Pottage and Buttered Beer

Ingredients for Pottage

From Thomas Dawson's The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin 1594

  • 1 onion
  • 2 leeks
  • 1 or 2 parsnips
  • spinach
  • herbs from the garden (eg parsley, rosemary and thyme)
  • butter
  • stock (vegetarian or chicken depending how moral you are feeling)
  • Seasoning (salt and peppercorns)
  • 12 + tablespoons medium oatmeal (porridge oats will suffice)

How to make said ingredients into pottage

There are many different ways to do this but here is a vague guide.

  1. Peel the onion, roughly slice and chop
  2. Taketh the leeks and parsnip, peel the outer skins and roughly chop
  3. Chop some spinach
  4. Take a pot apply heat to it.
  5. Add some butter and add the onions cook them for a bit
  6. Then add the chopped leeks and parsnips
  7. Pour over some stock and the oats
  8. Add the spinach
  9. Allow to cook until the vegetables are ready (depending on how soft you like them), then add the garden herbs, salt and pepper.
  10. It is possible to cook with meat a part of bacon and the like.  However most people would not have been able to afford meat so they would have to make do with vegetables they had to hand.

Buttered Beer

From Thomas Dawson's The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin 1594

  • 3 Bottles of Good Quality British Ale
  • 1/2 tsp ground Cloves
  • 1/2 tsp ground Nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp ground Ginger
  • 5 Egg Yolks
  • 1 Cup Sugar
  • 12 Tbsp Unsalted Butter (Cubed)

How to make buttered beer if you felt the need

  1. Carefully pour the ale into a saucepan
  2. Stir in the ground ginger, cloves, and nutmeg
  3. Gently bring mixture to a boil and then simmer on low heat (if you want to burn off the alcohol then keep boiling for twenty minutes or so).
  4. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar in a separate bowl until creamy (ish).
  5. Once the ale starts to simmer, remove from heat and add in the sugar and egg yolk mixture and stir them all together.
  6. Put back onto the heat and stir until a little thickening occurs.
  7. After simmering for five minutes add in the butter and whisk until the beer gets frothy.  Ten minutes of whisking and staring sadly at was once beautiful beer should do.  Then remove wait to cool.  
  8. Drink.
     

Both the recipes were taken from The Tudor Cookbook by Terry Breverton