Sweet Saxon Bread

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Ingredients:

• 100g/1/4 cup melted Butter

• 250g/3/4 cup full fat cream

• 2 tablespoons honey

• 1 Egg

• 450g/ 2 1/4 cups flour

• Tsp Yeast

• 1/2 tsp Salt

Method:

In a large bowl mix together the butter, cream, honey & egg.

Add the flour, yeast and salt and mix together to form a slightly sticky dough.

Tip out onto a work surface and knead for around 5-10 minutes.

Roll your dough into a ball, and dust with a little flour. Put it into a bowl and cover loosely with a damp cloth, to stop it drying out. Leave to prove for half an hour.

Divide the dough into four, take one piece and roll it into a sausage. Join the two ends of the sausage together, forming a circle. Finally twist the circle in half to form an ‘8’. Continue until you have four ‘8’ shaped mini loaves.

Bake for 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 220 degrees Celsius.

Remove from the oven, the loaves should sound hollow when you tap them on the bottom.

Leave to cool fully before eating.

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.

Pan fried oat bread

Ingredients:

• 250g/2 cups oat flour

• 200g/1 cup flour

• 50g, 1/2 cup oats

• 1 tsp yeast

• 2 tsp salt

• 250ml/1 cup warm water (give or take)

Method:

Put the flour, oats, yeast and salt, into a large bowl and mix together.

Slowly add the water a little at a time, and mix together to form a dough. It needs to be workable, so as not to stick to your hands too much, but too dry and it will fall apart. You can add more or less beer depending on how your dough feels. I find it varies slightly every time.

Tip out onto a work surface and knead for around 5-10 minutes.

Roll your dough into a ball, and dust with a little flour. Put it into a bowl and cover loosely with a damp cloth, to stop it drying out. Leave to prove somewhere warm for an hour or two, until its roughly doubled in size.

Tip your dough back out onto your work surface and carefully deflate it by poking it with your fingers.

Roll your dough into a ball, and roll to around 1/2 inch thick, or to a size that fits into your skillet.

Place your bread into the skillet and dry fry on a medium heat for 5 to 10 minutes, before flipping and cooking for a further 5-10 minutes. Watch it closely to avoid burning.

Leave to cool fully before cutting.

Alternatively you can make oven baked tear and share rolls. 

Divide the dough into 6 and roll into balls. Place the balls into an oven proof dish so that they are just about touching. Cook for 35-40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius, until they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

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Cheesy Barley (Viking risotto)

Ingredients:

• 1 knob of butter

• 1 leek

• 300g/1 cup pearl barley

• 1 litre/4 cups stock

• 1 large handful of cheese

Method:

Melt the butter in a pan or cauldron

Roughly chop the leek and add to the pan. Cook for a few minute to soften.

Add the barley and fry for a few minutes. Pour over the stock

Bring to a boil and simmer until the barley is tender and the water absorbed (45 mins-1 hour).

Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese.

Ember charred leeks with cheese & hazelnuts

Ingredients:

• Leeks

• Soft cheese

• Hazelnuts

Method:

Place the leeks onto hot embers and cook until blackened and charred. Depending on how hot your embers are the should take 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile roughly chop the hazelnuts.

Carefully remove the leeks from the embers. Slice the leeks lengthways and crumble some soft cheese and hazelnuts on top.

Serve immediately, discarding the blackened outer leaves.

Osterhlafas (Oyster loaf)

Ingredients:

• 1 large loaf of bread

• Large knob of butter

• 1/2 cup of white wine

• 1/2 a cup of water

• 12 Oysters (cleaned and shucked)

• 1/2 cup beef (cut into small pieces)

• 1 tablespoon of suet

• 2 egg yolks

• 2 tsp Parsley

• Salt & Pepper

Method:

Cut a ‘lid’ from the top of the loaf and scoop out the insides of the loaf, to make a bowl. Retain half the bread filling and break into small pieces.

Melt the butter in a pan and add the bread pieces, along with the wine and the water. Heat gently while squashing the bread pieces with a spoon to further break them up.

Bring to a simmer and add the beef and suet. Simmer for around 5 minutes. Add the oysters (including their liquid) and simmer for a few minutes.

Stir in the egg yolks, parsley and season with salt & pepper.

Pour the mixture into the hollow loaf and pop the bread ‘lid’ back on.

Put the loaves into a pre heated oven at 160 degrees Celsius, and bake for around 20 -25 minutes, until the filling has set.

Serve by slicing into think cuts.

