Meat-day Dinner

Meat-day Dinner, Thirty-one dishes in Six Platters

I count only 23 dishes here, but if you count each item and add a couple of unnamed game birds then I suppose you can make it 31.

First Course:

Grenache wine
Toast rounds
Veal pies
Pompano pies
Black pudding
Sausages

Second Course:

Hare stew
Strained peas
Salted meat
Smoked eels and fish

Third Course:

Roasted coneys, partridges, capons, etc...
eel-pout(?)
brill(?)
Chopped meat soup

Fourth Course:

Water-fowl a la dodine
Smothered rice
Eel mold with hot sauce

Fifth Course:

Shad pies
Rissoles
Sugared milk
Sugared flans

Sixth Course:

Pears
Sugared almonds
Medlars
Shelled nuts
Hippocras
Wafers

First Course - Possible Recipes

VEAL PASTIES. Take the round part of the thigh, and put with it almost as much beef fat; and with this you make six good pasties in platters.

POMPANO [eels?] have shining fine skin and are not muddy as are eels. One may scald and roast them without removing mud, that is to say the fresh ones, and the salted ones which have been dried are roasted and eaten with verjuice.

JACOBIN TART. Take eels and skin them and cut into short lengths no thicker than half a finger, and take ginger, crumbled cheese, and carry this to the oven and make a tart of it, and sprinkle it with cheese at the bottom, and then put eel on top of that, and then a layer of cheese, and then a layer of crayfish tails, and so on, as long as each one lasts, one layer after another. And put some salt in the milk, and do not cover it; and stick the crayfish feet in the tart, and make a pretty cover separately, to be put on when it is cooked.

Item, to make black pudding, have the pig blood collected in a fair basin or pan, and when you intend to see your pig destroyed, have the lights washed very well and put on to cook, and as soon as it is cooked, take from the bottom of the pan the sticky lumps of blood and take them out; and then, have onions peeled and chopped to the amount of half the blood, with the amount of half the suet which is among the guts, which is called the "entrecercle" of the guts, chopped as small as dice, together with a little ground salt, and throw it in the blood. Then, have ginger, clove, and a little pepper, and grind it all together. Then, have the small guts well washed, turned inside out and all blood removed in a running river, and to remove the dampness, have them placed in a pan on the fire, and stir; then, add salt; and do this a second time, and yet a third time: and then wash, and turn inside out and wash them, then place to dry on a towel; and squeeze and wring them to dry. (They say the "entrecercle" and these are the large guts which have suet inside which you get out with a knife). After you have added and adjusted by the right amounts and quantities, so that you have half as much onions as blood, and a quarter as much suet as blood, and then when your black puddings are filled with this, put them to cook in a pan in the water from the lights, and prick with a pin when they swell, or otherwise they will burst.

To Make Sausages. When you have killed your pig, take some chops, first from the part they call the filet, and then take some chops from the other side and some of the best fat, as much of the one as of the other, enough to make as many sausages as you need; and have it finely chopped and ground by a pastry-cook. Then grind fennel and a little fine salt, and then take your ground fennel, and mix thoroughly with a quart of powdered spices; then mix your meat, your spices and your fennel thoroughly together, and then fill the guts, that is to say, the small gut. (And know that the guts of an old porker are better for this purpose than those of a young pig, because they are larger.) And after this, smoke them for four days or more, and when you want to eat them, put them in hot water and bring just to boiling, and then put on the grill.

Second Course - Possible Recipes

SOUP of HARE or CONEY is made thus: roast the hare on a spit or on the grill, then dismember it, and put to fry in fat or bacon: then have toasted bread-crumbs moistened with beef stock and wine, and strain, and put to boil together; then take ginger, a clove and grain; moisten with verjuice and let it be dark brown and not too thick. Note that the spices must be ground before the bread.

With all these peas, whether old or new, you can force them through a sieve, or a fine or horsehair mesh; but the old peas must be yellowed with ground saffron of which the water may be put to boil with the peas and the saffron itself with the liquid from the peas.

