This was a really unusual recipe. The chicken (or capon, if you can find one) is essentially steamed over a bed of herbs and wine. So the skin doesn't crisp as all due to the moist environment, but it does come out incredibly tender.

Capons Stwed

Take parcelly, sauge, isoppe, rosemary, and tyme, and breke hit bitwen thi hondes, and stoppe the capon therewith; colour hym with safferon, and couche him in a erthen potte, or of brasse, and ley splentes underneth and al abouʒt the sides, that the capon touche no thinge of the potte. Strawe good herbes in þe potte, and put thereto a pottle of the best wyn that thou may gete, and none other licour; hele the potte with a close led and stoppe hit abouʒte with dogh or bater, that no eier come oute, and set hit on þe faire charcole, and lete it seeth easly and longe till hit be ynowe¹. And if hit be an erthen potte, þen set hit on þe fire whan þou takest hit downe, and lete hit not touche þe grounde for breking. And whan þ3 hete is over past, take out the capon with a prik; then make a sirippe of wyne, reysons of corance, sugar and safferon, and boile hit a litull; medel pouder of ginger with a litul of the same syn and do þereto; then do awey the fatte of the sewe of the capon, and do the siryppe to þe sewe, and powre hit on þe capon, and serve it forth.

Capons Stwed

Slightly adapted from Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks by Constance B. Hieatt, Brenda Hosington, and Sharon Butler

Ingredients

• 1 capon or roasting chicken
• 1 handful flat-leaf parsley
• 3-4 sprigs fresh sage
• 3-4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 3-4 sprigs fresh hyssop
• coarse sea salt²
• 1/2-3/4 tsp. saffron threads, divided
• 2 c. wine (red or white), divided
• 1/4 c. dried currants
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F).
2. Crush the herbs in your hand.
3. Stuff half of the herbs into the chicken and place the rest in the bottom of a tagine or clay pot.
4. Crumble 1/4-1/2 tsp. of the saffron and rub it and the salt into the skin of the chicken.
5. Pour 1 c. of the wine into the bottom of the cooking vessel with the herbs.
6. Place a rack in the pot/tagine and place the chicken on top.
7. Cover very tightly.
8. Place covered pot/tagine in oven and reduce oven temperature to 180°C (350°F).
9. Bake at 180°C (350°F) until done. (20 minutes per pound + 20 minutes usually works well.)
10. Remove chicken from oven.
11. Strain the liquid from the bottom of the pot, chill, and skim the fat.
12. Meanwhile, combine 3/4 c. of the remaining wine, currants, and sugar and bring to a boil.
13. Simmer for 10-15 minutes.
14. Stir in the remaining wine, saffron, ginger, and strained juices and cook for another 5 minutes.
15. Serve the chicken with the sauce and sides of your choice.

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¹ I'm generally pretty good at figuring out the various middle and early modern English spellings, but I could not, for the life of me figure out what "ynowe" was supposed to be. Apparently it's an inflection of "ynogh", which is much more easily recognizable as an archaic version of "enough". I just didn't realize that it declined like that! ^Back
2 Neither the original recipe nor the modern interpretation of it called for any salt, but I really felt that it probably wanted some salt. My chicken was ~1.5kg, so I used 1/2 Tbsp. of salt. (I usually find that 1 tsp. of salt per kilo of meat is about right.) ^Back

I picked up a copy of Pleyn Delit a couple of years ago. It's a great book full of medieval recipes. I've been wanting to try some out for ages, but I kept just not quite getting around to it. But, with our annual Labour Day get together this year, I finally found the motivation to give it a go!

I picked out a salad, a very interesting steamed chicken dish, and a poached pear recipe. And they were all excellent! This salad was so interesting. It's basically all greens. Lots and lots of herbs in addition to what I tend to think of as salad greens.

The original recipe called for parsely, sage, "green garlic", "chibolles" (which I would have assumed were chives, but the authors of Pleyn Delit indicate were actually green onions), onions, leeks, borage, mint, "porrettes" (small leeks), fennel, watercress, rue, rosemary, and purslane. These are washed, torn, and dressed with a simple combination of oil, vinegar, and salt.

