were boiled, and let there be a good mortar full of blanched almonds, and then take the broth in which the said leeks have boiled and draw up the almonds with it, and if there is not enough of the said broth take beef or mutton broth — and take care that it is not too salty; and then afterward put your bruet to boil in a fair and clean pot. And then take two fair and clean knives and chop your leeks, and then take them and bray them in a mortar; and, being brayed, put them into your broth, of almonds as much as water, to boil. And the leeks being boiled, when it comes to the side board put your meat on fair serving dishes and then the said broth of the said leeks put on top.” –Du Fait de Cuisine, 1420

Cook’s Notes: I’ve streamlined the original instructions somewhat below, for simplicity’s sake. I don’t think it alters the overall effect in any large degree.

Ingredients:

2 Leeks, white part only
1/4 lb. Salt pork, rinsed and sliced thinly into bite-size pieces
2 cups water
1 cup ground almonds
2 cups beef broth
Salt, to taste
1/2 cup slivered blanched almonds
1/2 cup Water

Rinse leeks and cut the white section of them into 1/4″ rounds. Put the leeks in a pot with the sliced salt pork and cover with 2 cups water.

Bring this mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and continue cooking until leeks are tender and pork is cooked through, about 15 minutes.

Strain the broth into a bowl, reserving the leeks and salt pork. Pour this liquid back into the pot, along with the 2 cups beef broth and the ground almonds. Bring to a boil again. Once the leeks have cooled slightly, mash them between your fingers, or with a spoon. Add back into the broth along with the 1/2 cups water and blanched almonds, and simmer for 20 minutes. The mixture should thicken slightly from the almond flour, and be a nice rich color from the beef broth. Ladle into serving bowls, and consider serving with rye toast.

Historical Hot Chocolate, 1631

Thoughts:

This is the most decadent hot cocoa I have ever encountered.

Made thick and creamy by the emulsified ground nuts, it pours beautifully. There is a hint of robust smoky spiciness lent by the chipotle that compliments the chocolate, giving it a warm mouth feel no matter what temperature you serve it. The spice lingers on the back of the tongue, allowing the other flavors a turn. The anise is subtle, but with a distinct small bite, and traces of the cinnamon are there also. The annato doesn’t have much flavor, but adds a wonderful rich depth of color.

This recipe was probably intended to be made with water, and possibly even served cold. I like using milk as the base, as it increases the creaminess of the drink. When it’s cold the oils from the nuts rise to the top in a very thin sheen.

*Fun Fact: drinking chocolate did not violate the terms of fasting, as dictated by the Catholic Church. Win!*

Recipe for Historical Hot Chocolate

“Take one hundred cocoa beans, two chillies, a handful of anise seed and two of vanilla (two pulverized Alexandria roses can be substituted), two drams of cinnamon, one dozen almonds and the same amount of hazelnuts, half a pound of white sugar and enough annatto to give some color. And there you have the king of chocolates.” -Curioso tratado de la naturaleza y calidad del chocolate (A Curious Treatise of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate), 1631

Cook’s Notes: Although nuts ground in a food processor can work in a pinch, I recommend using pre-ground flour, which will be a finer consistency that one can usually get at home. If you’d like it spicier, feel free to tweak the chili types/proportions to taste!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup ground cocoa, unsweetened
1 dried chili pepper (chipotle), ground or chopped fine
1 anise star
1/2 vanilla bean, or 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. almond flour
1 tsp. hazelnut flour
2 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. ground annato for color
pinch of cayenne (optional)
2 cups milk

Combine all the ingredients with the milk in a medium saucepan. Heat gently for around 5 minutes, but do not bring to a boil. Strain into cups, and enjoy!

Blandissory

“Four master pyromancers conjured up beasts of living flame to tear at each other with fiery claws whilst the serving men ladled out bowls of blandissory, a mixture of beef broth and boiled wine sweetened with honey and dotted with blanched almonds and chunks of capon.” -A Storm of Swords

Thoughts:

This is a great example of how sweet and savory elements are often combined in a medieval dish. The chicken and broth, and to some extent even the wine are more commonly served as savory dishes, while cinnamon, ginger, and honey are more often associated with sweet dishes, like cookies and desserts.

