Another Meat Dinner

Another Meat Dinner of Twenty-four Dishes with Six Platters

First Course:

Veal pies
Pompano pies
Black puddings and sausages
Forcemeat
Rich pies

Second Course:

Hare soup and Eel broth
Strained beans
Salted meats
Coarse meats (beef and mutton)

Third Course:

Roast coneys, partridges, capons, and veal
Fish
Chopped and browned vegetables

Fourth Course:

River ducks a la dodine
Tench soup and Tench mold with hot sauce
Capon soup with chicken fat and parsley

Fifth Course:

Bacon gruel
Smothered rice
Jellied eels
Roast fish
Chopped and browned vegetables

Sixth Course:

Little sugared tarts
Sugared milk
Medlars
Shelled nuts
Cooked pears
Sugared almonds
Hippocras and 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.

Saracen Broth. Skin the eel and cut in little chunks, then sprinkle with ground salt and fry in oil; then grind ginger, cinnamon, clove, grain, galingale, long pepper and saffron to give color, and verjuice, and boil all together with the eels which will make the liaison of themselves.

NEW BEANS. Boil till they split, then take plenty of parsley and a little sage and hyssop, and grind very fine; and after this grind up some bread, and a handful of these same beans which should be peeled and ground with the bread for thickening, then put through a sieve: then fry the rest of your beans in bacon fat, if this is a meat day, or in oil or butter, if this is a fish day; then put your beans in meat stock, if this is a meat day, or in the water from the beans, if this is a fish day.

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.

YELLOW MUTTON. Cut up the coarsest, and this is the flank; and cook it in water, then grind in a piece of ginger and some saffron, and add verjuice, wine and vinegar.

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.

CARP with STUFFING. First, put some minced onions on to boil in a pot with water, and when the onions are well cooked, throw in the head and quite soon after the tail, and quite soon after the chunks (of fish), and cover tightly so that no steam escapes. And when it is cooked, have ready a mixture of ginger, cinnamon, and saffron, moistened with wine and a little verjuice, that is to say one third, and put it all to boil together, well covered; and then serve in bowls.

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.

Savoy Soup. Take capons or hens and boil with very lean bacon and the livers: and when it is half cooked, take it out, then add bread crumbs moistened with stock, then grind ginger, cinnamon, saffron, and take them out; then grind the livers and lots of parsley, then sieve, and then grind and sieve the bread, then boil it all together.

Fifth Course - Possible Recipes

GRUEL should be cooked until it bursts, then puree and cook with almond milk as said earlier in the recipe for barley gruel, and lots of sugar.

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.

TENCH is scalded, and the mud removed as with an eel, then it may be cooked in water: eaten with green sauce. Fried, in stew; inverted, roast and sprinkle with powdered cinnamon, then plunge it in vinegar and oil while it is cooking, and eat with cameline sauce. And note that in inverting it, it is appropriate to cut it open along its back, head and all, then turn it inside out, and put a lath between the two gills, then sew it up with thread and roast.

Sixth Course - Possible Recipes

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: Menagier de Paris, J. Hinson (trans.)]

II. Another Meat Dinner of Twenty-four Dishes with Six Platters.

First platter. Pies of veal chopped small in grease and marrow of beef, pompano pies, black-puddings, sausages, forcemeat, and rich pies de quibus.

Second platter. Hare soup and eel broth; strained beans, salted meats, coarse meats, that is to say beef and mutton.

Third platter. Roast: capons, coneys, veal and partridge, freshwater and saltwater fish, any chopped and browned [vegetables].

Fourth dish. River ducks a la dodine, tench both in soups and molded with hot sauce, fat capons in soup with chicken-fat and parsley.

Fifth dish. A bacon gruel, smothered rice, jellied eels, any roast saltwater or freshwater fish, rissoles, thin pancakes and much sugar [or sugared sea-wife, a fish (JH)].

The sixth and last remove to be served. Little sugared tarts and sugared milk, medlars, shelled nuts, cooked pears and sugared almond. Hippocras and wafers.