To make Mustard divers ways, The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

To make Mustard divers ways.

Have good seed, pick it, and wash it in cold water, drain it, and rub it dry in a cloth very clean; then beat it in a mortar with strong wine-vinegar; and being fine beaten, strain it and keep it close covered. Or grind it in a mustard quern, or a bowl with a cannon bullet.

Otherways.

Make it with grape-verjuyce, common-verjuyce, stale beer, ale, butter, milk, white-wine, claret, or juyce of cherries.

Mustard of Dijon, or French Mustard.

The seed being cleansed, stamp it in a mortar, with vinegar and honey, then take eight ounces of seed, two ounces of cinamon, two of honey, and vinegar as much as will serve, good mustard not too thick, and keep it close covered in little oyster-barrels.

Mustard of Dijon, or French Mustard

The seed being cleansed, stamp it in a mortar, with vinegar and honey, then take eight ounces of seed, two ounces of cinamon, two of honey, and vinegar as much as will serve, good mustard not too thick, and keep it close covered in little oyster-barrels.

To make dry Mustard very pleasant in little Loaves or Cakes to carry in ones Pocket, or to keep dry for use at any time.

Take two ounces of seamy, half an ounce of cinamon, and beat them in a mortar very fine with a little vinegar, and honey, make a perfect paste of it, and make it into little cakes or loaves, dry them in the sun or in an oven, and when you would use them, dissolve half a loaf or cake with some vinegar, wine, or verjuyce.

Interpreted Recipe

Mustard of Dijon, or French Mustard
Makes approximately 3 cups

1 Cup Mustard Seeds
1 ½ Cups Mustard Powder
¼ cup cinnamon
¼ cup honey
½ cup vinegar
1 ½ cups water



Grind the whole mustard seeds for a few seconds in a spice or coffee grinder, or by hand with a mortar and pestle just enough to crack. Pour the seeds, mustard powder, honey and cinnamon into a bowl and then add COLD vinegar and water. Wait at least 12 hours before using. Seeds can be a mix of brown, black or white. Black offers the most “heat”.

Note: I purchased prepared whole grain mustard and stone ground mustard mix in lieu of making the mustard. To these I added the cinnamon and honey. This dish was prepared almost a month in advance of the feast.

To Pickle Grapes The whole Body of Cookery Dissected, William Rabisha

 

To Pickle Grapes

Let not your grapes be fully ripe; their pickle is white wine and sugar

Interpreted Recipe  

Pickled Grapes

2 pounds seedless grapes
1 1/2  cups water
2 cups white wine
½ tsp salt
1 cup sugar (or to taste)

Make syrup by combining sugar and water together and simmering until dissolved. Let cool.

Wash and dry the grapes, cutting into small bundles of grapes and removing bad grapes. Place grapes into sterilized jars filling them about ¾ full.

Add wine to syrup and fill each jar with liquid. Additional spices can be added at this point. Leave to steep, shaking jars once or twice a week.

Similar Recipe From Accomplish't Cook

To pickle Capers, Gooseberries, Barberries, red and white Currans. Pick them and put them in the juyce of crab-cherries, grape-verjuyce, or other verjuyce, and then barel them up.

Interpreted Recipe

2 pounds seedless grapes

2 cups verjuice (or apple cider vinegar)

1/2 cup water

*opt for modern taste  up to 2 cups sugar  

Wash grapes, and cut into small bunches. Combine verjuice, water and sugar and bring to a boil, put grapes into a clean and sterilized jar and pour the hot verjuice over them. Let sit until cool.  Allow to marinate at least 24 hours, but longer is better. 

To Souce and Garnish a Pig (Brawn with Mustard) The Accomplisht Cook, Robert May

To souce a Pig.

Take a pig being scalded, cut off the head, and part it down the back, draw it and bone it, then the sides being well cleansed from the blood, and soaked in several clean waters, take the pig and dry the sides, season them with nutmeg, ginger, and salt, roul them and bind them up in clean clouts as the pig brawn aforesaid, then have as much water as will cover it in a boiling pan two inches over and two bottles of white-wine over and above; first let the water boil, then put in the collars with salt, mace, slic’t ginger, parsley-roots and fennil-roots scraped and picked; being half boiled put in two quarts of white-wine, and when it is boil’d quite, put in slices of lemon to it, and the whole peel of a lemon.

To garnish Brawn or Pig Brawn.