This dish is quirky, and while not especially appealing in appearance, it is actually quite tasty. The almond and rice flours thicken the broth to a consistency just shy of a medium gravy. The chicken is wonderfully soft and flavorful, a great textural counterpoint to the occasioinal crunch of the almonds.

Also, while the text excerpt calls for beef broth, I found that this is a wonderful way to use a second day roast chicken. Simply pick off any remaining meat, and boil down the carcass for broth. Very economical, and in keeping with the traditional practices of not letting anything go to waste. Of course, if you’re a Lannister, you needn’t worry about such things…

All in all, a quirky dish, but not without its merits. Medieval food surprises yet again!

Recipe for Blandissory

Makes: about 2 servings Prep: 5-10 minutes

Blaundesore to potage. Take almondes and grynde hom when thai byn blounchet and tempur hom, on fysshe day wyth wyn, and on flesheday with broth of flesh, and put hit in a pot, and therto floure of rys, and let hit boyle ; then take the braune of hennes, or of capons, and bray hom, and tempur hit up with the broth of the capons, and do hit in the pot, and colour hit with saffron; and do therto gynger mynced, and powder of canel, and sugur ynogh, and serve hit forth, and florish hit with white annys. –Ancient Cookery (England, 1425)

Cook’s Notes: I used red wine because it’s what I had open, but a white wine would make for a very pretty dish, especially with the saffron to color it.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Ground almonds
2 cups meat broth
1 cup wine
2 Tbs. rice flour
~1 cup shredded and chopped cooked chicken meat
pinch of saffron (if using white wine)
pinch ground ginger
pinch ground cinnamon
1-2 Tbs. sugar or honey
blanched almonds for garnish (~1/4 cup)

Combine ground almonds with wine/broth, and bring to a boil. Gradually add the rice flour, whisking to avoid creating clumps. Add the chicken, spices, and honey, and stir for around 2 minutes.

Pour into your serving dish, sprinkle with almonds, and serve!

Bread with Spent Grains

Spent Grain Bread

Thoughts:

I played around a bit and came up with this great, simple recipe for bread with spent grain. As with most recipes, it’s a starting point. Feel free to innovate and add other seeds, grains, flours, oats, sugars, etc. to make it your own. Just be sure to share your results! I certainly plan to keep trying new variations on it.

The resulting bread from this recipe is hearty in the extreme. The spent grains give each bite a little crunch, which is wonderful. It makes for a great toast, and even small sandwiches. I was partial to the very un-Westerosi PB&J, myself. :)

For the recipe, head on over to the brew blog, Game of Brews!

Leche of Brawn

Leche of Brawn

“Tyrion was toying with a leche of brawn, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and almond milk, when King Joffrey lurched suddenly to his feet. ‘Bring on my royal jousters!’ he shouted in a voice thick with wine, clapping his hands together.” -Storm of Swords

Our Thoughts:

It’s slightly unclear as to what exactly a leche of brawn was to the medieval diner. It seems to have evolved from once being a simple cut of pork to what we know as brawn, or today as headcheese, sometime between the Middle Ages and Victorian Age. We’ve opted for an historical version of the brawn, and in order to keep the disembodied craniums in the kitchen to a minimum, have made only one version. Perhaps there is a modern version in our future, who knows!

With a binding aspic similar to that used in our jellied calves’ brain recipe, this dish is salty, savory, and sweet at the same time. Essentially a rustic, primitive version of a mortadella, the brawn is perhaps not the first choice for out modern palates, but it is easy to see why this would be an historical staple food. Cheap to make, packed with nutrients, and essentially self-preserving, a brawn like this would be gold in a medieval kitchen. George’s addition on non-traditional spices and accompaniments (cinnamon, cloves, almond milk) gave our Victorian recipe a decidedly medieval turn toward the unexpectedly sweet, adding another layer of complexity to the dish.

