APICIUS 6.8.11: Vardanian Chicken

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!

APICIUS 6.8.1: Chicken With Uncooked Dill Sauce

Not-quite-as-horrible-as-usual photo I think; I think my lovely new (repro) Samian ware dish helps.  (Seriously though, my pictures are crap at least partially because I'm always making these in the evening and photographing them by artificial light.)  I am forever embarrassed by my lack of photography skills.  I have a degree in art, dammit!

I have this crazy dream of trying all the recipes in Apicius. It's an especially crazy dream because I., there are an awful lot of recipes in Apicius, II., some of them are fragmentary and/or garbled, III., there are plenty of foodstuffs that are difficult to find here in the US, IV., actually some of them are extinct, and V., some of the ingredients I simply refuse to eat (e. g., brains).

I wasn't entirely sure where to start with this goal; I've been wanting to get a good overview of Roman cooking, and pecking around at random wasn't really doing that.  So I picked one type of dish and decided I'd do the recipes in order, hoping that will help me get a feel for them.  A lot of the recipes do follow one from the other, with only one or two ingredients that differ, and I thought it would be interesting to highlight those differences.  There do seem to be certain 'types' of recipes in Apicius.

I picked the chicken dishes to start with, as that's certainly an easy ingredient to come by.  And the first one is (text and translation from Grocock and Grainger, as ever):

[6.8.1] elixo ius crudum:  adicies in mortarium aneti semen mentam siccam laseris radicem; suffundis acetum, adicies careotam, refundis liquamen senapis modicum et oleum, defrito temperas et sic mittis.

6.8.1.  Uncooked sauce for boiled chicken:  put dill seed, dried mint, and laser root into a mortar, pour on vinegar, add date, pour on liquamen, a little mustard and oil, flavour with defrutum and use as it is.

This recipe is unusual, not just because the sauce isn't cooked, but because there's neither pepper nor lovage in it, which is pretty much mandatory for the chicken dishes.  It seemed to me that the main flavors in this dish ought to be the dill and the vinegar, since those two pair well and the dill was a bit uncommon for Apicius; and since there wasn't much liquid in it otherwise it seemed it would have to use a decent amount of vinegar.  Though to be fair, the Romans probably were able to use their liquamen, fermented fish sauce, rather more liberally; I'm using Thai fish sauce, which is made by a similar process, but is much, much saltier, so you can't use too much.  I ended up adding a little of the cooking liquid to make up for that.  And as usual I used asafoetida for the extinct laser (silphium) root, though it was the powdered resin/sap, not the root part of the plant.

My attempt:

1 chicken breast

2 teaspoons dill seed
1/2 teaspoon dried mint
scant 1/4 teaspoon powdered asafoetida
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped date
1 teaspoon Thai fish sauce
1/4 teaspoon powdered mustard
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon defrutum

Plunk the chicken breast in a saucepan with water to cover; bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer.  Simmer until cooked through; depending on the size something like 20 or 30 minutes should do it.

While that cooks, grind the dill seeds in a mortar (or use a spice grinder); when they're fine enough (that will be up to your tastes and how tired your arm is), add the mint and grind that too.  Add the powdered asafoetida, then the vinegar and date.  Squish that all up until you get a fairly smooth paste, then add the remaining ingredients.  Add a teaspoon or two of the cooking liquid if you think it needs it‑it should be a little thinner than barbecue sauce, but not too thin.

Drizzle the sauce over the cooked chicken when done, or shred the chicken and use as a dipping sauce.

When I tried the sauce by itself in order to try and balance the flavors, I was worried it might be too heavy on the vinegar; however once paired with the chicken the flavor of the chicken itself balanced it out.  A lot of times I think I get the sauces too thick (again, that might be because of the difference in salt between Roman liquamen and modern Thai fish sauce), but this time I think it was about right.  I only used one date, but since I had Medjool dates it was very large (which is why I gave the amount for chopped), and it may have made the sauce a bit too sweet.  Also I think I'd like to have been able to taste the dill more.  It was still quite good, though, and I think just needs a little tweaking.  Also I wonder if grinding the dill seed, and then soaking it in the vinegar (say the night before), would help to draw out the taste a bit.  I know there's all kinds of herb-flavored vinegars out there that use that principle.

I used the usual supermarket boneless skinless chicken breast; and while I kept an eye on it as it simmered it was still a bit dry and bland.  Perhaps thighs would be better; I know when I make chicken and dumplings I use boneless skinless thighs and they end up melty and lovely and still quite moist.  At any rate this was just a test, a single serving.  I would like to someday try all these recipes again using whole chickens, like the Romans did.

Overall though I am pleased with this, so I'll put it in the keeper pile now on the Recipes page.

Apicius 6.8.5: Numidian Chicken

Good grief that photo is terrible. This post might be better without it!
I wanted to try this chicken dish because it was parboiled and then roasted, and that technique worked quite well with some of the other dishes I've tried, specifically the recipe for roast neck joint.

Numidia was a north African kingdom, located in what is now Algeria, extending into parts of Tunisia and Libya as well. It was defeated by Rome in the Jugurthine War in the first century BCE, and was eventually made a province. I'm not sure how this recipe is particularly Numidian; nothing in it is any less Roman, or more exotic, than most other recipes.

The recipes, in both the Latin and English, from G & G:

[6.8.5]: pullum Numidicum: pullum curas, elixas, leuas, laser ac piper aspergis et assas.  teres piper cuminum coriandri semen laseris radicem rutam careotam nucleos; suffundis acetum mel liquamen et oleum; temperabis. cum ferbuerit, amulo obligas, pullum perfundis, piper aspergis et inferes.

6.8.5: Numidian chicken prepare the chicken, (par-)boil it and lift it out; sprinkle with laser and pepper and roast it. Pound pepper, cumin, coriander seed, laser root, rue, date, pine nuts; pour on vinegar, honey, liquamen and oil; balance the flavours. When it comes to heat, thicken with starch, pour over the chicken, sprinkle with pepper and serve.

Since this is an experiment, as usual I just used one piece of chicken rather than a whole bird; this time I used a thigh, with bones and skin, since I figured it would have a bit more flavor than the usual bland skinless boneless breast, especially since it called to be boiled a bit.

As one of the spices I got recently I did get some dried rue; I have no idea if it's still in my (rather overgrown) herb garden, though at any rate things are only just starting to come up here. I also got some more asafoetida, both in resin form and ground. It's definitely a lot stronger than the rather old ground asafoetida I had. And again, that's as (an entirely historical) substitute for the laser (a.k.a. silphium), which went extinct in Roman times. And so also extinct is the laser root called for in the recipe; though I didn't know it while making the recipe, asafoetida is actually from the root of the plant, so would work for that as well.