Leach your brawn, and dish it on a plate in a fair clean dish, then put a rosemary branch on the top being first dipped in the white of an egg well beaten to froth, or wet in water and sprinkled with flour, or a sprig of rosemary gilt with gold; the brawn spotted also with gold and silver leaves, or let your sprig be of a streight sprig of yew tree, or a streight furz bush, and put about the brawn stuck round with bay-leaves three ranks round, and spotted with red and yellow jelly about the dish sides, also the same jelly and some of the brawn leached, jagged, or cut with tin moulds, and carved lemons, oranges and barberries, bay-leaves gilt, red beets, pickled barberries, pickled gooseberries, or pickled grapes.

Interpreted Recipe

Brawn With Mustard

1 ½ to 2 pounds pork (loin, or shoulder)
2 cups dry white wine
2 ½ cups water or broth
1 small piece ginger chopped
2 tsp. nutmeg
1 ½ tsp. salt
*opt. 1 parsley root (sub parsnips) and 1 fennel root (sup 1 tsp. fennel) and 1 whole lemon cut in slices

Brine Mixture: 1 Tbsp. Salt to 1 cup of water

Remove extra fat from the meat, season with nutmeg, ginger and salt, and roll tightly and tie.  Make a brine of salt and water, and allow to sit in brine several hours, but overnight or longer is preferred. 

Bring additional water and wine to a boil, rinse your meat and then add it to the boiling water along with the parsley root (or parsnips), fennel root (or fennel seed),  lemon and additional seasonings you prefer.  Make sure that your meat is completely covered by cooking liquid, turn heat to medium low and cook until tender adding water, broth or wine as necessary. 

To serve, slice thinly and garnish with red and yellow wine jellies, jagged lemons or oranges, red beets, pickled grapes, fresh grapes, bay leaves, etc. 

Note: I have made this using pork butt, and pork shoulder roast. Ideally, it would be made using the loin or belly which make up the "sides" of the pig.  

This is a very "fluid" recipe.  Another cook I know, cooks the meat ahead of time and then stores it in the brine, as opposed to brining first and then storing.  I prefer to make ahead and store in the cooking liquid after brining as opposed to cooking first and brining second. 

 

Baronial 12th Night - To Make Muscadines, Commonly called Kissing Comfits

To Make Muscadines, Commonly called Kissing Comfits, Delightfull daily exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen, 1621 - Take halfe a pound of double refined Sugar beaten and cearsed [sieved], put into the beating thereof, two graines of Muske, 3 grains of ambergreese, & a dram of orris powder: beat all these together with gum Dragogon steeped in damaske-rose-water, in an aliblaster [marble] mortar to a perfect paste, then slicke a sheete of white paper, slicked with a slick-stone very smooth, and rowle your sugar pate upon it, then cut it like lozenges with a rowel, & so dry them upon a stone, and when they bee dry they will serve to garnish a marchpaine, or other dishes, tarts, custards, or whatsoever else, if you will have any red you must mingle it with Rosa Paris, if blew, with blew bottles growing in the corne.

Kissing Comfits

3 tablespoons rose water
1 teaspoon gum arabic powder
3 eyedropper drops essence of ambergris
2 eyedropper drops essence of musk
4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon powered orris root
2 drops yellow food color (optional)
2 drops blue food color (optional)

Pour rose water into a saucer, add gum arabic and stir until the gum is dissolved. Add the ambergris and musk, set aside until needed. Sift two cups of the sugar and the orris root into a bowl, Add the gum arabic mixture, a tablespoonful at a time and work into the sugar until the paste is smooth.

For white pastilles, sprinkle the third cup of sugar on a large plate and, with your fingers, work the paste into the sugar until it is smooth. For colored pastilles, divide the white paste into two equal parts, add a drop of food color to each part. Blend in each of the colors and set one aside covered (they dry out very quickly) while you work with the other.

Sprinkle half the remanning sugar on a clean plate and work in until smooth. Pat the paste into a square and cover it with a piece of wax paper. Roll it out gently to a sheet about 3/8 inch thick. Mark and cut off small squares, triangles and rectangles with a knife. Sprinkle a cookie sheet with the remanning sugar and place the pastilles on it about an inch apart.

When the pastilles have hardened, loosen them gently with a spatula (they break easily) and store them in an airtight container. You should be able to get about four dozen pastilles from this recipe. They will keep for six to eight weeks.-- "Dining with William Shakespeare" by Madge Lorwin