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Onion Broth w/bits of Goat and Carrot

“The stewards began to bring out the first dish, an onion broth flavored with bits of goat and carrot. Not precisely royal fare, but nourishing; it tasted good enough and warmed the belly. Owen the Oaf took up his fiddle, and several of the free folk joined in with pipes and drums. The same pipes and drums they played to sound Mance Rayder’s attack upon the Wall. Jon thought they sounded sweeter now. With the broth came loaves of coarse brown bread, warm from the oven. Salt and butter sat upon the tables.” -A Dance with Dragons

Onion Broth with Goat and Carrot

Our Thoughts:

Zounds!

This is the most flavorful, delicious, unique broth we’ve ever encountered. Rich and full, heavily tinged with the salt from the pork, with the underlying flavors of the herbs and onions. We wouldn’t have expected the combined mint and sage to be pleasing, but as usual, we were wonderfully rewarded by following the original recipe. On the whole, it’s a nice, nuanced combination of flavors for relatively little effort.

Consider pairing this broth with a loaf of our Black Beer Bread, but go light on the butter; you only have a bit left, and winter is coming…

Stewed Goat Recipe

Goat Kid or Mutton, with Thick Broth. Get kid or mutton and cut it into small pieces, and put it into a pot with salt pork; then get sage, mint and onion, and cook everything together; then get good spices and saffron, distemper them with the meat’s broth and let everything boil together until the meat falls apart; then lift the meat out into a dish with the thick broth. -The Neapolitan recipe collection, Italy, 15th c.

Ingredients:

1/4 lb. salt pork
6 cups water
1 cup dark beer or ale (drink the rest while you cook! ;) )
2 small sprigs sage
2 small sprigs mint
1 onion, roughly chopped
poudre forte (equal parts black pepper, cinnamon, mace, clove, long pepper, ginger, etc)
1 cup carrots, chopped small
1-2 Tbs. bacon fat or duck fat
ground goat meat, 1 lb.

Combine the salt pork, water, ale, herbs, and onions in a large pot. Simmer for 45 minutes.

Strain the broth into a clean pot, reserving the onions if you would like to add them back in. Season with a pinch of spices, and add the chopped carrots.

In a separate skillet, brown the goat meat in the fat, then add it to the broth pot. Let everything simmer together for 15 minutes, or until the carrots are tender. Skim some of the fat off the top if you like, then serve hot.

Prep: 15 minutes Cooking: 1 hour

Serves 5-6

Venison Pies

Medieval Venison Pies

“Such food Bran had never seen… venison pies chunky with carrots, bacon and mushrooms…” –A Clash of Kings

Modern Venison Pies

Thoughts:

In a slight break from our usual style, I’ve actually stayed true to the medieval recipe, not adding the extra ingredients detailed in the book; the medieval recipe is just so quirky and specific that I wanted to try it as it was meant to be eaten. In the modern version, however, I’ve added in the carrots, bacon, and mushrooms to match the description.

The medieval version is quite strange. However, take a delicious meat, and smother it with butter, and there’s only so much that time can alter. The spices are quite a bit sweeter than those in the modern version, and go well with the butter. The rye crust, we decided, is like many medieval crusts, and is meant more as a container than it is meant to be eaten. I’d be curious (and may try it at some point) just how long it would keep, as it is essentially potted venison in a pastry container.

In contrast, the modern version is savory, bursting at the seams with venison, veg, and bacon. With such a variety of ingredients, each bite is different from the last in composition. The crust is wonderfully delicate and flaky, making it as enjoyable to eat as the filling. To be fair, though, this isn’t the best way to showcase venison, as it is just an element of the pie instead of the star of the dish. Also, rather than make a whole venison pie, we opted for this recipe to make several smaller hand pies. They might not fit in as well at a feast in Winterfell, but they’re ideal for snacks and lunches.

The Winner? I’d give it to the modern pasties, but the old version is fun to try.