In Gascony, when it begins to get cold, they buy the tongues, parboil and skin them, and then salt them one on top of another in a salting tub and leave then eight days, then hang them in the chimney all winter and in summer, as above, dry; and they will keep thus for ten years. And then they are cooked in water and wine if you wish, and eaten with mustard.

Third Course - Possible Recipes

TO MAKE YOUNG PARTRIDGES OUT OF CHICKS, you need to have small pullets, and kill them a day or two beforehand, then prepare them, and chop off the legs and necks, take out the innards and throw them away, break the stomach, and work the thighs to make the flesh on them shorter, then garnish and roast, and eat with salt like partridge.

CAPONS, HENS, hung for two or three days, should be spitted, flamed, and roasted, put in verjuice with their grease; boiled, eaten Poitevin style or with yellow pepper.

Fourth Course - Possible Recipes

SAUCE TO BOIL IN PIES OF YOUNG WILD DUCK, DUCKLING, YOUNG RABBIT OR WILD RABBIT. Take lots of good cinnamon, ginger, clove, grains, half a nutmeg and mace, galingale, and grind very well, and soak in half verjuice and half vinegar, and the sauce should be clear. And when the pie is just about done, throw this sauce inside it and return to the oven to boil once. (Note that the young wild duck are those which cannot yet fly until they have felt the August rain.) And note that in winter you put more ginger in so it will be stronger in spice, for in winter all sauces should be stronger than in summer.

RICE for a meat day. Pick it over and wash in two or three changes of hot water, and put to dry on the fire, then add boiling cow's milk, and grind up saffron to colour it yellow: soak with your milk, then add in grease from beef stock.

RICE, Another Way. Pick it over and wash in two or three changes of hot water until the water is clear, then do as above until half cooked, then puree it and put on trenchers in dishes to drain and dry in front of the fire: then cook it thick with the fatty liquid from beef and with saffron, if this is a meat day: and if it is a fish day, do not add meat juice, but in its place add almonds well-ground and not sieved; then sweeten and do not use saffron.

Fifth Course - Possible Recipes

Salted SHAD is cooked in water and eaten with mustard, or in wine and eaten with scallions. Fresh it is in season in March. It is appropriate to hold it by the ears, scald, cook in water, and eat with cameline; and if it is to go in a pie, you should first scald it, then put in the pie with very clear cameline sauce in the pie when it is almost cooked, and make this sauce boil. Item, shad is prepared as above, without scalding, then roast in the oven with parsley and half verjuice, half wine and vinegar; and it is in season from February to June.

RISSOLES ON A MEAT DAY are seasonable from St. Remy's Day (October 1). Take a pork thigh, and remove all the fat so that none is left, then put the lean meat in a pot with plenty of salt: and when it is almost cooked, take it out and have hard-cooked eggs, and chop the whites and yolks, and elsewhere chop up your meat very small, then mix eggs and meat together, and sprinkle powdered spices on it, then put in pastry and fry in its own grease. And note that this is a proper stuffing for pig; and any time the cooks shop at the butcher's for pig-stuffing : but always, when stuffing pigs, it is good to add old good cheese.

Item, at the courts of lords like Monseigneur de Berry, when they kill a beef, they make rissoles with the marrow.

Sixth Course - Possible Recipes

Pears, at the beginning of the season, that is in October and November, provided they are of the new crop, are hard and tough, and then you must cook them in water: and when they are choke-pears, in order to make them have a good colour, put some hay in the pot they are cooked in, and after that bake them; but later, when they are withered and mouldy from the damp weather, you should not cook them in water at all, but simply on the grill; that is in February and March.

Take new almonds, and with a knife carefully remove the outer skin, then poke a hole in the middle of each almond. When this is done, put the almonds in sweet water and leave them for five or six days, but change the water every day. Then, after five or six days take the almonds out of the water and place (on a cloth?), and leave them there for a whole day to drain and dry. Then have enough excellent honey for these almonds; make it boil and cook it well and sufficiently, and skim it. And when it is cooked and cooled, put a clove in the hole of each almond, place the almonds in a good clay pot, add (item, it may be done with preserved nuts, but they must stay in water nine days and the water must be changed every day;) enough of the cooked honey to cover the almonds completely and they can be eaten after two months.

