Fearless Kitchen

Recipe: Cold Chicken with Sage Sauce

Recipe Source: Hieatt, Constance B. and R. F. Jones.  "Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections."  Speculum 61 859-82.  Reprinted in Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, second edition.  University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1996.

This recipe kind of threw me for a loop when I saw it.  I decided to test the recipe for use in the large lunch I'm serving today, mostly because it was intended to be served cold.  That made it perfect for the buffet lunch, as I was trying to keep from having to use the kitchen much.  The sauce looked interesting too.  I had been going through a bit of a sage phase when I decided on the recipe, although the phase had passed by the time I got around to testing the recipe.  It looked like an interesting enough sauce, so I decided to go ahead and try it.  The result was interesting.  I didn't expect the sauce to be as spicy as it turned out to be - a small blessing, really.  I also had a real issue finding enough sage to make enough sauce for 300 people, believe it or not.  I cleaned out two whole stores of their supplies.  I used dried to save money, since the budget I had was very tight.  The use of boiled eggs in the sauce was really the odd thing.  I guess it made sense; you don't want to be serving raw egg yolks, especially not when you're serving a large number of people. 

I didn't make a lot of changes.  The original recipe allowed for pork; I promised someone a long time ago that I would never serve pork at one of these events and so I decided to go with chicken.  As mentioned, I used dried spices to accommodate budgetary considerations.  I didn't add any of the various suggested "other" spices at the end, as the recipe was quite spicy enough for most people.  The main change that I made involved the egg whites.  The original called for the whites to be minced and mixed in with the sauce.  I couldn't make myself do it.  It looked too unappetizing to me.  Instead, I served them on the side, allowing people to decide for themselves whether or not egg whites made sense.  When I tested the recipe, most people opted to avoid the whites.  The one or two people who tried them thought they were okay, with one of them appreciating the textural difference that they provided.  I was one of the diners who avoided the whites, so I can't say for myself. 

Cold Chicken with Sage Sauce (serves 6; approx. cost per serving not available)

1 1/2 lb cold roast chicken

2 tablespoons dried sage

4 hard-boiled eggs

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

Equipment:

• Blender

1. Cut the eggs in half.  Empty the yolks into the blender.  Reserve the whites. 
2. Put the sage, vinegar, salt and ginger into the blender with the yolks and puree. 
3. Mince the egg whites as finely as you can.  Either stir them into the sauce or place in a bowl and pass separately.  Alternatively, you can make a Donner Party diorama and wow your friends with them.
4. Slice up the chicken.  Spoon the sauce alongside and serve.

Technorati Tags: chicken,leftover chicken,sage,medieval recipes,Pleyn Delit

Recipe: Cucumber and Pomegranate Salad

This is a pretty simple, pretty basic and just plain pretty recipe.  I've seen it in a lot of Persian cookbooks, and while each individual recipe is slightly different they all pretty much come down to this.  It is a very easy recipe once you've peeled the pomegranate, and it looks very impressive on the table. 

Peeling the pomegranate and extracting all those little... luscious... delectable.... wonderful seeds from that hard-as-nails pod is generally a pretty messy process.  If the clothes you were wearing weren't pomegranate colored when you started, they will be when you finish!  There is a way to avoid dyeing your entire wardrobe red, however.  Fill a very large mixing bowl with water.  Cut off the top and bottom of the pomegranate.  Put the pomegranate in the water.  With the pomegranate completely submerged, remove the peel and the membrane from all the seeds.  The parts you don't want will float to the top.  Remove them and compost them, or throw them away, or dry them out and make avant-garde art out of them, just don't eat them.  They don't have much flavor and stick between your teeth, and you'll look like an idiot.  The parts you do want will sink to the bottom of the bowl.  Drain them and eat them.  Eat a lot of them.  They're fantastically good for you. 

Cucumber and Pomegranate Salad (serves 4; approx. $2.16/serving)

2 cucumbers

1 pomegranate, seeded

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 shallots, sliced

Equipment:

• No special equipment required

1. Halve the cucumbers lengthwise. 
2. Either slice the cucumbers thinly or cut into small chunks; this is up to you. 
3. Combine all ingredients in the serving bowl. 
4. Serve. 

Technorati Tags: Recipes,Persian food,cucumber,pomegranate,lemon juice,shallot,easy recipes,vegetarian recipes,vegan recipes

Recipe: Sweet Bisteeya with Almonds

Recipe Source: Wolfert, Paula.  The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen: Recipes for the Passionate Cook.  John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, 2003 p. 282.

