Mortrewes

Mortrews or mortress (Old French morterel or morteruel, a kind of milk soup) was a thick potage of various pounded-up meats, such as chicken or pork, thickened with bread and eggs. When a dish says to serve in the manner of "mortrewys" you would cut slices of bread and toast them, and set them around the bowl before serving.

"Other favourite dishes where the main ingredient and the sauce mingled so that they were so thick they could be moulded were: mortrews, Blanc Dessore, mawmenny. These are all different names for much the same dish: pork or chicken ground to a pulp mixed with breadcrumbs and egg yolks, spiced and coloured, then moulded, and served cold with powdered ginger. A white mortrew was combined with almond milk and rice flour.

Blanc Dessore could be eaten with a sweet, spicy red wine sauce. Mawmenny tended to be made from richer ingredients: pheasant, partridge or capon mixed with pine nuts and spices. A red wine sauce with added currants and chardequince (marmalade) reinforced with aqua vitae would be poured over it and set alight, then served flaming."
- From British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History

Notes:

Catalan. morterol, MEng. mortrews, mortreux, mortreus, mortrelllus, Eng morteruelo, liver sauce. The word is a corruption from OFr mortreux, the plural of morteruel, meaning mortared meat from joints. All ingredients are pounded or mortared to a pulp and passed through a strainer. It is believed the dishes originated in Catalonia or Provenze. In this case, it is a mock foIe gras or liver sauce made with chicken or mutton.

The procedure for making this was current during the Middle Ages. Recipes are found in Sent Soví, Arte Cisoria, Le Menagier de Paris and Forme of Cury. The English used meat, fish or lungs. Their recipes consisted of ground meat cooked with spices and vinegar. They can include saffron to produce a thick yellow paste. This type of cooking was extensive throughout the medieval world.

Rice “Morterol” or Golden Rice Pudding, consists of rice flour cooked in almond milk, saffron and eggs as a thickener. The term has been used for different meat and fowl dishes, which after cooking them in a broth were pounded in a mortar or chopped with a knife and blended with various foods to become a pottage; with some variations in the name and the ingredients several dishes were made.

There is a liver sauce made with pork livers that is a traditional dish in the province of Cuenca where some think it originated. In Toledo, it is made with breasts of red-legged partridges, garlic, a bay leaf and pepper. During the Middle Ages, according to Alfonso de Valladolid (1270-1349), a Jewish convert, in his manuscript Libro de las tres creencias (Book of Three Faiths) cabbage was mixed with it. Traditional morteruelo or liver sauce is served as a spread for bread. Vilanova advised those having cold bodies should not eat it.

British Library MS Royal 12.C.xii (1320-40)

Double mortrels. Almond milk, eggs, a little amidon, galingale, ginger; hard boiled eggs divided into small pieces and put therein, sugar, crushed wafers planted thereon: color, yellow.

Forme of Cury (1390)

"Mortrews. Take henn and Pork and seeth hem togyd. take the lyre of Henn and of the Pork, and hewe it small and gnde it all to doust. take brede ygted and do thto, and temp it with self broth and alye it with zolk of ayren, and cast thon powdo fort, boile it and do thin powdo of gyng sug, safron and salt. and loke it be stoudyng, and tho it with powdo gyng."

Harleian MS, 279 (1430)

".xliiij. Mortrewys de Fleyssh. - Take Porke, an sethe it wyl ; thanne take it vppe and pulle a-way the Swerde, and pyke owt the bonys, an hakke it and grynd it smal; thenne take the sylf brothe, & temper it with ale; then take fayre gratyd brede, & do ther-to, an sethe it, an coloure it with Saffroun, & lye it with yolkys of eyroun, & make it euen Salt, & cast pouder Gyngere, a-bouyn on the dysshe."

Harleian MS, 4016 (1450)

"Mortreus de Chare. Take porke, and seth it ynow; and take it vppe, and bawde hit, and hew it and grinde it, and in a morter; And cast thereto grated brede, and then drawe the same broth thorgh a streynour, And temper hit with ale, and do al into a potte, and lete boile, and aley hit with yolkes of egges, And then lete it boile no more, And caste thereto powder of ginger, & serue it forth."

A Noble Boke Off Cookery (1467)

"A mortins of flesche. Tak mortyns of fleshe take hennes and fresche pork and sethe them togedour then take them up and enbane them for nonse and hew the pork and grain it and cast it in again and chargejour it with myed bred and colour it with saffron and boile it and set it down alay it with yolks of eggs and staunch it with pouder and serue it."