So here's what I tried:

1 chicken thigh, with skin on and bones in
1 small peppercorn of long pepper (about 1 inch long); or several regular black peppercorns
pinch ground asafoetida
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander seed
1/4 teaspoon dried rue leaves
2 teaspoons pine nuts
1 small date, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
1 tablespoon olive oil

Simmer the chicken piece in water to cover until mostly done, about 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 350º Fahrenheit. Grind the peppercorn(s) in the mortar. When the chicken is ready remove from the water and place in a baking pan, then sprinkle with half the pepper and the pinch of asafoetida. Bake in the oven another 15 minutes or so until the skin crisps up a bit and the chicken is cooked through.

In the mean time make the sauce. Grind the cumin, coriander seed and rue leaves with the remaining pepper; when they're pretty finely ground add the pine nuts and get it all as fine as you can before adding the date, which will make a sticky impossible mess of things. But with patience it will (eventually) make a smooth paste, and so add the vinegar, honey, fish sauce and olive oil and mash/mix. It will still be quite thick at this point.

Dump it into a small pan; I found it so thick that I actually had to add a few tablespoons of water to it. (Again, I suspect the Romans, whose fish sauce was much less salty than the modern Thai variety, were using a lot more liquamen in the first place.) Heat it up to a simmer, and let it cook and re-thicken.

When the chicken is finished, pour the sauce over, sprinkle with a bit more pepper (I forgot, of course), and serve.

Despite the unappetizing photo (really, I am beyond ashamed at my terrible photography skills. I have got to get better at that), this tasted quite nice. The vinegar was quite pronounced and an important part of the sauce. Funny enough I could taste both the rue (bitter) and the honey (sweet) at the same time, though that doesn't really seem possible. It was quite rich too, given the pine nuts, and was over all really a very Roman sauce. There are quite a few 'patterns' in the sauces in Apicius; this one with dates is of a type that shows up on a few recipes. Like I said, very Roman.

I've done a few chicken recipes so far; I'd like to try them again with whole chickens and a greater quantity of sauce, since that's really what the recipe is calling for. As for the technique, of parboiling then roasting, I'm not sure it's really necessary here, at least with our modern chickens, which I imagine are rather plumper and less scraggly than ancient ones. If I'd thought of it, I would have thinned the sauce at the end with some of the water the chicken had cooked in. Oh well. Also, I left out the laser root, thinking there was no equivalent; you can add another pinch of ground asafoetida to the sauce, if you like, though I found there was already plenty of it from when the chicken was roasted.

Apicius 5.4.3: Plain Pea Conchicla

There are quite a few recipes for peas in Apicius, though I'd never tried one before this. They are made with dried peas, not fresh peas (as the 'instructions' invariably call for skimming the foam off while cooking them), and, according to Grocock and Grainger, are made with marrowfat peas.

Marrowfat peas are peas that are left on the vine to mature before harvesting, much like beans used for drying are. I do not seem to be able to find them for love or money here in the US; I have had to use the usual split peas for soup, which I'm guessing are harvested much earlier in the season going by the size. Marrowfat peas are apparently what are used to make the English dish of 'mushy peas', though I have to admit that has got to be one of the least appetizing names ever. I suppose these Apician recipes may well be the forerunner of that dish.

This recipe is a conchicla; there is some confusion as to exactly what that means, whether it refers to a type of bean (though the recipes are almost always for peas), or to a specific type of serving dish, presumably shell-shaped. They don't seem to be any more complicated, or particularly different in technique than the 'regular' pea recipes, so who knows.

I assumed, going by the instructions, that this was meant to make a quite thick paste, rather than something thick but still soupy like modern split pea soup.

The Latin, followed by Grocock and Grainger's English translation:

[5.4.3] conciclam de pisa simplici: pisam coques. cum dispumauerit, fasciculum porri et coriandri mittis. dum coquitur, teres piper ligusticum origanum, fasciculum de suo sibi; fricabis; suffundis liquamen; uino et liquamine temperabis, mittis. super adicies oleum et lento igni ferueat, et inferes.

5.4.3 Plain pea conchicla: cook the peas; when you have skimmed them, put in a bundle of leeks and coriander. While it is cooking, pound pepper, lovage, oregano, the bundle itself, pound again, pour on liquamen, flavour with wine and liquamen; put (in the pan). Pour oil over the top; let it come to heat over a gentle fire and serve.

A while back I ordered some of the more unusual spices used in Apicius, like calamus root, Indian bay leaf (probably what the Romans called malabathrum), and dried rue; I also got my hands on some long pepper.

They're not kidding about the name. A single 'corn' can be up to two inches long, probably equal in size to more than a dozen ordinary black peppercorns. The taste is a bit different—more fragrant, almost floral. And also, not actually 'hotter' than black pepper, though that was what I'd heard. A little astringent, too, maybe? Quite a bit different and much more complex; I'm not even sure I'd guess it was a type of pepper.

While the recipe calls for a 'bundle' of leeks, the modern ones in the supermarket were absolutely gigantic, so I've only used half of one here.

And in happy news, I finally have some lovage growing in my garden. I planted it a couple years ago now, and it's doing well, though only just sprouting for the spring.

The recipe:

1 cup split green peas
several sprigs of cilantro (or parsley, if you hate cilantro like I do)
a leek
1 small peppercorn of long pepper (about 1 inch in length); or, several regular black peppercorns
2 small sprigs of lovage
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano (or 1 teaspoon fresh, minced)
1 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
1 tablespoon wine
olive oil

Set the peas to boil in about 3 cups of water. Trim the roots and the dark green parts off the leek, then split the white/light green part lengthwise, setting aside one half to use in another recipe. Clean off the half left, making sure to get in between the layers as they tend to hold a fair bit of sand.

Put the half leek and the cilantro/parsley in with the peas, and continue to boil them, adding more water if needed so it doesn't get too thick, and skimming off any foam on the surface.

Grind the peppercorn(s) with the lovage and oregano and set aside. When the peas start to break down a bit, fish out the cilantro/parsley sprigs and leek slices and add to the mortar. They'll be quite wet, and you may need to squish them in a sieve a bit to make it easier to grind. Or, you can put them in a food processor and pulse to a paste. Mix in the fish sauce and the wine, then add all of it back to the peas.

When the peas start to thicken, turn the heat down to low and keep an eye on them, stirring here and there to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom. When they've thickened about to the consistency of mashed potatoes, take off the heat. You can, if you like, run the whole thing through a food processor to really smooth it out; I didn't, since I didn't think of doing that until just now.

Serve with a drizzle of olive oil over. Makes two servings.

This were quite good, especially with the olive oil on top, which gave it a nice sort of floral note. Overall it was quite balanced, and though I could taste the pepper it didn't dominate. It could probably take even more of the herbs as the peas were themselves quite earthy, but on the whole it was good and not bland, and so I'll put it with the keepers.

