Sauce Camelyne

PERIOD: England, 15th century | SOURCE: Ashmole MS 1429 | CLASS: Authentic

DESCRIPTION: Sweet and Sour Clove Sauce

ORIGINAL RECEIPT:

Take faire brede, and cut it, and toste it: and take vynegre and wyne, and stepe hit ther-in, and draw it thurwe a straynour with poudre canel, and draw it .ij. or .iij. tymes, til it be smothe. And thanne take poudre ginger, sugre, and poudre of clowes, and cast ther-to. And loke that it stonde wil by clowes, & by sugre; and thanne put ther-to a litil safroune, and salt, and seruw it forth thick y-nowe.

- Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS 55. London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888.

MODERN RECIPE:

• 1 C chunks of toasted white bread
• 3/4 C dry red wine
• 1/4 C wine vinegar
• 1/4 C sugar or to taste
• 1/2 tsp each cinnamon and ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp powdered ginger
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp saffron

2. With a whisk or a fork, blend the sauce until it is smooth.

Yields about one and a half cups of sauce.

Notes on the Recipe:

This is a very easy sauce, Harleian MS 4016 recommends it for quail, and Master Chiquart recommends it for chicken, partridge, pheasant, and veal.

Sauce Camelyne is featured in In Festo Sancte Trinitatis in Cena