The modern interpretation recommends making it with a combination of leaf lettuce, spinach, borage or radish leaves, watercress, parsley, sage, chives, fennel, mint, green onions, sweet onions and/or leeks, and savoury and/or tarragon. This made for a lovely mix! I loved all the herbs! It was very different, but absolutely delicious!

Original Recipe

Take persel, sawge, grene garlec, chibolles, oynouns, leek, borage, myntes, porrettes, fenel, and toun cressis, rew, rosemarye, purslrye; lave and waische hem clene. Pike hem. Pluk hem small wiþ þyn honde, and myng hem wel with rawe oile; lay on vyneger and salt, and serve it forth.

Photo goes here.

Salat

Slightly adapted from Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks by Constance B. Hieatt, Brenda Hosington, and Sharon Butler

Ingredients

• 2 handfuls of leaf lettuce
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• 1 handful borage or radish leaves
• 1 handful of watercress¹
• 1 small bulb of fennel, thinly sliced
• 1/4 c. chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fennel fronds or dill
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh chives or garlic chives
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh sage
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh mint
• 1 tsp. fresh tarragon
• 1 tsp. fresh savoury (optional)
• 3-6 green onions, sliced
• 1 small Vidalia or red onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 2 small leeks, very well washed and thinly sliced (optional)
• 1/3 c. olive oil
• ~1/4 c. vinegar (preferably red wine vinegar)
• ~1/2 Tbsp. salt
• freshly ground pepper (optional)

Directions

1. Combine the lettuce, spinach, borage/radish leaves, watercress, fennel, parsley, fennel fronds/dill, chives/garlic chives, sage, mint, tarragon, savoury (if using), green onions, sweet onion, and leeks (if using).
2. Add the olive oil and toss to combine.
3. Have guests drizzle their portion of salad with a little of the vinegar and some of the salt and pepper (if using) at the table.
   

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¹ I will admit that I omitted both the borage and the watercress for my rendition. It was still delicious. But I'd love to try it with an even wider variety of greens sometime. ^Back

I got some lovely fresh herbs from my mom's garden at Thanksgiving. And I've been enjoying trying out different recipes to use them up. So far, I've been focusing on the parsley and rosemary. But I ran across this delicious-looking recipe for baked gnocchi with sage and decided to give that a try.

It's definitely not health food by any means, but it is easy and tastes fantastic!

Baked Gnocchi with Fontina, Pancetta, and Sage

Slightly adapted from Dish of the Day by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 125-250g pancetta¹, chopped
• 2-3 Tbsp. chopped fresh sage
• 1kg gnocchi
• 1 1/2 c. half-and-half (10% MF)
• 250g fontina cheese², cut into 5mm cubes
• 1/8 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1/3 c. panko breadcrumbs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F) and grease a 23x33cm (9x13") lasagne pan.
2. Cook the pancetta over medium heat until crisp.
3. Drain off as much of the fat as possible, add the sage, and set aside.
4. Cook the gnocchi according to the package directions (or slighlty less).
5. Drain the gnocchi and add it to the pan with the pancetta along with the half-and-half, cheese, and pepper.
6. Stir to combine and pour the mixture into the prepared pan.
7. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and bake at 190°C (375°F) for 15-20 minutes.
8. It breadcrumbs are not sufficiently browned, place under the broiler for 2-3 minutes.

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¹ The original recipe called for 125g of pancetta, but we all really like pancetta here, so I decided to double it. That said, I do think that the smaller quantity would have been sufficient -- even if the bumped up amount was delicious! ^Back
2 The original recipe called for taleggio cheese. I couldn't find any at the grocery store, so I substituted fontina. I think oka probably also would have been good, but the fontina was cheaper and I was able to find a piece that was exactly the amount I needed, so I just went with that. ^Back

TF and the Kidlet both seemed to really like these. I thought they were okay, but not amazing on their own. I think they work better added to other things. I had a bunch of them in my soup and that was very good.

