bunnyjadwiga | Another test recipe

Along with the millet, on Saturday I tested this Casserole of Meat from de Nola:

CAZUELA DE CARNE

You must take meat and cut it into pieces the size of a walnut, and gently fry it with the fat of good bacon; and when it is well gently fried, cast in good broth, and cook it in a casserole; and cast in all fine spices, and saffron, and a little orange juice or verjuice, and cook it very well until the meat begins to fall apart and only a little broth remains; and then take three or four eggs beaten with orange juice or verjuice, and cast it into the casserole; and when you wish to eat, give it four or five stirs with a large spoon, and then it will thicken; and when it is thick, remove it from the fire; and prepare dishes, and cast cinnamon upon each one. However, there are those who do not wish to cast in eggs or spice, but only cinnamon and cloves, and cook them with the meat, as said above, and cast vinegar on it so that it may have flavor; and there are others who put all the meat whole and in one piece, full of cinnamon, and whole cloves, and ground spices in the broth, and this must be turned little by little, so that it does not cook more at one end than the other. And so nothing is necessary but cloves and cinnamon, and those moderately.

So, I was pretty sure this could go in a crockpot. Obviously it's meant to be made with lamb, mutton or goat meat but it doesn't say that, and besides, if de Nola uses all that bacon, there's got to be some pig bits around somewhere. So I tried it with pork.

About 2.5 to 3 lb pork loin, cut into 1-1.5" chunks
I fried 5-6 pieces of bacon ends in a pan to make the grease, then browned the pork loin chunks in that.
The pork loin chunks then went into the crockpot with about 2 quarts of beef broth made from beef base.
added:
1 heaping tsp powder forte
7-8 whole cloves
2 sticks cinnamon, broken up
about 1/3 cup bitter orange juice

Then I put it to simmer all day. (The general concensus was that it definitely smelled Catalan.)

When we came home, it looked good, but the liquid hadn't cooked down all that much, so I transferred it back to the frying pan and let it simmer while the millet cooked to reduce it a bit.

The broth was not really thick enough-- next time I would use less broth. But the meat-- oh oh OH! yummmy! and the broth was quite nice on the millet. I'll serve this with rice.

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Here's an alternate translation from Vincente Cuenca (p. 49 of his book):

Casserole of Meat—Take meat and cut it into pieces the size of a nut, and brown it with fat from good bacon; and after it is well browned add good broth; and cook it in a casserole, and add some fine spices, and saffron and a little bitter orange juice or verjuice; and cook it very well until the meat begins to fall apart and only a little broth remains: and then take three or four eggs beaten with bitter orange juice or verjuice, and add them to the casserole, and when you wish to eat, give it four or five stirs with a large spoon, and then it will thicken, and when it is thick remove it from the fire, and prepare the serving dishes; and scatter cinnamon over each dish. However, there are those who do not wish to add eggs or spices, but only cinnamon and cloves cooked with the meat, as I said above: and add vinegar so that it has flavor; and then there are others that cook the meat whole with pieces of cinnamon and whole cloves, and ground spices in the broth, and this has to be turned from time to time, so that it does not cook more on one side than on another; and this only requires cloves and cinnamon, and this in a good fashion.

My personally theory is that this is more like an adobo recipe. I don't use all the spices in my version nor the eggs, per the recipe. I'll be cooking my version of this one for the 12th Night feast this coming January. :)

Yum, thanks! Can you explain what you mean by 'more like an adobo recipe'?

Adobo is a Philippine dish of marinated meat or fish seasoned with garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, and spices. The name comes in part from Old Spanish adobar, meaning "to stew." The way I was taught to cook it by Phillipino neighbors was to place a quantity of meat in a pan and brown it with the garlic, adding the spices to expand their flavor. Then the liquids were added (though my recipe includes beer) and the whole of it stewed on the stovetop until it reached the consistency of meat with a very rich gravy on it. I've tried the crockpot method, but you have to radically reduce the amount of liquid in the dish in order to get that method to work right and even then, the flavor doesn't compare on my palate. I also cook mine in a very old cast iron pan. Does that help at all?

Yes, that makes sense!
I am pretty sure that this will end up being a stovepot recipe, it's just that I am madly in pursuit of period recipes that can be done in a crockpot... :)

Ah the joys of hitting send too soon...for the record, I've tried this with all kinds of meat in my tests including beef, venison, chicken, pork, and rabbit. I liked the pork best too. :)

Mmmmmmmmm... it sounds like I'll definitely be wanting some of this if I make it to the event.

(To

iasmin: I've found that pork really likes cinnamon. Chicken's fine with it too, but it's not as good a combo as with pork. Don't know about beef, venison, or rabbit. The cloves tend to complement all meats nicely IMO.)

Newbie question:

What is powder forte?

Powder forte is a powder of 'strong spices.' It's one of the standard medieval spice mixes. In this case, I was using some left over from Christopher's last Iron Bog feast, so I'm not sure what was in it. Usually, I'd use cloves, pepper, ginger, and cinnamon and/or nutmeg in mine. For this feast, I might use this recipe for my spice mixture, though:

1. SPICES FOR COMMON SAUCE (3)
ESPECIAS DE SALSA COMUN

Three parts cinnamon, two parts cloves, one part ginger, one part pepper and a little dry coriander, well-ground, and a little saffron if you wish; let everything be well-ground and sifted.

since it's from de Nola

Thank you so much! *Bounces because i actually have all of these things in my cupboard!*

I didn't realize that I wasn't signed in before, but that question was from me!

I have served this in a feast - and decided to go with beef. I, for some reason, have a difficult time finding good beef dishes but have no problem with finding good pork dishes. Most likely it is because I luv me some pig and not so much with the beef. Because it was for a fest and I did not want to have any sneaky pork for people who chose not to eat it, I seared the meat in olive oil instead of the indicated bacon/fat. If you want to see my redaction it is here:
http://www.serenadariva.com/SCACookingPages/KingdomAS2002/OrangeBeef.htm

And for what it is worth. If you use the eggs specified in the recipe, it thickens up the sauce nicely and gives it a lovely mouth feel. In the feast I served it with de Nola's Pottage of Noodles and it went very well with the sauce.

I originally planned to do this with beef. I may yet try it with beef. I realize that it's a heresy in SCAdian terms, but I may serve no beef at this feast -- pork is lots cheaper and I'm concerned about having too many dishes..

However, it's good to hear from someone I consider an expert that it works well with beef. I'm debating the eggs, as there are eggs in so many other dishes I'm planning. I can imagine that it does give a great mouth feel.

Thanks!

Actually it's funny that you should mention the Pottage of Noodles recipe. That's the same recipe I chose to pair it with. LOL!

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