Bacon

With a lack of refrigeration, salting would have been a preferred method of preservation and storage for the Vikings and Saxons. Though with salt being expensive, brining would have been more commonly used.

Bacon seems to have been produced in large quantities, at least by the Saxons. This recipe, while being a modern variation, makes use of ingredients that where available at the time and is based loosely on an old Yorkshire bacon cure.

Ingredients:

For the cure;

• 300g salt

• A few bay leaves

• 2 teaspoons juniper berries (crushed)

• 2 teaspoons black pepper (freshly cracked)

For the bacon:

• 1kg Pork belly

• 1 tablespoon honey

• Vinegar

Method:

The quantities given here are approximates, don’t worry too much about them being exact.

Mix together the cure ingredients.

Rub the pork belly with honey.

Add 1 handful of the cure to a food safe container, large enough to fit the pork belly.

Add the pork belly and rub the cure into the meat. Place in the fridge or somewhere cool for 24 hours.

Drain off any liquid that forms in the container and sprinkle another handful of cure over the pork. Repeat this process for 5 days.

After 5 days, rinse the pork with clean, cold water and pat dry. It should be feeling quite firm at this stage.

Rub the pork with a little vinegar and either hang somewhere cool or put it back in the fridge. Wait for a minimum of 5 days before eating.

Acorn flour

While also used to fatten up pigs, acorns can also be eaten by people. Charred acorns have been found on the floor of a Saxon hut, suggesting maybe that they were eaten much like chestnuts.

To make flour;

Shell the acorns, I find this easier after leaving them to dry for a day or two. Roughly chop the acorns, or, if you are in a modern Kitchen, run them through a food processor.

Cover the acorns with cold water, and leave to soak for 3-5 days, changing the water at least twice a day to remove most of the tannins.

Drain and dry the acorns, either naturally, or in an oven at 80 degrees Celsius, leaving the door slightly open.

Grind the acorns between quern stones, or, in a modern Kitchen use a food processor or coffee grinder, grinding as finely as you require.

The resulting meal/flour can be used as required in breads, pancakes, crumpets etc. It will make a denser loaf than normal bread flour, so I’d recommend using a mix of bread flour and acorn.

Using a similar method it is also possible to turn other foods, such as hazelnuts and broad beans, into meal/flour.

Acorn coffee

Bring some water to a boil in a pan, add your acorns, including their shells & boil them for around 20 minutes.

Leave until cool enough to handle, before peeling the shells from the nuts. Hitting them firmly with something heavy usually helps. Discard any that look bad or have worm holes in. 

Roughly chop the nuts, or run them through a food processor, if working in a modern Kitchen.

Roast the nuts until dark brown in colour. This can be done in a modern oven at 200 degrees Celsius, for 20-30 minutes or in a pan or skillet over a campfire. Leave to cool and then grid the acorns to a fine texture using quern stones or a pestle and mortar. In a modern Kitchen you can use a coffee grinder. Store somewhere cool and dry until ready to brew.

To make a cup of coffee, line a cup with a fine cloth like a muslin, or cheese cloth. Add 1-2 teaspoons of the coffee and leave to steep for several minutes. Lift the cloth from the cup, removing the acorn coffee powder.

Enjoy! Some people like to add milk and sugar, but its quite acceptable on its own.

Offal Patties (Viking Faggots)

Makes 9 large patties

Ingredients:

• 400g/2 cups pork mince

• 200g/1 cup liver

• 1 apple (grated)

• 1 Tsp parsley

• 1 Tsp sage

• Small bunch of wild garlic or 2 cloves garlic (peeled and finely chopped)

• 1 onion (peeled and finely chopped)

• 200g/1.5 cups breadcrumbs

• 1 Tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp pepper

Method:

Chop the pork, liver, apple, parsley, sage, onion & garlic, as finely as possible. 

Add the breadcrumbs, salt & pepper. Need & mash the ingredients together for a few minutes

Split the mixture into around 9 balls and slightly flatten.

Cook them in a pan, flipping part way through. Or alternatively grease a baking tray and cook in a preheated oven to 170 degrees Celsius for about an hour.

Ensure the faggots are piping hot in the middle, before serving.

Marinated Fruit

Ingredients:

• A mix of fruits (berries, apples, pears etc)

• Mead or wine

• Honey

Method:

Wash your fruits and slice and core any apples or pears.

Pour over enough mead or wine to cover the fruit and stir in 1 tablespoon of honey for every 3 cups of liquid.

Leave to stew for a minimum of 24 hours before serving.

