Shakespeare's Kitchen (12 page)

THE ENGLISH HUSWIFE,
1587

Romans introduced the practice of gelding to England, changing chickens into tender, plump capons. In
The Castle of Health,
William Elyot wrote, “The capon is above all other fowles praised for as much as it is easily digested.”

The carving term for a capon was to “sauce” it, a much prettier term than some of the others for cutting fowl, such as “disfigure that peacock,” “spoil that hen,” “dismember the heron,” “unbrace the mallard,” and “thigh that pigeon.”

Chicken with Wine, Apples, and Dried Fruit

SERVES 4

 … Thou best of gold art worst of gold:
Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,
Preserving life in med’cine potable …

KING HENRY IV,
PART II, 4.5

 G
OLD WAS A
commonly prescribed curative and thought to “[conserve] the youth and health.” The original recipe is rather elaborate and was obviously intended for the rich, as “a peece of Golde” is placed between each section of chicken. The lid was then sealed shut with pastry to keep all the moisture and juices in the meat. This modern version omits the gold but keeps all the other rich flavors.

4 chicken legs and thighs

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

¼ cup whole-wheat flour

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

2 cups dry white wine

¼ cup currants

½ cup dried plums

½ cup pitted dates

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tart apple, cored and quartered, skin on

1.
    Cut apart the chicken legs and thighs. Sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt, pepper, and flour. Heat the olive oil in large sauté pan over high heat and brown the chicken on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pan. Add ¼ cup of the wine to the pan and stir to loosen the pan drippings. Add the remaining 1¾ cups of the wine, the currants, dried plums, dates, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and apples. Return the chicken to the pan, cover with a tight lid, and reduce heat to low. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, or until the chicken is very tender. Remove the chicken from the pan and cook the pan sauce for 5 to 10 minutes, or until reduced by half.

2.
    Place the chicken on a serving platter and pour the sauce over the chicken.

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

To stew a Cocke

You must cutte him in five pieces and washe him cleane and take Prunes, currants and dates, cutte very small and Raysins of the Sunne, and Sugar beaten very small, Cynamon, Ginger and nutmeggs likewise beaten, and a little Maydens [apples] cutte very small, and you must put him in a pipkin, and put in almost a pint of Muskadine, and then your spice and sugar uppon your Cocke, and put in your fruite betweene every quarter, and a peece of Golde betweene every peece of your Cocke, then you must make a lidde of Wood to fit for your pipkin, and close it as close as you can with paste, that no ayre come out, nor water can come in …

THE GOOD HUSWIFES JEWELL,
1587

Chicken and Artichokes

SERVES 6

If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! if to be old and
merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned …

KING HENRY IV,
PART I, 2.4

 S
ACK, A SWEET
wine like sherry, was a favorite of Shakespeare. This delicious recipe “on the French fashion” slowly simmers chicken in wine, lemons, and a touch of sugar.

In
Dyets Drie Dinner,
a 1599 book on dining and health, the author makes a pun on the word
lemon
and “leman,” the Elizabethan term for a lover. “All say a Limon in wine is good: some think a Leman and wine better.”

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 chicken, cut into 8 pieces (about 4 pounds)

½ cup whole-wheat flour

¼ cup
Renaissance Stock

¾ cup white wine

1 lemon, unpeeled, diced, seeds removed

¼ teaspoon ground mace

6 dates, pitted and chopped

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

5 to 6 artichoke bottoms, cleaned, parboiled

       Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour and brown the chicken on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pan and add the Renaissance Stock, wine, lemon, mace, dates, brown sugar, and salt. Bring to a boil and add the chicken and artichokes. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn over the chicken and cook for 15 minutes, or until the chicken is fork tender.

Stuffed Turkey Breast “French Fashion”

SERVES 8

Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him;
how he jets under his advanced plumes!

TWELFTH NIGHT,
2.5

 T
URKEYS WERE INTRODUCED
to Europe from the Americas by Spanish explorers in the late 1500s. Thinking the bird, like so many other new and exotic delicacies, was from the country Turkey, it was consequently misnamed.

1 turkey breast, boned (about 3 pounds)

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

5 minced shallots

8 ounces prosciutto, minced

3 tablespoons butter, melted

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

750 milliliters white wine

1 quart
Renaissance Stock

3 bay leaves

3 sprigs of rosemary

6 whole cloves

2 mace blades

2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns

1.
    Starting from the meat side, cut a vertical slit into each half of the turkey breast, being careful not to cut through to the skin. Season both sides of the turkey breast with salt and pepper. Combine the shallots, prosciutto, and butter and spread one quarter of the mixture into each of the slits. Spread the remaining shallot mixture on the meat side of one of the breast halves and top with the other half of the turkey breast. Wrap the turkey in cheesecloth to keep the skin in place and the stuffing inside and tie securely with kitchen string.

2.
    Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and cook the turkey for 20 minutes, or until very brown on all sides.

