The Challenge: Eat You Veggies! Make a vegetable-based, -themed, or -shaped dish.
The Recipe: Stewed Vegetable Marrow in Dutch Sauce from The Cook's Oracle: Containing Receipts for Plain Cookery by William Kitchiner
The Date/Year and Region: Edinburgh, 1836 (1st edition 1822 or before)
How Did You Make It: I pared one marrow (over 1 3/4 lb, exact mass unknown), cutting it into 1 inch slices, then quartering those and removing the seeds and rind. Placed in a sauce pan, covered with water, and added 2 tbsp of butter, 1 tbsp of salt, and 1 tbsp of lemon juice (having no lemons on hand). I heated this over the hottest part of the fire until the marrow pieces were tender.
Meanwhile, I chopped up two generous handfuls of parsley, and put them on the stove (further from the fire) with 3/4 cup butter, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar, and 1 tbsp whole allspice. The recipe is vague on amounts, but mentions that the parsley and butter together comprise their own sauce (my frantic notes missed the part about boiling the minced parlsey in water with salt before adding it to the butter; I did note the flour for thickening it, but completely forgot to do so while actually making it).
Time to Complete: Unsure (in historic kitchen without a clock), but it seemed to go pretty quickly. Just stewed the marrow until soft, and the sauce cooked at the same time.
Total Cost: All ingredients on hand. I picked this because there's a ton of marrow in the root cellar, and parsley in the garden.
How Successful Was It?: Well-received by my colleagues (seconds were had!). The marrow mostly tasted like butter to me, but the parsley seemed to have taken up the tart vinegar-lemon flavors, and nicely flavored the whole thing. It's not the most interesting dish I've cooked, but it tasted nice, and will make a useful vegetarian side dish for period dinners (as well as a pleasant way to use all that marrow).
How Accurate Is It?: Mostly. I made mistakes with the parsley and flour (as noted), but the only tweaks I'd like to make (using crushed allspice, maybe adding more of it and a little more salt) don't conflict with the recorded instructions.
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| Vegetable marrow. And some apples not appearing in this dish. |
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| Cutting, peeling, and coring. I tried cooking a few whole circles, and the marrows made their opinion known. |
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| On the stove. Bessy cooperated today! |
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| Served. Thicker sauce could have been nice, so next time I'll try to remember the flour. |
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