ROMAN GAME HEN WITH HAZELNUT SAUCE (1st c. AD)
After making a couple of simpler Tasting History recipes, I finally had the time and motivation (I am in between jobs) to make a more complex recipe: Roman Game Hen with Hazelnut Sauce. This recipe comes once again from De Re Coquinaria of Apicius, an ancient Roman collection of recipes from the 1st century AD. Max made this recipe because he wanted to make a recipe using the same ingredients that would have been available to Alexander the Great. Unfortunately, not many recipes survive directly from Alexander's time and place in history, and as a result, a fancy Roman roast recipe is perhaps best to demonstrate Alexander's love for feasting. He was known for throwing lavish feasts, and as he conquered more and more land, he began to incorporate some of the feasting customs of the conquered lands into his own feasts. He was also known for his love of drinking, and accordingly, this recipe's sauce has a red wine base. I must forewarn that this recipe completely conquered me, much like Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greater Iran, Afghanistan, and much of India were conquered by Alexander the Great. Perhaps fitting - learn from my mistakes! See Max’s video on how to make this dish here or see the ingredients and process at the end of this post, sourced from his website.
I halved the recipe for this one, since Max made two hens and I knew that would be way too much for us. One is enough. I opted to use hazelnuts instead of almonds, saffron instead of safflower, fish sauce instead of garum, and long pepper instead of black pepper. I didn't have any dried mint or calamint on hand, so I used the equivalent amounts adjusted for the fresh mint I had. The red wine I used was a Cabernet Sauvignon from France, and the honey was linden tree honey. As you'll find out later, my major mistake that compromised this dish was buying a frozen hen called a "Suppenhuhn" here in Germany. I'll explain why that ruined my dish further down.
I thawed the frozen chicken earlier in the day, so it would be ready to cook for dinner. An hour or so before we wanted to eat, I began preparing the other ingredients. Firstly, I preheated the oven and measured out the hazelnuts, then I spread the hazelnuts out on a baking tray to roast. While they roasted, I chopped and portioned out all of my other ingredients. When the nuts were toasty, I took them out of the oven and began crushing them with a mortar and pestle (in batches, since mine is quite small). This took a while and caused a light bruise to form in the palm of my crushing hand, but they did smell like Nutella! Yum. Next, I added all the other ingredients except the calamint (or for me, mint) and celery leaves to a sauce pan, mixing and simmering for five minutes. At this point, I realized I had forgotten to add the ground hazelnuts to the sauce, so I quickly poured them in and let the sauce simmer for an extra minute or two. I then took the sauce off the heat and mixed in the mint and celery leaves.
Now came time to prepare the hen. I adjusted the temperature of the oven, then removed the hen from it's packaging - fully thawed! I put the bird breast-side up in a deep enamel baking pan, brushed it with olive oil, stabbed a few slits in it with a knife, and then poured the thick, nutty sauce (which was still pretty chunky) onto the bird, making sure to cover it as best as possible. There was no sauce left after I covered the bird, so I couldn't reserve any to use as a dipping sauce afterwards. I put the bird in the oven and let it roast for half an hour before checking its temperature. For some reason, the temperature was only about half what I expected it to be, so I decided to leave it in the oven for another ten minutes or so. When I took it out again, the internal temperature of the bird was still about ten degrees under what is safe to eat, so I put it back in the oven even though the hazelnut sauce crust on the bird was already reaching an awfully dark colour. Five minutes later, I removed the chicken once again to check the temperature to find out some of the hazelnuts on the crust had blackened. Uh oh. Luckily, the internal temperature had finally reached 165 degrees Fahrenheit (74 Celsius) - safe to eat! Amidst the baking, I prepared some broccoli and fried potatoes to accompany the chicken, so I plated those up and presented the slightly-charred bird on the table. It looked a little overcooked due to the charring, but I was confident the chicken inside should be cooked exactly right thanks to the meat thermometer.
