We are celebrating the Easter week here at the castle and as is custom, the King opens up the great room to invite all manorial servants, not just those of the castle keep, to Easter dinner. This week is also a holiday week of sorts for the 'villiens' or the common folk that lives and works to support the castle and his Lordship, year round.
This Easter dinner is a large meal that consists of pork, chykens, ducks, geese, beef roasts with puddings, meat tarts, custards, fruits, roasted vegetables, plenty of fresh baked breads and gallons of ale and water for the royal family to partake of.
The villiens are welcomed into the great hall and a wealthy viellien, who had more land and thus gave more to his King in addition to dinner would receive two white loaves of bread, beef, bacon, all the ale they could drink in a day, mustard, a hen, a round of cheese and enough fuel to cook their food, along with two candles to light their place at the table.
Others with less land are also to be given dinner but are expected to bring with them a cloth, a trencher, their cup and a cloth to wipe their mouths and hands. When each leaves he is expected to take away all food left on his cloth, and they may fill the cloth for eating later, and are to be given a brown loaf of bread for later. While dining in the King's hall all that are not of the King's family and royal guests and visitors, primarily the servants and villiens of the King, are served two types of meat, bread, broth and beer and they are allowed to sit and drink in the great hall near the fireplaces afterwards for as long as desired.
This makes for more work for the kitchen staff but we have plenty of hands and most have been working in the kitchens long enough to know what to do, and when to do it. One of the King's favorite dishes, straight from the Master Chef's little cookbook itself is Capons in Councy. A dish that has chicken fried over a high heat and then simmered in a spiced gravy that gets its body from breadcrumbs and hard boiled ayrons or eggs from hens.
The recipe that I carefully wrote down for you is this:
"hewe hem to gobett(es) & cast he(m) in a pot. do þ(er)to clene broth. seeþ hem þat þey be tendur. tak brede and þe self broth and drawe hit vp y fer(er). tak(e) strong poudo(ur) & safro(u)n & salt and cast þ(er) to. tak ayro(n)n & seeþ he(m) harde. tak out þe yolk(es) and hewe þe white. tak þe pot fro þe fyre & cast þe white þ(er)inne. messe þe disch(es) þ(er)w(i)t(h) & lay þe yolkes ahone hole and flour(es) hit w(i)t(h) clowes. & s(er)ue hit forth."
Served with a salat of greens and spring herbs, as a nice accompaniment to this spring chyken dish. Serve along with the chyken roasted carrots dressed with local honey and ground cardamom and ginger, boiled brussels sprouts and green beans with butter. As its spring, butter made from cow's milk is plentiful for a few weeks, and will soon become scarce the rest of the year. For the sweet typically served at the end of the meal, poached pears in wine and honey are a nice, tasty finish of the meal.
I hope you enjoy this simple, but hearty dish full of favor and very satisfying even with the absence of starch except for bread which is recommended be served with it. I'll now let the author of this tale tell you more about how you can make this dish in your time.
Mrs. Pippery
(Author's modern translation and modern version of this recipe: Capons in Cauncy
Capon in Councy (Spiced Egg Gravy) sauteed green beans and Brussels sprouts with a light touch of butter, and roasted carrots drizzled with honey and sprinkled with ground ginger and cardamom. Unusual flavors that make a delicious authentic medieval dish.
And cut them into pieces, put in a pot and simmer in broth until tender. Add bread crumbs to thicken the broth into a gravy and add poudour douce (ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Hard boil eggs, cut in half remove the yolk and finely chop the white. Take the pot from the fire (take off the heat) Sprinkle the chopped egg white over all, and gently stir the yolks into the gravy. Sprinkle with cloves and serve.
Modern version of recipe – Chicken in Spiced Egg Gravy
6 – 8 Pieces of raw chicken bone in, and skin on. Sections of breast, thighs, wings and drumsticks work well.
¼ tsp ground clove
¼ tsp of nutmeg
¼ tsp ginger
¼ tsp cinnamon
Omit the saffron as it does little except to add color to the dish. We normally do not color our chicken dishes in this era or culture. You may add if you have access to saffron and do not mind the expense. You may also add a few drops of yellow food coloring as the saffron really only adds color and food coloring is an inexpensive substitute. I chose not to add saffron or the coloring and was very pleased with the results.
