Pot roasted lamb shank

Ingredients:

• 2 lamb shanks

• Butter

• 1 onion (peeled)

• 2 turnips

• 2 white carrots or parsnips

• 2 sticks of celery

• 1 tablespoon honey

• 100 ml mead

• 1 tablespoon flour

• 1 litre beef stock

• 2 bay leaves

• 2 teaspoons black peppercorns (crushed)

Method:

Melt some butter in a large skillet or frying pan. Add the lamb shanks and sear them for 10-15 minutes. Leave to one side

Melt some butter in a large casserole dish or cauldron. Chop the onions, Turnips, carrots/parsnips, and celery and add to the dish. Add the honey, mix well and cook for 10 minutes.

Stir in the mead, flour, peppercorns & bay, followed gradually by the beef stock. Bring to a simmer.

Add the lamb to the dish and cook, covered if possible, for 2.5- 3 hours or until the lamb is falling off the bones.

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 

Hall stones (Anglo Saxon style shortbread)

Ingredients:

• 100g butter

• 50g honey

• 1 egg

• 200g bread flour

Method:

Blend together the butter, honey and egg.

Mix in the flour to form a stiff dough.

Tip out onto a lightly floured work surface, and knead together for several minutes.

Roll out the dough to about 1 cm thick, and cut into squares. Optionally, prick the tops with a knife.

Cook in the centre of a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 10 - 15 minutes, until golden in colour.

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

Oat wrapped cod

Ingredients:

• Butter

• 2 cod fillets

• 1 egg

• Salt and pepper

• Rolled oats

Method:

Heat a little butter in a frying pan or on a griddle.

Whisk the egg and use it to coat the cod fillets. Season with salt & pepper.

Sprinkle some oats onto a plate and push the cod fillets firmly into them, turn the fillets over and coat the other side.

Fry for about 5 minutes. Carefully turn the fish and cook for a further 5 minutes, until cooked through.

Serve with fresh seasonal salad leaves and barley risotto.

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

Pig tail soup

A favourite of the Anglo Saxons.

Pork was know as ‘swin’ or modern ‘swine’. With no secondary uses a pig would have been used solely for its meat.

A Saxon swineherd who looked after his lords pigs was entitled to one pig and its entrails, presumably for making sausage casings.

Ingredients:

• 3 pig tails (cut into 1-1.5’’ chunks)

• 1.5L chicken stock

• 1 onion (finely chopped)

• 3 white or purple carrots (quartered and diced)

• 3 handfuls of split peas

• 3 celery (finely chopped)

• Handful of wild garlic (roughly chopped)

• 2 bay leaves

• Butter

Method:

Stick the pig tails in a pan or cauldron. Add the stock.

Bring to a boil & simmer for 40 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook for a further 20 minutes.

Remove from the heat and remove the tails from the soup.

Heat some butter in a pan and fry the tails for 10-20 minutes, until crispy. Return the tails to the soup and serve.

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

Split pea pottage

Ingredients:

• Butter

• 6 rashers of Bacon (roughly chopped)

• 1 leek (roughly chopped)

• 2 sticks of celery (roughly chopped)

• 1.5L chicken stock (any stock will work)

• 300g Dried split peas

• Handful of wild garlic (finely 3chopped)

• 2 tsp fresh mint (roughly chopped)

Method:
Melt some butter in a large pan or cauldron.

Add the bacon and cook for a few minutes, until starting to brown. Add the leeks and celery and fry for a few minutes.

Pour in the stock and add the peas, garlic and mint.

Bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour, until reduced by a third and the peas are soft. If necessary top up with more water.

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

Soft fresh cheese

Ingredients:

• 1L Full fat milk (I like to use goat)

• 250ml buttermilk/1-2 tablespoons of vinegar or rennet

• Salt

Method:
Heat the milk until almost boiling.

Take off the heat, add the buttermilk, vinegar or rennet and stir thoroughly.

Leave for about 15 minutes. The milk will curdle and the whey and curds will separate.

Pour the mixture through a sieve or colander, lined with a double layer of cheesecloth.

Rinse with cold water and sprinkle a little salt over the cheese. Leave to drain for about 2 hours.

This will keep, if chilled, for up to a week, but the flavour will mature.

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

Butter

Ingredients:

• Double cream (at room temperature)

Method:

Put the cream into a bowl.

Mix and stir vigorously with a whisk, or your hand for 5 – 10 minutes, the cream will thicken, then suddenly start to slosh around as the buttermilk separates from the butter.

Drain the buttermilk, and stir again for another minute to remove the last of the buttermilk, before draining one last time.

Rinse the butter with cold water. Optionally you can now season with salt or try adding herbs or garlic to the butter.

The buttermilk can be used for making cheese, cakes or biscuits.

