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timetraveltasting · 15 days

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SWEET MEASURE (c. 1390)

Having recently gone down the rabbit hole of historical dishes thanks to Max Miller and his Youtube historical cooking show, Tasting History, I decided to begin trying to make some of these dishes, especially the ones that look tasty. The first dish from Tasting History I decided to make was Sweet Measure, a medieval dish from the court of Richard II of England, c. 1390. See Max's video on how to make it here or see the ingredients and process at the end of this post, sourced from the Youtube description of the video.

My experience making it:

I made a couple changes from the recipe below: notably, I used chicken instead of capon, I omitted the hyssop (it was hard to find where I live in Germany), and I added some steamed broccoli to flesh out the dish and add some veggies.

The process of making it was quite easy, and not confusing at all. Nevertheless, I somehow forgot to add the pine nuts (even though I had some!), although I think they may have sunk to the bottom anyway in such a light sauce.

My experience tasting it:

While I was hoping this could be a nice savory dinner, Max did warn that it was a little on the sweet side. He was definitely correct. The honey was the star of the sauce (if it could be called a sauce; it was very, very thin). The chicken was very tender and did go well with the sauce, but the broccoli absorbed the sauce even better. My favourite part of the dish was that you could taste the herbs well in the sauce, and the herbs paired well with the chicken and broccoli. While my husband and I ate the whole dish, leaving no leftovers, it was just okay overall, and we will likely not rush to make it again. Still, it was a very interesting first foray into historical cooking, and I was quite happy it turned out as intended. Let me know if you end up making it, if you liked it, and if you changed anything from the original recipe!

Links to harder-to-find ingredients:

King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour

Hyssop

Savory

Saffron

Sweet Measure original recipe (c. 1390)

Sourced from The Forme of Cury

Douce Ame Take gode cowe mylke and do it in a pot. Take parsel, sawge, ysope, savray and oother gode herbes. Hewe hem, and do hem in the mylke and seeth hem. Take capons half yrosted and smyte hem on pecys and do thereto pynes and hony clarified. Salt it and color it with safron and serve it forth.

Modern Recipe

Based on the adaptation from Lorna J. Sass in To The King's Taste and Max Miller's version in his Tasting History video.

Ingredients:

3-4 lbs capon (or chicken) cut into serving size pieces

1/2 Cup flour mixed with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp fresh ground pepper

3 tbsp oil

3 cups milk

1/3 cup honey

3 tbsp minced fresh parsley

2 leaves fresh sage, minced

1 tsp hyssop

1/2 tsp savory

1/4-1/2 tsp saffron

1/3 cup pine nuts

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F/175°C.

Dredge fowl in flour mixture.

Brown the fowl in oil in a large saucepan until golden on both sides.

Combine milk, honey, herbs, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

Layer fowl in an oven-safe dish and pour liquid over browned fowl, stirring to combine drippings with the sauce.

Cover and simmer in oven for about 20 minutes or until fowl is tender.

Remove from oven and stir in pine nuts.

Serve it forth.

#tasting history #cooking #medieval meals #richard ii of england #max miller #chicken #casserole #richard ii #sweet measure #tasting history with max miller #royal meals

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