Hi to all my new friends and subscribers.
It has been amazing to find that within one week of posting the first film on You Tube I have had so many views and subscriptions. The first film was a real experiment in that I simply did not know what would happen. Thankyou for your interest and enthusiasm Here is the link to the YouTube film if you have come to my site direct. The recipe and a brief discussion about the techniques are below.
We (Rod Hughes my camera man and I) have a plan to make one film a week but that may be difficult to fulfil over time and while I am told consistency is everything there will be weeks when we wont be able to. As I write I have 5 in the bag so we should be ok for a while! Rod has a production company – Golden eye productions – and is a craftsman in many media. He is a sculptor designer film maker and bladesmith. Check his site.
Our production values will improve too as we progress. Rod is experimenting with opening and closing titles and we have already added music. Please check out the music of Michael Levy, a very innovative Lyre player who has composed music in a Roman style and we will use his music often as he has been kind enough to allow me too.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7Dx2vFEg8DmOJ5YCRm4A5v?si=emacIH9CRieFNGXRUyJ9
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ1X6F7lGMEadnNETSzTv8A
And finally to the sauce….. This sauce has always been my favourite as it encompasses the essence of what the Roman liked to taste. Its dense and rich, sweet, sticky and moreish. It reminded me of a satay sauce and that is what dictated the amount of nuts. It can also be a thinner sauce – more like our concept of sauce – but I suspect most of these kinds of sauces that contain nuts or fruit in Apicius and beyond were designed to be thick sticky and clinging so that guests could pick up the meat pre covered.
[8.1.4] in aprum assum iura feruentia facies sic: piper cuminum frictum apii semen mentam timum satureiam cneci flos, nucleos tostos uel amigdala tosta, mel uinum liquamen acetum, oleum modice.
8.1.4. You make hot sauce for roast boar like this: pepper, roasted cumin,
celery seed, mint, thyme, savory, safflower, roasted pine nuts or roasted almonds, honey, wine, liquamen, vinegar, a little oil
This is my adapted recipe from Cooking Apicius Prospect books. This is the modern kitchen version and assumes you will probably use a food processor. (You can find a supplier for a Roman mortaria here)
26 Toasted pine kernel sauce for roast boar or pork Apicius 8.1.4
100 g pine kernels
1 heaped tsp cumin seeds
1 level tsp celery seed
generous freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp dried mint or 2 tsp fresh mint
½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp dried or fresh savory ( or 1 tspn thyme if no savory)
a good pinch of saffron strands
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp fish sauce – Red boat (Buy Red boat here
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
60 ml white wine
Place the pine kernels in a dry frying pan and put on a medium heat. Toss and shake the pan regularly until they are an even light brown colour. Take care not to burn them as the taste will be bitter. Tip them out and cool them. In the same pan put the cumin and celery seed and roast them until they give off their flavour. Grind them in a mortar or coffee grinder with plenty of pepper. Put the herbs, saffron and the cooling pine kernels in the mortar and pound or process the mixture to a fine texture. Add the honey and the oil and pulse or grind again. Tip out into a small pan and add the vinegar and fish sauce. Blend smooth and bring to heat. Assess the consistency and add the wine to achieve the correct consistency. If you want to serve it separately add more wine and if you are going to use like I did it needs less wine to remain sticky and clinging. Taste. Adjust the seasoning if necessary: It should be neither not too sweet not too sour. Cook a piece of pork, chops are ideal or use wild boar meat and finish the meat in the sauce. Alternatively serve the sauce separately, hot with pieces of roasted meat with cocktail sticks or do as the Roman and dig in and get sticky.
Notes
The savoury is available dried but you can simply increase the amount of thyme as they tend to taste very similar. Safflower is a member of the daisy family is known as American saffron. It has little or no flavour but adds a colour and was often used as an alternative. Its not readily available and ironically in this age it can be replaced with saffron.
Hello Sally!
I’m excited about your new YouTube channel, which I found out about through the Apicus email group. I have a couple of your books as well, and really appreciate your doing this. You mention a link to where to purchase a Roman-style mortarium, but the link does not seem to be working. Can you please post where to purchase one?
Thank you so much for your help!
Thankyou for your interest
https://www.pottedhistory.co.uk/ Graham Taylor best replica potter around.
hope to post another video today
sally
Hello, and thank you so much for your videos and website, as well as for your book Cooking Apicius, which my husband bought for me recently. Today is Thanksgiving here in the States, and we decided to go with an ancient Roman feast for today! So far, things have mostly worked out well – the mulsum was delicious, the salad and oenogarum was a hit (well, not with the kids, ages 7 and 9, but getting them to eat salad is always a bit of a struggle!), the soft eggs with pine kernal sauce were amazing, and the panis quadratus turned out really nice as well. In a while, the pork roast will come out of the oven and we’ll have this pine kernal sauce with it, spring cabbage with cumin and cumin glazed carrots, and finish with the honey nut patina!
The one thing that didn’t go well was the asparagus patina. I thought the flavor was fine, but the custard split, and I wasn’t sure why…the store didn’t have the larger spears of asparagus, only the smaller ones, did they perhaps have more liquid? I was the only one willing to eat any of it, and even I recognized that it wasn’t as it was supposed to be. Hopefully the honey nut patina later will go better! If you have any tips for avoiding a split custard, I’d be grateful. Thank you again! 🙂
Hi
I am sorry to have missed your message and not replied until now. Thankyou for your comments. I am delighted that you had so much fun with the recipes.
I suspect your patina was a little over cooked It is difficult to get those light custards to just set rather than turn into scrambled egg! You might try a water bath as we do with a cream caramel. It is particularly difficult to make these on a charcoal fire as they did! I still have major problems with over cooking them..