This time I am posting two recipes at the same time, fried pork and fig paste that goes well with the pork. The fig paste calls for sandalwood/ saunders that makes the paste more reddish. At that time when I started to make the dish I found out that I didn’t have any sandalwood in my spice box (I thought that I had). So I had to make it without the sandalwood. It is hard to find sandalwood in Finnish stores (I also tried to find it from online shops but failed). But then I have these great friends like Sahra who knew my distress and gave me two bags of sandalwood as Christmas present :D.

I have to comment also that sometimes taking good pictures of food, especially from medieval style of food (that has commonly brownish colours) it might be challenging to make it look tasty. This time food really tasted better than it looks ;).

Brawune fryes (serves 2)

Harleian MS. 279, Volume I

Take Pork & cut it thin. Then take yolks of Eggs, & some of the white therewith; then take manchet Flour, and draw the Eggs through a strainer; then take a good quantity of Sugar, Saffron & Salt & cast thereto, & take a fair pan with Fresh grease, & set over the fire, & when the grease is hot, take the Pork, and put in batter, & turn it well therein, and then put it in the pan with the grease, & let fry together a little while; then take it up into a fair dish, & cast Sugar thereon & serve hot.

200 g pork loin

2 egg yolks

1 egg white

½ dl white flour

pinch of saffron

2 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

butter or oil for frying

sugar for garnish

Cut the pork in thin pieces. Make batter from egg yolks, egg white, flour, saffron, sugar and salt. Heat the butter (or oil) in a frying pan. Dip the pork pieces to the batter and fry the meat until it is done. Remove the meat from the pan and garnish it with sugar. Serve hot.

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Ffygey (serves 4)

Harleian MS.4016, Volume I

Take figs, and cast them in a pot, And cast thereto wine or Ale and let them boil, And take them up, and bray them in a mortar; And then take bread, and steep in the same liqueur, and cast thereto and draw them through a strainer, and cast it in a fair pot with wine or ale; and then take figs, and cut them small, pine nuts, sandalwood, powder of pepper, a little saffron and salt, and cast thereto, and serve standing.

200 g dried figs (+ 2 figs)

about 4 dl red wine (+ ½ dl wine)

1 piece of white bread without the crust

2 tablespoon pine nuts

(pinch of sandalwood)

pinch of pepper

pinch of saffron

pinch of salt

Put 200 g figs to a saucepan with 4 dl wine to boil. Let them boil as long as the figs are soft. Add more wine or water to the saucepan if needed. When the figs are done take them from the sauce and grind them finely. Add the bread to the sauce and when the liquid has been absorbed, grind the bread finely too. Mince 2 figs. Take a sauce pan and put fig paste there and minced figs, ½ dl red wine, pine nuts and spices. Heat the mixture and let it simmer about 5 minutes stirring well all the time. Serve warm.

Comments: I decided to use red wine because I didn’t have that sandalwood that makes the food reddish. Otherwise I would have used white wine for this dish. As the recipe says you can use ale too.