Eating the Past: Cooking for Health: Medieval Style

Cook's note:

This is a poultice commonly used for wounds. See the British Library Digital Library for the original Lacnunga. In addition, Dr. Benjamin Slade in the Linguistics Department at the University of Utah has a modern translation on his website.

Cook's note:

This dish was inspired by the Regimen Sanitatis, but is a slightly more medieval adaption of Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk, previously adapted by Sam Sifton for The New York Times. It has ingredients appropriate for health in the month of October.

Ingredients

1 (3 to 4 pound) whole chicken
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/4 c. unsalted butter
1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil
1 cinnamon stick about finger-length
10 cloves garlic, peeled
2 1/2 cups goat's milk
1 handful of fresh sage, leaves picked--around 15 to 20 leaves
About 10 threads of saffron (more if you choose to intensify the flavor)
2 cloves
2 lemons, outer peels only

Directions

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Season the chicken (the original recipe says "aggressively," which I took to mean "liberally") with the salt and pepper. Place a pot that will fit the chicken snugly over medium-high heat on the stove, and add to it the butter and the olive oil. When the butter has melted and is starting to foam, add the chicken to the pot and fry it, turning every few minutes, until it has browned all over. I found that it helped to have an extra pair of hands to steady the pot while I turned the chicken using tongs and a large carving fork.

Turn the heat down to low, remove the chicken from the pot and place it onto a plate, then drain off all but a few tablespoons of the fat from the pot. I reserve the fat just in case it seems as if a little more is needed in the next step.

Add the cinnamon stick and garlic to the pot and allow them to sizzle in the oil for a minute or two. Then return the chicken to the pot along with the milk, sage leaves, saffron, and cloves. Add lemon peel. It is this combination of seasonings that really gives the dish its "medievalish" flavor.

Slide the pot into the oven and bake UNCOVERED (disregard my mistake in the video) for approximately 1 1/2 hours, basting occasionally until the chicken is cooked through (165 F) and the sauce has reduced into a thick, somewhat clumpy looking sauce. Let the cooked chicken rest for about ten minutes to "drink up" the sauce.

Remove the chicken from the pot to a carving board. Take the sauce and strain it through a fine mesh sieve. In this, I differ from the original recipe, which just has you spooning it over the chicken as is, whole sage leaves and all--a lot of the comments on the NYT Cooking site address the fact that served as-is the sauce looks kind of gross and has a weirdly curdled texture. If you wish, you could use an immersion blender to really smooth out the sauce. Spoon the strained (and perhaps blended) sauce over the carved chicken.

Christine Cooper-Rompato, Professor of English Literature, prepared The Nine Herbs Charm, which can be found in Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library Ms Harley 585 (R 128 .L3312 2001).

Alexa Sand, Professor of Art History, prepared Chicken in Milk, inspired by recommendations for October foods in the USU Special Collections & Archives copy of Regimen Sanitatis Salerni (Coll V Group 6 Book 6).