Shakespeare's Kitchen (13 page)

Authors: Francine Segan

BOOK: Shakespeare's Kitchen

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Duck Breast with Gooseberries

SERVES 4

T
HE ELIZABETHANS ATE
all sorts of fowl, including quail, crane, heron, buzzards, and pigeons. Partridge, like many of the other birds, was thought to “comforte the brayne and the stomachke, & … augment carnall lust.”

Duck, both wild and domestic, was a favorite. In the original recipe the duck was boiled with gooseberries and served with the skin pale. This modern version retains all the interesting tart flavors of the original but produces a nice brown, crisp skin.

1 duck breast (about 1 pound)

1 large onion, sliced

½ cup white wine

2 endive leaves

3 sprigs of flat-leaf parsley

2 bay leaves

2 sprigs of thyme

1 cup
Renaissance Stock

6 ounces gooseberries (or tart fresh Morello cherries)

1.
Score the duck breast with 3 diagonal slashes. Cook the duck, skin side down, in a skillet over very low heat for 15 to 17 minutes, or until the skin is dark brown and crispy. Drain the fat from the pan periodically as the duck cooks. Remove the duck from the pan.

2.
Cook the onion slices in 1 tablespoon of the duck fat for 3 minutes. Add the wine, stirring to loosen the pan drippings, and cook for 3 minutes, or until the wine is almost evaporated. Tie together the endive, parsley, bay leaves, and thyme with kitchen string. Add the Renaissance Stock and the tied herbs to the pan. Place the duck in the pan, skin side up, cover, and cook over very low heat for 15 minutes. Remove the duck from the pan.

3.
Strain the cooking liquid through a fine-mesh sieve and return to the pan. Add the gooseberries and mash them slightly with a fork. Cook for 4 minutes, or until the gooseberries are warm and soft.

4.
Cut the duck breast into thin slices and arrange the slices in the center of each plate. Pour the gooseberry sauce over the duck.

The Latin phrase
Deliculo surgere saluberrium,
“to rise early is best,” was well known to Shakespeare’s Elizabethan audience. Renaissance dietaries cautioned against oversleeping in the morning, as the body might run out of the last meal’s nutrients. Conversely, a nap after meals was encouraged to concentrate the body’s energy on digestion.

Not only was the best time of day to eat outlined, but also what foods to eat at the different times of year. Elizabethan physicians advised eating according to the season, to balance the weather’s effect on digestion. In warm weather, “cool and moist” foods such as fruits and vegetables and light meats like chicken were recommended. In the winter, “hot and dry” spices such as ginger, mustard, and pepper and “hot” meats such as mutton and beef were encouraged.

… Not to be abed after midnight is to
be up betimes; and ‘diluculo surgere,’
thou know’st,—

TWELFTH NIGHT,
2.3

Almond Saffron Chicken in Bread

SERVES 6

T
HIS TASTY DISH
makes it seem as if you spent hours in the kitchen because it fills the air with the wonderful aroma of baked bread. In reality this English version of a French Renaissance classic is quick to assemble using day-old bakery-bought bread and leftover chicken seasoned with almonds, pistachios, herbs, and spices.

The French
pain mollet,
meaning soft bread, was misspelled as “pine-molet” in the original recipe.

4 saffron threads

4 ounces almond oil

1 large egg yolk

¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons almond paste

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

8 ounces cooked capon meat, shredded

12 almonds, chopped with skins on

2 cups finely chopped assorted fresh herbs and greens (such as sorrel, endive, flat-leaf parsley, baby spinach, or mint)

⅛ teaspoon dried marjoram

⅛ teaspoon dried sage

Pinch of cinnamon

⅛ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

¼ cup currants

2 tablespoons ground pistachios

1 round loaf of day-old French sourdough country bread (about 10 inches in diameter)

1 tablespoon butter, softened

1.
Soak the saffron threads in the almond oil for 30 minutes.

2.
Combine the egg yolk and mustard in a large bowl and slowly whisk in the almond oil until a mayonnaise forms. Whisk in the almond paste, season with salt, and combine with capon and almonds.

3.
Place the fresh herbs and greens, marjoram, sage, cinnamon, nutmeg, currants, and pistachios in a bowl and mix well.

4.
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Quickly put the bread under running water to dampen it. Cut a 4-inch circle in the top of the bread, remove the top circle of crust, and scoop out the soft bread inside the loaf. Spread the herb mixture in an even layer in the bottom and up the sides of the bread, reserving about ½ cup for the top. Spoon the capon mixture over the herbs, completely filling the cavity. Spread the reserved herbs over the capon and replace the top crust of the bread. Spread the butter on the bottom of the bread and wrap it tightly in aluminum foil. Bake for 50 minutes.

