"Medieval Cooking ~ A Time To Look Back To & To Learn From"

I ran upon some interesting things on Medieval Recipes which I had learned about years ago. I thought it was both unique and also fun to read, and that you all would really enjoy looking at this recipe, and the way in which it was written, as much as I did. :)

"Roast Pheasant"

Serves Six

Fesaunt rost. Lete a fesaunt blode in the mouth, and lete hym blede to deth; & pulle hym, and draw hym, & kutt a-wey the necke by the body, & the legges by the kne, and perbuille hym, and larde hym, and putt the knese in the vent: and rost hym, & reise hym upp, hys legges & hys wynges as off an henne; and no sauce butt salt. (Douce 55.)

2 young pheasants
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 small shallots, peeled
2 rashers streaky bacon
A little seasoned flour for dredging
Sea salt

More Modern Instructions:

We were more humane than our ancestors, where slaughtering pheasants is concerned, but the preparation of the birds is probably much the same. Preheat the oven to 400*F. Put half the butter and a shallot inside each pheasant and cover the breat with a rasher of bacon. Wrap each bird in a seperate piece of foil, (**I have no idea what they wrapped them in during the Medieval times ... most likely a cooking cloth). Then place them side by side in a roasting-tin and roast in the oven for 30 minutes. Remove them from the oven, take off the foil, and dredge with seasoned flour, baste and return to the oven for another 10 minutes, by which time they should be golden-brown. Serve with coarse sea salt in small ramekins or egg cups as a condiment or sauce.

Flavorings for Game Birds:

Other "sauces" were sometimes offered with game birds. One for pheasant consisted of white sugar with mustard powder, blended with vinegar until semi-liquid. Another, for a roasted crane, was made by combining ground black pepper, ground ginger, mustard powder, salt, and vinegar. A 'sauce' of minced parsley and onions with ground garlic and vinegar was suitable for pigeons.

All these and several others may have been ways of flavouring leftovers or meat cooked for expediency ~ for example, needing short-term preserving ~ because the flesh was almost always minced before the strong 'sauce' was mixed in.

~~/~~~/~~/~~~/~~/~~~/~~/~~~/~~/~~~/~~/~~~/~~~/~~

** I decided to look up some sites on Medieval Recipes, and the one which I have listed is one that I really enjoyed looking at ... and I hope that you will, also. ~Naomi~ ;)

http://www.godecookery.com
http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/old-elizabethan-recipes.htm
http://www.textilegeek.com/cooking.html
http://www.bitwise.net/~ken-bill/med-p1.htm
http://www.homemade-dessert-recipes.com/renaissance-dessert-recipes-glossary.html
http://www.3owls.org/sca/cook/guide.htm
http://www.homemade-dessert-recipes.com/renaissance-dessert-recipes.html