Strawberye

 

Original Source:

Two Fifteenth Century Cookery-Books: Harleian MS 279 (1430) & Harleian MS 4016 (1450)

Strawberye. Take Strawberys & waysshe hem in tyme of yere in gode red wune; than strayne thorwe a clothe, & do hem in a pott with gode almaunde milk, a-lay it with Amyndoun other with the flower or Rys,  & make it chargeaunt, and lat it boyle, and do ther in Roysonys of coraunce, safron, pepir, sugre grete plente, pouder gyngere, canel, galynhale, pounte it with vynegre, & a lytle whyte grece to put therto: coloure it with alkenade, & droppe it a-bowte, plante it with the graynes of pome-garnad, & than serve it forth.

Strawberry. Take strawberries and wash them when in season with good red wine, then strain them through a cloth and do them in a pot with good almond milk. Bind it with amidon or with rice flour and make it stiff, and let it boil, and put in currants, saffron, pepper, a lot of sugar, powdered ginger, cinnamon, galingale. Finish it with vinegar and a little white grease added. Colour it with alkanet and place in a bowl, sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and serve it forth.

 

My Redaction:
Allergens: nuts – can swap for rice milk.

250g               Strawberries
100ml             Red Wine
200ml             Almond Milk
3 Tbsp            Cornflour
1 1/3 C            Sugar
½ tsp              Red Wine Vinegar
1 tsp               Powder Douce

Clean and hull the strawberries. Steep the strawberries in red wine for at least 15 minutes, then drain and discard the wine. Puree the strawberries.

Put the strawberry pulp into a saucepan with the almond milk, cornflour, sugar and spices. Bring to the boil and let simmer for a couple of minutes. Pull it off the heat when the mixture starts to bind and thicken. Add the vinegar and pour the pudding into serving dishes.

Serve at room temperature or slightly chilled.

Changes Made:

Book of Hours, 1485 -1490
MS 38126

I did not have time to strain and remove the seeds from the strawberries but I don't think you really need too do this step. If you would like to do this step, go for it, but it isn't really necessary to do so. 

I have removed the “white grease” which would have been butter or lard, to make this dairy free as well as removing the alkanet. Alkanet is normally used as a dye, and the recipe is already bright enough coloured as is that you would not need to use alkanet. If you would like it to be redder or pink, I would just add a couple of drops of food dye, as it is also a little more accessible.  

I also removed the currants from the original recipe, but you can keep these in. I prefer to have a consistent texture, but if you would like to add the currants, you can. I have done both, but for this version, I did it without. I also did not have pomegranate seeds on hand for decorating the dish.

Spice blend: I have used my Powder Douce as it already contained around half of the mentioned spices. My spice blend is a mix of ginger, sugar, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. I do not have galangal, and I omitted the saffron and pepper. Saffron was normally used as a status spice and added to many dishes as a more “Hey I can afford this so we will add it to everything”. I don't think this would be an unreasonable substitute in period. 

 

Notes:

Amidon: Amidon is French for starch. I chose cornstarch as it is what I had on hand, though the recipe does say that you can use rice flour. This is just a thickening agent.

You can use frozen strawberries if berries are out of season. You just need to defrost and strain and discard the liquid before steeping in the wine. I have done this recipe with both fresh and frozen berries as in winter fresh berries can get very expensive.