Wednesday 4 March meal

 

Rice with Raisins

This is one of those meals that we'd probably be more likely to eat for breakfast today than just anytime of day during the Renaissance.  Overall, it's very simple:  Rice cooked in almond milk with a bit of sugar, saffron, and raisins.   That's pretty much it.  

This very basic recipe shows up in a few different places.  Sometimes it's rice flour and sometimes it's just rice.  However, rice with almond milk and saffron seems to be pretty common.  

Taken from Medieval Cookery

Taken from Medieval Cookery

"Take good almond milk and let it boil.  And do there in almond with flour of rice and color it with saffron.  And after, dress it with grains of pomegranates or otherwise with raisons, if you don't have the other.  And take sugar and do therein, and serve it forth."

Taken from Medieval Cookery

  "To make rice of Genoa.  Take rice and parboil them in fair water and steep them well.  And then take them off and cast them in a fair vessel and pick them clean and set them on the fire.  And then do to it a broth of fresh beef or of good bone broth and let them boil well and add ground saffron and salt.  And if it be a fasting day, make it with almond milk and serve forth."

Rice wasn't always cleaned of it's husk in the middle ages so boiling the rice to clean it and then boiling it again to cook it makes sense. 

Really, I took the middle recipe and just used rice grains rather than rice flour.  I also added some poudre dulce.   I'll probably have the rest for breakfast in the morning.