HFF 5.21: Dinner is Served

Having caught up on the cooking, now on to the writing...

 

The Challenge: Dinner is Served. Prepare a dish for dinner or another evening refreshment.

The Recipe: To Make a Hodgepodge from A book of Cookrye

Boyle a neck of Mutton or a fat rump of Beef, and when it is well boyled, take the best of the broth and put it into a pipkin and put a good many onyons to it, two handfull of marigold flowers, and a handful of percely fine picked and groce shredde and not too small, and so boyle them in the broth and thicke it with strained bread, putting therin groce beaten pepper, and a spoonfull of Vinagre, and let it boyle somwhat thick and so lay it upon your meat.

The Date/Year and Region: 1591, London

How Did You Make It: I opted to use lamp shins, as the closest option available to mutton neck (it was that or lamp chops in the ovine meat department). At the advice of my cooking mentor, prior to boiling, I browned the meat slightly over the fire (meat + butter in cauldron), and then added the water, and with it a handful of herbs from the garden (parsley and fennel) and a dash of salt. I covered the pot, and let it boil while I prepared the rysshewes and assembled my next steps.

Somewhat over an hour later, when the meat was very tender and starting to fall off the bone, I removed the pot from the fire, and laddled out ~3-4 cups of it into the ceramic pipkin. To this I added ~5 small onions (chopped, stored over the winter from last year's garden), a modest handful of fresh parsley (also chopped small), two very small handfuls of dried marigold (chopped small, also from last year's garden), a sprinkling of ground black pepper. [I forgot the vinegar.] I set this on the coals and let it simmer, though I did not keep track of how long. By time everything else was cooked, the sauce looked fairly sauce-like. I then added a final dash of salt [mistake] before serving.

Total Time: ~3 hours, with other tasks in between

Total Cost: About $10 for the meat, other ingredients were either home-grown or pantry staples 

How Successful Was It?: Except for the excess salt (I forgot when I went to add the last bit that I had salted the broth, and it was really just a bit much all together), I thought it was fairly tasty. We served it with fresh-baked bread (out of the Dutch oven), the rysshewes, and various modern sides (including pickles, fruit out of season, and potato chips). The bread was very useful for sopping up the sauce, which I think I could have gotten a bit thicker.

I like this one fairly well, and could see myself using it in the future if I need to prepare mutton or beef over an open fire.

How Accurate Is It? I'm not sure how to judge the accuracy since I added extra steps (browning the meat, seasoning the broth), BUT as far as I know there's some debate about how literal the instructions are meant to be. Specifically, that cookbooks of this period are meant to inspire/remind experienced cooks, who are to use their background knowledge--like browning meat before boiling for extra flavor. I do know that the amount of salt I put in was excessive and inappropriate for the period.  

 

Hodgepodge: boiled mutton and onion/parsley/marigold sauce.