Category: history

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Middle Eastern Pasta

Growing up and attending modern schools, I heard the story about how Marco Polo brought pasta to Europe from the Far East.  In fact, pasta was already established in southern Europe by the time Marco Polo began his journey along the Silk Road.

What I later learned was that products similar to pasta existed during the 1st century AD (the Etrusco Roman era). Made from durum wheat and water, “lagane” was very similar to modern lasagna. However, instead of being boiled, it was cooked in an oven along with chickpeas and spices.

 

Conquered cultures have often adopted languages, foods, sciences, and arts from invading cultures. The Arab invasions of the 8th century were no exception and impacted much of the culinary cuisines along the Mediterranean Sea and this includes what we now know as pasta.

Modern pasta is usually served with a sauce that is tomato-, vegetable-, seafood-, meat- or cream-based.  But that was not so in the early versions of pasta.  The Arab version of pasta contained cinnamon, clove, dried fruit like figs and raisins and it tasted both semi-sweet and semi-spicy.  As time went on, invaded cultures began changing this recipe to fit their own ideals and tastes.  The exotic spices were removed as people began adding their own items to the dish – vegetables, calamari (squid), fish, pork, and chicken.  Sauces were developed when cooking the aforementioned items in olive oil or butter, with wine and, once reduced (cooked-down), they were added to the pasta.

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Oxtail Soup Cooked Over an Open Fire

Final weekend approached us very quickly and we cooked up several dishes.  All unique and very tasty.  People were surprised at the variety of ingredients we used.  This recipe is the first of four recipes we did this past weekend.  I will post each recipe separately. 

 

Oxtail Soup

Oxtail dishes are found across cultures.  From Northern Europe, across the British Isles, Ottoman Empire, Mediterranean, Arabic, and Far Eastern cultures have all used oxtail in a variety of dishes.  Some dishes were primarily delicacies, but secondarily offered homeopathic cures to various ailments including back and hip pain.

 The Chinese added shredded cabbage mushrooms, and carrots, among other vegetables to provide a heart stew.  Arabic and Mediterranean cultures added tomatoes and chickpeas, while European cultures, including Italy even added wine or brandy to the dish during the post-Restoration period. 

Oxtails were once inexpensive, but with their increased use in many cuisines, the price of oxtails has become expensive.  Asian grocery stores offer oxtails at about a third of the cost of main stream grocery stores. 

Oxtail Soup, made at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival 10/02/11

This is a favorite among my male friends as oxtails, when cooked properly, can take on a prime rib flavor and texture.  This particular dish, was cooked over an open fire in a cast iron Dutch oven. 

Ingredients:
3 lbs of oxtails
1 lbs of beef shoulder soup bones.
2 lbs red potatoes, thinly sliced
3 parsnips, peeled and shredded
1 lbs of leeks, cut into rings
3 sprigs of rosemary
1/4 cup of butter or oil
2 lbs carrots, thinly sliced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small can of tomato paste (optional)
Kosher or sea salt
Black pepper

Begin preparing the dish by adding the beef shoulder bones in a large pot with enough water to cover the bones and add 1 tsp of sea or kosher salt.  Bring items to a boil for a half an hour.  Remove and dispose of the bones and reserve the broth. 

Heat oil or melt butter in a different soup pot.  Once heated, add the oxtails to brown and slowly add the leeks and garlic; continuing to cook. Once browned, add enough of the new broth to cover the cover the oxtails by an additional 3 inches, water may be added to increase the amount of liquid.  At this moment, one may add optional tomato paste.  Let cook for 1 hour and stir occasionally.  After an hour, remove the soup bones, but leave in the oxtails.  Begin adding the potatoes, carrots and rosemary.  Cook for an additional 20 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender.  

This dish is very rich and if one’s constitution prefers a less rich version, one may choose to put the soup in a cooler and remove the excess fat from the top before reheating.  Add additional salt and pepper to taste.  

Serves 6-8.

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Garam Masala and Traditional Curry Spice Mixes

Throughout the centuries, families along the Silk Road, would use the spices they had access to in order to create their own spice blends.  Each family could control the amount of heat or sweetness based on the different combinations of the spices.  Those that wanted heat, would have more peppers and those that wanted a sweeter blend, would have more cinnamon, etc.

Below are two recipes of two different spice blends popular among various cultures: Garam Masala and Curry.  The first set is Alice the Cook’s Recipes and the other is that of her assistant, Nicholas Childs, an accomplished cook in his own right. They are very easy to do and provide a different tast of those spice blends found pre-prepared in jars.  I hope you like them.