I suppose one could eat it like a dip with bread, like modern bean dip. I just ate it with a fork.

There are, like I said, quite a few pea dishes in Apicius, some with pork (like in split pea soup); I'll definitely have to give some of the others a try.

Apicius 5.6.3 Iterum: Fava Beans in Pine Nut Mustard Sauce

I was lucky enough to get my hands on some fresh fava beans yesterday at a local farmstand, so I tried this recipe again. I also researched how to properly cook them, so this time after de-podding them, I blanched them in boiling water for a minute or so, then slipped them out of their inner (surprisingly plastic-like) skins to reveal the pure bright green bean inside. I did not get a picture, alas, but that's because I ate them all right up, yum yum! And though I didn't have any rue (it does not seem to have survived in my herb garden), I did remember to pour a little vinegar in a little bowl to dip them in, which turned out to be a very nice addition to the balance of flavors. I highly recommend this recipe now. I think if I can't find fresh fava beans in the future I'll try it again with the frozen fresh kind, but this time I'll thaw them first and blanch them as if they were fresh to get the inner skins off.

This was really good!

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 3.7: Melon Salad Redux

I thought I'd give this one another try, as it's a simple summery dish, and 'tis the season. I tweaked the proportions a bit and like this version much better, though it's probably still a bit of an acquired taste. The Latin and English, as refresher:

VII. PEPONES ET MELONES. piper puleium mel uel passum liquamen acetum. interdum et silfi accedit.

3.7. LONG AND ROUND SWEET MELONS: pepper, pennyroyal, honey or passum, liquamen, vinegar. Sometimes silphium is added.

Again, watermelons are in fact Old World, being native to southern Africa.

These are the proportions I used this time, though I bent the rules a bit by using both honey and passum, as I had it. And again, I substituted peppermint for the pennyroyal, as pennyroyal's a little dicey, toxicity-wise (and I had plenty of mint).

2 cups diced watermelon
A few peppercorns (I used exactly 5)
1 teaspoon chopped fresh peppermint
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon passum (raisin wine)
1/4 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
A very tiny pinch of ground asafoetida

Grind the peppercorns in a mortar; add the chopped mint and the pinch of asafoetida and grind to a paste. Add the honey and mix, then the passum, liquamen and vinegar and mix/grind until smooth. Pour over the watermelon and garnish with a sprig of mint if you're feeling extra fancy (I was).

This was much more balanced than the last version. It was a strange and complicated mix of contrasting flavors, being all at once sweet and sour, sweet and salty, and spicy hot and cool; but I think it worked. If I were to tweak anything it would be to use even less of the liquamen. It wasn't overly salty, mind you, but I think I just wasn't expecting there to be salt in it at all; like I said, this recipe is perhaps an acquired taste. Still, I'll put it in with the keepers, though under the salad heading as it's not something I'd quite call a dessert. It was certainly interesting.

Apicius 4.1.2: Sala Cattabia

This one looked fairly approachable to modern eyes; more or less a chicken salad with a ginger-raisin vinaigrette. A while back I tried the recipe immediately after it, also a sala cattabia, though it didn't make it into the keepers pile. (I still don't know what 'cattabia' refers to; for a while there I thought maybe it was a type of cooking pot, but no, I was thinking of a caccabus.) This one is said to be 'in the style of Apicius', so extra fancy, I suppose. It would work quite well as a lunch dish, though I had it for supper. It was very yummy, let me say.

The Latin, followed by the English:

[4.1.2] aliter sala cattabia Apiciana: adicies in mortario apii semen puleio aridum mentam aridam gengiber coriandro uiridem uuam passam enucleatam mel acetum oleum et uinum. conteres. adicies in caccabolo panis Picentini frustra, interpones pulpas pulli glandulas edinas caseum Vestinum nucleos pineos cucumeres cepas aridas minute concisas; ius supra perfundes; insuper niuem sub ora, [piper] asparges et inferes.

4.1.2. Another sala cattabia in the style of Apicius: put in a mortar celery seed, dry pennyroyal, dry mint, ginger, green coriander, de-seeded raisins, honey, vinegar, oil and wine. Pound together. Put in a small pot pieces of Picentine bread interlayered with chicken meat, goats' sweetbreads, Vestine cheese, pine nuts, cucumber, finely chopped dried onions. Pour the sauce over (the ingredients); stand (the pot) in snow for an hour, sprinkle with pepper and serve.

According to Grocock and Grainger, Picentine bread is made from alica, a fairly finely milled wheat groat similar in texture to semolina. The alica is left to soak for nine days, probably in must (fresh grape juice, which was usually made into wine). As the must started to ferment, the naturally occurring yeasts acted as a leavening agent. Nowadays we just buy yeast to make bread; of course the Romans had to get it another way. After the nine days more flour was mixed in to make a proper dough, then it was baked. The resulting bread was famous for being quite light and spongy, and I imagine it was a bit sweet too since it started with grape juice rather than just water. I don't know if nine days is long enough to get it to something like sourdough; at any rate it does seem a very interesting way to make bread. Maybe I'll try it someday, though I have to admit my bread-making skills are pretty substandard. I'm going to go ahead and blame my kitchen, which is basically in the cellar, and always a bit on the cool side. I'm sure that's it.

I was able to find a bread made with semolina, crazy enough, though it was this weird sort in Local Supermarket's bakery department that was only lightly baked (as the Gwragedd Annwn prefer, so I hear) that I put in the oven for another ten minutes. Not sure that did anything but warm it up, but it was certainly tasty. A French (or Italian) bread would work, too.

G&G don't give an explanation for 'Vestine cheese', but luckily the internet does, because there totally are people out there who did their PhD's on the History of Cheese. Vestine cheese was made by the Vestini of central Italy, and was a smoked goats' cheese which was quite popular for breakfast. Smoked goats' cheese does exist out there, again according to the internet, but Local Supermarket only had the plain kind, so that's what I used.

I skipped the pennyroyal, since it's on the questionable side; there's mint in it anyway, which is closely related, so I just used plenty of that.

And I left the sweetbreads out entirely, because no. Just no. I mean, you can if you want, but I'm not gonna and you can't make me.

For the dressing:

1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon dried mint
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon minced fresh cilantro (or parsley, if like me you hate cilantro)
1 tablespoon raisins
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon wine

Soak the raisins in the wine for a bit to soften; meanwhile grind the other dry(ish) ingredients to a fine paste in a mortar, then add the raisins when they've softened a bit. (I found cutting them up into several tiny pieces first made grinding them easier). Add the wine the raisins soaked in, the vinegar, honey, and oil and mix to a slurry. Set aside.

