Getting Medieval on the World's Tastes

The format of medieval cuisine has waned over the centuries but if you squint hard enough, you can still see its antecedents reflected in modern food.

Medieval cuisine — at least in the European sense — was characterized by its use of exotic spices and ingredients. Meat was expensive with game being even more so. There's heavy use of black pepper, saffron, cardamom and ginger and a reliance on a sweet-sour taste. Nuts make their way into most dishes either in the native form or as a thickener – almond milk is practically a cliché.

Most cooking was hard not just from the point of the expense of ingredients and firewood but labor as well. There were no modern conveniences. Everything was done by hand. When we talk about "medieval cuisine", we end up inevitably talking about the nobility because that's what's documented and they're the only ones who could afford to do so.

The modern conception finds some of these dishes to be strange. Meat cooked in sugar syrup or honey is relatively alien to the modern palate – even though it tastes terrific. Our tongues are still the same but our trained response seems to be a little off-center. (You can still see it in dishes like pork chops with apple sauce except the sauce is now served separately.)

Even the format of the meal is a little strange. The stomach needed to be "opened" with an apéritif (literally from Latin: aperire - "to open"), then followed by vegetables, then "heavy meats", then "closed" with aged cheese and a digestif.

If you recognize the above as the slightly modified format of a classic French meal then you will understand the medieval roots of modern eating. (The placement of the salad has been moved around a few times by the French and Italians – and the Americans – but that's fodder for another post.)

Medieval cuisine in its traditional sense but with New World enhancements is most clearly seen today in Persian and Indian cooking. Indian is not that surprising because most spices originally came from India and classical Indian cooking borrows heavily from the Persian format so they are joined at the hip. In fact, most cooking styles borrow heavily from the Persian format given that they were the original Empire spread over vast swathes of modern-day Asia, Africa and Europe. You can see the same formats spread with the medieval Arabic Empire over Northern Africa into Spain and all the way to Sicily.

The point is that these cooking styles have still maintained their "medieval nature" — there's heavy use of spices, saffron, black pepper, ginger, nuts, and a marked preference for sweet-sour tastes.

A slight detour must be made at this point about why spices lost their use in Europe as opposed to modern-day Iran and India where they are still as popular as they were a millenia ago.

Most spices were imported from India to imperial Europe. The spices were a province of the nobility and both Constantinople and Venice were founded on the basis of taxation of the spice trade. In modern economic terms, the middlemen made the spices expensive. This was the whole basis of trying to find a new sea route to India – disintermediation – a way to bypass the taxation. Once these routes were found, and the New World accidentally discovered, the price of spices went down precipitously because of the lack of taxation and the fact that alternatives were found to grow spices in the newly discovered Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti and Dominican Republic), various islands in Indonesia, etc.

After that we come to a cliché of human nature. Anything that the hoi-polloi discovers is anathema to the upper-classes just like the old money on Fifth Ave. would disdain the Brooklyn hipsters. And so, spices fell out of favor with the upper-classes in Europe in favor of a "purer cleaner taste" — reverse snobbery at its very finest.

The critical point is that these ideas never did fall out of favor in the places where the spices were grown where the distinction between "expensive" v/s "cheap" simply didn't exist. Spices were always cheap across the growing areas and the swathe populated by traders traversing routes that were not subject to taxation. Places like Sicily are more like the lands that "time forgot" — they had no strategic value and they kept the formats even though their neighbors did not.

This is what explains meats cooked in cashewnut milk with heavy spices in classical Awadhi cuisine even though the cashews are New World – they would've been almonds originally — or the love of almond granita in Sicily. Sicilian dishes like sardines cooked in a sweet-sour sauce or the very Persian "Jeweled Rice" (javaher polow) are all modern-day embodiments of medieval cooking.

The past bleeds into the present — and in a very aggressive format. It's just hard to see until you squint just right.

Fowl Technical Tricks

One of the ways in which great chefs distinguish themselves from routine ones is a whole array of technical tricks that make all the difference in the world.

Here's one that works wonders. It will give the chicken a depth of flavor even if you use it in a context where the crispiness of the skin is not important.

The magical step is to first pan-sear the chicken in duck fat. Of course, Maestro Maillard^† is doing his magic. The chicken is then lifted out, blotted, and the fat is discarded.

There is an additional advantage here. You need to wash the chicken and dry it before you pan-fry it but you don't need to cut off the fat. The fat will get rendered and "disappear" and you won't need to deal with it. Laziness raised to pure perfection in the arms of technique!

You can then proceed to make the chicken in whatever fashion you like. Even in a conventional stew or soup, the difference is striking. The CC has had friends ask if the dish was cooked in "tons of butter"? Not even close.

The dish below is a classic Moroccan dish. It's the "little black dress" of Moroccan cooking. You need to have it in your repertoire. It's a total crowd-pleaser and one for the ages.

If you don't have a tagine use a solid pot that you can seal with foil. The seal is necessary.

Why is something so simple so magical?

Three reasons.

