From Maestro Martino comes a delightful summertime sauce, Sapor celeste de estate. As Medieval cooking was seasonal many recipes were only available when plants were in season. For this recipe Maestro Martino uses Blackberries .
Take some wild blackberries that grow in the hedgerows and some thoroughly pounded almonds1, with a little ginger. And moisten these things with verjuice and strain through a sieve.
Ingredients
1 qt. (1 lt) blackberries
1/3 cup (50gr) unblanched almonds
2/3 cup (150 gr) verjuice2 or a mixture of 2 parts cider vinegar and 1 part water
1/4″ (½ cm) peeled and sliced ginger
salt
Directions
Puree the blackberries in a food processor or blender, the strain the juice, pressing to extract as much liquid as possible.
In a mortar or blender grind the almonds and ginger, mix in the blackberry juice.
Add the verjuice and strain once more. Sauce will turn blue with the interaction with the air.
Season to taste
Goes well with chicken, veal, or other white meat.
1 ground into a flour
2 verjuice is the juice of unripened grapes
References
LIBRO DE ARTE COQUINARIA : COMPOSTO PER LO EGREGIO MAESTRO MARTINO
The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy, by Odile Redon, Françoise Sabban & Silvano Serventi. Translated by Edward Schneider. Available on Amazon.com
D.O. Neslund 03/01/2020
Medieval Cooking and More 