For the salad:

1 cup bread cubes
1 cup diced cooked chicken
2 oz smoked or plain goats' cheese, crumbled
1 generous tablespoon pine nuts
1/2 cucumber, peeled and diced
1 tablespoon minced onion
pepper

Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan until lightly browned and fragrant. Put all the bread cubes in the bowl, then layer half each of the chicken, goats' cheese, cucumber, onions, and pine nuts, followed by another layer of chicken, cheese, cucumber, and onions. Pour the dressing over, sprinkle with the remaining pine nuts and pepper to taste. Put in the fridge to chill for an hour, or eat right away (which is what I did).

This was really very good, though it has no salt (and no liquamen, either), so I was worried it would be bland. It wasn't, because the goats' cheese was a little salty, but you could add salt if you like with the pepper at the end. The flavors all worked quite well together, and surprisingly the bread was a very important part of it and gave it a good solid base. It was over all quite nicely balanced, though it was a little light on the dressing. Ideally I wanted enough to soak down through the layers and into the bread at the bottom, but it didn't get that far, being fairly thick. It tasted good, though, so I think the proportions of the dressing are about right. Maybe half again as much would work for the amount of salad? That's very much to personal taste, though, of course.

The dressing wasn't all that gingery, oddly enough; I wonder if it's the ginger I've been getting lately. The last time I got some I made ginger tea out of it, using rather a lot of ginger, but it had barely any kick. So maybe you'll want to use less, ha. Still though, the dressing was rich, complex, and densely flavored, and very Roman.

You can play with the proportions of the salad a bit too, of course. I don't really care too much for raw onion, so only used a little. It did work well and gave it just the right amount of bite, I thought. You could also use rather more pine nuts; the measurement I gave above was just what I had left in the container!

Overall, though, definitely a keeper, and I'll be making it again!

Apicius 4.3.4: Matian Minutal

And now the minutal, which I made the meatballs for below. It's another pork and fruit stew, this time with apples.

[4.3.4] minutal Matianum: adicies in caccabum oleum liquamen cocturam; concides porrum coriandrum, esicia minuta; spatulam porcinam coctam tessellatim concides cum sua sibi tergilla. facies ut simul quoquantur; media coctura mala Maziana purgata intrinsecus concisa tessellatim mittes; dum coquitur teres piper cuminum coriandrum uiridem uel semen mentam laseris radicem; suffundis acetum mel liquamen defritum modice et ius de suo sibi; aceto modico temperabis, facies ut ferueat; cum ferbuerit, tractam confringes et ex ea obligas; piper asparges et inferes.

[4.3.4] Matian minutal: put in a pan oil, liquamen, stock; chop in leek and coriander, ground forcemeat, diced cooked shoulder of pork with its crackling. Allow all this to cook together. In the middle of the cooking put in cored and diced Matian apples. While it is cooking pound pepper, cumin, green coriander or seed, mint, laser root; pour on vinegar, honey, liquamen, a little defrutum, and some of the cooking liquor; flavour with a little vinegar, bring it to heat; when it is simmering, crumble a tracta and thicken with some of it, sprinkle with pepper and serve.

According to G&G, Matian apples were a variety developed by one Gaius Matius or his son, the elder a friend of Julius Caesar, the younger a friend to Augustus Caesar, though they don't say what kind of apples they might be. I used some sweet crisp eating apples (Galas) as I thought they'd hold up better than the softer cooking apples like you'd use to make pie. And again, I hate cilantro ('green coriander') and so used parsley.

olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons liquamen (Thai fish sauce), divided
2 cups chicken broth
1 leek, white and green parts only, chopped into half-moons and thoroughly washed
1/2 cup fresh cilantro or parsley, chopped
about a dozen meatballs from the isicia recipe below
1 cup leftover roast pork, cubed (such as from Apicius 7.5.5)
1-2 crisp sweet apples, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
a few peppercorns, or more, to taste
1/2 teaspoon cumin (I used ground)
1/2 teaspoon coriander seed
1/2 teaspoon dried peppermint
pinch asafoetida
1-3 teaspoons vinegar or more, divided
2 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons defrutum
cornstarch or wheat flour to thicken

Put a bit of olive oil in a large saucepan or deep skillet (I didn't use too much as the isicia already had a fair amount), then add a teaspoon of liquamen and the chicken stock. Add the leek, cilantro or parsley, the isicia/meatballs and the leftover pork. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook until the leeks are beginning to soften. Add the apples and cook until they are soft but not falling apart and the leeks are done. Grind the spices as finely as you can, then mix into a paste with a teaspoon of vinegar, the honey, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of the liquamen and the defrutum. Add to the pork, meatball and apple mix, then taste for balance, and add more vinegar if necessary (I added another 2 teaspoons). Bring it back up to a simmer then thicken with a bit of starch. Sprinkle with pepper and serve.

This worked quite well as a filling stew or soup and was nicely balanced between sweet, sour, and savory, and was plenty rich as well. Given that the pork shoulder and the meatballs were already cooked, it didn't take all that long to simmer but tasted like it'd been stewing forever. It's probably not actually necessary to grind the spices then mix them with all the liquids; one could certainly just grind the spices by themselves then throw everything in with the stew, but I've given the more complicated instructions here as that's what the original recipe called for.

Apicius 2.1.7: Isicia With Caroenum

(Ignore the sauce; the recipe below is just for the meatballs.)

I originally made these to go in another recipe, a pork and apple minutal, but these were so good I have made them just on their own several times since. Really, these are absolutely wonderful.

Isicia refers to finely chopped meat; it seems to get used in Apicius in a variety of ways, but in this particular recipe likely refers to something meatball-like (according to Grainger and Grocock, anyway).

[2.1.7] esicia omentata: pulpam concisam teres cum medulla siliginei in uino infusa; piper, liquamen; si uelis, et bacam mirta extenteratam simul conteres. pusilla esicia formabis intus nucleis et pipere positis; inuoluta omento subassabis cum caroeno.

2.1.7. Forcemeat faggots: you pound chopped meat with fresh white breadcrumbs soaked in wine, with pepper and liquamen; if you wish, you pound crushed myrtle berries with them. You shape the faggots with pine nuts and pepper placed inside. Wrap them in caul fat and roast them with caroenum.

