I had tried the stuffed chicken part of this recipe a couple weeks ago, but didn't like the balance of seasonings (it was far too mild); tonight I tried it again and liked it a lot better. It also seemed to need a sauce of some kind, as it was a bit dry without the stuffing, so I went with 6.2.14, Sauce for various birds.
The chicken recipe:
[6.8.14] pullus farsilis: pullum sicut in iure cuminato. a ceruice expedies. teres piper ligusticum gengiber pulpam cesam aliquam elixam, teres cerebellum ex iure coctum. oua confringis et commiscis ut unum corpus efficias. liquamine temperas et oleum modice; mittis piper integrum, nucleos abundantes. fac inpensam et imples pullum uel porcellum ita ut laxamentum habeat. similiter in capo facies. ossibus eiectis coques.
6.8.14: Stuffed chicken: the chicken (is prepared) as if (served) with a cumin sauce. Draw the chicken from the neck, pound pepper, lovage, ginger, chopped meat, boiled alica, pounded brains cooked in stock; break eggs and stir them all to make a smooth mixture. Flavour with liquamen and a little oil, add whole peppercorns and plenty of pine nuts. Make the stuffing and fill the chicken or piglet in such a way that some space remains. You can do the same with a capon. Cook with the bones taken out.
Now. Once again, I'm an American, and a New Englander at that. So, besides the fact that I'm not sure even where I would find brains for eatin', I'm really not inclined to try them. You can call me a wimp; I'm perfectly good with that. It does look like that in a lot of the recipes that call for brains they're used as a binder. I made do with just the egg.
I liked the look of this recipe (brains notwithstanding) because it was one of the few that called for ginger, and that sounded interesting. I don't know, now, if I got the proportions of alica (semolina) to meat right; I was (of course) thinking of bread stuffing, like made at Thanksgiving, but it occurs to me now that they might have wanted it more meat than 'filler'. The stuffing did have a lot in common with some of the sausage filling recipes earlier in the book; those I'd think should be mostly meat. Well, it came out nice anyway. I did go for the whole peppercorns as the recipe called for, so I may not be that much of a wimp, though I have to say I did rather regret it. I think I'd grind it next time, personally. But here's what I tried. It made rather a lot of stuffing, probably enough for four pieces of chicken, actually; since I was testing this I only used one piece, and put the rest of the stuffing to the side of the baking dish to cook with the chicken.
Oh, and the leftover pork was from the pork roast recipe a few posts down (linked in just below in the recipe here). I've found my favorite mix for the honey glaze is a few ground peppercorns, a tablespoon of honey to a teaspoon of fish sauce, and a decent pinch of asafoetida.
1 boneless chicken breast (or half a chicken breast, if they're large)
1/4 teaspoon lovage or celery seed
1 tablespoon fresh minced ginger
1/2 cup diced cooked pork (preferably from a roast per 7.5.5)
1/4 cup semolina flour
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
3 tablespoons pine nuts
Bring 1/2 cup of water to a boil in a saucepan; add the semolina and take off the heat, stirring until mostly smooth. Let cool a bit.
Grind the peppercorns and lovage or celery seed in a mortar; when a fine powder add the minced ginger and get as smooth as you can manage. Add the contents of the mortar, chopped meat, egg, liquamen, and oil to the semolina and mix till quite smooth. Toast the pine nuts and peppercorns in a dry pan until the pine nuts are lightly browned and fragrant; mix in with the semolina/meat mixture.
Butterfly the chicken breast and flatten it out a bit (I always whack it with the back of a knife); put about a 1/4 cup of the stuffing mix on one side then close it up like a book. Put in an oiled baking pan; you can smooth a little olive oil over the top too if you like. (Extra stuffing can be put in the pan with the chicken, or probably you should use like 4 or so pieces of chicken). Bake in a 350° F oven for 30-40 minutes, covering for the first 20 minutes or so, then uncovering it to crisp up a bit. Serve with the sauce below.
The sauce:
[6.2.14] ius in diuersis auibus: piper cuminum frictum ligusticum mentam uuam passam enucleatam aut damascena; mel modice. uino myrto temperabis, aceto liquamine et oleo. calefacies et agitabis apio et satureia.
6.2.14: Sauce for various birds: pepper, roasted cumin, lovage, mint, de-seeded raisins or damsons, a little honey. Flavour with myrtle wine, vinegar, liquamen and oil. Bring it to heat and stir it with a stick of celery and savory.
I went through the fowl chapter looking for a cumin sauce (since the stuffed chicken recipe mentioned one) and of several chose this one, as it looked like it would harmonize and seemed interesting. I used raisins, because I had a bunch soaking in port in the fridge for another batch of (faux) passum, and pre-soaked ones seemed like they'd be easiest to grind up. Damsons are a type of plum; I would guess that because the recipe says to use either them or raisins, that dried damsons are what it's calling for, i.e. prunes. I do have some on hand, but again went with the raisins because it was easiest for me, but you could certainly try it with prunes if that appeals.
I used to have some savory out in the herb garden; I can't remember now if it was summer (annual) savory or winter (perennial) savory; at any rate there's nothing growing out there now, so I added some dried savory in with the ground spices instead of stirring it with a twig. Also, I didn't have any celery in the house so didn't use it to stir. It didn't cook very long anyway, and I'm not sure quite how much flavor it would have imparted in the first place.
I did not have myrtle wine, and have no idea where I would even find any or how I might make some (since I'm guessing it's made with myrtle berries?), so used some of the raisin-soaked port, assuming it was a sweet sort of interesting wine being called for.
a few peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin or cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon lovage or celery seed
1/2 teaspoon savory
1 teaspoon dried mint
1 tablespoon raisins, soaked either in water or wine until soft
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon sweet wine or passum
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
1 teaspoon olive oil
Dry roast the cumin seeds, if using; grind the peppercorns and the cumin to a powder in a mortar, then add the savory and mint and grind them as well. Add the raisins and mash to a paste as smooth as you can manage. Add the honey, wine, vinegar, liquamen and olive oil and mix, then turn into a small saucepan and heat for a bit, then pour over the stuffed chicken above and serve.
This was good, if a little odd. We don't usually stuff one kind of meat with a different kind of meat, although it really is very Roman. Ginger does have an affinity with sweetened pork, so it worked, though as I was using the ubiquitous de-boned, de-skinned bland chicken breast the chicken part anyway wasn't exactly exciting. It would have been much better with the skin left on I think. The original recipe does say you can use a piglet instead of the chicken, so pork stuffed with pork might be more to modern tastes and one could use a thick pork chop butterflied to hold the stuffing. I think it came out pretty good, though; the second time around I did get enough ginger in there, though really personally I would skip the peppercorns and use ground. They were a bit much for me.
The sauce was quite good, very dark and very rich, just a little sweet and sour; there wasn't a whole lot of it, though, so if you make more than one piece of chicken you may wish to double (or even triple) the recipe. I suppose you could add a bit more wine to it too, without doing any harm.
Overall, I'd give it a B or so, so I'll consider it a keeper.