3.
    Place the wine in a pot large enough to hold the turkey and bring to a boil. Add the Renaissance Stock, bay leaves, rosemary, cloves, mace, and peppercorns, reduce heat to very low, and add the turkey breast. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. Remove the turkey from the liquid and let cool. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

4.
    Slice the turkey and serve on a platter with bowls of assorted mustards.

Cornish Game Hens with Sage

SERVES 2

 I
N THE ORIGINAL
recipe the cooked meat was minced, seasoned, and replaced back under the skin. In this simpler modern version the seasonings are tucked under the skin and into the hen’s cavity before roasting for a lovely hint of sage throughout. The English gave sage its name because they believed that if taken regularly the herb would promote wisdom.

Although chickens were much smaller in Shakespeare’s day, Cornish game hens did not exist in his lifetime. These tasty birds were developed in America in the late 1800s.

½ cup butter, softened, plus 1 teaspoon butter

1 tablespoon plus ¼ teaspoon finely chopped sage leaves, plus 6 more leaves and more to garnish

2 tablespoons minced shallot

½ teaspoon ground mace

1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 teaspoon salt

2 Cornish game hens

2 shallots, sliced

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons wine

½ cup
Renaissance Stock

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

¼ cup cream

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

Fresh red currants, for garnish (optional)

1.
    Preheat the oven to 375°F. Combine the ½ cup of softened butter, 1 tablespoon of the chopped sage leaves, 1 tablespoon of the minced shallot, the mace, parsley, and salt. Spread the mixture under the skin and in the cavity of the hens. Place 3 sage leaves, 1 sliced shallot, and 2 tablespoons of the wine in the cavity of each hen and bake for 40 minutes, or until the leg juices run clear.

2.
    Melt the remaining 1 teaspoon of butter in a saucepan, add the remaining 1 tablespoon of minced shallot, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the remaining ¼ cup of wine and boil for 2 minutes. Add the Renaissance Stock, the remaining ¼ teaspoon of chopped sage, and the nutmeg and bring to a simmer. Reduce to low heat, add the cream, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

3.
    Place the Cornish hens on a serving platter. Arrange the currants and sage leaves around the hens, if desired. Serve the sauce in a small dish alongside the hens.

In the charming 1599 dietary,
Dyets Drie Dinner,
the author shares an Elizabethan fable on how pepper became black. According to the tale, pepper grew in a serpent-infested forest in a far-off land. The natives were terrorized by the serpents and finally decided to burn down the forest to drive away the dreaded creatures. Everything for miles around became charred and that is why to this day pepper is black.

Chicken Plum Pie

SERVES 6

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date …

SONNET 18

 T
HIS IS A LOVELY
summer picnic dish that makes perfect use of leftover chicken. The nobility enjoyed outdoor dining in Shakespeare’s day. A 1575 painting shows Queen Elizabeth I at a picnic during a hunt. One foreign visitor observed that when Queen Elizabeth dined, her ladies in waiting “gave to each of the Guards a mouthful to eat … for Fear of any Poison.”

½ recipe of
Renaissance Dough

1 pound cooked chicken meat, shredded

3 tablespoons
Renaissance Stock

Pinch of ground cloves

½ teaspoon ground mace (or nutmeg)

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 purple plums, pitted, peeled, and diced

Salt and freshly milled black pepper

2 plums, cut in ¼-inch slices

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 tablespoon light brown sugar

1.
    Preheat the oven to 375°F. Roll out the Renaissance Dough to ⅛ inch thick on a floured work surface. Press into a round or square pie pan and bake for 10 minutes, or until the bottom is very light golden.

2.
    Combine the chicken, Renaissance Stock, cloves, mace, cinnamon, and diced plums in a large bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper. Spoon the mixture into the piecrust and place the plum slices on top of the chicken mixture. Drizzle the butter over the top and sprinkle with the brown sugar. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the plums are caramelized. (If serving the pie cold, double the quantity of mace, cinnamon, and cloves.)

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

To bake Chickens with Damsons

Take your Chickens, drawe them and wash them, then breake their bones, and lay them in a platter, then take foure handfuls of fine flower, and lay it on a faire boord, put thereto twelve yolks of Egs, a dish of butter, and a litle Saffron: mingle them altogether, & make you paste therewith. Then make sixe coffins, and put in every coffin a lumpe of butter of the bignesse of a Walnut: then season your sixe coffins with one spoonful of Cloves and Mace, two spoonfuls of Synamon, and one of Sugar, and a spoonfull of salt. Then put your Chickens into your pies: then take Damisons and pare away the outward peele of them, and put twentie in every of your pie, round about your chicken, then put into everie of your coffins a hand full of Corrans. Then close them up, and put them into the Oven, then let them be there three quarters of an houre.

THE GOOD HUSWIVES HANDMAIDE FOR THE KITCHIN,
1594