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Aug. 6th, 2007 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madbaker(Last) week's Resolution Recipe: Chicken Dumplings.
The original recipe uses the word "Kloten", a Low German word related to the German word "klotz", or English "clot" - i.e. lump or dumpling.
(I'm not lying - it's more fun to say something dodgy that is totally true. This derivation comes directly from the book.)
Boil an old hen whole. Take another raw hen and chop it finely, and mix it with bacon diced as small as peas and ground cumin; make this [mixture] into small pieces. Place them in the broth of the boiled hen, and add cumin, saffron, wine, lard, salt, and egg yolks, to thicken it evenly. This is called "Chicken Dumplings." (Libellus de arte coquinaria, 1300s)
1 pound boned chicken meat, minced
4 ounces bacon, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin, divided
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
6 threads saffron
1 Tablespoon lard (less if broth is fatty - since I used homemade stock, I omitted the lard completely)
1 teaspoon salt
4 egg yolks
Mix chicken, bacon and 1/2 teaspoon cumin; compact and form mixture into one-inch meatballs. Bring broth to a boil in a shallow pan and reduce heat to medium-high. Gently lower meatballs into the liquid. Stir in remaining 1/2 teaspoon cumin, wine, saffron, lard, and salt. Beat in egg yolks a bit at a time. Cook for ten minutes over medium heat, stirring gently with a wooden spoon so as not to break up the meatballs; flip meatballs and cook another ten minutes. Serve meatballs in a bowl with the thickened broth.
What worked: The meatballs held together remarkably well - I'm used to making meatballs with egg or some other binder, but sufficiently fatty bacon (house-cured, of course) worked just fine. The color of the saffron-egg broth was a pretty yellow. The taste was okay, if a bit bland.
What didn't: Unsurprisingly, beating egg yolk into a low-boiling broth meant that the egg streamed and clotted instead of thickening the broth. The modern method is to beat a bit of broth into the egg to warm it up, then beat the mixture back in. Also it's hard to get a uniform texture when the meatballs are already in the pan. Any suggestions?
Will I make it again? I don't know. It wasn't fabulous, but it might be an okay Friday night tourney dinner I guess.
What I'm reading: Tanya Huff, Heart of Valor
The original recipe uses the word "Kloten", a Low German word related to the German word "klotz", or English "clot" - i.e. lump or dumpling.
(I'm not lying - it's more fun to say something dodgy that is totally true. This derivation comes directly from the book.)
Boil an old hen whole. Take another raw hen and chop it finely, and mix it with bacon diced as small as peas and ground cumin; make this [mixture] into small pieces. Place them in the broth of the boiled hen, and add cumin, saffron, wine, lard, salt, and egg yolks, to thicken it evenly. This is called "Chicken Dumplings." (Libellus de arte coquinaria, 1300s)
1 pound boned chicken meat, minced
4 ounces bacon, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin, divided
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
6 threads saffron
1 Tablespoon lard (less if broth is fatty - since I used homemade stock, I omitted the lard completely)
1 teaspoon salt
4 egg yolks
Mix chicken, bacon and 1/2 teaspoon cumin; compact and form mixture into one-inch meatballs. Bring broth to a boil in a shallow pan and reduce heat to medium-high. Gently lower meatballs into the liquid. Stir in remaining 1/2 teaspoon cumin, wine, saffron, lard, and salt. Beat in egg yolks a bit at a time. Cook for ten minutes over medium heat, stirring gently with a wooden spoon so as not to break up the meatballs; flip meatballs and cook another ten minutes. Serve meatballs in a bowl with the thickened broth.
What worked: The meatballs held together remarkably well - I'm used to making meatballs with egg or some other binder, but sufficiently fatty bacon (house-cured, of course) worked just fine. The color of the saffron-egg broth was a pretty yellow. The taste was okay, if a bit bland.
What didn't: Unsurprisingly, beating egg yolk into a low-boiling broth meant that the egg streamed and clotted instead of thickening the broth. The modern method is to beat a bit of broth into the egg to warm it up, then beat the mixture back in. Also it's hard to get a uniform texture when the meatballs are already in the pan. Any suggestions?
Will I make it again? I don't know. It wasn't fabulous, but it might be an okay Friday night tourney dinner I guess.
What I'm reading: Tanya Huff, Heart of Valor
Re: Egg yolks
Date: 2007-08-07 01:33 pm (UTC)Using cooked egg yolks never occurred to me. I'll have to give that a shot. Thanks!