You're going to notice an apparent discrepancy in this recipe.  The photo I'm attaching shows a sauce.  There is no sauce in this recipe.  You may ask yourself, "What gives?"  (You may also ask yourself, "who cares?" but I will pretend I didn't hear you.)  I'll tell you what gives.  I followed the recipe.  I made the sauce.  It was a flop.  I tried it the original way and it just kind of sat there.  It looked like milk.  I added more cornstarch.  I added a lot more cornstarch.  It still looked like milk.  Now it just tasted like vaguely rose-flavored chalk.  Then I tasted the actual bisteeya and decided that it didn't really need the milky, vaguely suspicious-looking sauce after all.  I originally made it for one of our Sunday open houses, but when no one stayed for dinner I decided to serve it at our Labor Day barbeque the next night.  It went over very well and I'm sure it will make many more appearances on my table! 

I really only made two changes to the recipe.  I doubled the quantity and I omitted the (nasty) sauce.  I probably used a bit more butter proportionally, but I don't think you can possibly skimp on butter when working with phyllo dough.  This brings me to another point.  I've had bad luck with the phyllo dough I've found in most American supermarkets.  It's old, it's stale, it's brittle, and it tastes bad.  It is definitely worth the trip to a Greek or Middle Eastern supermarket and getting the slightly thicker dough.  It will make your life much easier, you'll waste less dough and you'll curse and swear less.  You could also try making your own.  I don't, but if you really want to I'm sure it will come out better. 

Sweet Bisteeya with Almonds (serves 20; approx. $0.51/serving)

3 sticks unsalted butter

2 cups whole almonds

4 tablespoons confectioner's sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 package phyllo dough, thawed

Equipment:

• Food processor
• Baking sheets
• Skillet
• Pastry brush

1. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in the skillet.
2. Add the almonds and cook over medium-low heat until golden.
3. Drain on paper towels and let cool.
4. Transfer the almonds to the food processor.
5. Add the sugar and cinnamon and process until the almonds are well ground. 
6. Melt the butter over low heat, or in the microwave.
7. Cut the phyllo dough into strips about 2 - 3 inches wide. 
8. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
9. Take a strip of dough and brush it well with melted butter.
10. Add a spoonful of the almond mixture about 1/4 inch from the bottom of the strip.
11. Fold the bottom of the strip up, covering the filling partially. 
12. Bring the lower left corner of the strip up to the right side, creating a triangle at the bottom.
13. Bring the edge of the triangle up over to the left.
14. Repeat process until you have a triangular-shaped packet.  Place on the baking sheets.
15. Repeat until all the dough and filling is used.  When you have enough trays to fill your oven, brush the triangles with more melted butter.
16. Bake 10 minutes or until golden brown. 
17. Allow to cool and serve. 

Technorati Tags: Dessert,sweet food,almonds,phyllo,Middle Eastern food,North African food,vegetarian recipe,recipe,Paula Wolfert

Recipe: Byzantine Green Salad

Recipe Source: Marks, Henry.  Byzantine Cuisine.  Self-published, 2002 p. 85, citing Jeanselme and Oeconomos. 

Oh, you lucky lucky salad lovers!  You thought that salad was a modern creation, something spawned by the health foods movements of the 1970s as a way to force more vegetables into the craw of the American public.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  It was certainly mentioned by Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice  for one thing, when Jane and Elizabeth are returning from London.  And, at least according to these two early twentieth century historians, it was enjoyed by our Byzantine ancestors as well.  So for those of you who are planning a historical dinner, salad may be appropriate for your time and place. 

Seriously, though, this was one of the recipes that I play-tested in preparation for that upcoming medieval dinner in September.  It was pretty easy to throw together, and it went over pretty well.  I used red leaf lettuce and baby spinach in place of the orache, since orache isn't readily available in these parts.  In place of the garum, I used Thai fish sauce.  Most authorities agree that since garum is no longer manufactured, and fish sauce uses essentially the same ingredients and the same techniques, fish sauce is an acceptable substitute.  (On the off chance that someone was put off by the idea of garum or fish sauce, I served the dressing on the side and also offered a modern balsamic vinaigrette.) 

Byzantine Green Salad (serves 10; approx. $0.58/serving)

1 head red leaf lettuce

1 bag baby spinach

1/4 bunch fresh dill, chopped

1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped

1/8 cup fish sauce

1/4 cup white vinegar

Equipment:

• Mixing Bowl
• Small bowl
• Whisk

1. Mix the greens together in the mixing bowl.
2. When ready to serve, transfer the greens to the serving bowl.
3. Whisk together the fish sauce and vinegar and add to the serving bowl.
4. Serve.

Technorati Tags: Recipes,easy recipes,historical recipes,Byzantine food,salad dressing,salad,greens,dill,cilantro,fish sauce,garum

Recipe: Medieval Fried Spinach

Recipe Source: al-Karim, Muhammad b. al-Hasan b. Muhammad.  The Book of Dishes.  circa AD 1226.  This translation was performed by Charles Perry and published in 2005 by Prospect Books, Blackawton, p. 89 under the title A Baghdad Cookery Book. 