Fried Chickpeas

Slightly adapted from Vegetable of the Day by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 1 (~470g) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• corn or peanut oil, for frying
• 3-4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• 6 fresh sage leaves¹
• 1/8 tsp. ground Kashmiri chilies
• coarse sea salt, ground

Directions

1. After draining and rinsing the chickpeas, dry them off as best you can.²
2. Pour some oil into a wok and heat to ~190°C (375°F).
3. Add the garlic and fry for 1-2 minutes.
4. Add ~1/3 of the chickpeas and 2 of the sage leaves and fry for 4-5 minutes.
5. Transfer to a paper towel lined plate and repeat with remaining chickpeas and sage in two batches.
6. Sprinkle with ground chilies and season to taste with salt.

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¹ I was all out of fresh sage, so I swapped in 1/2 Tbsp. dried sage instead. ^Back
2 The recipe suggests doing this with paper towels, but, since I was preheating the oven for another recipe anyway, I just opted to spreak the chickpeas out on a baking sheet and pop them in the oven while it was preheating. I found this much easier than trying to mess around with paper towels. ^Back

A win from Hello Fresh, this recipe takes a while to come together but isn't particularly difficult, and was a big hit with everyone. The chicken is optional but adds some welcome protein.

Mushroom Risotto with Chicken

Hello Fresh

Ingredients

• 400g mixed cremini, button, and oyster mushrooms
• two large sprigs of sage
• 4 tsp vegetable broth concentrate
• 6 C water
• 500g chicken breasts, cut into strips
• 1+2 tbsp olive oil, divided
• 1½ C arborio rice
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 125g baby spinach
• 6-8 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ C white wine
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• ½ C grated parmesan
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp chili flakes

Directions

1. Trim stems from button and cremini mushrooms. Slice caps thinly and retain both caps and stems separately.
2. Hand-shred oyster mushrooms.
3. Strip sage leaves from stems; retain both separately.
4. Combine sage stems, mushroom stems, water, and broth concentrate in a medium pot. Bring to a boil, covered, then reduce heat to medium-low and leave covered.
5. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large, deep-sided skillet over medium-high heat.
6. Add the chicken and cook until cooked through and nicely browned; remove and buffer.
7. Add the remaining olive oil and the sage leaves. Cook until the sage is crispy, ~1 minute. Remove and buffer with the chicken.
8. Add the sliced mushroom caps, oyster mushroom shreds, and onions. Cook, stirring often, until softened, ~6 minutes.
9. Stir in the garlic salt, chili flakes, black pepper to taste, rice, and garlic. Cook, stirring often, until fragrant and rice is coated, 1-2 minutes.
10. Add wine and cook until wine is absorbed, 1-2 minutes.
11. Reduce heat to medium.
12. Add 1 cup broth from the simmering pot (leave stems behind). Cook, stirring often, until broth is fully absorbed.
13. Repeat prior step until 5-6C of broth have been absorbed, rice is tender, and overall texture is creamy.
14. Stir in spinach and let wilt.
15. Stir in parmesan and butter until fully melted and incorporated.
16. Top with fried sage and chicken strips and serve with salad.

I've had a buttercup squash lying around for a couple months now. The Kidlet and I were going to turn it into soup, but with the hot temperatures we're expecting this week, I decided that I really didn't want soup. It probably would've been easier to make some other sort of squash dish, but I really wanted ravioli. I took a look at Hazan's pasta book for recipes, but the only thing he had for squash-stuffed pasta used an obscure variety of Italian squash for which he recommended substituting sweet potato. After poking around online a bit, I found a recipe for squash and ricotta stuffed shells and figured I'd adapt that to my purposes.

Uncooked ravioli ready to go in the pot.

The original recipe called for two cups of butternut squash. I just used the whole buttercup, it was probably a bit more than two cups, but close enough that I wasn't too worried about it. I made some faux ricotta from powdered milk. I used garlic paste in place of the crushed garlic. And I swapped out the spinach for kale. Then, instead of stuffing shells and baking them, I just stuffed my ravioli and boiled it as normal, tossing it with the simple sage-butter sauce after draining.

