How to Sauté Fresh Peas

From Bartolomeo Scappi's Opera, 1570, translated by Terence Scully:

To sauté fresh peas, with or without their pod.

If you want to sauté peas in their pod, take the tenderest ones and cut off their flower end and their stem end, and parboil them in a good meat broth. Take them out, drain them and sauté them in rendered fat or melted pork fat. Serve them dressed with orange juice and pepper. Hong with those peas you can sauté a clove of garlic and parsley, both beaten.
[...] If you do not want them with their pod, shell them, parboil them and sauté them as above.

My Redaction:

2 14-oz cans of peas

1 T lard

3 large garlic cloves, chopped

4 T parsley, chopped

2 C beef broth

Juice of one medium orange

1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1/4 tsp salt

Bring beef broth and an equal quantity of water to a boil in a pot. Drain the peas, cook them in the boiling stock for 2 minutes, then remove and drain again. Fry peas in the lard with garlic and parsley, stirring frequently, until they reach a somewhat drier texture and slightly darker color (or until they seem "done"). Salt to taste. Mix in pepper and juice immediately before serving.

How to make Qatayif for Harun al-Rashid

From Annals of the Caliph's Kitchen,  c.1226, translated by Nawal Nasrallah:

For the batter:
Take 2 pounds of sifted fine samidh flour [high starch]. Also take four ounces yeast made from huwwara or samidh flour. Dissolve the yeast in water and remove any lumps. Add nine grams said, and three grams burn al-`ann [baking borax], both should be crushed and sifted.

Add the dissolved yeast along with some water to the flour, and knead the mixture well until it becomes smooth and free of any lumps. In consistency, it should be soft enough to the point if you were to pour some of it on a rukham [marble], it spreads.

Set the dough aside to ferment and put a mark for the height of the dough on kayl al-daqiq [container]. The batter is done fermenting when it puffs and rises about a finger's width above.

Heat a clean marble slab on the fire. When it is hot enough, ladle some of the fermented batter, and pour it onto the marble, the size is up to you. When it is done, take it away, and examine the back. If it looks too brown, reduce the fire.

Whenever you bake five pieces, wipe the marble with a piece of cloth. When you are done baking, cover the crepes with a clean damp cloth for about an hour and fill them with whatever you wish, God willing.

For the filling:

Choose fresh ripe walnuts whose shells can be easily rubbed off, and peel off their thin skins. Chop walnut with a knife, the way you chop fresh herbs. Take a similar amount of tabard sugar [white cane sugar], pound it, and mix it with the walnut. Sprinkle the mix with rose water of Jur, and mix and bind the mixture with almond oil.

Use this walnut mix to fill qatayif crepes [recipe above] Let each piece be as small as a morsel. Arrange them on a platter in attractively organized layers and pour freshly extracted almond oil on them. Sprinkle pounded sugar over and between the layers. Put the platter in a big wide bowl filled with ice, and present it, God willing.

My Redaction:

Crepes:

3.5 C bread flour

2 tsp yeast dissolved in 1 C warm water

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Mix dissolved yeast plus ~2 cups additional water with dry ingredients, getting it to the point of more liquid than solid (would definitely spread if put on a flat surface). Cover and allow to rise about 20%. Heat a non-stick pan on medium-high flame enough that water sprinkled on its surfaces steams instantly. Use a 1/3 cup measure to pour batter onto the pan and spread it around as evenly as possible by tilting the pan. When it appears to have set, flip with a motion of the wrist or with a spatula. Both sides should, like modern crepes, become firm and if possible slightly browned, although it is harder to achieve browning with this mixture. Makes about 9 crepes.

Filling:

11 oz walnuts

8 oz sugar

2 tsp rose water

4 T sesame oil

Grind all together in a food processor, then spoon into crepes, perhaps 2 tbsp per crepe. Make a stack of crepes by alternating lines of them perpendicular to each other, log-cabin style. Sprinkle additional sesame oil and sugar on top and serve.

Notes:

I didn't have almond oil available, hence the substitution of sesame oil, which the Caliph's kitchens would certainly also have had. The flavor combination seems to work well. The crepes are perhaps not as delicate as they could be, certainly compared with French-style crepes containing butter they lack a certain flexibility. Conceivably baker's borax would yield a different consistency, but I am inclined to think that baking powder is an effective leavening agent here.

Sadly, broad marble cooking slabs to place on a fire are less common than they were for the Caliph, but happily non-stick pans are a very convenient substitute.

For to Make a Penche of Eggs

From The Forme of Cury, c.1390 English manuscript modernized in 1780 by Samuel Pegg:

Tak water and do it in a panne to the fyre and lat yt sethe and after
tak eggs and brek hem and cast hem in the water and after tak a chese
and kerf yt on fowr partins and cast in the water and wanne the chese
and the eggys ben wel sodyn tak hem owt of the water and wasch hem in
clene water and tak wastel breed and temper yt wyth mylk of a kow.
and after do yt over the fyre and after forsy yt wyth gyngener and
wyth cornyn and colowr yt wyth safroun and lye yt wyth eggys and oyle
the sewe wyth Boter and kep wel the chese owt and dresse the sewe and
dymo eggys thereon al ful and kerf thy chese in lytyl schyms and
do hem in the sewe wyth eggys and serve yt for the.

