I had to make mustard today because we are out, so I went poking through my websites looking for ideas. I don't think I will ever enter a competition with mustard, but I can use this an example to talk about how I approach medieval cookery. (I promise I am not going to ramble like this at the beginning of every food post.)
I did not learn this type of cooking for the SCA, I was dabbling in medieval recipes long before that because the group I danced with at Ren Faires had little "period" potlucks. I actually have some posts about medieval food on my mundane blog that I will have to link to eventually. Ultimately I blame how weird I am on my parents .
They were part of the back-to-the-land movement in the seventies. There's an adorable picture of me in my little bicentennial outfit in the Telegraph Herald because my parents were being interviewed about how they made their own cheese, butter and butchered pigs on their dining room table.
Which brings me to my second point, I come from a long line of people who rarely use a cookbook for staple foods. My parents were both amazing in the kitchen, despite the fact that they didn't agree on everything. I have fond memories of standing over my bread while they "discussed" whether I had kneaded it long enough, or not. But I can't recall ever being taught a bread recipe and I think am physically incapable of not messing with a recipe just a bit.
I drive my lord insane. It's why I am not allowed to touch his ale.
So when I started with all of this, I was thrilled to see that almost every medieval cook had their own recipe for everything, because that's the way I roll. (Someday remind me to show you my apron.) This is a creative endeavor for me. That is what the "C" stands for, right?
So these are the criteria I use to constrain my creativity on a daily basis.
But in my daily life, I have a job, I homeschool my teenage boys, and pursue other hobbies I enjoy, like throwing in a dart league with Morcant.
I will use my favorite servants whom I pay by housing them and feeding them power to get the job done. We spend so much time in my still room and my kitchen that my family has named our dishwasher Klaus because he's from Germany. We love Klaus dearly because we would rather play Castles of Burgundy than wash dishes.
I also don't want to blog boring research papers. I do that enough in real life, too. I want this to be personal and maybe even entertaining. I have my sources listed on two pages on the blog and I will give them a nod when necessary but I am not going to fool around with footnotes and the like.
So back to the mustard.
I have base recipe I use for stoneground mustard. Lately, I have been making a lot of ale mustard because we have a lot of ale on hand. In the Le Viandier de Taillevent there is an ale mustard recipe that I used as a start when I made it up.
While we really love our mustard on sausages and bangers, I like to use the mustard to cook meat. I especially love using them in our slow cooker. One recipe I have found that really intrigues me is this recipe for stewed mutton from the Boke of Kokery.
Just to warn you, this is a huge batch. It makes 3 pints of mustard which we will go through quickly, so I just put it in jars and refrigerate it. You might want to cut the recipe down a bit. Or you could make a group project of it and have several people take home a smaller jar full.
Ségnat's Ale Mustard Experiment
1 cup brown mustard seeds
1 cup cup yellow mustard seed
½ cup white wine vinegar (red, or verjuice - whatever you have around)
1 small onion minced
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of saffron threads
Put the mustard seeds in a glass bowl. Add one bottle of ale and the vinegar to the mustard seeds, cover the bowl and let it sit for at least 12 hours. I prefer 24. Because the first recipe says to let it sit on the fire coals you could do this in a crockpot, but I generally don't.
Strain the mustard seeds but keep any liquid. Chop the onion finely. Add it to the mustard seeds along with the other spices.
I then ask my servant Immer Sion Blender to pound finely. He's a good strong lad, so he's a bit faster than Mortar of Pestle but simulates the pounding process a bit. Also he still he needs to take breaks at this or he will overheat.
Slowly pour the liquid you kept back into the seeds while blending them. Keep adding ale until the mustard is a nice consistency which can mean anything to anyone. In our house my eldest son is the judge of when it had been pounded enough. Put the mustard in sterilized jars and keep them in the fridge. My lord asked that I not make all three pints with Canel (cinnamon) so I added all the other spices, scooped two pints out then added 1 tsp cinnamon to the last jar.
I did not learn this type of cooking for the SCA, I was dabbling in medieval recipes long before that because the group I danced with at Ren Faires had little "period" potlucks. I actually have some posts about medieval food on my mundane blog that I will have to link to eventually. Ultimately I blame how weird I am on my parents .
They were part of the back-to-the-land movement in the seventies. There's an adorable picture of me in my little bicentennial outfit in the Telegraph Herald because my parents were being interviewed about how they made their own cheese, butter and butchered pigs on their dining room table.