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

Another French boil’d meat of Pine-molet

Take a manchet of French bread of a day old, chip it and cut a round hole in the top, save the peice whole, and take out the crumb, then make a composition of a boild or a rost Capon, minced and stampt with Almond past, muskefied bisket bread, yolks of hard Eggs, and some sweet Herbs chopped fine, some yolks of raw Eggs and Saffron, Cinamon, Nutmeg, Currans, Sugar, Salt, Marrow and Pistaches; fill the Loaf, and stop the hole with the piece, and boil it in a clean cloth in a pipkin, or bake it in an oven …

THE ACCOMPLISHT COOK,
1660

“Bake it in an oven,” as called for in the original recipe, meant cooking in an enclosed hot-air container, a method used as early as the Anglo-Saxon period, beginning in the fifth century
A.D.
Hot-air cooking, as we do in ovens today, was created in one of three ways: by lighting hot burning wood in an oven and then removing the ashes before placing the food in the oven; by placing food in an inverted pot and lighting a fire on or near the pot; or by building an oven into a structure so that hot air could be conducted around the oven in flues.

Chicken with Sorrel Pesto

SERVES 4

T
HIS RECIPE
calls for sorrel, thought to be an essential aid to digestion. According to the Elizabethan botany book
The Herbal,
sorrel is “a profitable sauce in many meats, and pleasant to the taste.”

Food was deeply linked to medicine and well-being in Shakespeare’s day. Most cookbooks contained recipes for the sick such as this one “for him that hath a weake stomacke.” Physician Andrewe Boorde wrote, “God may sende a man good meate, but the deuyll may sende an evyll coke to dystrue it.” He maintained that every cook is half physician and that good health is achieved through diet.

½ cup plus 1 tablespoon fresh sorrel leaves, chopped

¼ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

½ teaspoon dried savory

½ teaspoon dried thyme

1 garlic clove

2 tablespoons butter, softened

1 teaspoon brown sugar

2 tablespoons
Renaissance Stock

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

4 chicken breasts, pounded ¾ inch thick

1.
Purée ½ cup of the sorrel, the parsley, savory, thyme, and garlic in a small food processor. Add the butter, brown sugar, and Renaissance Stock and blend until creamy. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

2.
Preheat the grill. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper. Brush the breasts with 2 tablespoons of the pesto. Grill for 1 to 2 minutes on each side, or until the juices run clear.

3.
Place a chicken breast in the center of each plate and top with a dollop of pesto. Sprinkle the remaining 1 tablespoon of sorrel around the plate.

Meate

CHAPTER SIX

LAMB CHOPS WITH ALE AND DRIED FRUIT

ROAST LEG OF LAMB WITH MINT–CAPER SAUCE

RACK OF LAMB “IN THE FRENCH FASHION”

LEG OF LAMB WITH OYSTER STUFFING

ROAST VENISON MARINATED IN WINTER HERBS

HERBED VEAL ROLLS

RENAISSANCE “APPLE” AND STEAK PIE

STEAK WITH ELDERBERRY MUSTARD

PRIME RIB ROAST WITH ORANGE-GLAZED ONIONS

SIMMERED BEEF “HODGEPODGE” WITH SHERRY–PARSLEY SAUCE

ROASTED PORK WITH HERBS AND GRAPES

I spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves,
she gives the leer of invitation …

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR,
1.3

It was
considered an honor to be asked to carve at a feast, and knowing how to properly slice meats was a sign of good breeding. Elizabethan cookbooks included not only carving instructions, but the proper terminology for each type of meat such as “breake that deer, leach that brawn, lift that swan, unbrace that Mallard, allay that Fesant, wing that partridge, disfigure that peacock, dismember hern, and unlace that coney.”

Lamb Chops with Ale and Dried Fruit

SERVES 6

Would I were in an alehouse in London!
I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.

KING HENRY V,
3.2

D
ATES WERE OFTEN
paired with meat in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as they were thought to provide balance to meat’s heaviness and “heat.” An Elizabethan physician notes in
The Haven of Health
that dates “are commonly used at delicate feasts, to set forth other meats, and are counted restorative.”