Squash Ravioli with Sage-Butter Sauce

Adapted from Key Ingredient

Ingredients

Dough

• 2 c. pasta flour
• 3 large eggs
• 3-4 large egg yolks
• 1-2 Tbsp. olive oil

Filling

• 1 buttercup squash
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 2 c. ricotta
• 1/3 c. grated Parmesan
• 1 large egg
• 1 Tbsp. garlic paste
• 1/4 c. chopped kale
• zest of 1 lemon

Sauce

• 1/2 c. unsalted butter
• 10-12 sage leaves
• juice of 1 lemon
• grated Parmesan, to serve

Directions

Dough

1. Combine pasta flour, eggs, 3 egg yolks, and 1 Tbsp. olive oil and mix well. If dough seems to stiff, knead in another egg yolk and/or another Tbsp. of oil.
2. Knead the dough for a few minutes, then cover and set aside to rest while you prepare the filling.

Filling

1. Halve and seed the squash.
2. Brush it with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
3. Roast at 190°C (375°F) for ~1 hour.
4. Once the squash has cooled enough to handle, scoop the flesh from the skin.
5. Mash the squash and combine it with the ricotta, Parmesan, egg, garlic, kale, and lemon zest.

Assembly

1. Knead the dough until smooth and supple.
2. Divide into two or three portions.
3. Working with one portion at a time, roll it out very thin. Try to apply pressure outward and not down. The dough should be stretched rather than compressed.
4. Cut circles out of the dough, 5-7cm is generally a good size. Keep them covered so they don't dry out.
5. Place a small amount of filling on each circle.
6. Wet the edge with a bit of egg white.
7. Fold in half and press to seal.
8. Place on a flour-dusted plate while you assemble the rest of the ravioli. If you need to pile more ravioli on top, dust the underlying ones lightly with flour to stop them from sticking together.
9. Once all the ravioli have been assembled, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the pasta. Cook for 1-3 minutes, then drain.
10. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce.

Sauce

1. Melt the butter over medium heat.
2. Add the sage leaves and cook, swirling occasionally, until butter has browned.
3. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.

Serving

1. Toss cooked ravioli with sauce.
2. Served topped with grated Parmesan.

I was going through my bookmarks the other day and found this orange-sage bread recipe that I'd bookmarked. I don't normally go in for white breads, but this one sounded intriguing. Given that I had some oranges on hand that needed to be used up, I figured I'd try converting it to a sourdough recipe and giving it a whirl.

Orange-Sage Sourdough Bread

Adapted from The Spruce Eats

Ingredients

• 2 c. hard (strong/high grade/bread) flour
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. finely ground dried sage
• 250g (100% hydration) sourdough starter
• 1/4 c. water
• 1/4 c. orange juice
• 1/2 Tbsp. oil
• zest of 1 orange (~2 tsp.)

Directions

1. Combine flour, sugar, salt, and sage and mix thoroughly.
2. Mix the water, orange juice, oil, and orange zest.
3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the starter followed by the orange juice mixture.
4. Mix the flour into the wet ingredients, working from the centre outward.
5. Once the flour is mostly incorporated, turn the dough out onto a work surface and begin kneading.
6. Knead for 10-20 minutes. Add a little more water if it needs it. Only add flour if absolutely necessary. It will be a bit sticky at first. Just keep kneading and the stickiness should subside. The dough should be very soft and supple.
7. Shape into a ball and place in a covered bowl to rise. The first rise may take quite a while; 2-4 hours isn't unreasonable.
8. Once the dough no longer returns a wet fingerprint, knock it back, knead it for a few strokes, shape it back into a ball, and return it to its covered bowl to rise.
9. The second rise should be much faster; probably only an hour or two.
10. Knock the dough back again, knead it for a few strokes, shape it into a ball, and pull the gluten film taut across the top. Cover and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes.
11. Shape the loaf as you choose. For a pan loaf: press flat, fold into thirds, roll up jelly roll-style and place in a greased 23x13cm (9x5") loaf pan.
12. Cover and allow to rise for ~45 minutes (+/- 15 minutes depending on the temperature of the room).
13. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 40-50 minutes.
14. Let cool in tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

Did you know that gnocchi is actually pretty easy to make? And incredibly delicious? And actually reasonably nutritious? Especially when you make it with bright, flavourful, colourful sweet potatoes! I need to write this recipe down because we will be making it again.