I did alter this recipe a little, mostly because I'm not sure where I'd find caul fat; also the idea of finding whole surprise peppercorns in the middle of a perfectly innocent-looking meatball didn't appeal, so I mixed the (ground) pepper and pine nuts in with the meat instead (though you could, of course, follow the original method, which does sound interesting). So instead of the caul fat, which I'm assuming was there to give some rich flavor and to keep the meatballs from drying out, I rolled them in a bit of olive oil. It seemed to work quite well. For the myrtle berries (which are not available here, and which don't grow around here as it's too far north), I substituted juniper berries plus a pinch of allspice (though allspice is New World), as according to The Internet, that was the closest approximation to the taste. Plus I had both of them. If you can't find either, the berries are optional; it'll be a bit blander but still pretty rich and sweet. And as for bread crumbs, I just used the plain white kind from a canister. I suppose I could have made my own, but I'm lazy. And I used ground pork because I thought with the sweet caroenum over it it wanted a mild meat. Ground chicken or turkey (or veal) would probably also work just as well. The recipe:

1 pound ground pork
1/2 cup plain white bread crumbs
1/4 cup sweet white wine
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1 tablespoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
6 juniper berries
pinch ground allspice
1/4 cup pine nuts
olive oil
caroenum

Preheat the oven to 325° Fahrenheit. Drizzle a bit of olive oil in a 9 by 13 inch baking dish and set aside.

Put the bread crumbs in a bowl; pour the wine over and mix. Grind the peppercorns to a fine powder, then add the juniper berries and allspice and grind them as well. Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan until a little browned and fragrant, then tip into a mortar and grind to a paste. Add the spices, pine nuts, liquamen, and the soaked bread crumbs to the ground pork and mix thoroughly. Form into meatballs about an inch and half in diameter. Roll them in the olive oil in the baking pan to coat (add more if necessary). When they're all in there drizzle a decent amount of caroenum over each one, though not enough that they're swimming in the stuff (probably about 1/4 cup altogether).

Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the meatballs are cooked through and have begun to brown, and the caroenum has started to caramelize a bit. Makes about two dozen.

These were absolutely lovely. The olive oil kept them tender and moist, even though they cooked for quite a while, and the caroenum formed a delicious sticky sugary crust on them. Really seriously, try these.

Apicius 8.6.8: Coriander Lamb

I got some lamb shoulder chops the other day, figuring I could try something Roman with them, though I wasn't sure what. But browsing through Apicius tonight I found I was missing ingredients for most of the lamb recipes. So I opted for the simplest one, though I know others have done it. It's a quite modern-looking recipe, no elaborate sauces or boiling involved, just lamb rubbed with oil and spices and roasted in the oven. I'll admit it actually felt like kind of a cop-out as it was so simple. But, holy moly, am I glad I tried it.

[8.6.8] hedus siue agnus crudus: oleo piper fricabis et asparges fores salem purum multo cum coriandri semen. in furnum mittis, assatum inferes.

8.6.8. Rare kid or lamb: rub with oil and pepper, and sprinkle plenty of pure salt and coriander seed all over the outside. Put in the oven. Serve roasted.

I assume the original recipe is for a whole lamb, or a roast or somesuch, but like I said I had chops. This is what I did:

2 lamb shoulder chops 3/4 inch thick (together they came to a little under a pound)
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon coriander seed
olive oil
salt

Grind the peppercorns and remove to a small bowl, then grind the coriander seed separately. Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the chops, sprinkle about half the pepper over them and rub in; repeat with more oil and the remaining pepper on the other side. Then sprinkle each chop with a generous amount of salt and the ground coriander seeds, getting both sides as well.

Broil 3 inches from the heat for 6 to 8 minutes; turn and broil for another 6 to 7 minutes.

Oh. My. God. Now, maybe, I just hadn't had a lamb chop broiled to perfection for a good long while, and maybe I hadn't had much to eat earlier in the day so was hungrier than usual, but there was no maybe about how unbelievably delicious these were. This was pure Roman hedonism at its most decadent, and I found myself inspired (nay, driven) to eat as the ancients:

Was I compelled to abandon my knife and fork? Did I need to get my face in there to get every last morsel of lamb? Did I then gnaw on the bones? Did I make little whimpering noises while doing so? Did I then go and eat the second chop (the one I'd planned to save for tomorrow) like the slavering sybarite I was? When that was gone, did I then use my fingers on the pan, picking up the littlest crumbs of the spice mix? Did I then lick every last molecule of the stuff off my fingers? Did I, at last, sit down in the chair with a contented sigh, close my eyes and say (out loud) That was a religious experience?

Yes, yes, and HELL YES to all of the above. These were crispy on the outside, and just pink enough on the inside, and the spices were absolutely wonderful. I'd been (as usual) wary about getting too much pepper in there but let myself go for once; once it's cooked it's a lot less spicy, so it was fine (in fact feel free to use more). And the coriander gave it a lovely lemony sort of taste, that, wow. The key, though, and the original recipe is quite clear, is to make sure to be generous with the salt. The salt is really what makes it.

OH MY GOD it was REALLY freakin' good. Honestly, that photo up there (which came out kinda nice for once) is making me all misty-eyed with longing and regret that it's All Gone. I simply must have more.

Apicius 6.2.14 & 6.8.14: Stuffed Chicken With A Cumin Raisin Sauce

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.

Apicius 5.6.3 Redux: Fava Beans in Pine Nut Mustard Sauce

So I gave this one a try again, having found some frozen fresh fava beans (i.e. not canned or dried). It came out quite nicely this time, and I think the frozen beans made all the difference. The Latin and the English, from Grocock and Grainger, once again:

[5.6.3] aliter: fabaciae ex sinapi trito melle nucleis ruta cumino; ex aceto inferuntur.

5.6.3. Alternatively: serve the beans (cooked) in some pounded mustard, honey, pine nuts, rue, cumin; serve with vinegar.

1 cup fresh frozen fava beans
1 teaspoon ground mustard
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1/2 teaspoon cumin
sprig or two of rue, minced, to make about 1/2 teaspoon
vinegar to serve

Cook beans according to directions on the package (it took about a half hour of boiling for me).

Grind the cumin seeds (if you're not using ground) with the rue (if you can get it) in a mortar. Toast the pine nuts in a dry frying pan until golden brown and fragrant; transfer to the mortar and grind, adding the mustard to make a smooth dryish paste. Add the honey and mix; it should form a thick sticky mess.

When the beans are finished cooking, drain well and then toss with the sauce; the heat from the beans will thin it a bit. Sprinkle a little vinegar over and serve.

This definitely worked better this time, and was quite simple, especially given I didn't have any cumin seed so went with pre-ground. I did not, however have any rue, since it's still winter out there, but as I used it the last time I tried this recipe I think that amount should be fine. It was quite rich, and well balanced, and definitely had a nice kick with the ground raw mustard. It could be described as a hot mustard honey sweet and sour sauce.

I found I rather liked the fava beans, unlike last time when the choices I had were dried or canned; the frozen ones really did taste much, much, better. They don't seem that far off from lima beans, actually, mild and a little sweet, so if you can't find frozen fava beans frozen lima beans would work just as well.

So now I finally get to put this one with the keepers, yay!