You can reserve the mead or wine for drinking. Mead flavoured with fruit is known as a melomel.

Beer Poached Salmon

Ingredients:

• Tablespoon of butter

• 1 Onion

• 1 tsp mustard seeds

• 250ml/1 cup beer

• 1/2 a side of Salmon

Method:

Melt the butter in a pan or cauldron. Peel and slice the onion and add to the pan, frying for a few minutes to soften.

Add the mustard seeds and fry for a few seconds, until they start to pop.

Pour the beer into the pan and bring to a boil. 

Meanwhile cut the salmon into chunks, and once the pan is boiling, add the salmon and simmer, uncovered, for around 10 minutes, until the fish is cooked through.

Serve the salmon immediately with a little of the onion broth.

Pickled Ox Tongue

Ingredients:

• 1 ox tongue

• 2 tsp peppercorn

• 3 tsp salt

• 2 carrots

• 2 turnips

• 2 sticks of celery

• 1 Onion

• 1 Leek

• Small bunch of wild Garlic

• 2 cups vinegar

Method:

Roughly chop the carrots, turnips, celery, onion, leek & garlic. Add to a large pot, along with the salt & pepper and Ox tongue.

Cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and simmer for approximately 3 hours, until the meat is tender. Leave to cool until the tongue is handleable. Peel the skin from the tongue and discard.

Add the vinegar and 2 cups of the leftover broth from boiling the tongue to a pot or cauldron, Bring to a boil and simmer for a few minutes.

Thinly slice the tongue and put into a kilner jar, or other suitable container. Pour the vinegar broth over the tongue and leave for a minimum of one week before eating.

Hawthorn Sauce

Ingredients:

• 500g/5 cups hawthorn berries

• 350ml/1 cup cider apple vinegar

• 350ml/1 cup water

• 200g/1/2 cup honey

• 1⁄2 tsp salt

• 1⁄2 tsp pepper

Method:

Heat the berries with the vinegar and water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

Strain through a sieve, pushing the berries through with a spoon, discarding the seeds and skin. Return to the heat with the rest of the ingredients and simmer until the thickness of ketchup.

Strain through a sieve into clean, sterile bottles or jars. This should keep for around a year and makes a great accompaniment to dark meats, like venison or gamey birds like Pigeon.

Damson & Beef Stew

Ingredients:

• Butter

• 400g beef

• 2 small onions

• 2 sticks of celery

• 2 carrots (white or purple – not orange!)

• Small bunch of fermented wild Garlic

• 12 Damsons

• Splash of red wine

• 2 tsp freshly ground pepper

• 2 tsp Salt

• Water

Method:

Melt the butter in a pan or cauldron. Add the beef and fry for 5 – 10 minutes. 

Roughly chop the onions, celery, carrots and garlic and add to the pan. Fry for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.

Stone and quarter the damsons and add to the pan, along with the red wine and salt & pepper. 

Add enough water to just about cover everything. Bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour, until the meat is tender.

The marriage of Njord & Skadi

The Gods were celebrating. Idun had returned to the hall and the giant Thjazi had been slain. This called for a great feast and celebration. There was mead and meat, cake and balloons. Well…maybe not balloons, but you get the idea.

Thor was on his 11th horn of mead when the doors to the hall burst open, and in stormed a giantess, armed to the teeth with as many weapons as she could carry. It was Skadi, come to seek revenge for the death of her father, Thjazi.

Thor was up and ready, mjolnir in hand. But Loki stood between them.
‘Skadi. Beautiful, young Skadi. Come, have a drink with us. Join the party’ said Loki.

‘Why would I do that?’ Asked Skadi ‘You killed my father’

‘Yes, that was a..er, misunderstanding. We have a gift….GIFTS for you though’

‘Gifts? For me? No one ever gives Skadi gifts.

Odin stepped forward, holding out his hands, open palmed, revealing Thjazi’s eyes. He cast them into the sky, where they became two stars, forever shining in the night sky. ‘Your father will forever be looking down, and watching over you.’

Next up several attempts were made by a number of the gods to make Skadi laugh, but she looked much less than impressed. That was until Loki grabbed a rope, tied one end to a goat and the other end to his, erm… manhood. What followed was one of the most painful games of tug of war that anyone has ever witnessed. Loki screamed and howled as he pulled and pulled until finally, he landed in Skadi’s lap.
Skadi snorted, then sniggered, before falling onto the floor in fits of laughter.

‘Right’ said Odin. ‘One last gift. You can marry one God, of your choosing’.

