Roasted chicken with powder forte, Medieval Salad, and Barley frumenty

My mom was coming over today for lunch and I was in a medieval mood so I figured I would cook up some frumenty with roasted meat, I let my wife pick the grain and got some chicken legs because I am a cheapskate, and just happened to have enough of the ingredients in the fridge to throw together a salad from the Forme of Cury (the 14^th C English cookbook I have been studying of late). It turned out great, a nice combo of flavors and textures and the salad was spot on!

I'll post the original recipe for the salad too (from Godecookery.com), I didn't have all the ingredients though I know it would be delicious. I just used what I had and sort of view the original as a general guideline for the spirit of English green salads in the 14^th C.

Makes 3 lunches

Chicken with powder forte

Ingredients

6 med chicken legs

1 TBS mashed garlic

1 TBS white vinegar

1 TBS oil

salt to taste

1 tsp powder forte (Mine was ginger, black pepper, cinnamon and cloves)

Method

Preheat oven to 400

Mix all the ingredients except the chicken into a paste

Cut diagonal slits into the thick part of the chicken legs

Rub marinade paste all over the chicken legs and into the slits

Roast until golden brown and very tender (around an hour for mine).

Eat it!

Barley porridge

Ingredients

1 C pearl barley

4 C almond milk

1 TBS butter

1 TBS sugar

Salt to taste

Cinnamon to garnish (Optional)

Method

Rinse your barley well

Put in a pot with remaining ingredients and bring to a boil

Reduce heat to simmer for 1 hour, or until it's the consistency you like, stirring occasionally.

Garnish very lightly with cinnamon, or not

( I poured in my chicken drippings!!)

Eat it!

Medieval Salad

Ingredients

½ head of romaine cut into 1 inch squares

1/3 head iceberg lettuce in 1 inch squares

½ bunch green onions thinly slices

2 TBS finely chopped mint

2 TBS finely chopped parsley

¼ C vinegar of your choice (I used white)

2 TBS oil

salt to taste

½ tsp crushed dried rue (optional)

2 TBS sugar

1 clove mashed garlic

Method

Mix oil, vinegar, salt, rue, sugar and garlic. Whisk well and let sit.

Mix all other ingredients

Toss with dressing before serving.

Eat!

Original Recipe:

78. Salat. Take persel, sawge, grene garlec, chibolles, letys, leek, spinoches, borage, myntes, prymos, violettes, porrettes, fenel, and toun cressis, rew, rosemarye, purslarye; laue and waishe hem clene. Pike hem. Pluk hem small wiþ þyn honde, and myng hem wel with rawe oile; lay on vyneger and salt, and serue it forth.

- Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). London: For the Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

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GODE COOKERY TRANSLATION:

 Salad. Take parsley, sage, green garlic, scallions, lettuce, leek, spinach, borage, mints, primroses, violets, "porrettes" (green onions, scallions, & young leeks), fennel, and garden cress, rue, rosemary, purslane; rinse and wash them clean. Peel them. (Remove stems, etc.) Tear them into small pieces with your hands, and mix them well with raw oil; lay on vinegar and salt, and serve.