Firstly, the Maillard reaction with the chicken plus the miniscule remnants of the duck fat on the surface cells which make their way into the sauce. Secondly, the depth of flavor by a long slow braise where the chicken effectively cooks in its own juices. Lastly, the intense burst of both flavor and umami from the preserved lemons which add a  delectable citrus note as a baseline flavor. The fresh herbs add their own contribution as well.

Is this technique "traditional" (whatever the hell that word means)?

The answer is borderline. Traditionally, the meat is not seared in the classical Moroccan tradition but the CC is willing to bet a substantial amount of money that this is the way that true geniuses make the dish even while avowing the technique. Ultimately, it's the end that matters and the end is scrumptious!

Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons & Green Olives

(serves 4)

Ingredients

4 chicken thighs
1 large onion (grated)

2 preserved lemons
2 cups green olives (pitted)
1/2 cup parsley (finely chopped)
1/2 cup cilantro (finely chopped)

1 tbsp. coriander seeds
1 1/2 tbsp. cumin seeds
1 tbsp. whole black pepper
1/2 tbsp. dried ginger
1/2 tbsp. sweet paprika

large pinch of saffron

2 cups chicken broth

salt
3 tbsp. duck fat

Recipe

Dry roast the coriander, cumin and black pepper in a skillet and grind them finely in a coffee grinder. Combine with the dried ginger, sweet paprika and saffron and set aside.

Prepare the preserved lemons. Discard the innards retaining only the skin. It will peel off easily. Chop in to strips about 1" long. This means first chop them length-wise into thin strips and then halve them. Set aside.

For the olives, there are two schools of thought. Those that prefer them left whole and those that halve them length-wise. The CC is mystified why the world would be so divided (pun intended!) since it makes so little difference to the end result but as the Japanese might say, 十人十色 ("ten people, ten colors" = "different strokes for different folks").

In a flat pan, heat up the duck fat and fry the chicken thighs until they are lightly browned on both sides. Roughly 10 minutes. Lift out and set aside. Discard the fat.

Meanwhile grate the onion with a box grater. Set aside.

Assemble the tagine.

Combine the grated onions, salt, broth, and the spices and put them in the tagine. Add the chicken. Cover it and let it cook at the lowest possible heat for 35 minutes. (The chicken should be very tender at this point.)

Add the preserved lemons, olives, the two greens and combine.

You can let it sit at this point and reheat gently in the tagine when your guests arrive.

Serve over couscous. (Recipe below.)

Couscous with Chickpeas, Raisins & Scallions

(serves 4 generously)

Ingredients

2 cups couscous

1/2 cup chickpeas
1 cup raisins
2 scallions

2 tbsp. cultured butter
2 1/2 cups water

salt

Recipe

The CC is perfectly aware of the fact that, theoretically speaking, couscous should be steamed but you can't get that kind of couscous even in New York so you live with the brute reality that you have on the ground.

Cook the chickpeas ahead of time. They need to be al dente.

Add all the ingredients to a pot except the couscous and bring to a boil. Add the couscous and turn the heat off. Wait 5 minutes. Fluff it to get perfectly cooked couscous.

---

† The Mallard is a wild duck which makes the pun with Maillard all too irresistible.

Lamb Tagine with Apricots, Dates & Almonds (Mrouzia)

Let's face it, chez CC, we are crazy but not insane. There is a massive difference. We recognize the limits of our ambition.

This dish is a classic of Moroccan cooking and it is great in winter. It needs to be made in a tagine ideally. The lamb is organic, the almonds were peeled by hand, the dates are authentic. The pita, however, at the right comes from Astoria. As we said, we're crazy but not insane. We can't do everything.

This is a rich winter dish. It takes time, effort and excellence of ingredients. Ironically, it's not hard. You throw everything into the tagine and then the dish makes itself while you enjoy a soothing drink.

It's medieval-ness should be obvious. The combination of meat and nuts, sweet and savory in the same dish gives it away on the first reading.

Ingredients

1 lb lamb (cut into chunks)
1 large carrot (cut into large chunks)

1 onion (diced fine)
2 cloves garlic (minced)

1/3 tsp. dried ginger
1 stick cinnamon
2 tbsp. ras el hanout

1/3 cup blanched almonds
1/3 cup dates (pitted and quartered)
1/3 cup dried apricots

6 cups water

butter

pinch of saffron
salt
pepper

Recipe

In a tagine, heat up some butter and fry the onions and garlic. Add the lamb but fry it just for a minute. Add everything except the saffron and let cook at a low heat until tender (roughly 40 minutes.)

Add the saffron. Stir and serve.

Ras-el-Hanout

The name translates to "top-of-the-house" meaning the best spice blend that the spice house has to sell.

Each Moroccan spice house tries to outdo the other in the exoticism of their ingredients. This is just good advertising and product differentiation at play.

Given below is the CC's version which is adapted from Paula Wolfert and Mourad Lahlou.

It's also correctly "scaled-down" as explained here because most books give industrial-sized versions which rather than goad the CC into pawing his way to the kitchen make him contemplate on the elegance of takeout.