Apicius 7.11.4 Redux: Peppered Sweets

So I gave this one another try tonight, after finally figuring out how to make really thick semolina without burning it. I was able, then, to roll them up like little truffles, the 'sweets' of the recipe title. Here, again, are the Latin and English, to refresh your memory:

[7.11.4] dulcia piperata: teres piper, mittis mel merum passum rutam. eo mittis nucleos nuces alicam elixatam. concisas nuces auellanas tostas adicies et inferes.

7.11.4 Peppered sweets: pound pepper; add honey, wine, passum, and rue. Add to the mixture pine nuts, nuts and boiled alica. Add chopped roasted hazelnuts and serve.

Alica, you will remember, is a type of groat, or smashed up grain (in this case emmer wheat) which came in several grades, the finest (according to Grocock and Grainger) about the texture of semolina, though that is made from a different variety of wheat (durum, which, according to Wikipedia, was bred from emmer wheat originally anyway). I suppose something like bulgur wheat (though a bit more coarse) like you'd use for making tabbouleh would also work. (And, looking it up, emmer wheat is still used in Italy, where it's called farro, and is apparently available in health food stores, so I'll keep an eye out.) At any rate, I used semolina flour.

And again, I didn't have any rue, as it's the middle of winter and it has all died down in my herb garden (I checked). Rue, while bitter, gives a distinct flowery note, which makes me wonder if a little rose water (not that that's period) would give a similar effect. I did use wildflower honey, so hopefully that helped.

When I'd made this recipe in the past I didn't get the semolina very thick, and so the whole thing came out like a pudding, which, while perfectly tasty, wasn't what I'd guess the original recipe had in mind. Though who can tell, really; Apicius is more about what's between the lines than the actual lines sometimes.

So here's my third attempt:

a dollop of cream plus whole milk to equal 1 cup
1/2 cup semolina flour
15 peppercorns (or more, to taste)
3 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon wine
1 teaspoon passum
2 tablespoons pine nuts
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts

Heat the milk + cream up as hot as you dare without scalding it (I got it to just starting to simmer), then throw in the semolina, stirring constantly. Take off the heat pretty much immediately and continue stirring till more or less smooth and about as thick as cookie dough, then set aside.

Grind up the peppercorns in a mortar, then add the honey, the wine, and the passum. Stir to mix.

Toast the pine nuts and walnuts in a dry frying pan on medium heat until lightly browned and fragrant. Tip out onto a cutting board and cut them up as finely as you can manage, then put in the mortar with the honey/wine/pepper mixture and get as smooth as possible. When you're tired of that, throw it all in with the cooked semolina, then mix it as smoothly as you can with a spatula or potato masher.

Toast the hazelnuts in the pan you used for the other nuts until again lightly browned and fragrant, then empty them onto the cutting board and chop as finely as you can.

Take small lumps of the semolina mixture and roll into one inch balls (you may wish to give your hands a light coating of oil so it doesn't stick, and if you're being strictly authentic it probably ought to be olive), then roll in the hazelnuts till you get these lovely little truffle-looking things. Makes about two dozen.

These were really really really really good, and very rich. And even with the uncooked wine and the passum they didn't taste alcoholic at all (and I'm pretty sensitive to that). I kept nibbling on the semolina mixture (like one does with cookie dough, because one can't resist) as I was getting the hazelnuts ready and kept thinking it was a little on the bland side, but once the hazelnuts were on there they made the whole thing work quite well. I would have said that maybe the mix could have used a little salt, just like a cake has a little just to bring the other flavors out, but now I don't think it needed even that. The walnuts (what Apicius generally means when it just calls for 'nuts') and the pine nuts gave it a richness, along with the semolina itself and the milk (plus the cream I added). The peppercorns this time were fine, and gave it a little bite without being obnoxious.

So, yeah, this one is definitely going in the keeper pile. Third time pays for all, as they say.

Apicius 7.11.7 Variation

Oh my GOD.

Try this, for the cheese patina recipe a couple posts down:

1 cup total whole milk + cream in whatever proportion you like (I used rather more cream than milk)
3 eggs
1/3 cup honey
8 oz package (1 cup) mascarpone cheese
ground pepper (optional)

Follow the directions linked above. Eat it, and revel in the decadence that was the Roman Empire.

Happy Lupercalia!

Apicius 7.11.7: Sweet Cheese Patina

It's been a few months since I've done any Roman cooking; I think I got to a point where I just needed a damned tomato in my life (and peppers, and zucchini, and chocolate, and butter). Also, this is a hobby blog and I tend to do things in waves, so I at least am not surprised. But it seemed time to get back into this.

This recipe for a cheese patina sounded rather like a honey cheesecake without the crust. Strictly speaking a patina is a wide flat cooking dish or pan with sloping sides; the name was also applied to the kind of dish cooked within it. These generally used eggs as a binder, though not always, and seem to have ranged from something like a quiche or frittata to custards. They could be sweet or savory and contain pretty much any ingredient you could imagine. (Incidentally patella, 'little patina', the word for kneecap, comes from the same root, as does the Spanish paella, which also gave its name to a specific type of dish cooked in it.) This particular patina recipe is found under the Homemade Sweets and Curds section of Apicius.

I'll give the Latin followed by the English, as usual; and as usual, the translations and information about Roman cooking techniques are straight from Christopher Grocock and Sally Grainger's Apicius: A Critical Edition With an Introduction and English Translation, so, you know, don't go thinking I'm an actual expert on this stuff or anything.

[7.11.7] tiropatinam: accipies lac, aduersus quod patinam estimabis, temperabis lac cum melle quasi ad lactantia, oua quinque ad sextarium mittis, si ad eminam, oua tria. in lacte dissoluis ita ut unum corpus facias, in cumana colas et igni lento coques. cum duxerit ad se, piper adspargis et inferes.

7.11.7. Cheese patina: take some milk and choose a dish of sufficient size to hold it; flavour the milk with honey as though for milk pudding. Put in 5 eggs to a pint or 3 to a 1/2 pint. Dissolve them in the milk so that you have a smooth emulsion. Strain it into a Cumaean clay dish and cook over a slow fire; when it has set, sprinkle with pepper and serve.

Apparently this is one of the (all too common, alas) recipes in Apicius where a key ingredient is found only in the title; at first I thought well maybe 'cheese' referred to the consistency of the finished custard, but that didn't seem very likely really, especially given that part of the instructions are 'as though for milk pudding', implying that it is specifically not a milk pudding. But then I had to guess at the amount of cheese to put in. Not that that's anything new with Apicius.

