Cordials, Walnuts, Syrups, Pastes and Mustard

I have been learning to work with green walnuts. I threw a note out there on the kingdom list and a few weeks later, Mistress Juana answered it with some suggestions. It reminded me on just the right day to look for green walnuts. They were on my two trees and they were about the size of a ping pong ball. I did some research on green walnuts and it started with http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/20/WIG346O0371.DTL

The article is a modern food article, but I could not help feeling that there was something medieval about it. I am still looking for information stating that any of the three recipes is medieval. Orahovac may be, as that is an area in Croatia that means 'walnut'. So far, nothing though.

I made the Orahovac and Noccino just the way they are in the article. I have the Vin de Noix waiting. 40 days! Anyhow, if anyone has information on these being known in period, please drop me a line.

What I did find that was period was a mention of pickled walnuts and green walnut paste in Perry's translation of An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th century.

Green Walnut Paste

Take a ratl of green walnuts and pierce them well with an iron skewer, then steep them in water for three days; take them out of the water and for each ratl take three of honey, cleaned of its foam, after cooking the nuts a little. Take them from the water and return them to the honey, and cook them until they take the form of a paste. Season with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger, three quarters of an ûqiya for each ratl, and eat it after meals. Its benefits: it excites the appetite and digests foods, heats the kidneys, and increases urine. http://daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian10.htm#Heading520

The first thing I did was see that this is a basic one part to three parts recipe. A ratl is roughly a pound and an ûqiya is one twelfth of a pound.

Green Walnut Paste Redaction
1 lbs of green walnuts
3 lbs of honey, clarified
1 ounce of spice blend

Using rubber gloves to protect your hands from stains, pierce the nuts all over with a skewer. Soak the walnuts in water for 3 days. Boil the nuts in their own water for about 45 minutes. In a separate pot, bring the honey to a strong simmer and skim it. Stir the spices into the honey. Strain the walnuts and add them to honey. Simmer this until the mixture becomes reduced and gooey. I reduced it by 3/4 and took it to the soft ball stage on my candy thermometer.

An ounce of cinnamon is about 4 and a half tablespoons. Cloves have about the same weight. I decided to fool around with the spices a bit. The recipe calls for cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. This could be a pretty deadly combination if you tried something like equal parts. Cloves have an exceptionally strong flavor so I decided to take a look at spices for similar things that may not be period, but are from that area. The older the better. There was a trend to using a smaller portion of cloves to the other spices. I didn't see anything that called for equal parts of cinnamon, clove and ginger. I was also going to use fresh ginger for this. I think you can make the case for dry or fresh ginger. In my case, I had fresh ginger that needed to be use and I love fresh ginger. I used 3/4 ounce of fresh ginger, which was about a tablespoon and a half. Then I used 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of cloves.

I have no clue if I did this right. I did two variations. One, I left the walnuts whole and one I put through the food processor. I did this because of the carrot paste recipe. I also love the idea of serving someone black gunk and then calling it something that is good for increasing urine. Plus, it is green walnuts. How cool is that?? I am waiting for the whole ones to firm up but the paste ones taste pretty good.

Pickled walnuts: I used http://www.davidgregory.org/pickled_walnuts.htm to start my recipe. Most of the recipes were similar, and I like the brining of the walnuts. Those are sitting in a jar, brining themselves away.

Cordials: When it came to cordials and syrups I went nuts. I was seriously considering chopping down my lemon tree. I love my lemon tree. I decided not to chop it down just now, but I was pushing to get all the lemons off. I made 14 quarts of lemon drop and 14 of limoncella.

Syrups: Here was a place where I had fun. I made three from Perry's Andalusian translation and one of my own device.

Syrup of Simple Sikanjabîn (Oxymel)

Take a ratl of strong vinegar and mix it with two ratls of sugar, and cook all this until it takes the form of a syrup. Drink an ûqiya of this with three of hot water when fasting: it is beneficial for fevers of jaundice, and calms jaundice and cuts the thirst, since sikanjabîn syrup is beneficial in phlegmatic fevers: make it with six ûqiyas of sour vinegar for a ratl of honey and it is admirable.
...[gap: top third of this page has been cut off]...
... and a ratl of sugar; cook all this until it takes the consistency of syrup. Its benefit is to relax the bowels and cut the thirst and vomiting, and it is beneficial in bilious fevers http://daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian10.htm#Heading497

This is a pretty simple syrup. I had some old vine zinfindel port vinegar. Old Vine Zinfindel ports are all the rage, or were about 5 years ago. I would imagine (due to the pretty shoddy labels) that someone botched a large batch of wine. The vinegar is good, but not outstanding as it should be. I have a Praeger port vinegar that is fabulous. I didn't mind devoting my very nice other brand vinegar to making this, but not my Praeger. I measured the vinegar and found I had 3 cups. I set aside one cup for my mustard project and set up two separate pots. In the first pot I put 1 cup of the vinegar and 2 cups of sugar. I did the same thing with the other pot. Then I picked about six handfuls of mint. (I pulled it up because it was crowding my daisies.) I cleaned the mint and put it in the boiling syrup for about 3-4 minutes. Then I strained the syrup into a canning jar. The minty version is rich but not overwhelmingly minty. It also does not have the slightly bitter or grassy aftertaste of overcooked mint.