My experience tasting it:
As always, I let my husband do the honours of carving the bird. I came to regret this! Using the carving knife, he tried his best to make the usual central incision: it was near impossible to cut through. He's a pretty strong guy, and has never had to fight with a roast in order to cut it to pieces before, but this bird seemed like it was made of pure bone or something! He changed tactics and tried to cut off just a leg. The skin alone was thicker than usual, almost as if there was cartilage casing the entire chicken. I fetched the scissors to see if that would cut through it. It did help, but he was pulling and sawing, and he eventually had to shout a few expletives. I felt terrible by this point, having spent money on several ingredients and several hours of my time only to create a disaster of a bird. Overcome with frustration, I shed a few tears. After a long-fought battle, my husband had finally gotten one measly leg off the damned bird, and we both tried a shred of the rubbery chicken. While it was cooked through, it was flavourless and dense, like chewing rubber.
By this point, my husband had to hold me back from throwing the whole bird out - it was truly a lost cause. I mean, we couldn't even cut it. I half-heartedly tried the sauce, and this was the only somewhat redeeming aspect of the roast. Because it had been in the oven so long, it had mostly dried up, and what was left were chunks of hazelnuts infused with the flavours and sediment of the sauce - quite delicious, in fact. The red wine and herbs had that typical, rich Roman flavour, very savoury and strong. If the chicken had been a normal roast chicken, the sauce would have tasted lovely on it. I decided to read up online about the German "Suppenhuhn" to see what it was. I had trusted that a chicken is a chicken is a chicken, and all would taste roughly the same when roasted - that was clearly naive. To quote Google, a Suppenhuhn is a "12-15 month old laying hen. Their meat is very flavourful, but must be cooked for at least 1 hour to make it tender." So, we had tried to roast an older hen that had a higher amount of fat, and that was why it was so difficult to cut into. So, I class this as a failed attempt, and because of how emotional it made me when it all went wrong and how many hours and ingredients were wasted, I will probably not try this recipe again. I know it's not the recipe's fault, it probably tastes quite nice when it goes well, but I don't know if I have the patience for this one. Either way, I learned some lessons: don't buy a Suppenhuhn unless you're making soup, and don't cry over old hen. If you end up making this dish (successfully or unsuccessfully!), if you liked it, or if you changed anything from the original recipe, do let me know!
Links to harder-to-find ingredients:
Roman Game Hen with Hazelnut Sauce original recipe (1st c.)
Sourced from De Re Coquinaria of Apicius (1st c.).
Aliter Ius in Avibus, Another Sauce for Birds:
Pepper, parsley, lovage, dried mint, safflower, pour in wine, add toasted hazelnuts or almonds, a little honey with wine and vinegar, season with garum. Add oil to this in a pot, heat it, stir in green celery and calamint. Make incisions in the birds and pour the sauce over them.
Based on the recipe from De Re Coquinaria of Apicius (1st c.) and Max Miller’s version in his Tasting History video.
2 cups (250 g) hazelnuts or almonds
1 tsp ground long pepper or black pepper
2 tsp minced fresh parsley
2 tsp dried or fresh lovage
A pinch of safflower threads, or saffron threads
1 1/2 cups (350 ml) dry red wine
2 tbsp garum or fish sauce
2 tsp minced celery leaves
1 tsp minced calamint, or catmint or spearmint
Whatever fowl you like, I used 2 game hens
Olive oil, for brushing the birds
First prepare to roast the hazelnuts or almonds by preheating the oven to 350°F (175°C). Spread the nuts onto a baking pan and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes, moving the nuts around once or twice during the cook time. You can stir them or gently shake the pan. You’ll know they’re ready when you can smell the toasty nutty aroma.
Using a mortar and pestle or a food processor, grind the nuts into a coarse powder.
In a saucepan, stir together the ground nuts and all of the other ingredients except for the celery leaves and calamint.
Bring the sauce to a simmer over medium heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the celery leaves and calamint.
You can now serve the sauce forth as-is with cooked poultry, but I cooked my game hens with the sauce for some extra flavor. To do this, first preheat the oven to 400°F (205°C).
Arrange your poultry breast-side up in a baking dish. Brush them with olive oil. Pierce the breast of the birds several times with a knife, then pour the sauce over them, reserving some of the sauce for serving if you wish. The ground nuts will form a layer on the birds that will become a lovely crust.
Roast for 35 to 45 minutes for two game hens like I used, but your time may vary depending on what bird you use. Whatever you choose, cook until the internal temperature in the thickest part of the breast and the innermost part of the thigh reaches 165°F (74°C), then serve it forth with reserved sauce if you wish.
