Roman Recipes

Roman Samian ware cup and plate.

Moretum

2 heads (20 – 25 cloves garlic)
8 oz/225gm grated Parmesan cheese
1 large handful chopped coriander leaves
2 heaped teaspoons chopped fresh celery leaf
2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley (The Romans used rue, but many people are allergic to this)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon/15ml white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon/15ml olive oil

Peel and roughly chop the garlic and start grinding this with the salt in a mortarium (Roman pestle and mortar). Then add the herbs and the cheese. When the mixture is smooth, add the liquids. If using a food processor, again start with the solid ingredients and add the liquids last. Serve with bread, olives and lettuce.

A typical Roman meal.

Bread

250g flour. Use a mixture of strong plain white flour and wholemeal flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 sachet of dried yeast
warm water to mix.

Mix all the ingredients together to make a soft dough, and then knead the ball of dough until it is shiny and elastic. Shape it into 2 small round leaves, place on a baking sheet and leave to rise until doubled in size. Then bake in a hot oven (220 oC/ 425 oF/gas Mark 7) for around 20-25 minutes until golden. Test it by turning a loaf oven and tapping the underside with your knuckles. It should give a hollow knocking sound.

Lentils

Open a tin of lentils and turn into an oven-proof dish. Heat with a mixture of herbs and a teaspoonful of Thai fish sauce. Try parsley, coriander, spring onion and freshly-ground black pepper.

Medieval Recipes

Urchins (Urchin is the medieval name for hedgehogs)

Medieval cooking pots in use.

1kg miced pork
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon each salt and pepper
55 grams blanched slivered almonds
a few currants
thin flour and water paste coloured with food colouring

Mix the pork with the spices. Knead well and shape into balls about the size and shape of a large hen's egg.
Spike each ball with enough slivered almonds to make them look like a hedgehog and press 2 currants into each ball for eyes.
Bake them in a medium oven for about 25-30 minutes until they are a nice shade of brown.
Take them out of the oven and paint them with the food colouring.
Put them back in the oven for about 5 minutes to finish off.

• Click here to learn more about medieval food and cooking.

Pottage

This is so much nicer than it sounds! Prepare some stock. It can contain meat or be vegetarian. Use stock cubes or leftover bones and chopped up meat. Use about as much stock as the quantity of pottage you wish to end up with.
In this stock cook as many different kinds of vegetables and herbs as you like. You can include the following:

onions of all varieties
leeks
cabbage of any kind
green beans or dried beans (if you are not using tinned beans cook these well first according to the instructions)
carrots
parsnips
turnips
celery
thyme, sage, parsley, marjoram, rosemary

Do NOT include tomatoes or potatoes (these were not brought to Europe from South America until Tudor times and did not become common for several centuries) or other exotic vegetables such as aubergines, yams, okra etc..

When all the vegetables are cooked, add some porridge oats. If you want your pottage to be runny, like soup, add a couple ot tablespoons of oats. if you want it to be extra thick and filling add a large cupful. Continue to simmer until the porridge is cooked.
Adjust the seasoning and serve with bread and cheese.

Tudor and Stuart Recipes

Cheesecake
This recipe originally comes from 'The Court and Kitchen of Elizabeth commonly called Joan Cromwell' 1664. (Paperback edition Cambridgeshire Libraries, Broadway, Peterborough, 1983) Elizabeth Cromwell was Oliver Cromwell's widow. They were a devoted couple, and produced a large family of nine children. The Royalist party satirised her known interest in housekeeping to attack her husband.

The recipe has been adapted by Christopher Driver and Michelle Berriedale-Johnson in their book of 17th century recipes, 'Pepys at Table'.

Replica Tudor Wooden Trencher

100g (4oz) curd/cream cheese, not too salty
60ml (2 fl oz) double cream
10g (1/2 oz) softened unsalted butter
1 egg
25g (1 oz) washed currants
a pinch each of ground cloves, nutmeg and mace
25g (1oz) dark brown sugar (brown gives the cheesecake a coffee-colour but it tastes great)
1 teaspoon rosewater Don't leave out the rosewater whatever you do!
juice of one lemon if your cheese is not sharp enough

Mix all these ingredients well.
Line a shallow pie dish with puff pastry, fill with the cheese mixture and cover with more pastry, sprinkling the top with a little more sugar.
Bake for approximately 30 minutes in a moderately hot oven until the pastry is cooked and lightly browned.
Serve hot or cold. This is certainly a very good way to make a cheesecake.

Stewed Mutton

From an adaptation in English Heritage: Food and Cooking in 16th Century Britain, Peter Brears 1985

450g lean lamb or mutton, cubed
1 lemon
425 ml stock
50g currants
¼ tsp (1.5 ml) pepper
1 tsp (5 ml) wine vinegar
1 tbls (15 ml) sugar
red food colouring (don’t use too much)

Slice the lemon thinly, then cut each slice into four quarters. Pour the stock into a saucepan, then add the mutton, lemon, currants and pepper, and simmer for 1½ hours, until the meat is tender. The vinegar, sugar and red food colouring may be stirred in just before serving.

This is very good. The Tudors would have eaten it slopped over bread - “in fine dishes upon sops” - as part of a course including several other meat, fish and vegetable dishes. It goes quite well with rice.