Honestly, I'm craving it again already...

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Greens and Sage Butter Sauce

Slightly adapted from Pinch of Yum

Ingredients

Gnocchi

• 450-500g sweet potatoes
• 1 c. whole milk ricotta
• 1/4 c. Parmesan
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• ~1 c. all-purpose or hard/strong/bread/high grade flour

Greens and Sauce

• 1 small broccoli crown, cut into florettes
• 1 small bunch black kale, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 c. unsalted butter
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 Tbsp. dried sage (or ~6 fresh leaves)
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/4 c. heavy (35%) cream
• 1/4 c. Parmesan
• pepper, to taste
• lemon wedges, to serve (optional)

Directions

Gnocchi

1. Prick sweet potato(es) with fork, wrap in damp paper towels, and microwave until tender. (~5-7 minutes)
2. Scoop flesh from skin. Discard skins.
3. Mash flesh with ricotta, Parmesan, and sea salt.
4. If the mixture seems dry, add a couple Tbsp. of water to loosen it up.
5. Mix in flour ~1/4 c. at a time until a soft dough forms.
6. If you like your gnocchi soft and light and pillowy, try not to work the dough too much and handle the resulting dumplings very gently as they'll be prone to breaking up. If you like your gnocchi firm and chewy, knead the dough to develop the gluten a little.
7. Working on a floured surface, form the dough into a loaf.
8. Cut a slice from the loaf and roll it into a rope.
9. Cut the rope into ~2cm pieces.
10. Repeat with remaining dough.
11. Boil the gnocchi until it floats and toss with a little olive oil to prevent sticking. Reserve the cooking water.

Greens and Sauce

1. Once the gnocchi has been boiled, add the broccoli and kale to the boiling water and blanch for 1 minute. Drain and set aside.
2. Melt the butter over medium-high heat in a large pan.
3. Add the gnocchi and cook until outside is brown and crisp.
4. Add garlic, broccoli, kale, sage, and salt and cook for another few minutes.
5. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes.
6. Stir in cream and Parmesan.
7. Add pepper to taste.
8. Serve with lemon wedges if desired.

Fettuccine alle Erbe e Panna Rosa (Fettuccine with Herbed Rosé Sauce)

Hazan warns that this recipe requires the freshest, best-quality herbs and tomatoes possible. I didn't have fresh tomatoes nor all of the herbs on hand, so I decided to risk trying it with tinned tomatoes and dried herbs. It was delicious!

Fettuccine alle Erbe e Panna Rosa

Slightly adapted from the Classic Pasta Cookbook by Giuliano Hazan

Ingredients

• 450g fettuccine
• 1/4 c. unsalted butter
• 2 tsp. finely chopped fresh basil
• 1 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary (or 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary)
• 1 tsp. finely chopped fresh sage (or 1/2 tsp. dried summer savoury)
• 1/2 beef bouillon cube
• 900g fresh ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/4" dice (or 900g tinned diced tomatoes)
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 c. heavy (35%) cream

Directions

1. Get the water boiling for your pasta.
2. Melt the butter over medium heat.
3. Add the herbs and bouillon cube and stir until cube has completely dissolved.
4. Add the tomatoes and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook for 5-10 minutes.
5. Increase heat to medium-high and pour in the cream.
6. Cook, stirring often, until reduced by half. Remove from heat and set aside.
7. Salt the boiling pasta water, add the fettuccine, and cook until al dente.
8. Drain pasta and toss with sauce.
9. Serve as is or sprinkled with grated Parmesan.

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Variations

Vegetarian

Ingredients

• 450g fettuccine
• 1/4 c. unsalted butter
• 2 tsp. finely chopped fresh basil
• 1 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary (or 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary)
• 1 tsp. finely chopped fresh sage (or 1/2 tsp. dried summer savoury)
• 1/2 vegetable bouillon cube
• 900g fresh ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/4" dice (or 900g tinned diced tomatoes)
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 c. heavy (35%) cream