Sweetened & Infused cream

Similar to a posset these may have been drunk, rather than eaten. Though I have included some modern options for in the Kitchen as well.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup double cream

• 1 tablespoon honey

• 2 egg yolks

• A sprig of rosemary, sprig of savoury & a few thyme flowers

OR

• 1 cup double cream

• 1 tablespoon honey

• 2 egg yolks

• A head of elderflower and a tablespoon of meadowsweet

Method:

Mix the egg yolks into the cream. Gently heat the cream for a few minutes.

Stir in the honey, until dissolved.

Add the herbs or flowers and leave to steep for 30 minutes.

Strain through a sieve or cloth and pour into small bowls.

In a modern context these are great chilled for a couple of hours, or alternatively to make your very own ice cream, freeze for several hours, until set firm.

Rosemary flower omelette

Ingredients:

• ½ a small onion (finely chopped)

• 2 eggs

• Butter

• A handful of fresh rosemary flowers

• A small bunch of fresh garlic leaves (roughly chopped)

• Salt & Pepper

Method:

Melt some butter in a frying pan and add the onion. Fry for 5-10 minutes until caramelising. Remove from the pan and leave to one side.

Whisk the eggs until they’re combined.

Melt some butter in a frying pan and add the eggs, making sure to spread them around the pan.

Cook the eggs until they start to set. Add the onions, rosemary flowers and garlic, evenly, to the top of the omelette

Fold gently in half and slide onto a plate to serve. Season well.

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

Salt dough lamb

Ingredients:

• 600g Flour

• 300g salt

• Water

• 1/2 a Leg of lamb

• Rosemary or juniper berries

Method:
Mix together the flour and salt and slowly add water, bringing it together to form a stiff dough.

Roll out the dough thin enough that it will encase the leg of lamb.

Make slits in the lamb with a sharp knife and stuff a little rosemary or juniper berries into the flesh.

Wrap the leg in the salt dough and cook for 2 hours (rare) up to 3 hours (well done) over hot coals, turning occasionally. Depending on conditions, this may need extra cooking time.

Remove the now burnt and blackened salt dough before serving.

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

Garlic mushrooms

Ingredients:

• Butter

• A few mushrooms

• A small bunch of wild garlic leaves or flowers, or modern cloves work too (finely chopped)

• 1/2 tsp rosemary (finely chopped)

• 1/2 tsp thyme (finely chopped)

• Salt & pepper (to taste)

Method:
Melt a little butter in a pan.

Roughly chop the mushrooms and add them to the pan.

Fry for a couple of minutes, before adding the rest of the ingredients.

Fry once more for a couple of minutes before serving.

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

Pork & Barley stew

Ingredients:

For the stew; 

• A knob of Butter

• 300g pork (diced)

• 200ml cider

• 4 large handfuls of barley

• 2 turnips (peeled and and cut into chunks)

• 1 stick of celery (quartered and sliced)

• 1 leek (quartered and sliced)

• A handful of kale

• 2 tsp black mustard seeds

• 1 sprig of rosemary (finely chopped)

• A small bunch of thyme (finely chopped)

• Salt & pepper (to taste)

For the dumplings;

• 50g suet

• 100g flour

• 100ml cold water

Method:

Melt the butter in a large cooking pot. Add the pork and cook until nicely browning

Add the rest of the ingredients and add enough water to just cover everything.

Bring to the boil and simmer uncovered. Don’t let the stew run dry, add a drop more water, if necessary.

While that’s cooking. Mix together the suet and flour and season with salt & pepper. Slowly add the water, while mixing with your hands, until it all comes together.

Divide the dough into 4 and press firmly into balls. When the stew has been on for about 90 minutes, carefully drop the dumplings into the stew and simmer for a further 20 minutes.

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

Rosemary & Bay Beer

Before hops were common in beer brewing, herbs such as rosemary and nettles would have been used.

If you substitute the rosemary and bay for 35g of dried hops you can also make a simple hop beer.

For more authentic brewing, leave out the sugar, as this would not have been available. You could add honey instead, but this will be more like a braggot.

Without sugar the beer will be a lot weaker, maybe 1 or 2 percent, and so will not keep for long. This would have been made frequently and drunk within a few days at most.

Ingredients:

• 5 rosemary sprigs

• 10 bay leaves

• 500g amber malt extract

• 375g sugar

• 12 pints of water

• Beer yeast (or Young’s super wine yeast extract)

Method:

Put the rosemary and bay leaves into a large pan and cover with 6 pints of water, boil for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile put your sugar and malt extract into a fermentation bin. Strain the rosemary and bay water through a muslin cloth into the fermentation bin.

Stir well to dissolve all the sugar and malt extract.

Pour in 6 pints of cold water and stir. Make a note of the gravity, it should be around 1040.

Add your yeast and leave to ferment for 3 weeks. Whilst a lot of recipes state much shorter times I find the beer benefits from this extended time.

Don’t forget to check your final gravity, if you haven’t already and want to know the percentage of alcohol in your brew.

Add a level teaspoon of sugar to each beer bottle and siphon the beer into the bottles. Cap the bottles (or use swing tops) and place somewhere warm for 2 days before moving to somewhere cool.

The beer should be ready to drink in 2 weeks, 3 is better.