Apicius 9.10.1: Stuffed Bonito

I know it's been a while; I tend to cycle through hobbies, doing one for a while, then dropping it to move on to (or get back to) another. But I've got lovage growing out there in the garden, and wanted to try something from old Apicius again. Though as Fate would have it, there's no lovage in this recipe.

This one is a recipe for stuffed bonito, a type of fish whose name means 'beautiful'. They do fit the name, being sort of a silvery-blue-green with darker tabby stripes. They're related to both mackerel and tuna, and like them have a dense, somewhat oily flesh. Dried bonito flakes are familiar as an ingredient (with seaweed) in dashi stock, used as a base for miso soup and the like in Japanese cooking (and the flakes make great cat treats, so I hear).

But of course I couldn't find any bonito locally, neither frozen nor fresh, and so I went with a tuna steak, since it is related. I would definitely like to try this again with proper bonito.

The Latin (again, I am using Sally Grainger and Christopher Grocock's quite excellent annotated version of Apicius:

[9.10.1] in sardis: sardam farsilem sic facere oportet: sarda exossatur et teritur puleium cum piperis grana, mentam nuces mel; impletur et consuitur. inuoluitur in carta et sic supra uaporem ignis in operculo conponitur. conditur ex oleo careno allece.

9.10.1 Sauce for bonito: stuffed bonito should be made like this: the bonito are boned and pennyroyal is pounded with grains of pepper, mint, hazelnuts, honey. They are stuffed and sewn up. They are wrapped in papyrus and placed in a covered pan above the heat of the fire. They are flavoured with oil, caroenum and allec.

This one looked interesting, as it wasn't just the usual list of ingredients for sauce; it's also on the simple side, using only a few ingredients. And wrapping up fish while baking to seal in the flavor is a technique still used today, though we use kitchen parchment or aluminum foil rather than papyrus. I went with aluminum foil, even though I do actually have some papyrus, up in my art supplies.

As usual I skipped the pennyroyal (though I would like to try it sometime); it's got some toxicity issues, especially for children and pregnant women. Again, I used a tuna steak; as it was thick and not going to fold or roll up I split it in half thickness-wise to get two thinner steaks. I kind of stumbled on a good technique due to laziness: the cutting board was dirty so I just cut it on a saucer with a large knife. But the knife was long enough to rest on the edges of the saucer, which were raised just about half of the thickness of the steak. They came out pretty even, actually. I did then pound them a little to flatten them some more, but not very much as they were a bit fragile and I was worried they'd fall apart.

Allec was a type of fish paste that was leftover from making garum; it was also used as a condiment in its own right. The closest modern equivalent is anchovy paste; though it's quite salty, so was garum, so it's probably pretty close (though of course it hasn't been fermented).

The recipe:

3/4 pound tuna steak (or the same sized bonito fillet)
1/4 teaspoon peppercorns (I used 15)
24 fresh mint leaves, minced (comes to 2 tablespoons)
1/2 cup hazelnuts
1 tablespoon honey

The sauce:

1 teaspoon anchovy paste
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon caroenum

Preheat oven to 350° F. Cut the tuna steak in half horizontally to get two thinner steaks; put each on a square of aluminum foil in a baking pan and set aside.

Toast the hazelnuts in a dry pan until fragrant; take off the heat. Grind the peppercorns in a mortar, then add the mint and grind to a fragrant paste. Add the hazelnuts in batches and grind by hand, or lose patience and throw them all in a food processor like I did and grind as finely as you can with the mint and pepper. Transfer to a bowl and mix in the honey; it should form a sticky, almost dry paste. Spread this on the tuna (or bonito) pieces, fold them in half, then seal up with the foil. Bake for 25-30 minutes until cooked through.

For the sauce, mix the three ingredients together till smooth. Pour over the cooked fish, or put on the side and dip the pieces in as you eat. Makes two servings.

I wasn't sure I was going to like the sauce (never having had anchovy paste, a.k.a. toothpaste for cats) so I only made a small amount. Probably it should be doubled so there's enough for each piece. I drizzled mine over the top in an attempt to look picturesquely nouvelle cuisine; alas, nothing can camouflage my crappy photography skills.

This was very good, though I may have overcooked the tuna a little (I was afraid that given the thickness it would be raw in the middle). It was, as you can imagine, also quite rich. Luckily I could taste the filling as I went, as there wasn't anything I couldn't eat raw in it (e.g. eggs). I started out with six mint leaves but kept adding them until they balanced out with the hazelnuts. The pepper, I think, was just right too, adding a bit of kick but not too much (you can certainly add more if you are not, like me, a wimp). It did look a little anemic coming out of the foil, since it didn't crisp on the outside; maybe brushing the top with a little olive oil, or opening the foil up halfway through would have helped. But it tasted quite good, and is going straight to the keepers pile. If I ever find some actual bonito, I'll definitely give it another try.

