Chicken Meatballs in Hydrogarum Apicius 2.2.4
from Cooking Apicius: Roman Recipes for Today by Sally Grainger

This recipe for meatballs has been ‘created’ to accompany the thick chicken sauce on the previous page (Chicken pottage to serve with meatballs - Apicius 2.2.9). Chicken flesh is flavoured with pepper, cumin, fish sauce and sweet wine in keeping with the style of forcemeat elsewhere in the Apicius text. The meatballs are cooked in the liquor called hydrogarum described in Apicius 2.2.4.

300 g organic corn-fed chicken breast meat
1 tsp roasted and ground cumin seeds
generous freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp caroenum (see p. 31)
1 tbsp fish sauce
20 g fresh bread crumbs
1 small egg

For poaching:
30 black peppercorns, coarsely ground
1 coffee cup of fish sauce
1 coffee cup of caroenum
11 coffee cups of water

Chop the chicken breast and put it in a food processor with the roasted and ground cumin, pepper and parsley. Process until quite finely minced. Add the liquids, bread crumbs and the egg. Pulse for a few moments and turn out into a bowl. Put the pepper, fish sauce, caroenum and water in a frying-pan and bring to a gentle simmer. Using two dessert spoons, mould little quenelles of chicken meat by scooping from one spoon to the other, and then drop them into the simmering cooking liquor. Poach until firm and remove with a slotted spoon. Serve with the chicken sauce above. This meatball recipe can also be used with lamb or beef and any other kind of minced fowl or game.