Salt & black pepper to taste (this is a dish with plenty of saltiness because of the broth, taste gravy towards the end of cooking before salting, if necessary)
3 cups chicken broth
4 hard boiled eggs, yolks and whites separated
3 Tbsp bread crumbs
Chopped fresh parsley
Extra ½ c. water to add to gravy if it becomes too thick
Spray a skillet or electric fry pan works well for this recipe, with cooking spray. As you are using chicken with the skin on, you’ll have enough fat by sautéing the chicken in the cooking spray.
Cook the chicken for at least a half hour ensuring to turn frequently to brown all over. After the chicken has browned on all sides, sprinkle with all spices, except for the salt.
The chyken sauteing in the spiced gravy made of broth, spices, thickened with bread crumbs and hard boiled eggs, garnished with fresh chopped parsley.
Add the broth and cover and let simmer. After ½ hour of cooking in the liquid, add the breadcrumbs and then the yolks, breaking them down with a fork so they incorporate into the gravy. Sprinkle over the gravy the egg whites. And cover and let everything bubble for a few more minutes.
Add water and stir if gravy gets too thick. Taste right before serving and if necessary add salt now. depending on the saltiness of the chicken broth used it may not be necessary.
After the chicken has been cooking for at least 45 minutes, sprinkle with parsley and serve with appropriate vegetables.
Tonight I served this dish with boiled Brussels sprouts with butter, carrots roasted in honey and sprinkled with ground cardamom and ginger, and green beans boiled and served with butter. For dessert I served pears poached in honey and wine sauce and served with homemade whipped crème.
'Salat' - Green salad made with leaf lettuce, leeks, scallions, fresh mint, fresh rosemary and dressed with a light balsamic vinegar/olive oil mixture. No other seasonings required as the flavors just 'pop' in your mouth. Unusual but very nice flavor combination.
To have made this dish entirely authentic I would have done away with the plates and served the meal on a ‘trencher’. A slab of day old bread, which after absorbing the juices from the meal, would then have been consumed.
There were no potatoes served as they were not known in Medieval Europe where this medieval cook fictitiously resides and performs her duties. But the other vegetables, along with the surprisingly robust dessert, made this a filling and fulfilling meal. It was delicious, flavorful and very enjoyable. They ate pretty well in medieval kingdoms, at least King Richard the II of England’s family in the late 14th century certainly did.)
I hope you try some of these recipes and enjoy the authentic cuisine as it was enjoyed by the 'Crown Heads of Europe' over 700 years ago. Pardon the Wizard of Oz reference. I enjoy the researching and creation of these modern version recipes for you.
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(Author's Note: I will allow Mrs. Pippery to tell the story of her encounters with the Forme of Curye, the recipe book of the Master Chef for King Richard II during the years 1367 - 1400. The owner of this manuscript (University of Manchester, Manchester, England, see Attribution Section below) does not currently know the actual name of the Master Chef. Accordingly, as used in this series of articles, the names of the Master Chef, Mrs. Pippery and any other principals mentioned, are fictional. This author’s personal comments, translations or interpretations of the manuscript are presented in parenthesis and in italics. The supporting story including the description of the day-to-day life of the characters were created by the author, using her historical research of the time period. The modern recipes provided are based, in part, on the author’s interpretations of the recipes appearing in the manuscript, adapted to today’s cooking equipment and techniques.)
Attribution: The Forme of Curye is an ancient manuscript owned by the University of Manchester, Manchester, England, under its Manchester Middle English Manuscripts, of the John Ryland's Library Middle English Manuscript Digitisation Project. The transcription as they appear in these article were done by or for the University and appear as released by the University for research and for the use of scholars and other interested parties.
I get much of my information regarding the lives lived by commoner and King in the medieval era from the wonderful research done by Joseph and Frances Gies and published in their series of books "Life in a Medieval Castle" , "Life in a Medieval Village", and "Life in a Medieval City".
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