{"id":143,"date":"2025-09-09T19:59:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T19:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/?p=143"},"modified":"2025-09-09T19:59:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T19:59:44","slug":"bruette-saake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/09\/bruette-saake\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruette Saake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1284\" height=\"963\" src=\"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/bruet.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-144\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<h3>Description<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cBruette\u201d meaning an un-thickened pottage and \u201cSaake\u201d referring to a wine-based sauce, this is the recipe that first got me interested in medieval cooking. It is an aromatic chicken soup of fresh herbs and iconic medieval European spices, tempered with wine and sweetened by chopped dates. This is my redaction after several iterations and refinements.<\/p>\n<h3>Source Recipe<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Take Capoun, skalde hem, draw hem, smyte hem to gobettys, Waysshe hem, do hem in a potte; \u00feenne caste owt \u00fee potte; waysshe hem a-\u021den on \u00fee potte, &amp; caste \u00feer-to half wyne half Bro\u00fee; take Percely, Isope, Waysshe hem, &amp; hew hem smal, &amp; putte on \u00fee potte \u00feer \u00fee Fleysshe is; caste \u00feer-to Clowys, quybibes, Maces, Datys y-tallyd, hol Safroune; do it ouer \u00fee fyre; take Canelle, Gyngere, tempere \u00fein powajes with wyne; caste in-to \u00fee potte Salt \u00feer-to, hele it, &amp; whan it is y-now, serue it forth.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">(Harleian MS. 279)<\/p>\n<h3>Ingredients<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>2 lbs chicken thighs [1]<\/li>\n<li>2 cup chicken stock [2]<\/li>\n<li>2 cup red wine<\/li>\n<li>\u00bd cup fresh Italian parsley [3]<\/li>\n<li>1 Tbsp dried hyssop [4]<\/li>\n<li>\u00bc cup chopped dates<\/li>\n<li>\u00bd tsp cinnamon<\/li>\n<li>\u00bd tsp ginger<\/li>\n<li>1 Tbsp extra wine<\/li>\n<li>\u00bc tsp mace<\/li>\n<li>\u00bc tsp cloves<\/li>\n<li>\u00bc tsp black pepper [5]<\/li>\n<li>\u00bd tsp salt<\/li>\n<li>10 threads saffron<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Directions<\/h3>\n<p>De-bone, trim, and cut chicken into 1\u201d pieces [5].\u00a0 Combine chicken, broth, wine, and dates in a pot and set to boil.\u00a0 Bloom saffron threads in a small bowl with 1 Tbsp of water.\u00a0 Mix cinnamon and ginger in a small bowl with 1-2 Tbsp of wine.\u00a0 Chop parsley finely, set some aside for garnish.\u00a0 Add parsley, hyssop, mace, cloves, pepper, allspice, and saffron bloom to pot.\u00a0 Boil about 30 minutes.\u00a0 Add cinnamon, ginger, and wine mix to pot.\u00a0 Add salt to taste.\u00a0 Cover and simmer another 30 minutes.<\/p>\n<h3>Notes<\/h3>\n<p>[1] The source recipe clearly calls for whole chicken, however for cost, practicality, and a flavor more appropriate for stews, I prefer to use just chicken thigh meat.<\/p>\n<p>[2] This was a home-made stock of chicken bones, onion, carrot, and turnip.<\/p>\n<p>[3] Both flat\/Italian and curly cultivars of parsley were known and grown in the Middle Ages (Our Herb Garden, Parsley History: Early Medicinal Uses). \u00a0I prefer the former for its stronger flavor, especially in such a heavily spiced dish.<\/p>\n<p>[4] Fresh hyssop is not easy to come by.\u00a0 Dried hyssop loses much of its flavor.\u00a0 However, the use of Italian parsley should help offset the lack of the fresh hyssop\u2019s bitterness.<\/p>\n<p>[5] The original recipe calls for cubeb, \u201ctailed pepper\u201d, which is not widely available.\u00a0 Its flavor is described as being similar to black pepper and allspice (Wikipedia, Piper cubeba).\u00a0 I have used black pepper as a substitution.\u00a0 Allspice could be added as well, but it is a New World spice and its flavor is fairly well covered by the cloves and cinnamon already in the dish.<\/p>\n<p>[6] \u201cSmyte hem to gobbetys\u201d is often translated as separating the meat at the joints (Friedman, p29).\u00a0 For a dish more manageable to serve and to eat, however, I prefer to remove the bones and cut smaller pieces.<\/p>\n<h3>Sources<\/h3>\n<p>Anderson, John L. and Adams, Adrienne.\u00a0 1962.\u00a0 A Fifteenth Century Cookry Boke.\u00a0 New York: Charles Scribner\u2019s Sons<\/p>\n<p>Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books. Harleian MS. 279&#8230;and Harl. MS. 4016. London, <span style=\"font-family: var(--list--font-family); background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Early English Text Society, Oxford Series, No. 91.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Friedman, David and Cook, Elizabeth.\u00a0 1988, 1990, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2011.\u00a0 How to Milk an Almond, Stuff an Egg, and Armor a Turnip.\u00a0 Web.\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/www.daviddfriedman.com\/Medieval\/To_Milk_an_Almond.pdf<\/p>\n<p>Hieatt, Constance B.\u00a0 \u201cSorting through the Titles of Medieval Dishes.\u201d <em>Food in the Middle Ages, A Book of Essays.<\/em>\u00a0 Ed. Adamson, Melitta Weiss. 1995.\u00a0 New York: Garland Publishing Inc.<\/p>\n<p>Our Herb Garden contributors. \u201cHistory of Parsley.\u201d Our Herb Garden 2008-2018. \u00a0Web. http:\/\/www.ourherbgarden.com\/herb-history\/parsley.html<\/p>\n<p>Wikipedia contributors. &#8220;Piper cubeba.&#8221; Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 31 Jul. 2018. Web. 31 Aug. 2018.\u00a0 Web. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Piper_cubeba<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Description \u201cBruette\u201d meaning an un-thickened pottage and \u201cSaake\u201d referring to a wine-based sauce, this is the recipe that first got me interested in medieval cooking. It is an aromatic chicken soup of fresh herbs and iconic medieval European spices, tempered with wine and sweetened by chopped dates. This is my redaction after several iterations and&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/09\/bruette-saake\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bruette Saake<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recipes","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166,"href":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heinrichvonholstein.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}