‘I choose Baldur then’ said Skadi

‘Not so fast, Skadi. I wasn’t finished. A God of your choosing – but you must pick by his feet alone’.

This will be easy thought Skadi, I can easily choose Baldur and his beautiful feet. ‘Fine’ she said.

The Gods all hid behind a curtain, with just their feet visible along the bottom.

One set of legs stood out from the rest. Beautiful, manly, muscular legs. ‘It’s him, my beautiful Baldur’ cried Skadi.

But it wasn’t. It was the sea god Njord.

‘You tricked me!’ cried Skadi

‘Be wise with yours words Skadi. You wouldn’t want your marriage to get off on the wrong FOOT’ laughed Loki.
And so it was that Skadi the giantess married Njord, god of the sea. 

They lived for a while at Skadi’s home in the mountains. A place named Thrymhelm. But Njord could not stand the long, cold, dark nights. Most of all he loathed the sounds of the wolves howling in the night. And besides he missed his home beside the sea.

And so they moved to Noatun, Njords home beside the sea. But Skadi hated the cries of the seas birds, the warm, sunny weather and longed for her home in the mountains.

Eventually they agreed to disagree and went their separate ways.

Pig Blood Soup

Ingredients:

• 3 spoons dried blood

• 600ml cold water

• 1 tablespoon vinegar

• 400ml fish stock

• 300g Pork belly

• 1 onion

• A small bunch of Wild Garlic

• 2 bay leaves

• 2 tsp black pepper

• 1 tsp salt

Method:

Mix together the dried blood and water, until smooth. Stir in the vinegar (this will prevent coagulation when cooking).

Cut the pork belly into chunks and fry in a little butter or oil, for around 10 minutes, until browning on all sides. Peel & thinly slice the onion and add to the pan, frying for a few minutes to soften.

Roughly chop the garlic and add to the pan, along with the blood, fish stock, bay, salt & pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer for around 15 minutes.

Remove from the heat and serve.

Pickled Ash Keys

Ash comes from the Old English ‘æsc’ which means spear.

The tree has often been believed to have healing power and carrying the keys would protect the user against witchcraft.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups/200g ash keys

• 2 cup vinegar

• Splash of water

• 2 tsp black pepper

• 3 bay leaves

• Tsp coriander seeds

• 1 tsp salt

• Tablespoon honey

Method:

Boil the keys for 10 minutes. Drain the water and boil again for a further 10 minutes.

Drain, Pack into warm, sterile jars or another suitable container and set aside.

Meanwhile simmer the rest of the ingredients together for 10 minutes.

Pour the vinegar mix over the keys, seal the jar or container immediately and store for a minimum of 2-3 months before eating.

Pickled Blackberries

Be sure to pick your berries before Michaelmas (Sept 29st), after this date it is said the devil pisses on them.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons honey

• 1/2 cup vinegar

• 500g/3 cups blackberries

Method:

Heat the honey and vinegar, until the honey is dissolved.

Add the blackberries and simmer for 10 minutes.

Strain the berries into warm, sterile jars or another suitable container. Continue to simmer the vinegar solution until it thickens a little. 

Pour the vinegar solution over the berries, seal the jar or container immediately and store for at least a few weeks before eating.

Great served with bread and cheese.

Elderberry Mead

To the Saxons and the Danes the elder tree was sacred, thought to contain a spirit or Goddess. To take a part of a tree would require gaining permission from the spirit or Goddess, lest she take revenge on the offending person.

It was thought that if you burned elder wood you would see the Devil, but if you planted elder by your house it would keep the Devil away. Elder trees were the sources of many coloured dyes; Blue and purple from the berries; yellow and green from the leaves; grey and black from the bark.

Most of the Elder tree is poisonous, containing high levels of cyanide.

Ingredients:

• 1500g elderberries 

• 4.5l/19 cups boiling water 

• 1.5 kg/4.5 cups honey 

• 5g/1 tsp pectic enzyme 

• 5g/1 tsp of red wine yeast 

• 5g/1 tsp yeast nutrient 

Method:

Put all the berries into a large bucket and crush with a rolling pin. Add the honey, and pectic enzyme and cover with the boiling water. Stir well.

Once cool, make a note of your gravity.

Add your yeast and nutrient and cover loosely for 1 week before straining into a demijohn with an airlock.

When fermentation ends (bubbles passing through the airlock at less than one a minute) check your final gravity.

Finally, syphon the wine into bottles and cork.

Age for a minimum of 6 months before drinking, but a year is better.