Authors: Francine Segan

Shakespeare's Kitchen (14 page)

BOOK: Shakespeare's Kitchen

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4 whole cloves

12 loin lamb chops

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly milled black pepper

8 large dried plums, halved

4 dried apricots

¼ cup raisins

10 dates, halved and pitted

¼ cup currants

12 ounces ale or beer

1.
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lay the onion slices on the bottom of a lightly buttered baking pan. Scatter the rosemary, thyme, parsley, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves over the onions. Season the lamb chops with the salt and pepper and lay in a single layer over the herbs. Sprinkle the plums, apricots, raisins, dates, and currants over the chops and pour on the ale. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes, or until the meat is cooked to medium.

2.
Preheat the broiler. Remove the aluminum foil from the pan and broil the lamb chops for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the meat is browned.

3.
Spoon the onions and dried fruits in the center of a serving platter and top with the lamb chops. Drizzle the cooking juices over the chops.

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

To make stewed steaks

Take a peece of Mutton and cut it in peeces, and wash it verie cleane, and put it into a faire pot with Ale, or with half wine, then make it boyle, and skumme it cleane, and put into your pot a faggot of rosemarie and time: then take some parsely picked fine, and some onions cut round, and let them all boyle together, then take prunes, & reasons, dates and currants, and let it boyle altogether, and season it with Sinamon and ginger, Nutmegs, two or three Cloves, and Salt, and so serve it on soppes, and garnish it with fruite.

THE GOOD HUSWIFES JEWELL,
1587

Since the Middle Ages, pieces of toasted bread have been added to beer and wine to improve the beverages’ flavor. It is from that practice that we get the expression “to drink a toast.” In Shakespeare’s day there was also another saying, “not worth a toast,” meaning not worth a crust of bread.

Go fetch me a quart of sacke, put a toast in ’t.

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR,
3.5

Roast Leg of Lamb with Mint-Caper Sauce

SERVES 10 TO 12

I tell thee, Kate, ’twas burnt and dried away;
And I expressly am forbid to touch it,
For it engenders choler, planteth anger;
And better ’twere that both of us did fast,
Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,
Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW,
4.1

T
HE ELIZABETHANS SUBSCRIBED
to the ancient Greeks’ belief that all substances are composed of the elements fire, air, water, and earth. “Does not our life consist of four elements?” asks Sir Toby Belch in
Twelfth Night.
Everything and even everyone was believed to possess some degree of cold, hot, moist, or dry qualities. Someone like Shakespeare’s fiery-tempered Katharina the Shrew would have been considered “hot” and labeled “choleric.”

To balance personality, Elizabethans thought that one ought to eat foods that possess qualities opposite to one’s own disposition. Petruchio warns Kate not to eat meat, thought “hot,” as it would only exacerbate her already excitable nature.

½ cup chopped endive

½ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons finely chopped mint

½ cup finely chopped assorted greens (such as sage, watercress, or baby spinach)

½ cup dried bread crumbs

1½ tablespoons caraway seeds

1½ tablespoons coriander seeds

¼ cup diced
Candied Citrus Peel

⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

6 dates, finely chopped

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons small capers, rinsed and drained

1 large egg

1 teaspoon brown sugar

2 tablespoons verjuice

¼ cup minced marrow (or butter)

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

1 leg of lamb, boned and butterflied (5 to 6 pounds)

½ cup
Renaissance Stock

½ cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

Zest of 1 orange

1.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Combine the endive, parsley, ½ cup of the mint, the greens, bread crumbs, 1 tablespoon of the caraway seeds, 1 tablespoon of the coriander seeds, the citrus peel, nutmeg, dates, ½ cup of the capers, the egg, brown sugar, verjuice, and marrow in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper. Season both sides of the lamb with salt and pepper. Spoon the mixture into the center of the lamb and tie closed with kitchen string. Place in a baking pan and bake for 1¼ hours, or until the internal temperature reaches 160°F for medium. Remove the lamb from the pan and let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, bring the stock to a boil in a small sauce pan, until reduced by half.

2.
Add the orange juice to the baking pan and stir well to loosen the pan drippings. Purée the pan drippings with the Renaissance Stock, the remaining 2 tablespoons of mint, the remaining 2 tablespoons of capers, and the granulated sugar until smooth. Stir in the orange zest and warm in a small saucepan.

3.
Place the leg of lamb in the center of a serving platter and spoon the sauce over the lamb. Sprinkle the remaining ½ tablespoon of caraway and coriander seeds over the lamb and around the platter.