Well, I told you all last week that I was going to be trying a bunch of medieval recipes from various traditions.  I'm proud - well, mostly proud - to present my very first redaction of a medieval recipe.  I'm not sure that it's perfect; in fact, I'm sure that it's not.  First, I'm relying on someone else's translation of a language in which I can just about manage to say "chicken," and can't even read that.  Second, I really kind of did this on the fly.  Third, um, medieval recipes aren't written like the recipes we use now.  They're mostly either written for people who are going to be telling the cooks what to do (and assuming that the cooks know what quantities to use), or by professional cooks for professional cooks (with the same assumption.)  I am not a medieval professional cook who knows the tastes of my Master well enough to just say, "eh, just throw some in."  I do, however, know what tastes good to me, and that's kind of what I based my quantities on.  If the quantities seem off to you, please adjust them as you see fit. 

Okay.  All that aside, I actually really kind of liked this dish.  I served it a couple of nights ago, mostly as a way of testing out a recipe for that big luncheon buffet I'm working on.  At a cost of $0.68 per serving, which I'm pretty sure I can bring down if I can find a cheaper source of spinach, it's worth the effort of trying to reheat it on-site.  It was a pretty easy dish that came together quickly, and my victims - er, taste testers and beloved guests - gave pretty favorable reviews.  Please don't be put off by the idea of boiling the spinach, as I initially was.  You're really just blanching it a bit; if you work quickly most of the nutrients in the spinach should still be preserved.

Medieval Fried Spinach (Isfanakh Mutajjan; serves 8 as a side dish, approx. cost per serving $0.68)

2 10-oz packages of pre-washed spinach

Water

Kosher salt

2 tablespoons sesame oil (note: do NOT use East Asian toasted sesame oil.  While delicious, the flavor is all wrong.  Use a Middle Eastern or Indian non-toasted sesame oil instead.)

6 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon ground coriander

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Equipment

• Large pot
• Large wok or skillet
• Tongs

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  I salted the water to the same extent as I would if I were boiling pasta, but this is more the result of habit than any mandate from the original author.  He does specify that the water must be salted, however. 
2. If your spinach has a lot of rough stems, remove them.  Chances are that if you're using the packaged spinach, there won't be many stems for you to discard.  However, if you're using bunched spinach, you've got some work to do cleaning and stemming it. 
3. When the water comes to a boil, plunge the spinach into the water and blanch for about two minutes.  In the meantime, add the oil to the wok and heat it over high heat. 
4. Using the tongs, transfer the spinach to the wok quickly. 
5. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant. 
6. Add the spices and mix well.  Cook about a minute or until the spinach has reached a consistency you like, then remove from heat.
7. Transfer to the serving vessel and serve. 

Technorati Tags: Medieval recipes,Baghdad Cookery Book,Middle Eastern food,historical recipes,vegetarian recipes,spinach,garlic,coriander,cinnamon,cumin,easy recipes,recipes

Recipe: Kermani Polow

Recipe Source: Batmanglij, Najmieh.  Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey.  Mage Publishers, Washington DC, 2004 p. 150

I love rice.  There are plenty of cereals out there and I'll admit that I like most of them, but I've always enjoyed rice.  I even used to like that boil-in-bag stuff, not that I've used it in at least ten years.  I don't eat a lot of rice anymore - it really does pack a calorie wallop - but it's one of those basic things that can be dressed up as much or as little as one wishes.  I've also been dying to try one of the Persian rice dishes I've seen so often.  I've always been intimidated by them, because they look so beautiful and so complex.  I needed to cook for an unknown number of people and figured that having a rice dish on hand was a safe bet - and made an excuse for me to try something Persian. 

I did have to make a few changes.  First, when the recipe offered a choice between vegetable oil, butter or ghee, I went for butter.  I know - this is very much out of character.  However, I've seen a lot of recipes for Persian rice dishes, not all by this particular author, and they all call for butter.  So that's what I used, and I definitely did not regret it.  I couldn't find the whole cardamom pods so I used ground cardamom.  I think this might have been a little much - while I love the taste of cardamom and could still easily taste the saffron, not everyone is as enamored of this spice as I am.  I did use the optional saffron.  Instead of vegetable stock I went with Herbal Broth, because I really like the flavor.  I didn't have nearly enough pistachios on hand, so I just scattered what I had into the dish and let it be.  When I went to chop up the dill I remembered was in the refrigerator, I discovered that much of it had gone very, very bad.  Since slime was not the texture I was looking for, I made up some of the difference with some chopped fennel fronds reserved from a previous dish.  The flavor is very different, but both fennel and dill have historically been used in dishes to aid digestion and counter the effects of rich food.  Finally, since I couldn't find any food-safe roses, I omitted the rose petal garnish.  The end result was a pretty darned delightful dish.  Furthermore, the cost per serving was so low that I'll probably use it for an upcoming large meal I'm planning.  Incidentally, the original recipe said that this served four.  I'm going to say eight, because we got eight distinct and generous servings out of it, but if this is the only dish you're going to serve four is probably a better number.)