Alice’s Garam Masalaimg_2428-edit
1 tsp Cinnamon sticks, broken into smaller pieces
1 tsp Caradamom pods (green, black, or brown)
1 tsp Ginger, dried and cracked
1 tsp Coriander seeds
1 tsp Techillacherry black peppercorns
1 tsp Cumin seeds
1 tsp Dried chili peppers

Alice’s Curry
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
2 tsp coriander, ground
2 tsp garlic, minced
2 tsp ginger, dried and cracked (preferred) ground is also acceptable
2 tsp cumin seeds

Nicholas’ Curry
1/2 t chili powder
1 t black mustard seed
1 t tumeric
2 t ground cumin
2 t ground corriander
2 t minced garlic
2 t ground or grated ginger( fresh or not)
2 t ajwian/cumin/caraway

Nicholas’ Garam Masala:
cumin
coriander
black pepper
cardamom
chilies
cloves
cinnamon
nutmeg grated

Additional Equipment
Mortar and pestle
Spice grinder

Instructions for both
Heat up a cast iron skillet so that it is quite hot and add the spices in order to dry roast them together.  Once toasted, remove the spice mixture off of the heat and add them to the mortar and pestle to begin breaking the spices down for easier grinding.  Once broken down, you can continue grinding them in the mortar and pestle, or you may use a spice or coffee grinder to combine the spices into a finer blend.

Place the spice blend into an airtight jar, the spices will keep their flavor for six months.

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Early History of Beer

My Narrative
Beer has been around humanity for centuries.  Although made popular by the European cultures, recipes have been discovered in Middle Eastern, Asian, South American, and African cultures. I chose to focus on the early history of beer as it affect European cultures.  I find it fascinating how much the history of beer was intertwined with various faiths.  Recipes were often used as part of prayers, beer was sacrificed to the gods and left in the tombs of kings, and beer was produced often produced by monks in European and Asian countries.  This article could go on much longer, looking at the different cultures, beer’s religious effects on religion, and its importance to local economies.  I encourage you to research the history of beer from other cultures.

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Feast for a King (Renaissance Magazine – January 2011)

Unless readily available, spices we’ve grown accustomed to today were very expensive and hard to obtain during the Renaissance.  Salt was rarely used and the spices from the Silk Road  – cinnamon, clove, allspice, mace, and ginger, gradually migrated from the Silk Road, across the Arab nations, up the Mediterranean, and north throughout Europe.  France, one of the first cultures to embrace these new spices, would blend them with other, more familiar ingredients, and present the dishes to the royal family and visiting nobles.

 

Although this recipe was prepared originally for nobles, it can be recreated in one’s own kitchen.  This dish is ideal for an evening of wine, candlelight, and romance.  The brandy and apple sweetened duck meat, complements the baked apples and the carrots and can become even more decadent with toasted bread, truffle oil, and a dessert small enough to share.

 

Ingredients:

1 whole duck (4-5 lbs.)
3 tart apples (more apples may be used as well)
3 cups brandy
1.5 cups of apple cider
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp of fresh orange zest
1/8 tsp ground clove
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground cardamom seed
pinch of mace
3 tbsp butter
2 cups of young carrots (baby carrots may be used instead)
salt and pepper to taste

Begin the recipe by rinsing the inside of the duck with cold water and pat dry with a clean towel.  Blend the brandy and apple cider together in a bowl.  Take one apples and remove the core, and slice it into quarters.  Place those quarters into the cavity of the duck.  Invert the duck, so that the opening of the body cavity is on top, and place into a separate, deep bowl or freezer bag.  Pour the brandy/cider mixture into the body cavity.  The liquid should overfill the duck and the remaining liquid should remain in the bowl, and set aside to chill for one hour.

Pre-heat over to 400 degrees.

Take a pot large enough to all the duck to lay flat.  Melt butter in the pot; add the carrots, and sauté lightly.  While sautéing, mix the clove, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom seed, orange zest, and mace together.  Once the carrots are covered in the butter, lay t

hem flat in the pot.   Drain the brandy/cider mixture from the duck and reserve. Place the duck on top of the carrots and score the skin of the duck so that the fat may run into the pot.  Pour the reserved brandy/cider mixture over the duck.

Sprinkle the spice mixture on top of the duck and cover.  Bake for 1 hour.  Remove half to two-thirds of the juices

from the pot to let simmer to a reduction in a separate pot.  Core the other two or more apples and add to the pot.  Uncover the duck and bake for an additional half an hour until juices of the duck run pink.  Remove the duck, baked apples, and carrots from the pan and let it sit for 10 minutes before carving the duck.  Sprinkle some salt and pepper to taste and serve with the sauce reduction as a garnish.    Serves 4

The recipe requires some time to set up, but it is easy to prepare.  While cooking, one can set the table and get ready for an evening of flirtatious conversation and romance.