Medieval chicken with almonds and grapes

Today is the first of May and I have invited my mother, sister, and brother-in-law to a spring dinner. I'm going to serve a medieval recipe of chicken that I've worked on for the last year. The first time I did it I made it as a filling for pies that I brought to Tuna Ting. This recipe is more of a stew, if you want it as a filling you need to thicken it more, or simply fish out the meat and vegetables from the broth.

This recipe is not based on a particular recipe from a certain cookbook. Almonds and almond milk were really popular in the time period and variations of cooking meat in almond milk comes up in several cookbooks. The combination of almonds and grapes is still found around the Mediterranean. Today when non-dairy milk products have become a lot more common it is fun to use them when cooking medieval food. Make sure that you get natural and and unsweetened almond milk though. Of course for the most historically accurate version you can make the almond milk yourself. 

This is a recipe for the upper class, and would have been a real rarity up in the North, where you don't exactly have a lot of fresh grapes. It is more likely that they would have used zante currants (korinter) instead if trying to make it up here. If you want to make it even more luxurious add some saffron to it.

This is the base recipe, I will give you vegetarian/vegan and camp-friendly versions at the end.

Ingredients

700 g chicken cut in cubes

4 schalottes, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2-3 handfulls of green grapes

500-600 ml of almond milk.

2-3 egg yolks

fat to fry in.

Fry the schalottes and garlic until they are shiny and translucent, but not brown. Add the chicken and let it get some colour, but don't brown it. Add the almond milk and the grapes and let it simmer until the chicken is cooked through. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl, add a 100-200 ml of the broth and whisk it in, then add the egg mixture to the main stew and whisk while heating it. The eggs add thickness, if it doesn't thicken enough you can use flour or starch to thicken it, preferably wheat.

Add some fresh grapes on top when you serve it.

Serve with: For a medieval serving I serve it with bread, rice or roasted turnips (majrovor) and some pickled onions.

Vegetarian and vegan versions

This is a recipe that is easy to make vegetarian or vegan versions of. I have switched the chicken for turnips, and that gives it a stronger flavour. Simply cook the turnips until just through, there should be some resistance to them and not a mush. For the vegan version you need to thicken it without the eggs, either with modern starches or if you can find wheat starch. Regular wheat flour can also be used as a thickening agent.

At a camp

Everytime you work with chicken you have to think about the hygiene. In the summer and in a place where you don't have access to a dishwasher, or at least a lot of hot water, it's possible to substitute the raw chicken for pre-grilled chicken. Fry the onions, add the almond milk, bring it to a boil and add the the egg yolks. As a final step take the pre-cocked chicken, remove any skin if it had one, shred it and put it in the almond sauce.