HIPPOCRAS. To make powdered hippocras, take a quarter-ounce of very fine cinnamon, hand-picked by tasting it, an ounce of very fine meche ginger and an ounce of grains of paradise, a sixth of an ounce of nutmeg and galingale together, and pound it all together. And when you want to make hippocras, take a good half-ounce or more of this powder and two quarter-ounces of sugar, and mix them together, and a quart of wine as measured in Paris. And note that the powder and the sugar mixed together make "duke's powder".

To make a quart or a quarter-ounce of hippocras by the measure used in Besiers, Carcassonne, or Montpelier, take five drams of fine select clean cinnamon, select peeled white ginger, three drams: of clove, grains, mace, galingale, nutmeg, nard, altogether one and a fourth drams: more of the first, and of the others less and less of each as you go down the list. Grind to powder, and with this put a pound and half a quarter-ounce, by the heavier measure, of ground rock sugar, and mix with the aforesaid spices; and have wine and the sugar melted on a dish on the fire, and add the powder, and mix: then put in the straining-bag, and strain until it comes out a clear red. Note that the cinnamon and the sugar should dominate.

Waffles are made in four ways. In the first, beat eggs in a bowl, then salt and wine, and add flour, and moisten the one with the other, and then put in two irons little by little, each time using as much batter as a slice of cheese is wide, and clap between two irons, and cook one side and then the other; and if the iron does not easily release the batter, anoint with a little cloth soaked in oil or fat. - The second way is like the first, but add cheese, that is, spread the batter as though making a tart or pie, then put slices of cheese in the middle, and cover the edges (with batter: JH); thus the cheese stays within the batter and thus you put it between two irons. - The third method, is for dropped waffles, called dropped only because the batter is thinner like clear soup, made as above; and throw in with it fine cheese grated; and mix it all together. - The fourth method is with flour mixed with water, salt and wine, without eggs or cheese.

Item, waffles can be used when one speaks of the "large sticks" which are made of flour mixed with eggs and powdered ginger beaten together, and made as big as and shaped like sausages; cook between two irons.

[Source: Le Ménagier de Paris]

I. DISNER A JOUR DE CHAR, SERVI DE TRENTE ET UN M�S A SIX ASSIETTES.

Première assiette. Garnache et tostées, pastés de veel, pastés de pinparneaux, boudins et saucisses.

Seconde assiette. Civé de lièvres et les costellettes, pois coulés, saleure et grosse char, une soringue d'anguilles et autre poisson.

Tierce assiette. Rost : connins, perdris, chappons, etc., lux, bars, carpes, et un potage escartelé.

Quarte assiette. Oiseaulx de rivière à la dodine, ris engoulé, bourrée à la sausse chaude et anguilles renversées.

Quinte assiette. Pastés d'aloés , ruissolles, lait lardé, flaonnés succrés.

Sixième assiette. Poires et dragées, neffles et nois pelées. Ypocras et le mestier.

[Source: Le Ménagier de Paris, J. Hinson (trans.)]

I. Meat-day Dinner, Thirty-one dishes in Six Platters.

First platter. Grenache wine and toast-rounds, veal pies, pompano pies, black-puddings and sausages.

Second platter. Hare stew and ribs, strained peas, salted and coarse meat, smoked eels and other fish.

Third platter. Roast: coneys, partridge, capons, etc., eel-pout, brill, and a soup of chopped meats.

Fourth platter. Water-fowl a la dodine, smothered rice, and a mold of eels with hot sauce.

Fifth platter. Shad pies, rissoles, sugared milk, sugared flans.

Sixth platter. Pears and sugared almonds, medlars and shelled nuts. Hippocras and wafers.