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

Christmas tree whisk (tvare)

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

Traditional Scandinavian tvare whisks date back to at least the 9th century. The old Norse word for them was þvara. The word tvare, means 'mixing' though they would have been used for mashing, as well as stirring porridge and stew.

As these were custom made the size of the handle varied for its user, as well as its purpose.

The handle can be anything up to half a metre long for large pots of porridge.

1. The first step is to find a suitable tree, the top part of a 5 foot tree will probably make no more than two whisks, any lower down the handle and branches will be too thick to work with.

2. Cut the trunk to the desired length for your handle. Cut below the second large spread of branches. Remove the top branches and any others along the stem.

3. Cut the remaining branches to around 5/6cm long.

4. Remove as much bark as possible from the handle and branches. Don't worry too much as this will be easier after the next step.

5. Bring a large pan of water to a boil and boil the wood for 10-15 minutes. This will soften the remaining bark, making it easier to remove.

6. The final step is to sand everything smooth and treat with a food safe oil. Traditionally this would be Linseed.

Char cloth

Used to light fires with just a spark. It works incredibly well and burns very hot. It’s also easy to make and can be used for authentic fire lighting for reenactment purposes. All you need is some 100% cotton or linen cloth – an old dust sheet works well, though I have heard that denim or old flannels are good, as well as cheesecloth or muslin.

1. Cut the cloth into rough squares, 2″ works well.

2. Put the squares into a tin. Any can work, providing it has a tight seal and doesn’t have any rubber or plastic seals. Try an old sweet or mint tin.

3. Don’t pack the tin too tightly, I learned this my first time, as things don’t burn evenly and I ended up having to start again.

4. Punch a hole in the tin lid using a 6” nail. This allows gasses to escape, without too much oxygen getting in and turning the cloth to ashes.

5. Stick the tin onto a heat source (outdoors due to the smoke produced). I use a small gas camping stove.

6. After a few minutes of heating, smoke will stream from the hole in the lid, which may also ignite at times, but don’t worry, this is normal.

7. Continue to burn until the smoke is no longer coming from the hole – anywhere from 5-15 minutes.

8. Remove from the heat, but do not remove the lid until the contents are completely cool. I learned this the hard way. By removing the lid and allowing oxygen into the tin, the cloth will combust.

9. Once the tin is cool and you have removed the cloth, store in an airtight container and keep dry until needed.

10. To ignite all you need is a spark from a flint and steel and some tinder. Straw, dried nettles or Gorse work well.

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

Cured salmon (Viking Gravadlax)

Ingredients:

• 100g sea salt

• 80g honey

• 30g dill (finely chopped)

• 12 juniper berries (crushed)

• A splash of mead

• 2 salmon fillets

Method:

Mix the Salt, honey, dill & berries well.

Place some cling film into a dish and lay 1 salmon fillet, skin side down and cover with the salt mix.

Place the second fillet, skin side up, on top and wrap tightly in the cling film.

Place something heavy on top and leave in the fridge for 2 – 4 days, depending on how salty you want the fish to be. Turn every 12 hours.

Drain any surplus liquid before serving.

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

Hazelnut patties (Viking cookies)

Ingredients:

• 100g butter

• 100g honey

• 2 eggs

• 200g hazelnuts (finely chopped or crushed)

• 200g flour

Method:

Cream together the butter, honey and eggs.

Stir in the hazelnuts and flour. Kneed together to form a slightly sticky dough.

Split the mixture into even sized amounts. Roll into balls and squash each ball as flat as possible.

Cook for a few minutes on each side on a hot griddle or frying pan. Watch them carefully, or they will burn.

Alternatively heat your oven to 170 degrees and cook in the centre of the oven for approx 10 to 15 minutes, until firm and golden in colour

Leave to cool fully before eating, as they will firm up when cool.

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

Crisp breads

Ingredients:

• 300g flour (plus a little extra for dusting the worktop)

• 10g Salt

• 10g Cumin, caraway or fennel seeds (roughly ground in a pestle & mortar)

• water

Method:

Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl. Slowly add water and mix to form a dough.

Flour your worktop with a little flour and roll the dough out thinly. Cut the dough into rounds and make a hole in the middle.

Place onto a baking tray that has been lined with greaseproof paper.

Cook in the centre of a preheated oven at 200 degrees for about 20 – 30 minutes until lightly browned and crisp. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

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

Sausages

Use the cut end of a piece of horn to aid the stuffing of sausage cases. An old drinking horn works well. It needs to be small enough to fit a casing on to, but with an opening large enough to stuff meat through. Mine measures approximately 2’’ long by 1’’ at its narrowest. The opening at the small end is about 1/2 inch, but find what works for you.

When you cut the horn, you may need to use a drill to open up the hole a little more.