Which brings me to my second point, I come from a long line of people who rarely use a cookbook for staple foods. My parents were both amazing in the kitchen, despite the fact that they didn't agree on everything. I have fond memories of standing over my bread while they "discussed" whether I had kneaded it long enough, or not. But I can't recall ever being taught a bread recipe and I think am physically incapable of not messing with a recipe just a bit.
I drive my lord insane. It's why I am not allowed to touch his ale.
So when I started with all of this, I was thrilled to see that almost every medieval cook had their own recipe for everything, because that's the way I roll. (Someday remind me to show you my apron.) This is a creative endeavor for me. That is what the "C" stands for, right?
So these are the criteria I use to constrain my creativity on a daily basis.
- Can I find the particular foodstuff in ingredient in a period source?
- Can I find it made with the ingredients I want to use? If not what was used?
- What was the medieval process for making it? Can it be approximated by modern equipment?
But in my daily life, I have a job, I homeschool my teenage boys, and pursue other hobbies I enjoy, like throwing in a dart league with Morcant.
I will use my favorite servants whom I pay by housing them and feeding them power to get the job done. We spend so much time in my still room and my kitchen that my family has named our dishwasher Klaus because he's from Germany. We love Klaus dearly because we would rather play Castles of Burgundy than wash dishes.
I also don't want to blog boring research papers. I do that enough in real life, too. I want this to be personal and maybe even entertaining. I have my sources listed on two pages on the blog and I will give them a nod when necessary but I am not going to fool around with footnotes and the like.
So back to the mustard.
I have base recipe I use for stoneground mustard. Lately, I have been making a lot of ale mustard because we have a lot of ale on hand. In the Le Viandier de Taillevent there is an ale mustard recipe that I used as a start when I made it up.
"Soak the mustard seed overnight in good ale, grind it in a mill, and then moisten it little by little with ale. If you have any spices left over from Hippocras or sauces, grind them with it."We needed the tang of the vinegar though so I added some white wine vinegar to the recipe, but you could use any other grape product like wine or verjuice. And at times I am really liberal with the added spices. I have a recipe using habaneros on my mundane blog.
While we really love our mustard on sausages and bangers, I like to use the mustard to cook meat. I especially love using them in our slow cooker. One recipe I have found that really intrigues me is this recipe for stewed mutton from the Boke of Kokery.
Stwed Mutton̄. Take faire Mutton̄ that hatℏ ben̄ roste, or elles Capons, or suche oþer flessℏ, and mynce it faire; put hit into a possenet, or elles bitwen̄ ij. siluer disshes; caste thereto faire parcely, And oynons smaƚƚ mynced; then̄ caste there-to wyn̄, and a lituƚƚ vynegre or vergeous, pouder of peper, Canel, salt and saffron̄, and lete it stue on þe faire coles, And þen̄ serue hit forthe; if he have no wyn̄e ne vynegre, take Ale, Mustard, and A quantite of vergeous, and do þis in þe stede of vyne or vinegre.If you look at those ingredients, they sure sound like a mustard. So why not make a mustard using these ingredients so I have a quick sauce for roasts?
Just to warn you, this is a huge batch. It makes 3 pints of mustard which we will go through quickly, so I just put it in jars and refrigerate it. You might want to cut the recipe down a bit. Or you could make a group project of it and have several people take home a smaller jar full.
 |
| Really how finely you grind it is up to you. I would leave it like this, if my children would have it. |
Ségnat's Ale Mustard Experiment
1 cup brown mustard seeds
1 cup cup yellow mustard seed
½ cup white wine vinegar (red, or verjuice - whatever you have around)
1 small onion minced
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
pinch of saffron threads
Put the mustard seeds in a glass bowl. Add one bottle of ale and the vinegar to the mustard seeds, cover the bowl and let it sit for at least 12 hours. I prefer 24. Because the first recipe says to let it sit on the fire coals you could do this in a crockpot, but I generally don't.
Strain the mustard seeds but keep any liquid. Chop the onion finely. Add it to the mustard seeds along with the other spices.
I then ask my servant Immer Sion Blender to pound finely. He's a good strong lad, so he's a bit faster than Mortar of Pestle but simulates the pounding process a bit. Also he still he needs to take breaks at this or he will overheat.
Slowly pour the liquid you kept back into the seeds while blending them. Keep adding ale until the mustard is a nice consistency which can mean anything to anyone. In our house my eldest son is the judge of when it had been pounded enough. Put the mustard in sterilized jars and keep them in the fridge. My lord asked that I not make all three pints with Canel (cinnamon) so I added all the other spices, scooped two pints out then added 1 tsp cinnamon to the last jar.
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