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 

Pumpkin Beer

Pumpkins are for more than just carving. Get ready for the Halloween season with this lovely winter beer. It usually comes out at 4.5 %

Ingredients:

• 1kg pumpkin

• 35g hops

• 500g dark malt extract

• 375g sugar

• 12 pints of water

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

Method:

Cut the pumpkin into fist sized pieces and roast for 20 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.

Put the pumpkin into a large pan with the hops and cover with 6 pints of water, boil for 30 minutes. Meanwhile put your sugar and malt extract into a fermentation bin. Strain the pumpkin 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 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.

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 

Saxon bread

Ingredients:

• 780g bread flour (plus a little extra for coating)

• 10g salt

• 26g honey

• 250g sourdough starter

• Warm water

Method:

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

Add the honey and starter and slowly add enough water to 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 water 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 for at least several hours, but overnight is ideal.

Sourdough takes longer to develop than bread made with shop bought yeast, but benefits from the extra time, as it develops a better flavour. The loaf should increase in size.

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

Shape your dough into a loaf, and dust with a little flour. Place onto a lightly flour dusted oven tray and prove for another hour.

Heat your oven to its highest temperature.

Cook for 10 minutes before dropping the temperature to 200 degrees if the crust is looking pale, 180 degrees if the crust is noticeably browning, and 170 if it seems to be browning quickly. Cook for a further 40 mins.

Remove from the oven, the loaf should sound hollow when you tap it on the bottom.

This can also be cooked in the dying embers of a fire, just divide the dough into small rolls first, rather than a loaf.

Leave to cool fully before cutting.

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

Stuffed spit-roast hearts

In the saga of the Volsungs, Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir. He spit roasts the heart and eats it, giving him the ability to understand the language of the birds.

If you don’t have any dragons that need slaying, this recipe will work just as well with a lambs heart.

Ingredients:
2 lambs hearts

For the stuffing;
Butter
200g lardons
Large handful of hazelnuts (finely chopped)
Large handful of spinach
1 mushroom (finely chopped)
Splash of white wine (parsnip if you have it)

Method:

Melt some butter in a pan. Add the lardons and fry for several minutes, until browning.

Add the rest of the stuffing ingredients and fry, Stirring occasionally, until the liquid has cooked off and the spinach is wilted.

Leave to one side to cool.

Trim the hearts of any excess fat and slice them in half, but not all the way through, opening them up like a butterfly.

Spoon some of the stuffing mix onto the open hearts, close them up and tie together with a few pieces of string.

Push the hearts onto a skewer and cook for around 30 – 40 minutes over a hot fire, depending on how rare you like it.

Leave to rest for 5 minutes, before slicing and serving with any leftover stuffing mix.

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

Nasturtium pesto

Nasturtiums are easy to grow, and are an under-used garden staple. With a peppery, mustard like flavour, they are packed with vitamin C and iron. All parts of the plant are edible, from the leaves, to the seeds & even the flowers.

Ingredients:

3 handful Nasturtium leaves

6 Nasturtium seeds

1 Handful pine nuts

4 Garlic cloves (peeled)

Handful of mature cheddar cheese (grated)

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt & pepper

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

6 Nasturtium flowers

Method:

Wash the leaves well. Black fly are huge fans of Nasturtiums.

Stick all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz well.

Store in a clean sterile jar.

To use, add a couple of teaspoons per person to your cooked pasta.

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

Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 100g plain flour (sifted)

• 2 eggs

• 300ml milk

• Pinch of salt

• Butter

• Optional - Spring flowers (hawthorn, elderflower etc) or finely chopped blanched greens (nettles, rocket, spinach etc)

Method:

Whisk together the flour, eggs, milk and salt until smooth. Stir in any extras, if using.

Melt some butter in a pan and add a ladle full of batter to the pan.

Cook for a minute or 2 on each side, until golden brown.

If you have a sweet tooth, serve with honey. Nettle and honey is lovely.

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

Braggot

Take a look at my older post on the basics of homebrewing if you are new to the subject here

Ingredients:

• 30g hops

• 1362g honey

• 500g amber malt extract

• 12 pints water

• 1 teaspoon Wine yeast

Method:
Put the hops into a large pan and cover with 6 pints of water, boil for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile put your honey and malt extract into a large, sterilised bucket or fermentation bin. Strain the hop water through a muslin cloth into the fermentation bin.