I have to confess I'm not that handy with a custard; in fact I pulled out my Mastering the Art of French Cooking by the one and only Julia Child (and Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle) just for some tips. Those recipes turned out to be rather more complicated than I'd hoped, so instead I cribbed from an old Better Homes and Garden cookbook (yes, the one with the gingham/Italian restaurant tablecloth cover). The added texture of the cheese confused me too, as it was a bit grainy and hard to tell if the egg was separating, though I think I did all right in the end. So this is the recipe:

1 cup whole milk
3 eggs
5 tablespoons honey (=1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon, if that's easier)
1 cup ricotta cheese
ground pepper

Put the milk in a saucepan and mix in the honey with a whisk (you may wish to start warming the milk first to allow the honey to more easily dissolve). Add the cup of cheese and whisk till smooth. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl until quite smooth, then add to the milk and cheese mixture. Heat slowly over low to medium heat (you can use a double boiler if you've got one), stirring all the while. Keep stirring until the mix is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. It may look like it's not going to get there, especially with the cheese making it kind of grainy, but it will. I gave it a couple more minutes after that stage because I was following directions for creme brulée and I wanted it to be a little thicker, but you don't have to.

Take it off the heat and allow it to cool down; you can eat it then, sprinkled with some pepper, or put it in the fridge to firm up for later.

I don't know why the Romans were so taken with pepper, especially given that from what I could find the variety they used had both larger peppercorns and was rather spicier than the common round black peppercorns that are ubiquitous today; but they put the damned stuff on everything, including sweets. I guess that was one of the few sources of kick or heat they had for spices and a little bit of pain with their otherwise perfectly good food made them feel alive or something, like it does in Mexico or India. Me, I'm a wussy New Englander; our (sacred) recipe for clam chowder specifically says to use white pepper, if you must, because black pepper would just be too much. I put some on there for the photo (and I did eat it) but given my druthers I'd leave it off.

In spite of the pepper, this was quite good; I was a little confused though when I pulled it out of the fridge later to see a bit of water in with it. I thought that maybe I'd gotten it too hot after all and the egg had scrambled a bit; but actually I think it was just condensation, as I threw it in a bowl with some foil over it and stuck it in the fridge while it was still pretty hot, since it was getting late. I drained it off today and it certainly tasted fine, quite rich and custardy, with a bit of sweetness from the cheese.

I used ricotta because I was assuming a soft farmer's type cheese would be what they'd have. Mascarpone would certainly work, and now that I've thought of that I may just have to try this again because god damn, mascarpone cheese is amazing, especially with honey. And I suppose you could also add a little cream to the milk if you wanted, as I don't know that they separated that out. Though for that matter I don't know that they used cow's milk, either; goat's or ewe's milk would I'd guess be more common, but who knows.

It was as I said, quite rich and custardy; the only thing I might tweak is to add a little more honey, as it was a bit on the mildly sweet side for my tastes. But then I definitely have a very sweet tooth. Overall, though, this is definitely going into the keeper pile.

ETA: I did indeed try it with mascarpone cheese and some cream and it was absolutely heavenly. Here are the proportions for that version of this recipe.

Apicius 7.5.5: Pork Roast

Oh. My. GODS. This recipe looks like nothing at all, but WOW.

This is it:

[7.5.5] assaturas in collare: elixatur et infunditur in fretali piper condimentum mel liquamen, et attorretur in clibano quousque coquatur. elixum uero collare, si uoles, sine conditura assas, et siccum calidum perfundis.

7.5.5. Roasted neck joint: the joint is boiled, placed in a roasting dish with pepper, spices, honey, liquamen, and roasted in a clibanus until it is cooked. If you wish you may roast the boiled neck joint without the sauce and pour it on while it is hot and dry.

A clibanus, in case you're wondering, is a sort of small portable oven the Romans usually used for baking bread, which could be nestled down in the embers. A modern oven will do.

Now, when Apicius talks about 'meat' without saying what kind exactly, I'm going to guess pork will work. While out shopping last night, the local supermarket had pork loin on special, so I grabbed one, figuring I'd make something Roman with it. It's not a neck joint like the recipe calls for, but those are hard to come by. From what I understand they are best cooked slowly, but are quite good. Which is probably why the Apicius recipe calls for both boiling and roasting. A pork loin probably doesn't need both, but I did it anyway, just to be (somewhat) authentic and to see if there was a reason for it. Oh, there WAS. It was AMAZING.

So here's what I did:

I threw the pork loin in a large stewpot and simmered it for about two hours. The reason I left it that long was because it was kind of a big one (like five pounds) and I wasn't sure how long it would take. I wanted to put something in there to flavor it, but none of the recipes really had any instructions for that (though there are three ham recipes that call for boiling the ham with figs). In the end I did drizzle a bit of the fig defrutum I made a while back over it while it simmered, which made it smell very wonderful.

I had meant to only sort of half-cook it and finish it off in the oven, but when I took it out of the pot and cut into it to test it was already done; in fact it was starting to fall apart a bit it was so tender. Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself in my enthusiasm; let's put this in recipe form:

1 4-5 pound pork loin
couple tablespoons defrutum or caroenum (optional)
about a dozen peppercorns (or more or fewer to taste)
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon dried mint
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)

Put the pork in a large soup pan with water to cover. Drizzle with caroenum or defrutum if you like, then bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, then let it cook for something like two hours, skimming as necessary, or until the pork is very tender. Transfer to a baking dish with a few tablespoons of the simmering liquid.

Preheat oven to 325° Fahrenheit (160° Celsius, if I've got that right). Grind the peppercorns and the other spices, then mix with the honey and liquamen to a paste. Spread over the top of the pork, then bake for half an hour to crisp up.

I made this basically to have some leftovers for other recipes from Apicius; there are plenty of sauces in there for copadia, probably leftover tidbits of meat, which I would like to try. The original recipe just says 'spices'; I picked ones that would work with the recipe I had my eye on, but you can substitute out whatever you like. Those three did work though, quite nicely.

Oh my god, really, this was amazing. The long simmering meant it was tender as could be, while the bit of roasting at the end dried it out a little and gave it a nice crunchy sweet crust which was pure heaven. It was so perfectly balanced and absolutely delicious. Oh I'll be making this again!

Apicius 8.5.2: Beef With Quince

This time, the lone beef recipe.

The Romans don't seem to have eaten beef like we do; I have it in my head it's because cattle were mostly used as work animals, and so not really fit for eating. On the other hand, I know in ancient Greece it was appropriate to sacrifice a cow or bull to certain Gods; as the animal thus killed was then generally cooked and shared in a ritual feast, they at least must have eaten it here and there. But here it is.

The seasoning is actually exactly the same as the lamb recipe just below—liquamen, pepper, and laser/asafoetida—but the other ingredients make it a very different dish.

Quince is a little hard to come by, though worth seeking out (it's generally seasonal, in the autumn); if you can't find it pears will do. Sort of.

[8.5.2] uitulinam siue bubulam cum porris [uel] cidoneis uel cepis uel colocaseis: liquamen piper laser et olei modicum.

