Norman Foods
from British Food: An Extraordinary Thousand Years of History by Colin Spencer

Notes

Earliest recipes written down in 1280 show an Arab influence stemming from Persia, also Arab-Sicilian can be seen in the macaroni dishes. English cuisine began at the beginning or the 12th century.

Alexander Neckham's De Utensilibus ("Regarding the names of utensils"), c. 1190, goes into great detail about various sauces used on meats and fish.

Favorites at that time:
Stewed hen with cumin sauce
Fish poached in wine and water with green sauce

Noodles (Cressee): pasta dough flavoured with ginger and sugar and coloured with saffrom, served with grated cheese

Ravioli: pasta dough stuffed with parsley, sage, shallots, cheese, butter and cream, served with grated cheese

Oranges: balls of minced pork and egg yolk, then rolled in raw egg, roasted for a moment to colour, then rolled in egg whited and dusted with sugar

White pancakes: batter made from white flour, wine and egg white, fried, sprinkled with sugar and served with the 'oranges'

Jelly: young pig and chicken cut into chunks, poached in white wine spiced with cloves, galingale and ginger, then left cold to jelly

Sage sauce: ground ginger, cloves, cinnamon, galingale, sge, hardboiled egg yolk mixed with wine or cider, to be served with suckling pig's trotters

Nag's Tail: suckling pig's trotters and ears cooked in wine, then roasted, cut into chunks mixed with fried onions and moistened with the cooking liquor, so that the pieces of meat are covered in a onion sauce

Whilte Elder: chickens cut into chunks and cooked in stock, then thickened with egg yolk and almond milk, then flavoured with elder flowers ground with salt. Can be made with fish. Gather elder flowers in full bloom, dry them, then grind them and keep them throughout the year

Veal Stew (Hausgeme): a mixture of diced veal and minced veal simmered in almond milk, flavoured with galingale, cinnamon and sugar, thickened with rice flour and coloured with sandragon red

Poached chicken (Hauseleamye): mutton hock boiled with grapes to make a broth, sharpened with verjuice, strained, then the chicken is cut up and poached in the broth, then flavoured with ground ginger and parsley to colour it green

Chicken: poached in a broth sharpened with verjuice, parsley, cloves, mace and cubebs coloured with saffron

Mawmenny: minced chicken and pork poached in wine flavoured with spices including cloves and fried almonds, thickened with ground almonds and coloured red (There are many variations of this recipe in various colours and flavours; it continued to be a firm favourite throughout the Middle Ages, with the recipe changing over time. But the white mawmenny was perhaps the most popular version which came to be the basis of the Victorian 'shape' and our blancmange

Nut Tarts: pastry cases, made from chestnut flour coloured with saffron, containing a mixture of pistachio or pine nuts which have been mixed with wine and sugar, ground ginger and cloves and boiled to a syrup

Rose Pottage: almond milk flavoured with ground rose petals thickened with breadcrumbs and eggs, coloured with saffron and sprinked with sugar. These could be made with ground hawthorn blossom, with wild strawberries, blackberries or elder flowers

Food of Cyprus: Almond milk favoured with a generous amount of ground ginger and ground pistachio nuts, thickened with rice flour

Medieval Sauces from later sources but clearly made earlier. The dishes were named after the sauce.

Civey: An onion sauce thickened with bread and flavoured with pepper and mixed spices. This is a sauce for hare or rabbit or even mallard on a meat day. Also a sauce on fast days for tench, sole or oysters

Gravey: A puree of almonds, ginger and sweetened with sugar. A sauce for rabbit, chicken, eels or oysters. This sauce could be further thickened and enriched with egg yolks (first boiled then pounded) and grated cheese melted into it - then called gravey enforced. The word is thought to be based on Old French graine meaning meat.

Charlet: For meat days was ground pork mixed with eggs, milk and saffron. For feast days the sauce might also have ginger, sugar and sweet spices floating on the top. On fish days, almond milk and fish was used, either codling or haddock which would puree well

Bukkenade: Another meat sauce made from pounded veal or pork and meat broth, with added herbs and spices, thickened with egg yolks, sharpened with either verjuice or vinegar, to be served on kid, veal, chicken or rabbit. Another version adds dried fruits, sugar and spices to the meats, while the broth is thickened with ground almonds and amidon (wheat flour).

Egerdouce: a sweet and sour sauce made from sugar or honey and young red wine or vinegar and dried fruits, cooked with rabbit or chicken

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, sprinkles 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 wind sauce with added currants and chardequince (marmalade) reinforced with aqua vitae would be poured over it and set alight, then served flaming.

Blancmange: This is similar to the dishes above, but was much blander, as all the strong spices were omitted. It was made from grounded capon flesh, almond milk, egg yolks and sugar, then decorated with aniseed comfits or blanched almonds

After the dish was finished it was further decorated with roasted almonds, pine nuts or pistachio, stuck with cloves, or scattered with powdered spices or comfits.

Sauces

Egerdouce: could also be a sauce in its ow with chunks of fried fish. Onions, cloves, mace, cubebs were cooked with vinegar and sugar. Another sauce with fried fish was rapeye, made from pounded dried fruit, vinegar sugar and thickened with rice flour and breadcrumbs. Each meat or bird had its own particular sauce

Mustard sauce: brawn, beef or salt mutton

Chawdron: a black sauce made from boiled giblets and offal, mostly the liver, with spices and thickened with brown breadcrumbs: served with swan

Ginger sauce: served with lamb, kid, suckling pig, fawn, partridge and pheasant. Obviously a favourite sauce

Camelyn: another dark sauce made from ground currants and walnuts and cinnamon mixed with breadcrumbs and vinegar: for herons, egret, crane, bittern, shoveller, plover and bustard

Alepevere: a garlic sauce; with roast beef

Green sauce: made from parsley, mint, garlic, thyme and sage with vinegar thickened with breadcrumbs. Eaten with green fish, that is raw fish pickled in brine

Gauncil or garlic sauce: made from garlic, saffron seethed in milk and thickened with wheat flour. Served with goose, and thought essential.

Also

Dillegrout: traditionally served at coronation feasts, white soup made with dill