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Stuffed eggs
4 hardboiled eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
4 leaves fresh sage or 1 teaspoon dried sage
1 1/2 teaspoon chopped parsley
1/2 sour apple (peeled and decored), grated
pepper, salt to taste
1 tablespoon applecider-vinegar
1/4 teaspoon saffron
1 raw egg white
butter or oil
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and suger (ratio = 1:1)
Preparation in advance:
Peel the eggs, cut
them in half lengthwise. Take out the yolks and mash them with a fork, together
with the spices, herbs and grated apple.
If you want the stuffing to be very yellow you heat a tablespoon of vinegar, and
crush the threads of saffron in it. Add vinegar with crushed saffron to
the stuffing. Stuff the eggwhites.
Preparation:
Stir the raw egg white with a fork. Roll the stuffed eggs through
the raw egg white, and fry them in a frying-pan with heated oil or butter. First
fry the eggs with the stuffing downward, after one minute turn them carefully to
fry the other side. One minute more and they are ready to be served.
To serve:
These eggs can be eaten either hot
or at room-temperature. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top of the eggs just
before serving. You can surprise your family at Easter-breakfeast, serve
the eggs as a snack, or as the first course in a mediaeval menu.
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Loafsugar:
We buy our sugar mostly granulated or powdered, but in the past sugar was
sold as cone-shaped loafsugar. Before using it, the sugar had to be grated
on special graters. Before 1600 all sugar was cane sugar. I don't know
whether it is the same everywhere else, but in the Netherlands cane sugar
is always light brown, either from added molasses, or from not being 100%
refined. Refined cane sugar is as white as refined beet sugar. Unrefined
brown sugar may contain small traces of minerals and such, but nothing you
don't get by consuming your ordinary daily food. However, there is a
slight difference in flavour, brown sugar has more taste.
The loafsugars on medieval miniatures are white, not brown. The cane sugar
was as refined as possible. If you want to prepare medieval recipes the
authentic way, you'll have to use white, refined cane sugar. If you can't
get that, you'll have to choose: either use unrefined cane sugar which has
a slightly different flavour and can end up colouring the prepared dish in
an unintended way, or use refined beet sugar which has the same flavour
and colour as refined cane sugar, but is actually an anachronism.
Sage:
A decorative perennial evergreen, Salvia officinalis. If you have the use
of a garden, be sure to plant one! You can pick the leaves all year round.
Classical combinations are with chicken livers, with onions as a stuffing
for pork, and in several egg dishes. Be careful, the taste can become
overbearing.
Originally sage was used as a medicine (as the Latin name shows), but by
the Late Middle Ages sage also became an ingredient in recipes for food.
Bibliography
The editions below
are in my possession. Links refer to available editions.
All books mentioned on this site
R. Jansen-Sieben and M.
van der Molen Willebrands, Een notabel
boecxken van cokeryen. Het eerste gedrukte Nederlandstalige kookboek circa
1514 uitgegeven te Brussel door Thomas Vander Noot. Bezorgd en van
commentaar voorzien door [...].
Amsterdam, 1994. (Interneteditie)
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