Just ordered more stuff from Amazon. And the last order hasn't even shipped yet. Oh well. The latest order was relatively small for me, books about the spice trade and spices in medieval cooking (and one on Roman clothing).

I had to sneer at one of the reviewers for The Spice Route, who insisted that the author obviously knows little about spices as he called cubeb a pepper. Even though it's in the Piper genus, it's not a pepper, apparently.

And here was me, thinking that "pepper" was the general term applied to spices derived from plants of the Piper genus. And all my spice books that class cubeb as pepper are clearly wrong as well. It must be nice to know you're right when the rest of the world is wrong.

On Sunday night I did a Tudor chicken recipe, Chicken in a Lemon Sauce. It was really tasty, though I made it with drumsticks. This was a bit of a mistake; you braise the chicken, which makes the skin fall off during cooking, so it looked somewhat manky on the plate. If I make it for myself again, I will probably use chicken thigh fillets, because they braise beautifully and don't go manky. However, for SCA feasts, I imagine drumsticks will be fine, as in the dim lighting a manky appearance won't be as much of a turn off.

Tonight I made my good old Garlic Soup for dinner (yum yum 25 cloves of garlic I will still smell it a week from now), which meant I had 3 egg whites hanging around. My freezer already has quite a few frozen egg whites, so I decided to have another shot at making some coffee meringues (second time I've ever tried anything meringue). The first time I used too wide a bowl, so I couldn't beat the egg whites properly. This time I used a much narrower bowl and the meringues turned out much better - they didn't run everywhere. And they taste really good, too. They're still a bit too crisp for my liking; I just found a cooking tip to lower the cooking temperature when you put them in the oven, which crisps the outside while leaving the inside still slightly gooey.

Chicken with Orange or Lemon Sauce
Sourced from Tudor Cookery by Peter Brears

500g chicken pieces / chicken thigh fillets
250 mL/1 cup chicken stock
Currants to taste (recipe says 50g, I just use lots because I like currants)
4-5 dates, cut into slices
2-4 lemons, depending on size and preference for lemon flavour
Black pepper to taste
1 tsp blade mace, ground
3 tbs sugar
125 mL / 1/2 cup white wine
Olive oil
White bread, crusts removed and cut into cubes

1. Skin and deseed the lemons and cut into segments, removing as much of the inner peel as possible.
2. Heat the olive oil in the pan and brown the chicken. *
3. Pour the stock over the chicken, topping with water if necessary, so the chicken is covered. Bring to the boil and simmer until the chicken is tender.
4. Drain about half of the cooking liquid off, then add the currants, dates and lemon segments, and simmer for about 5 minutes.
5. Add the pepper, mace, sugar and wine, and simmer for a further 5-10 minutes.
6. Pour the chicken and sauce over the bread cubes, and serve.

NOTES
* The recipe doesn't specify to brown the chicken, but chicken pieces that aren't browned first look REALLY unappetising.
* Don't use breast fillets. They don't have much fat and thus don't braise well.
* You can use oranges in place of lemons. If so, replace the white wine with claret.
* I cooked this with fennel, adding it to dish at step 3. YUM.

But right now, I'm hunting for recipes for tea-smoked duck breast. And even though it's quite late, I think I'll have another coffee meringue.