Stir well to dissolve all the honey and malt extract. Pour in 6 pints of cold water and stir.

Check your gravity, it should be around 1060. If not you can adjust up or down by adding more honey or water, as necessary. This should give you a braggot around 7.8%.

Add your yeast and leave to ferment for 2 to 3 weeks.

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

Sterilise your bottles.

Add a ½ teaspoon of honey to each 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 braggot should be ready to drink in 2 weeks, 3 is better.

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

Flat Bread

Ingredients:

• 100g bread flour + a little extra

• 2g salt

• 60 ml water (give or take)

• Optional – Small bunch of roughly chopped herbs or fruit/nuts, for example; nettles/rosemary/walnuts or a tsp of fennel/cumin seed etc

Method:

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

Add any extras (if using) and slowly add the water and mix together to form a workable dough. You can add more or less water depending on how your dough feels. I find it varies slightly every time.

Tip out onto your worktop, dust your hands with flour and knead for 5 minutes.

Roll the dough into a ball and dust with a little flour.

Flatten to around 0.5-1 cm thick.

Cook for 3 or 4 minutes on each side in a hot frying pan, without any oil.

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

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 

The Kidnap of Idun

Odin, Loki and Hoenir had been travelling for some weeks. The area of mountains they were in was particularly scarce of anything to eat, so the gods were hungry.

One afternoon they happened upon a herd of Oxen.

‘Ah. Finally’ said Odin ‘I didn’t think we could go much farther without food’

So they got to work slaughtering the animal. Odin made quick work of it, and by the time he was done Loki had lit a fire.

Several hours later the meat still had not cooked. The Gods were confused.

They noticed a large eagle perched in a nearby tree staring intently at them.

‘It is I, who prevents your meat from cooking. Let me have my fill and I will release the spell that prevents its cooking’

Hoenir was angry ‘who are you, that thinks you can mess with us in this manor? Very well, as you leave us no choice, take what you must’

The eagle flew down and pulled off all the finest cuts of meat.

At this Loki flew into a rage, picked up a large branch and swung at the bird. But the eagle was so enormous it caught the branch in its talons and dragged Loki up into the sky. What Loki hadn’t realised is the bird was none other than the giant Thjazi.

By the time they were up in the clouds Loki was really not happy, he begged and pleaded with the eagle to take him back down.

‘Very well’ said Thjazi ‘but on one condition’.

‘anything’ cried Loki ‘just please put me down.’

‘OK’ said the eagle ‘Bring me Idun, and her magical fruits that keep the Gods looking so youthful.’

After some time, the Gods completed their journey back to Asgard and Loki paid a visit to Idun.

‘Idun, I have news’ called Loki ‘Beyond the walls of Asgard we found trees covered in the most wonderful fruits. You should come at once to see them, I think they may be even better than yours. It’s probably best that you bring yours along, so that we can compare them.’

And so Idun followed Loki to the woods where she was snatched up by Thjazi, the giant and flown to Thrymheim, the icy mountain region he called home.

It didn’t take long for the Gods to notice that Idun was missing. Their hair was quickly greying and their skin was becoming wrinkled.

The last person that anyone saw with Idun was Loki and it didn’t take many threats for him to come clean about where she was.

‘Trickster! You will return Idun to us safely, by nightfall’ shouted Odin ‘if you fail in this task, you will leave me no choice but to sentence you to death’.

Loki borrowed Freya’s hawk feathers and flew to Thrymheim. It happened that Thjazi was out fishing when he arrived, so he turned Idun into a nut, picked her up in his talons and flew her home.

When Thjazi returned home and noticed Idun was missing, he flew after Loki in his eagle form. Just as Loki was almost back to Asgard he turned around and spotted Thjazi right behind him.

But the other gods had noticed too. They had built a huge pile of wood around their home and, as Loki flew over it, the Gods set fire to it. Thjazi had no time to notice and flew straight into the flames and was engulfed immediately.

Idun was home safe and that was the end of the giant Thjazi.