8.5.2. Veal or beef with leek or quince, or onion, or taro: liquamen, pepper, laser, and a little oil.

Actually I suppose given the options in this recipe it could count for more than one. The first uel, which I assume means 'or', is in brackets, meaning it's not found in all manuscript editions; I took that to mean it could be leeks and quinces. There is another quince with leeks recipe elsewhere in Apicius, so the two were known to be paired together.

1/2 pound or so of beef, cut into cubes
1 leek, white and light green parts only, sliced into half moons and thoroughly washed
1 peeled, cored, and chopped quince (or large pear)
1 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
several peppercorns, ground (or more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon asafoetida
1 tablespoon olive oil

Put all the ingredients (unless you are using pear instead of quince) in the pan with water to cover. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the beef is tender (how long will depend on the cut of beef), adding water if necessary as it cooks. Once the beef is tender let the liquid reduce to the consistency of a thickish sauce or gravy. If you're using pears rather than quince, add them just at the end and cook until the pieces are soft but still holding their shape.

Don't be afraid to cook the quinces for a good long while; even if you use stew meat and end up simmering this for a couple hours they won't fall apart. They're better the longer you cook them, actually. Oh, and watch out when you cut the beef up; you may find, like me, that you have some extra 'help':

(That's Rory. Yes, his poor ears are a bit mangled from a pair of hematomas a few years back, but he's otherwise fine. And yes, when he's bad I call him Roranicus Pondicus!! How appropriately Roman.)

This dish was really quite good. The quince paired well with the leek, and gave the whole dish a nice sweetness. And even though the spices were the same as the last lamb recipe, it was definitely different. The cut of beef I used (it was the one on sale) was a shoulder steak; it turned out to be fairly tender, so I didn't cook it all that long. I would like to try it in a proper stew, to see just how mellow the quinces could get.

It doesn't seem like the Romans usually browned their meat first, though I suppose that might simply be a detail left out of Apicius, with its terminal case of shorthand. You could if you wanted to. Even so this was quite good, and is going straight with the keepers.

Apicius 8.6.1: Lamb With Black-eyed Peas

Another lamb recipe. This one sounded like a good hearty dish for a chilly night.

[8.6.1] copadia hedina siue agnina: pipere liquamine coques, cum faseolis faratariis liquamine pipere laser, cum inbracto bocellas panis et oleo modico.

8.6.1. Kid or lamb pieces: cook with pepper and liquamen, (or) with cow peas, liquamen, pepper, laser, (or) as a relish on pieces of bread with a little oil.

The translation has a bit of guesswork to it; in a footnote, G&G state "[t]he term faseoli faratariis seems to imply a 'starchy' pea, or perhaps pea flour is intended. Lit. 'with flour-filled beans'". So 'cow peas' (which Wikipedia tells me is the same as black-eyed peas) is a guess. They are an Old World plant, native (probably) to Africa, and it seems likely the Romans knew of them. I liked the idea of a lamb and bean dish with a thick sauce; again I was thinking of the Moroccan tagine, which is a slowly simmered meat dish that is a little thicker than a stew, so that's what I aimed for.

1 pound lamb, cut into cubes
1/2 cup dried black-eyed peas (cowpeas)
1 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
several peppercorns, ground (or more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon asafoetida

Put all the ingredients in a wide frying-pan with water to cover. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer, skimming off the foam. Simmer until the beans are soft and the lamb is tender, about an hour and a half, adding more water as necessary. At the end let the cooking liquid reduce down to a stew or gravy consistency, then serve.

This was just as hearty as I'd predicted—even with so few ingredients it had quite a full and rich flavor. Though originally I used a full tablespoon of fish sauce, thinking it needed a bit of broth to it, with the reduction at the end it came out a bit too salty for my tastes (though not inedible in the least); I reduced the liquamen to a teaspoon above to account for that.

It was pretty good, and very rich (I could only finish half the bowl), but I'm not entirely sure I like black-eyed peas. It was the first time I'd had them, and there was something about the taste I didn't really care for. Still, their earthy flavor was strong enough to hold its own with the lamb, and was a good match. I suppose one could substitute navy beans or the like, though those are technically New World ingredients; anyway the original recipe is a little vague on that ingredient so there's a bit of wiggle room.

I think it's probably just me; someone who liked black-eyed peas might just love this, so I'll put it with the keepers, as otherwise it did work quite well and made a rich hearty dish. I'd call it good simple plebeian/peasant food, if old gourmet Apicius wouldn't be insulted.

Apicius 6.2.16: Almond Chicken

Yeah, I'm catching up. I made this one a couple weeks ago now.

[6.2.16] ius candidum in auem elixam: piper ligusticum cuminum apii semen ponticam uel amigdalam tostam uel nuces depilatas, mel modicum, liquamen acetum et oleum.

6.2.16. White sauce for boiled bird: pepper, lovage, cumin, celery seed, roasted hazelnuts or almonds or (any) skinned nut, a little honey, liquamen, vinegar and oil.

For 'boiled bird' I used chicken, because that's what's available here; my little lovage plant is still pretty small, so I left that out instead of bothering the poor thing (I think I may try to root some cuttings over the winter). For the nuts I chose almonds, though they weren't skinned and the sauce wasn't 'white'. It still tasted really good.

1 split chicken breast, with bones and skin
several peppercorns (or more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1/3 cup almonds
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon liquamen (Thai fish sauce)
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 tablespoon oil

Boil the chicken in water to cover for 30 minutes or until done. Grind the pepper and seeds to a fine paste in a mortar. Dry roast the almonds in a pan until toasted and fragrant, then grind as finely as you can in a mortar or food processor. Throw the pepper, seeds and ground almonds in a pan and add the rest of the ingredients and heat. Pour over the chicken and serve.

Like the tuna with hazelnut mustard sauce, this 'sauce' was very thick; even with a bit of the liquid from cooking the chicken added it was pretty much a paste, which leads me to suspect that the Romans were using liquamen a lot more liberally, almost as a broth at times. Given I'm using Thai fish sauce, which, though it is made using a very similar process, is a lot saltier than proper liquamen, I'm not sure what to do about that. (Liquamen, according to Grocock and Grainger, was made with about seven parts fish to one part salt; modern Thai fish sauce uses three parts fish to one part salt, or even just one to one.) Also, I kind of don't really like the stuff, though I suppose once it's cooked the wet dog smell goes away. Some added chicken broth could work for some extra liquid I suppose.

At any rate, this dish was really very good, though I didn't realize how similar it was to the earlier tuna recipe until I was eating it. It was quite rich given the ground nuts; I think if I tried it again I'd use a food processor for the nuts to see if I could get them a bit smoother. I'd also add a good deal of chicken broth (or more of the water the chicken cooked in) just to thin it down a bit. But overall, it was very good and is going straight with the keepers.