Salsa Camillina
Original:
Si vols fcr salsa cainilina fe let de
metles que no sien parades ab brou de galliiies bo ; apres pica los fetges de
lles gallines e destremba 1s ab la dita leyt, e mit ho a bollir e mit hi sucre
e vi de magranes, o vinagre verme11 o de agror. Empero tota hora ha obs agror
vermella e canyclla a la maior partida, he gingehra e d altres bones obres o species,
e pebre axi com clavells, nou d esarch, nou noscada e de dues maneres, e sucre
hlanch. E fe u molt bullir, e, quailt sera ben cuyt, asabora h o d e sal e de
salsa, e de agror e de dolcor. E, si t vols, pots lii metre un parell de
gallines o de capons d ast o de olla que y tengues una stona ab ella, e mit hi
molt gres de les galliiies en ast.
[El Llibre de Sent Sovi, III, c.1325]
Translation:
If you want
to make camel sauce, make almond milk out of unpeeled almonds with a good
chicken broth. After that, mince the
chicken livers and blend them with the milk. Set it to boil, and put in sugar
and pomegranate wine or red vinegar or verjuice – however, always be sure that
it is red verjuice – and cinnamon as the largest portion, and ginger and other
good spices and pepper, and the same with cloves, grains of paradise, nutmeg,
two types of pepper, and white sugar.
Let it boil a lot, and when it is well cooked, flavor it with salt,
spices, and verjuice and sweetening. And
if you want, you can put in a couple of roasted or boiled chickens or capons,
which you should leave a while with the almond milk. And put in a lot of the roasted chicken
grease.
[El Llibre de Sent Sovi/The Book of
Sent Sovi, III, c1325, Trans: Robin Vogelzang, 2008]
Ingredients:
Chicken Liver
Oil
Sugar
Red Vinegar
Cinnamon
Ginger
Long Pepper
Grains of
Paradise
Nutmeg
Salt
Redaction:
Cook one
Chicken Liver in some Oil in a skillet.
Grind Liver in a Mortar and add back to the skillet. Add two cups of Almond Milk and blend with the
Liver. Cook the sauce at a low
boil. Grind Long Pepper and Grains of
Paradise and add to the sauce. Add Red
Vinegar (or Wine or Verjuice), Sugar, Ginger, White Pepper, Nutmeg, and
Salt. Add Cinnamon in a larger quantity
than the other spices. Sauce should
thicken after about 30-45 minutes.
Adjust seasonings to taste. Serve
with white meat.
Notes:
Camel sauce:
sauce made with almond milk, citris juice or vinegar, sugar and various
spices, primarily cinnamon. We find
recipes for this dish, very popular in all of medieval Europe, with important
divergences regarding the forms of preparation, in multiple recipe books. It has been suggested that the name of this
sauce could derive from its color, similar to camel hair.
mince . . . milk: the procedure of grinding chicken
livers and using them to thicken a liquid – almond milk or broth – was quite
common, and we find other examples of it in Sent
Sovi; see, for example, recipes V, VI, VII, or XXIV.
however . . . verjuice:
pomegranate wine and red vinegar, together with the cinnamon that, as
indicated, should be added in considerable quantity, give the sauce its
characteristic reddish-brown color. Here
the recipe insists that, if these two ingredients are unavailable, one should
use some other type of acidic liquid, as long as it is just as red.
two types of pepper:
various types of pepper circulated at the time; however, the text
mentions only <<long pepper>> (Chapter LX). In the manual of market goods edited by
Miguel Gual, long pepper and white pepper are cited and described (1981: 91,
nos. 145 and 146).
white sugar:
sugar is mentioned twice in the present recipe ; it is probable, then,
that <<white sugar>> refers to a more refined variety than the prior.
[El Llibre de Sent Sovi/The Book of Sent Sovi, III, c1325, Trans: Robin
Vogelzang, 2008]
I was unable
to obtain Almonds to make Almond Milk, so I used commercial Almond Milk. The Chicken Liver would have been ground in a
Mortar. Since I do not have one of an
appropriate size, I employed Herr Oster to do the job for me. I do not have Pomegranate Wine or Red Verjuice
so I used Red Wine Vinegar as recommended by the recipe. I am also currently out of White Pepper, so
it’s omitted from the dish. The sauce
turned out very well and I served it over Pork Chops for dinner. My daughter polished off her plate, so I will
take that as a positive reaction.
Bibliography:
“Si vols fer Salsa Camillina.”
In El Llibre de Sent Sovi / The Book of Sent Sovi: Medieval Recipes from
Catalonia, edited by Joan Santanach, translated by Robin Vogelzang, 48-9. Barcelona: Barcino-Tamesis, (c.1325) 2008.
