Lemon Chicken

Ingredients:

• Whole chicken

• 2 cups of Cider

• A few Juniper berries

• A Small Handful of fresh Sorrel

• A Small Handful of Wild garlic

• A Small Handful of Ground elder

• A slice of Stale Bread

• Olive oil

Method:

Put the chicken into a large pot or cauldron and add the cider and juniper. Top up the pot with water, ensuring the chicken is completely covered. Heat the liquid to a simmer and parboil the chicken for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile roughly chop the sorrel, garlic and ground elder. Tear the bread into chunks and mix into the chopped leaves, with a little oil.

Carefully remove the chicken from the pot (reserve the liquid to use as stock in another dish). Stuff the bread and sorrel mix into the cavity, and place the chicken on a spit. Rub a little oil onto the chicken skin and cook over hot embers for about an hour and a half, turning occasionally.

Be sure to avoid any flames coming into contact with the chicken, or it will burn before cooking all the way through. Skewer the chicken and check the liquid runs clear before serving.

Hot Saxon Cider

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of dry cider or apple juice

• 2 sprigs rosemary

• 2 sprigs thyme

• 12 juniper berries

• 2 tablespoons honey

Method:

Put all the ingredients into a pan and bring to a simmer. Heat for around 15 minutes, allowing the herbs to infuse into the cider..

Strain the liquid through a muslin or cheesecloth and serve immediately.

In a none authentic setting I recommend adding a shot of brandy before serving.

Getting started with homebrew

The first rule of making any kind of brew, is to make sure you sterilise everything. Buckets, bottles, siphons – everything that comes into contact with your brew. You can buy sterilising powder in home-brew shops, Wilko’s or online. Follow the directions on the packet and clean everything thoroughly.

Once clean, rinse the equipment well.

The next thing is to make sure you have a hydrometer. These are cheap to buy and will help you to know when your brew is finished fermenting. It will also enable you to estimate the alcohol content of your finished brew.

• Take a reading before you add your yeast. This is known as the Original gravity or OG

• Take another at the end. This is known as the Final gravity or FG

• Using a simple formula, (OG – FG) x 0.13 = %, you can then figure out the alcohol content of your finished brew

• For example if your original gravity is 1080 and your final gravity is 1000, then using the formula (1080 – 1000) x 0.13 = 10.4% alcohol content

The original gravity of most wines and meads should start at around 1050 – 1100

The original gravity for beer should start at around 1040

The higher the number, the higher the potential alcohol content of your brew, however this is also limited by the type of yeast used.

Your brew will either finish fermenting when the yeast runs out of food (sugar) or when the alcohol content is too high for the yeast to live in.

When your brew stops bubbling, or slows to less than 1 bubble a minute, use the hydrometer to see if your brew is finished fermenting. Move your brew somewhere warm and check the gravity over a period of 3 days and if the reading doesn’t change, fermentation has stopped.

At this stage there are a few optional things you can add to your brew. The first 2 things are fermentation stopper, and campden tablets. These are generally added at the same time to wine, mead and cider, and help to stabilise the alcohol by killing off any yeast that might still be hanging around. They also help to prevent any bacterial growth during the ageing process. Add these as per the packet instructions, usually you’ll need to stir your brew daily for 3 days after adding, which will also help to remove any trapped co2.

The next thing is bentonite. This is a naturally occurring clay that draws particles from the alcohol and settles it to the bottom of your container. This clears the alcohol, so you can siphon your liquid into a new container or bottle to prevent a hazy wine.

Taken from my book ‘Eat like a Viking!’ Available now on Amazon