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

A Legge of Lambe searst with Hearbes

Strue it as before shewed, with sweet Hearbes and grated Bread, Bisket seeds, a few Coriander-seeds, Lemmon pills minst fine, Nutmeg sliced, sliced Dates, a little grosse pepper, Capers washt cleane: put all together with sixe or seven yolkes of new layd Egges, hard roasted and whole, & put them in your stuffe and worke them with Sugar, Rosewater and verjuyce, and the Marrow of a bone or two, Salt and pepper, put all together into the Skin: Carrawayes and Orangado are fittest garnish for your Dish.

MURRELLS TWO BOOKES OF COOKERIE AND CARVING,
BOOK 1, 1615

Rack of Lamb “in the French Fashion”

SERVES 4

T
HIS FRENCH-INFLUENCED
dish calls for “lemon cut in square peeces like dice,” which makes a beautiful and flavorful addition to the sauce. Since I began researching and preparing dishes from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cookbooks, I have come to appreciate the extra flavor available from lemons and oranges diced whole and added to stews and sauces or puréed into salad dressings. Citrus fruits were rare and costly back then so no part, not even the skin, was wasted.

2 lemons

½ cup
Renaissance Stock

½ cup sweet sherry

½ teaspoon ground mace

¼ cup currants

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup small capers, rinsed and drained

1 lamb rack (8 ribs)

1.
Zest one of the lemons and place the zest in a small nonreactive saucepan. Zest the remaining lemon and chop the zest fine. Set the zest aside. Dice both of the peeled lemons (discarding the seeds), and add to the pan. Add the Renaissance Stock, sherry, mace, currants, salt, and capers to the pan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.

2.
Place the lamb in a nonreactive pan, pour the marinade over the lamb, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or up to 24 hours.

3.
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Remove the lamb from the marinade and place in a roasting pan. Roast in the center of the oven for 1 hour, or until the internal temperature reaches 160°F for medium. Remove the lamb from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes before carving.

4.
Place the marinade in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes, or until thick.

5.
Place 2 ribs of lamb on each plate and spoon some of the marinade over the lamb. Sprinkle the reserved chopped lemon zest around the plate.

Leg of Lamb with Oyster Stuffing

SERVES 8

O
YSTERS WERE OFTEN
paired with meats, especially lamb, in Elizabethan cooking. Many oyster dishes, including our traditional American Christmas goose with oyster stuffing and Southern steak and oysters, have come to us by way of the first English settlers here. In this version, the oysters combine with a perfect mix of herbs and currants to create a subtle stuffing that even non–oyster lovers will enjoy.

¼ cup butter, melted

6 scallions

Zest of 1 lemon

½ cup finely chopped spinach

1 head of endive, finely chopped

½ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

2 cups dried whole-wheat bread crumbs

2 large egg yolks

12 oysters, chopped, ¼ cup of the liquid reserved

¾ cup currants

2 teaspoons light brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons verjuice

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

1 leg of lamb, boned and butterflied

½ cup white wine

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon finely chopped mint

1.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Combine the butter, scallions, lemon zest, spinach, endive, ¼ cup of the parsley, the bread crumbs, egg yolks, oysters, ½ cup of the currants, the brown sugar, cinnamon, verjuice, and salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the mixture into the center of the lamb. Tie the leg of lamb closed with kitchen string and season with salt and pepper. Bake, basting occasionally with the pan juices, for 1 hour, or until the internal temperature reaches 160°F for medium. Remove the lamb from the pan and let rest for 15 minutes.

2.
Place the cooking pan on the stovetop over medium heat, add the wine, and scrape all the solids from the bottom of the pan. Add the reserved oyster liquid, the remaining ¼ cup of parsley, the remaining ¼ cup of currants, the lemon juice, and the mint and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, or until warm.

3.
Place the leg of lamb in the center of a serving platter. Drizzle a few tablespoons of the sauce over the lamb and serve the remaining sauce in a side dish.

Roast Venison Marinated in Winter Herbs

SERVES 8

… Other women cloy
The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry
Where she most satisfies …

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA,
2.2

T
HERE ARE MANY
poetic references to food in Shakespeare’s
Antony and Cleopatra.
From correspondences between the real Marc Antony and his wife, we know that while visiting Cleopatra in Egypt he dined on “five or six courses” and ate venison.

In England, deer hunting was only permitted on lands owned by the hunter and, in fact, illegal hunting in royal forests was punishable by heavy fines and even death. Once you taste this easy-to-prepare roast you will know why venison was considered “a lordes dysshe … a meat for greate men.”