Melted Butter Sauce¹

5 ounce (2/3 cup) butter

2 ounce (1/2 cup) flour

1 pint (2 1/2 cups) cold water

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Melt 2 oz (4 tablespoons) of the butter in a saucepan over a low flame.  Stir in the flour and cook gently for 2 - 3 minutes. Add the water gradually, raise the heat and stir continually until the mixture simmers.  Lower the heat immediately.  Beat in the remaining butter in small pieces, continuing to beat until it is all melted. The spoon should eventually remain coated when you remove it from the sauce.  Do not allow it to boil after adding the butter as this will thin the sauce.  Season

Garlic Sauce (for Goose or Chicken)¹

3/4 pint (2 cups) milk

2 tablespoons flour

1 ounce (2 tablespoons) butter

1-2 cloves garlic

Thicken the milk with the flour and butter and cook, stirring, until creamy.  Squeeze the garlic into the milk through a garlic-press and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes and spoon over the carved pieces of bird.

The addition of a pinch of saffron transfers this into another medieval/renaissance sauce called "gauncile," which was served with boiled or roast pork.

Poivrade or Pepper Sauce¹

(Sauce Piper for Veal and for Venysoun

8 slices fried bread

4 tablespoons meat stock

2 tablespoons vinegar

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

Take the fried bread, which you have soaked in the meat stock and vinegar, add the pepper and salt.  Puree in a blender and then put into a saucepan; bring to the boil and simmer until the sauce is thick and smooth.  Serve with venison.

Almond Milk¹

Almond Milk and verjuice are the two basic saucs without which you cannot hope to  recapture the flavour of English medieval and Renaissance cookikng.  Whether you use milk or cream depends on the consistency of the dish you are preparing.  For instance, cream is too sticky with rice, but is good with puddings where a little thickening is needed.

3/4 pint (2 cups) milk or cream

2 ounces (1/2 cup) coarsely ground almonds

1/4 teaspoon bitter almond essence

2 tablespoons orgeat syrup

(Orgeat syrup is a sweet syrup made from almonds, sugar and rose water/orange-flower water. It was, however, originally made with a barley-almond blend. It has a pronounced almond taste and is used to flavor many cocktails.

Orgeat syrup can be hard to find, but can be found in some stores that sell coffee syrups/flavorings. If you cannot find it, almond syrup is a good substitute for orgeat syrup  http://www.webtender.com/db/ingred/478)

Simmer all the ingredients together for 10 minutes and allow to cool, covered.  It can be strained or not, as desired.

Verjuice¹

Although it was a most important basic ingredient in medieval English cookery, it is hard to define verjuice, as each family apparently had its own method.  It was the juice (sometimes fermented) of various unripe fruites such as grapes, crab-apples or good-berries.  In some cases the fruits wee kept separate, or while at other times they were mixed together.  The leaves of Damask roses were often added.

Verjuice was closer to a very sharp cider than vinegar, although the mild cider apple vinegars now available in health-food shops are an acceptable substitute.  It can also be replaced by cider mixed with a little rose hip syrup or juice.  The practice of distilling verjuice for pickles explains the apparent mildness of some pickles.

If you wish to try to make your own verjuice, crush some crab-apples and unripe grapes in a mortar.  Pit it all in a jar with a little cider and leave it on the window-sill to ferment for a day or two.  Strain it into a bottle and keep it in the refrigerator.   This fermented fruit juice is still made and used in the South.

^{1Seven Centuries of English Cooking, A Collection of Recipes by Maxime de la Falaise, Grove Press, New York}