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Pease Pie laced with Bacon

Medieval Pease Pie laced with Bacon

“We must take you out of that vile dungeon, then. Scrub you pink again, get you some clean clothes, some food to eat. Some nice soft porridge, would you like that? Perhaps a pease pie laced with bacon. I have a little task for you, and you’ll need your strength back if you are to serve me.” -A Dance with Dragons

Modern Pease Pie

Our Thoughts:

If you love peas, then this is the dish for you. But I mean really, really love them, because that is a lot of peas… The bacon helps to alleviate the near overdose of peas, but still.

The medieval pease pie was a delight to discover in our cookbooks. Sadly, the reality didn’t quite live up to our hopes. The flavor of the juices was overwhelmed by the sheer number of peas. Additional bacon might have helped this, as well as the occasional pearl onion. The pie also had some serious structural issues, as the crust got soggy, and the peas rolled everywhere when a slice was dished out.

The modern pease pie solved all of these problems. Because the peas are mashed, they hold their shape when the pie is cut. We used a little extra to make the tart in the photo above, but a closed top pie will ensure the peas don’t burn. The flavors are much better rounded and full, the shallots and mustard coming to prominence. We also used purple pearl onions for a splash of color.

Conclusion? The modern pie is definitely the winner in this mash up.

Medieval Pease Pie Recipe

To make a close Tart of greene Pease. Take halfe a peck of greene Pease, sheale them and seeth them, and cast them into a cullender, and let the water go from them then put them into the Tart whole, & season them with Pepper, saffron and salte, and a dishe of sweet butter, close and bake him almost one houre, then drawe him, and put to him a little Vergice, and shake them and set them into the Ouen againe, and so serue it. -The Good Housewife’s Jewell, 1596

Our changes: to better match the description in the novel, we added bits of crunchy bacon to the pie. We also substituted the verjus for more readily available grape juice. We also downsized from half a peck (~5 lbs!) to an amount of peas that would actually fit into a modern pie pan.

Ingredients:

6 cups shelled fresh green peas, or most of one 32 oz. bag frozen, thawed
pastry crust, top and bottom (get a recipe)
3 Tbs. butter
pinch saffron
pinch each salt and pepper
4 strips bacon, cooked crispy and crumbled
1 Tbs. grape juice
1 Tbs. lemon juice
1 Tbs. cider vinegar
1 egg for glaze

Preheat oven to 425.

Divide your pastry dough in half. Roll out one half and lay in a pie pan. Set the other half aside.

Put your peas into a saucepan with water, and bring to a boil for about 5 minutes. Drain in a collander, then pour into your prepared pie crust. Using the palm of your hand, press firmly down on the peas to pack them down.

Melt 3 Tbs. butter, and add the saffron to it. Allow to cool slightly, then pour over the peas. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and spread the crumbled bacon on top of everything.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Fill the prepared shells with the cooled peas and top with some small pieces of butter. Lay remaining dough circles over tops of tarts. Pinch crusts together, using a little brushed-on water as glue. Trim off any excess dough, and crimp. Make a few slits in the top crusts with a sharp knife so that steam can escape. Brush top crusts with beaten egg.

Bake until brown, about 30 minutes. Let settle on a wire rack for about 5 minutes before slicing and serving. Be careful as the peas will roll and spill from the sliced pie.

Modern Pease Porridge Recipe

Ingredients:

Pastry dough for a large 9″ pie dish, or similarly sized springform pan
2 lb. peas
2 Tbs. butter, divided
1 cup rough cut bacon
3-5 shallots, sliced thin
1 tsp. mustard
2 Tbs. Parmesan cheese, shredded
salt and pepper to taste
1 egg, beaten

Boil the peas until they are soft enough to be thoroughly mashed, about 15 minutes. Drain and mash them with 1 Tbs. butter.

In a separate pan, fry up the bacon until just shy of crispy, then scoop it out with a slotted spoon and add it to the mashed peas. In the remaining bacon grease, cook the shallots until they are soft. Add them to the peas and bacon, followed by the mustard, cheese, and salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly.

Roll out your pastry dough and line the pan with it. Spread the remaining butter over the bottom of the pastry, then dump the filling in. Smooth it out, and cover with remaining pastry. Brush with beaten egg and bake at 350 F for 20 minutes.