Ingredients:

Recipe 1;

• 240g venison

• 60g pork fat

• 1 tsp wild garlic

• ½ an onion

• ½ tsp of salt

• ¼ tsp freshly ground pepper

• Sausage casings (soaked in cold water and rinsed)

Recipe 2;

• 240g Pork

• 60g pork fat

• 1 tsp summer savory

• ½ tsp salt

• ¼ tsp freshly ground pepper

• Sausage casings (soaked in cold water and rinsed)

Method:
Chop the ingredients up as finely as possible, then knead and mash the ingredients together for a few minutes. If you have a sausage maker you could grind the meat through this to save a lot of time.

Push one end of your pre soaked sausage casing over a sausage horn and tie the loose end.

Stuff the ingredients through the horn into the casing. This is a slow process, don’t rush or overfill the casing, or it might split.

Twist the sausage at even intervals to mark out individual sausages. If there is any trapped air in the sausages prick the skin with a small needle or pin.

To cook these, boil them in water (or try stock or beer) for 10-15 minutes, until cooked through. Alternatively, though less authentic for the time, they can be grilled or fried.

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

Nettle & Wild Garlic Soup

Ingredients:

• A knob of Butter

• 1 onion (finely chopped)

• 2 sticks of celery (finely chopped)

• 2 white or purple carrots (finely chopped)

• 2 large handfuls of young nettle tops (finely chopped)

• 1 large handful of wild garlic leaves (finely chopped)

• 1L stock

• 3 tablespoons of full fat milk or cream

• Salt & pepper (to taste)

Method:

Heat the butter in a pan. Add the onion and cook for several minutes, until softening.

Add the celery, carrots, nettles, wild garlic and stock.

Bring to a boil and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Stir in the milk and serve with crusty sourdough bread.

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

Raspberry/Blackberry leaf tea

Method:

Pick only the young, fresh looking new leaves.

Wash and then bruise the leaves with a rolling pin.

Store in an airtight container for 3-6 weeks to ‘ferment’

Lay the leaves out in a single layer to dry somewhere warm until crunchy.

Crumble the leaves into small pieces and store somewhere dry.

To make a tea, add 1 teaspoon per cup of hot water. Strain before drinking.

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

Meadowsweet mead

Check my other blog post here for the basics of homebrewing before attempting this one.

Ingredients:

• 1.8Kg honey

• 30g meadowsweet

• 4.5 l water

• 1 teaspoon of wine yeast

Method:

Put half the honey into a clean, sterile bucket with the meadowsweet.

Pour in 4.5 litres of boiled water and stir until the honey is dissolved.

When the liquid has cooled to room temperature, add the yeast. Leave to ferment for 2 days.

Strain the liquid through a clean muslin into a demijohn, fit with an airlock and leave to ferment for a further 5 days.

Syphon the mead into a clean demijohn, leaving behind any sediment.

Add the rest of the honey and mix well.

When fermentation ends (bubbles passing through the airlock at less than one a minute) siphon the mead into bottles and cork.

Age for a minimum of 3 months before drinking.

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

Egg Custard Tarts

Ingredients:

• 300g plain flour (sifted)

• 150g unsalted butter (cut into cubes)

• Water

• 250ml whole milk

• 250ml Full fat cream

• 4 egg yolks

• 80g honey

• Cinnamon

Method:

Add the butter to the flour and rub it between your fingers and into the flour. Keep rubbing until the mix resembles breadcrumbs.

Add a small drop of water and mix together. Keep adding a little water at a time, until the mixture comes together to form a stiff dough and leaves the bowl mostly clean.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the pastry out as thin as possible – 1 or 2 mm is best. Cut rounds for the bases using a pastry cutter and place into cupcake cases.

Blind bake (filling each pie with dry beans) for 10 minutes at 180 degrees, remove the beans and cook for a further 5 minutes at 160 degrees.

Remove from the oven.

Heat the milk and cream together until almost boiling.

Beat the egg yolks with the honey, then whisk in the hot milk.

Pour the custard into the baked pastry cases and sprinkle a little cinnamon on top.

Bake for around 20 minutes at 140 degrees until the custard has set.

This recipe is taken from my book ‘Eat like a Viking!’ Available now on Amazon

Smoked Mackerel Butter

Ingredients:

• Smoked mackerel fillets (skin and bones removed)

• Unsalted butter (about half the same volume as fish)

• A mix of salad leaves, such as garlic-mustard, wild garlic, rocket, watercress (finely chopped)

Method:
Flake the fish into a bowl

Add the fresh butter and work together into a paste, until smooth. Add more butter if too stiff.

Add the salad leaves and mix well.

Serve on warm fresh bread, flat breads, crisp breads or oat cakes

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