Well, I'm back, to quote Sam Gamgee. It has been a while.
So let's jump right into it with another chicken recipe; this one is called Vardanian Chicken. As usual I am taking the recipes and translation from Apicius: A Critical Edition With an Introduction and English Translation, by Sally Grainger and Christopher Grocock. Now, while the footnote on the recipe page tells the reader to refer to Appendix 3 for information on the possible 'Vardanus' the recipe is named for, there is no mention of any 'Vardanus' in Appendix 3 (oops). And poking around on the internet I couldn't find anything about a 'Vardanus', though I did find a 'Vardanes', a prince of Parthia of the 1st century C.E., so maybe that's him. I rather like the idea of this chicken being nice enough for royalty.
At any rate, I thought I'd try this with a whole chicken for once; and going over the recipe it looked like it might be a type of stewed chicken. Naturally the recipe doesn't state that outright, because why would it; but it does sound like it needs to be cooked in a bit of liquid. Also, the three recipes before it are titled 'boiled' chicken, and a lot of the recipes in Apicius build on the preceding ones. Of course, the Latin term used for 'boil', whatever, is a rather general term, used for several different cooking methods including frying in oil (!), so I'm assuming 'stewed' could fall under that term too.
To stew this chicken, I did add water, though the recipe doesn't specifically call for it; either the original cook figured it was so obvious he didn't bother to mention it, or rather more wine or liquamen is used, as that ancient Roman fish sauce used a lot less salt than the modern Thai fish sauce I've had to substitute.
Here's the Latin, and the English, as usual:
[6.8.11] pullus Vardanus: pullum quoques iure hoc: liquamine oleo uino fasciculum porri coriandri satureiae; cum coctus fuerit teres piper; nucleos ciatos duos et ius de suo sibi subfundis et fasciculos proicies. lac temperas et reexinanies [in] mortarium supra pullum, ut ferueat. obligas eundem aluamentis ouorum tritis, ponis in lance et iure supra scripto perfundis. hoc ius candidum appellatur.
[6.8.11] Vardanian chicken: cook the chicken with this sauce: a bundle of leek, coriander and savory, in liquamen, oil, wine; when it is cooked, pound pepper, two cups of pine nuts, and pour on the cooking liquor and discard the bundle. Blend with milk and pour the contents of the mortar over the chicken and bring it to heat. Thicken it with beaten white of egg. Place the chicken on a serving dish and pour the sauce written above over it. This is called a white sauce.
Why yes, that is called white sauce, even now, because it's white, fancy that. Anyway here's my take on this recipe:
1 four to five pound whole chicken
2 leeks, rinsed and roughly chopped
1 small bundle of cilantro (or parsley)
1 small bundle of fresh savory, or 2 tablespoons dried
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup white wine
several black peppercorns, or 2-3 grains of long pepper
1 cup of pine nuts
1/2 cup of cooking broth
1/2 cup of whole milk
1 egg white
Rinse the chicken in cold water and remove the giblets, if any, then place in a large stock pot. Add the leeks, the cilantro or parsley, the savory, fish sauce, olive oil, and wine, then add water to nearly cover it. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a lowish medium and cover, so that it is bubbling quite gently. Stew the chicken for about an hour and a half, checking every once in a while to make sure it doesn't go dry (if it needs more water, add it).
When the chicken is so tender it is falling off the bone, take it off the heat and start on the sauce.
Toast the peppercorns and the pine nuts in a dry pan until fragrant and a little colored, then take off the heat and put in a bowl so it doesn't continue to brown in the hot pan. Fish out the peppercorns and grind them first; then add some of the pine nuts and go at it until it's practically pine nut butter. If, like me, your shoulder gets sore, feel free to use the food processor. There is no shame in it.
Ladle out some of the broth and strain it; then measure out 1/2 cup and add it to the pine nuts along with the 1/2 cup of milk. Blend until quite smooth, either by hand or machine, then tip into a pan to heat on medium.
Give the egg yolk to the cat, then beat the egg white till smooth; when the pine nut/milk mixture is heated and making a little bit of steam, add a small spoonful of the hot mixture to the egg white and stir to temper it. (This will prevent the egg from scrambling when added to the hot sauce.) Then add the egg into the sauce and stir constantly until it thickens, which won't take too long, probably less than a minute. Remove from heat.
You can either then remove the whole chicken to a plate, and pour the sauce over to serve, or just cut off some of the chicken as an individual portion like I did and scoop some sauce over it, depending on how fancy you're feeling.
This was unexpectedly mild for a Roman dish, though looking back at the ingredients I suppose that makes sense. It was also quite rich, with the pine nuts and the whole milk and I would only tweak it a little. When I originally made it, I only used one single grain of the long pepper, since it's about equivalent in size to several regular black peppercorns, but of course it has a much milder, and richer, flavor, so I've called for double or triple that amount above. I suppose pepper is more or less always to taste, anyway.
It also was a little lacking in salt. Now it's hard to tell because I of course am a modern American, and we're all acclimated to a truly scandalous and unhealthy amount of sodium, so older recipes are probably going to taste like there's not enough salt. That said, it's true that I was afraid to use too much fish sauce, as it can get overpowering even though it does mellow quite a lot when cooked. Perhaps it should have two tablespoons instead of just the one. I did sprinkle the finished dish with a little salt; I would guess the Romans probably did the same, as individual tastes certainly vary.
As usual, I swapped out the cilantro for parsley as I have that cilantro-hating variation of the OR6A2 gene (and in looking that up, found that the same foul-smelling chemical in cilantro is also found in some stinkbugs, and yes! I've always thought marmorated stinkbug stink smells like cilantro!); though of course parsley is missing the little bit of citrusy taste that cilantro has. Perhaps next time I'll add a little lemon juice.
Overall this was quite good; the chicken was wonderfully tender, and the sauce rich, and I'd make it again, just with a little more pepper and salt, maybe. So I'll add it to the keepers list!
Note: I did not get a photo of this; the chicken was so tender that it was literally falling apart and looked quite a mess, though it certainly tasted good!
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