I got caught up in the cookbook and decided to make the tamarind, lemon and carrot syrups. I really wanted to make violet syrup, but I have no violets. I got some today and planted them in the front yard.

Syrup of Lemon

Take lemon, after peeling its outer skin, press it and take a ratl of juice, and add as much of sugar. Cook it until it takes the form of a syrup. Its advantages are for the heat of bile; it cuts the thirst and binds the bowels.

My version:

4 cups of juice from lemon flesh only

8 cups of sugar.

Bring slowly to a boil and keep it there until it turns to a syrup. Over cooking it will turn it to jelly.

I took my lemons and peeled them with a vegetable peeler. Then I cut off the pith. I did this so I would have lemon peel for the limoncella. The pith is bitter, so it should be discarded. This recipe I interpreted literally. I pressed the juice out of the flesh and tried it in comparison to the juice of a lemon from an unpeeled half of a lemon. I think it does make a slight difference, if you are very sensitive to the taste. There is a hint of the oil in rind on juice and I don't think it was as sweet. Anton and Collect came over and tried it and they thought it was a lot like non-alcoholic Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Syrup of Carrots

Take four ratls of carrots, after removing the fibers [lit. "nerves"] that are in the centers, and cook them in water to cover until their substance comes out. Then take the clear part of it and add it to three ratls of honey, cleaned of its foam. The bag: ...[about three words missing]... an ûqiya of cubebs, two ûqiyas each of ginger and long pepper, and half an ûqiya of cinnamon and flower of cloves. Cook until it takes the form of a syrup. Drink an ûqiya of this with three of hot water: it is beneficial in the lack of urine, increases desire, and dissolves phlegm, heats the kidneys admirably, and likewise the other parts of the body, God willing.

Carrot Syrup

4lbs carrots, sliced
3lbs honey
1 tablespoons cubebs
3 tablespoons ginger
2 tablespoons long pepper
1 tablespoon cinnamon
10 cloves

I boiled the carrots in water that covered them by about an inch. I simmered it for an hour or until the carrots barely could hold their shape.

I wanted my liquid to be tinted a little, but very carrot flavored. I also used stronger flavored white and red carrots. This choice was made because even though Persian farming techniques which would have produced a sweeter carrot through irrigation, I felt that the stronger flavored carrots were necessary. The sweet, coreless carrots in grocery stores in the United States are a recent development. Coring carrots was done in the late 1970s in some recipes. Plus, I had some! I had all this stuff, well some of it.

I cut back on the spices a lot. I didn't have enough of everything. If I had, it would be 1.4 ounces of cubeb, 3 ounces of ginger, 3 ounces of long pepper, 3/4 ounce of cloves, 3/4 ounce of cinnamon. Once I saw I didn't have all the spices in that quantity, I decided to wing it. I boiled everything together, brought it to the syrup stage and then strained and bottled it. It is a milder spice, but very good.

Syrup of Tamarind:
Take a ratl of tamarind and steep in five ratls of water, throw away the dregs immediately and add the clarified water to a ratl of sugar. Cook all this until it takes the form of a syrup. Drink two ûqiyas of it in three of cold water. It is beneficial in jaundice, and takes it away easily; it cuts bilious vomit and thirst, awakens the appetite to eat, and takes the bitterness of food out of the mouth.

I had 4 ounces of tamarind. I soaked it in 20 ounces of water in the sun. Then I broke it up with my fingers. That may have been a mistake. The water became about the color of tamarind soda, so I thought it might be about time to drain it. I strained it several times and threw away the pulp. I then measured the liquid and found I had about 18 ounces of water. I added 4 ounces of sugar and simmered it until it became a syrup. The results were pretty to look at but utterly disgusting to taste. It was exceptionally bitter. Four tasters rejected it. I think I am going to adjust the liquid to the sugar ratio and cook it less time. I will also experiment with steeping time. Tamarind syrup in the Philippino store is tasty. I do not think they would intentionally make this, so the redaction must be wrong.

Next up: Mustard!