Apicius 2.1.1 & 4.3.1: Sea Food Minutal

We've had some cooler weather lately as summer fades, which has got me wanting soup. So this time I combined two recipes, a sea food minutal or thickened stew which called for little fish meatballs, the meatballs being the second recipe. First the minutal recipe proper, in the Latin and English as usual:

[4.3.1] minutal marinum: pisces in caccabum mittes, adicies liquamen oleum uinum cocturam. porros capitatos coriandrum minutatim concides, esiciola de pisce minuta facies et pulpas pisces cocti concarpis, urticas marinas bene lotas mittes. haec omnia cum cocta fuerint, teres piper ligusticum origanum; fricabis; liquamen suffundes, ius de suo sibi, exinanies in caccabum. cum ferbuerit tractam confringes, obligas, cum ferbuerit, agitas; piper aspargis et inferes.

4.3.1 Sea food minutal: put the fish in a pan, add liquamen, oil, wine, stock; chop leek and coriander finely, make finely ground fish forcement and flake the flesh of the cooked fish, and put in well-washed sea urchins. When all these are cooked, pound pepper, lovage, oregano, pound again, pour on liquamen and some of the cooking liquor and put it back into the pan. When it has come to the boil, crumble a tracta in, thicken it, and stir it when it comes to the boil (again); sprinkle with pepper and serve.

And the forcement or meatballs:

[2.1.1] isicia fiunt marina de cammaris et astacis de lolligine de sepia de lucusta. esicium condies pipere ligustico cumino laseris radice.

2.1.1 Seafood forcemeat is made from prawns and lobster, from squid, cuttlefish, and spiny lobster. You will season the forcemeat with pepper, lovage, cumin, and laser root.

First, a word on sea-urchins. There was pretty much no way I was going to get my hands on any of them, even though I understand (after a bit of research) that they are a trendy 'new' food in places like Los Angeles and New York City. From what I hear one only eats the coral, which is actually the ovaries of the thing, and it is a taste all its own that isn't like anything else, so there really isn't a substitute. I just left them out.

I also pretty much used whatever the supermarket had that looked interesting, so shrimp and something called langostino lobster tails went into the meatballs. I had no idea what 'langostino lobster' was, though looking at the prepared tail meat I figured it was some kind of crustacean, a small crayfish maybe. When I looked it up at home I found they aren't lobster, or shrimp either, but something else entirely sort of related to a hermit crab; however it does taste a lot like lobster, so they say. I also picked flounder for the generic 'fish' of the recipe. I don't really know the differences between all the white fish out there, if there are any.

One further note: I'd had leeks years ago and been kind of underwhelmed by them, but decided to give them another try. And again, I substituted parsley for the hated cilantro, but if you like cilantro go for it. And, alas, I substituted celery seed for the lovage again. I really wish I could find some of the stuff; lovage is really good.

So, this is what I came up with:

Seafood Meatballs

2 cups total your choice of seafood such as shrimp, lobster, squid, &c. peeled and deveined if necessary. (If frozen, thaw before measuring.)
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon celery seed (or lovage if you can find the stuff)
1/4 teaspoon cumin seed
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida

Grind the seeds in a mortar to a fine powder. Put the seafood in a food processor and whizz to a paste, then empty into a mixing bowl and add the spices. Mix thoroughly, then set aside to use in the next recipe.

Seafood Minutal

1/4 pound fish fillet
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
1/2 cup wine
1 1/2 cups stock (I used vegetable stock)
one leek (white/light green part only), chopped in half moon sections and thoroughly washed
decent handful fresh parsley or cilantro, chopped (came to about 1/4 cup)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon lovage or celery seed
1 teaspoon fresh oregano
corn starch to thicken

Put the fish fillet in a large, fairly deep skillet; add the oil, liquamen, wine, and stock, then the leeks and parsley or cilantro. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to a simmer. As it simmers, form the shrimp forcemeat balls (I made them about an inch big) and drop them into the stock mixture. Grind up the pepper, celery seed/lovage and oregano (or you can just chop the oregano and throw it in rather than attempting to mash it to a paste) and add them to the soup. When it's all cooked through (the leeks will probably take the longest) flake the fish if it hasn't managed that on its own and add a bit of cornstarch mixed with a little of the broth to thicken. Serve with more pepper sprinkled over it.

This came out pretty good, though the first thing I noticed was just how peppery the shrimp/lobster meatballs were. If you're into that sort of thing you'd probably love it, but it was a little much for me, and cutting back on the pepper probably would have allowed the taste of the 'lobster' to be more apparent. Though I could taste it still, and yes, it did have the sweetness of real honest-to-gods lobster. Otherwise though the spices were about right.

I'd been worried the forcemeat wasn't going to stick together, and was all set to cheat and add an egg to the mixture, but it was actually quite sticky and had no problem at all staying in ball shape. I suppose I should note that the shrimp was raw but the 'lobster' was already cooked; the raw shrimp was still plenty sticky to hold it all together.