Ingredients

1 nutmeg
2 blades of mace
1 cinnamon stick (or cassia)
6 cloves
12 peppercorns
1 dried red pepper
1 small piece dried galangal
6 green cardamoms
1 black cardamom

1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp lavender
1/2 tsp grains of paradise
1/4 tsp cumin
1 tsp dried ginger powder
1/2 tsp aniseed (or fennel)

10 dried rose buds
large pinch of saffron

The Thermodynamics of Tagines

Tagines work like closed nuclear cooling towers. The purpose of the hyperboloid cover is to cool the evaporating liquid and recycle it back slowly into the cooking pot thus allowing it to cook at a low temperature in the barest of liquid.

This also has the advantage of having the meat, vegetables or fish cook in their own broth. The broth is extracted from the underlying ingredients, turned into steam which condenses and drops back down. You get an intensely brothy liquid since the entire system is "sealed" for all practical purposes.

The heat supply from the flame is kept intentionally low. This is basically a very efficient braise with the heat coming from below rather than all around. It's very heat efficient compared to a traditional braise since you are not wasting time heating an oven where air is actually a very poor conductor of heat. Important for a culture where fuel was traditionally a very large expense.

Ancient science figured out empirically but actually quite amazing!

A Medieval Evening

The CC is making a lamb tagine with apricots, dates and almonds.

He just made his own ras el hanout and the house smells like a garden.

Pictures and recipes to follow.

Making Babies

Making preserved lemons is like having a baby.

You have to periodically burp them.

Awwwwww, so cute.

Moroccan Preserved Lemons

As crazy as it sounds, the current depths of winter are the "season" for citrus.

Surprised?

Locavore tendencies be damned, most of the citrus fruits come from areas where the produce season is currently peaking, and hence, the markets are just overflowing with citrus fruits.

Time then in the snowiest winter recorded to go a slipping and a sliding, and put the overflowing bounty of Meyer lemons to good use. Sadly to say, it's "use it or lose it" since you can't easily find them here in the rest of the year.

The CC bought six pounds and turned them into preserved lemons.

If you've never eaten a preserved lemon, you have missed out on one of the great joys of life. It's ancient "culinary technology" at its very best — making lemonade out of lemons, metaphorically speaking.

A preserved lemon is more about the rind of the lemon than the juice. The preserving process both intensifies the lemon-ness of the lemon, infuses it with a complex spice mixture, and brings out an intense umami from the pickling process. The final product is silky and sensual, an ethereal counterpoint to the vegetable, chicken, lamb or fish dishes that it generally accompanies.

The important word here is "generally". Good luck waiting to cook the dishes. The CC has seen hordes demolish the product straight out of the bottle like crack-candy! Add the pickling juice to a "bloody mary" and you'll thank the CC for the rest of your life.

Naturally, there's a catch. That's called pickling. It takes about a month to make after which it will pretty much last forever. Experienced picklers don't even empty the jar. They just keep adding more lemons, lemon juice and salt to the jar, and the stuff will just keep on truckin'.

If you've never pickled before, let's start with the basics. Pickling involves storing food for an extended period of time. There are only two broad ways of pickling — pickling in an acidic medium, and pickling in oil (which is a lot harder.)

The simple story is that if the medium is acidic enough, no fungus or bacteria can grow in it (except for the highly beneficial and omnipresent lactobacillus.)

Pickling requires only one real skill. That's called obsessively washing everything in hot water. The actual recipe is a detail to the act of cleaning that goes on before and after. The reason most pickles are acidic is that you don't need to be as careful as when you do it in oil however pickling remains a key testament to actually understanding the science of food. (Yes, your grandmother did it seamlessly but you are not your grandmother so ...)

Preserved lemons are very easy to make. All you need is a mason jar, lots of lemons, some spices and tons of salt. The overwhelming acidity of the medium makes this a particularly easy "preserve" to make for beginners. There is only one important thing to note. No part of the lemons must "stick out" above the water line. You must press them down and/or squeeze them until all components are submerged below the acidic water line.

The other important note is not to skimp on the salt. More is fine (can be washed later, and the recipe adjusted) but less would be disastrous.

Before the CC provides a recipe, he will just note a caveat. This all depends on the size of your jars, etc. so the recipe below is necessarily approximate, and in any case the most important detail has been stated above — submerge the lemons in the lemon juice completely.

Ingredients

24 Meyer lemons
6 tbsp salt
1 stick cinnamon
1 tbsp cloves
2 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp peppercorns
2 bay leaves

Recipe

Reserve about 6-8 lemons for the pickling process. Juice the rest, and strain the juice through a sieve.

Quarter the reserved lemons till about near the bottom but make sure you don't cut all the way through. Squeeze them a little for the juice (they will not float if you do this,) and salt them liberally on the inside. Set aside.

Wash the jar with extremely hot water. Pour boiling water into it until just before starting the pickling process.

Pour out all the hot water.

Layer the salt to about 1/2" at the bottom. Add all the spices, and the reserved lemons. Pour the lemon juice all over mixture. Make sure everything is submerged. If not, press down until it is. (You are really squeezing the lemons to bring their density below that of the lemon juice.)

Store for 30-40 days in a cool dark place.