My Redaction:

7 poached eggs

1/2 C grated queso fresco

3/4 C bread, crumbed

3/4 C milk

1 T butter

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp ginger

pinch saffron

salt to taste

Simmer all ingredients except poached eggs in a saucepan until a thick sauce is formed. Adjust seasonings to taste. Serve over poached eggs in ramekins.

How to Make Allows of Beef

From Liber Cure Cocorum, c.1430 English manuscript written in verse:

For syrup. [Allows of beef.]
Take beef and slice it fair and thin,
Of the loins without or else within;
Take minced onions, and powder also
Of pepper, and suet and beef thereto
And cast thereon, roll it well,
Spit it across, so have you bliss;
And roast it brown as I teach you,
And take broth of fresh flesh then,
And mix it with bread ere you do more,
And minced onions you cast thereto,
With powder of pepper and cloves together;
Boil all together, as I teach you,
Then boiled blood you shall take;
Strain it through cloth, color it withal;
Then take your roast, and slice it clean
In the length of a finger; boil it anon
In the same broth; serve it you may
In a dish together I say.

My Redaction:

About 2.25 lbs shoulder steak

1 lg onion, minced fine

1 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp clove powder

1 C beef broth

1/2 C bread, crumbled

Trim fat from steak and fry it on low heat until it is rendered to suet. Remove solids.

Cut steak into thin strips, about 1/2" thick. Cover a counter top in plastic wrap and lay strips out with space between them.  Cover with an additional layer of plastic wrap, and pound flat with a mallet or empty bottle. Mix onion, suet, 1/2 tsp pepper, and salt, and spread on beef. Roll up into roulades and roast in a pan under a low broiler until browned (they may be rare in the center still - if that is not desired cook longer either under the broiler or switched to a high temp oven). Cook other ingredients together in saucepan until incorporated; sprinkle over roulades as a sauce.

How to Cook Leeks and Funges

From The Forme of Cury, c.1390 English manuscript modernized in 1780 by Samuel Pegg:

Take Funges and pare hem clere and dyce hem. take leke and shred
hym small and do hym to seeth in gode broth. colour it with safron and
do ther inne powdour fort.

My Redaction:

1.5 lbs mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

8 leek stalks, split lengthwise and thoroughly rinsed, then sliced thinly

1 C water

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp galangal

Cook all ingredients in a pot over medium heat, decreasing to low as leeks and mushrooms cook down. It's done when there is no excess liquid or very little. Spicing is to taste.

(Poudre Fort varies in composition, but pepper, ginger, nutmeg, and galangal are fairly typical ingredients.)

How to Make Frumente with Candies

From Liber Cure Cocorum, c.1430 English manuscript written in verse:

Take wete and pyke hit fayre [and clene]
And do hit in a morter shene;
Bray hit a lytelle, with water hit spryng
Tyl hit hulle, with-oute lesyng.
Þen wyndo hit wele, nede þou mot;
Wasshe hit fayre, put hit in pot;
Boyle hit tylle hit brest, þen
Let hit doun, as I þe kenne.
Take know mylke, and play hit up
To hit be thykkerede to sup.
Lye hit up with 3olkes of eyren,
And kepe hit wele, lest hit berne.
Coloure hit with safron and salt hit wele,
And servyd hit forthe, Syr, at þe mele;
With sugur candy, þou may hit dowce,
If hit be served in grete lordys howce.
Take black sugur for mener menne;
Be ware þer with, for hit wylle brerne.

My Redaction:

CANDIES:

1/4 C water

1/4 C brown sugar

1/4 C molasses

Simmer down slowly until it holds its shape when dropped on parchment paper (do not use wax paper). Remove from heat and drop thumbprint-sized blobs on paper. Set aside to cool.

FRUMENTE:

1 1/2 C bulgur wheat

3 1/2 C almond milk

1 tsp salt or to taste

pinch saffron

2 egg yolks

Simmer all but egg until incorporated, remove from heat, mix in egg, serve sprinkled with brown sugar candies.

How to Cook Chyches

From The Forme of Cury, c.1390 English manuscript modernized in 1780 by Samuel Pegg:

Take chiches and wry hem in ashes all nyzt, o˛er lay hem in hoot
aymers, at morrowe, waisshe hem in clene water and do hem
ouer the fire with clene water. see˛ hem up and do ˛erto oyle,
garlec, hole safroun. powdour fort and salt, see˛ it and messe it
forth.

My Redaction:

2 29oz cans chickpeas drained

1 C water

3 T olive oil

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp galangal

8 cloves garlic

1 tsp salt

pinch saffron (optional)

Put all ingredients in crock pot, cook on high or low until soft but not completely disintegrated, stirring occasionally and spicing to taste. Add more water if it seems dry.

(Poudre Fort varies in composition, but pepper, ginger, nutmeg, and galangal are fairly typical ingredients.)