I used flounder for the fish and it pretty much just disintegrated into the soup; there wasn't much question of 'flaking' it, and I guess I'd try to find a fish that holds together a little better. But it tasted fine.

I'm still kind of ambivalent on the leeks, I guess. Though that said the only thing I would change is to reduce the amount of pepper in the forcemeat balls; otherwise it was quite good even with the leeks. I'm going to put this in with the keepers, with that reservation then, though again, pepper really is one of those individual taste things and someone else might think the amount just right. It was quite well balanced as far as the rest of the spices went otherwise, and the meatballs themselves were quite tasty. So overall: pretty good.

Apicius 9.10.8 Tuna With Hazelnut Mustard Sauce

Okay, this one was goooood.

(I think my plating skills—and my photography—could use a bit of work.  But trust me, it sure tasted good.)

I thought it was time to try a seafood recipe, as there are an awful lot of them in Apicius; not surprising considering Italy is almost entirely seacoast.

[9.10.8] ius in siluro in pelamide et in tinno salsis: piper ligusticum cuminum cepam mentam rutam caluam careotam mel acetum sinape oleum.

9.10.8. Sauce for salted sheatfish, young tuna and tuna: pepper, lovage, cumin, onion, mint, rue, smooth nuts, date, honey, vinegar, mustard, oil.

Sheatfish (so Wikipedia tells me) is a type of freshwater catfish found in Europe; I went with the tuna variation of the recipe, since the supermarket had tuna steaks but not catfish. That it calls for salted sheatfish probably explains the lack of liquamen which is quite salty.

I cannot seem to be able to find lovage (either leaf, seed, or plant) anywhere these days; I've grown it myself in the past and loved the stuff (the leaf I think goes especially well in chicken dishes). Lovage being fairly reminiscent of celery I used celery seeds, though they really are a poor substitute.

'Smooth nuts' are, according to Grocock and Grainger per their wonderful appendix, most likely hazelnuts.

These are the proportions I came up with, which worked quite well (and on my first try!)

1/2 pound tuna steak
10 peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon cumin seed
1/2 medium onion, chopped
4-5 fresh mint leaves, chopped
4-5 sprigs rue, chopped (about 1/2 teaspoon)
2 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts (a bit more if whole)
3 largish dates
2 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 teaspoon dry powdered mustard
1 tablespoon olive oil

Grind the peppercorns, celery seed, and cumin seeds in a mortar; put them and all the other ingredients except the tuna in a food processor and whiz to a paste.

Put a bit of (additional) olive oil in a medium-sized frying pan; sear the tuna on both sides for a couple minutes, then add a decent amount of water to deglaze the pan. Add the sauce and stir; simmer it all until the fish is cooked through and the sauce has reduced back to being a thick sticky mess. Serve with the sauce glumped on top of the fish.

Since I figured tuna could hold its own I went for a fairly rich sauce; originally I'd thought to poach the fish in the sauce as it was, but it turned out to be a very sticky and thick affair, and there was not much I could do about that unless I wanted it to be mostly vinegar (which I didn't). So I went with adding some water, then the thick sauce, and sautéing it in that until the sauce reduced back to its original state. It worked perfectly well, though I think maybe such a thick sauce would work better as a coating/crust on baked fish. It did have to be cooked I thought given the onions in it.

I ended up using a food processor; going by the order of the instructions it seemed the onions were meant to be mashed along with everything else into a paste. My mortar though is the small modern kind for grinding spices; Roman mortars were dish-sized wide things and I think they used them sort of like we use food processors, though of course food processors cut food up rather than mashing it. Also I'm getting the impression the Romans like their sauces fairly smooth, so cooking the chopped onions separately with the fish didn't seem like the right way to do it. There wasn't a lot of the sauce, and so I didn't get it too smooth in the food processor (the hazelnuts didn't become a 'butter' or anything and were still in distinct, if small, pieces), but it seemed to work well even so.

I really liked this, and would definitely like to try it again as a coating for a baked tuna steak. I will say it was very rich; I got the smallest tuna steak they had, thinking it would be a little more than a serving, but really given the richness was more like two.

It was nicely mustardy and had a little bit of a kick; the sweetness was just about right, and of a lovely rich earthy sort with the hazelnuts and the dates. I managed to get it nicely balanced on my first try, too, which is kind of a miracle. I'm kind of assuming the long lists of spices in Roman food are parallel to those in Indian cuisine; a little of each making up a sum greater than its parts. And I think doing just a little honey and a little vinegar, such that you can't really taste the vinegar on its own is the way to go. It gives it a balanced sweetness without being cloying. Also I think if the vinegar is overplayed it will dominate, and since most recipes include it everything will end up tasting the same, which cannot have been the intent.

As I said, I'd like to try this again in a baked version, but for now it's still going straight in the keeper pile. It really was very good!