Kermani Polow (serves 8; approx. $0.35/serving)

2 cups white basmati rice

8 tablespoons butter, four whole and four melted

2 teaspoons ground cardamom

1/4 teaspoon saffron threads dissolved in 2 tablespoons hot water

2 teaspoons Kosher salt

4 cups warm Herbal Broth

1/4 cup (approx.) pistachios

1/4 bunch fresh dill, chopped

Reserved fronds from 1 fennel bulbs, chopped

Equipment:

• Saucepan with lid
• Colander

1. Wash your rice in successive changes of cold water until the water runs clear. 
2. Heat the four whole tablespoons butter in the saucepan over medium heat. 
3. Add the onion and cook until golden brown.
4. Add the rice, cardamom and saffron water.  Saute 1 minute. 
5. Add the salt and Herbal Broth.  Bring to a boil.
6. Stir once, reduce heat to medium-low, cover and cook 30 minutes.
7. Remove from heat.  Add the melted butter and pistachios. 
8. Transfer to the serving dish.  Sprinkle the chopped herbs on top of the rice and serve. 

Technorati Tags: Recipe,Persian food,rice,dill,fennel,saffron,vegetarian recipes,Najmieh Batmanglij

Recipe: Chickpea and Parsley Salad

This is a very easy recipe.  I've seen a few different variations of this recipe around, I believe that it comes from Egypt.  I love it because of its amazing simplicity and because it can be made in advance.  It can even be made days in advance!  Sometimes I use cilantro instead of parsley.  I much prefer the flavor of cilantro, but because cilantro sensitivity is so widespread I use parsley if I'm not sure who will be eating the dish.  You can feel free to use less oil if you wish. 

Chickpea and Parsley Salad (serves 8; approx. $0.90/serving)

3 14-oz cans chickpeas

1 1/2 bunches parsley, chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice (or more if you prefer)

2 tablespoons oregano

2 tablespoons cumin

Equipment

• No special equipment is required for this recipe, but a whisk would be useful. 

1. Open the cans of chickpeas and drain them.  Rinse the chickpeas and drain them again.  Put them into the serving vessel.
2. Add the parsley to the serving vessel.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the oil, lemon juice, oregano and cumin.  Add it to the bowl. 
4. Serve or set aside until ready to serve. 

Technorati Tags: Middle Eastern food,recipes,original recipes,chickpeas,parsley,cumin,oregano,vegan recipes,vegetarian recipes,easy recipes

Recipe: Rice Shortbreads

  Recipe Source: Shaida, Margaret. The Legendary Cuisine of Persia. Interlink Books, New York, 2002 p. 267

I've been making these cookies for years. I love the way that they look - simple, elegant. I love the way that they taste, too. They're quite easy to make, provided that you start them the day before you need to make them - the dough needs to chill overnight. I've gotten a lot of very positive feedback on these, particularly from people who cannot eat wheat gluten - most sweets are off-limits to them, but not these treats. It includes two of my favorite things: cardamom and rose water.

I haven't done much to this recipe. About the only change I made was to use large eggs instead of medium, because I don't have the refrigerator space to keep multiple egg sizes around. I've usually made these with a pastry cutter. I did decide to use an immersion blender one day, which led to a major brain cramp on my part and my February 16 posting: "An Important Safety Tip." Assuming that you're more prudent than I was, you can probably get away with either the immersion blender or a food processor.

Rice Shortbreads (Makes around 30 cookies, approx. cost per not available)

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

3 cups white rice flour

1 cup unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 eggs

1 tablespoon rosewater

Equipment:

• Pastry cutter, immersion blender or food processor

1. Mix the cardamom and flour together.
2. Cream the butter and sugar in a separate bowl either using the pastry cutter or one of the power tools.
3. Add the eggs in, one at a time.
4. Add the rosewater.
5. Gradually add the flour mixture. Mix until the dough is stiff and smooth.
6. Put the dough into a plastic zip-top bag and refrigerate overnight.
7. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
8. Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray.
9. Scoop out a teaspoon (approximately) of the dough and roll it with your hands into a ball.
10. Repeat until all the dough is used.
11. Bake 12-15 minutes. They should NOT change color.
12. Cool and serve.