“in the style of”
I sometimes riff on a recipe rather than following them. I grew up cooking by theme rather than by specifics, but with historical cooking, it is somewhat more of a challenge to get into the mindset of the palate.
Lately I have been doing a lot from Apicius, and the other night I decided to just go with it.
We had a couple of turkey thighs to cook. They went into a pan with some chicken broth, some chopped up celery, a handful of coriander, a handful of oregano, and a little asafoetida. I popped a lid on it for the first 20 minutes, then removed the lid, added salt and pepper and raised the temperature to roasting.
Another ten minutes in, I added some moscato (it’s what I am using as grape syrup right now, not perfect but it balances things well enough) and finished it with red wine vinegar.
It was pretty darned good.
I have always felt that we tend to be a little narrow minded when looking at historic recipes. There is no reason to think that they didn’t do just like we do now… “The recipe says to use ingredient A but I am out of that or don’t like it so I am going to use ingredient B instead.”
Cooks then were no less inventive than we are now!
This dish sounds lovely!