Survey of recipes
I used the lovely search feature at the medieval cookery site - it still misses a lot of cookbooks, but it does search a larger collection than anywhere else I know of (and by the time you read this, their collection is probably larger). I present my results below, because these results are sorted by type, and have been checked to ensure they contain large quantities of onion, where many search results contain only smaller quantities. If you too have a surfeit of onions, you might find something else from this list useful.
Tart of scallions or of onions
summary: boil (well) onions, dry, mash/chop, add lard, then add eggs, cheese, saffron, make tart.
Sauce for eggs poached in oil / Egg Broth
summary: parboil then fry onions, boil in water(wine) & vinegar. Serve over oil poached eggs.
See here how onions are cooked: in water for a long time before the peas
summary: boil in pea water.
The liquid from the peas on a meat day is of no account
summary: fry onions, add breadcrumbs, spices, vinegar & wine.
Pottage of Onions That is Called Cebollada
summary: parboil then fry onions, add almond milk made with meat broth, add cheese, egg yolks and optional cinnamon & sugar.
Onions with cuminsauce with almonds
summary: boil onion with cummin, safron & bread ground with almond milk. Salt & cool.
Soupes dorrees / Soupes dorroy / Sowpys Dorry / Soupes dorye / Soppus Dorre and versions without onions (generally spiced) Sowpus dorre / Golden Sops / Golden toasts / Soppis Dorre / soupes dorrey / Soppes Dorre / Sowpes Dorry
summary: onions fried (then boiled), serve on toasted bread moistened with almond milk and or wine.
George Soup / russet soup / russet soup is made like george soup / german soup / seeded soup
summary: 5 variants on the same theme - meat in broth with fried onions, breadcrumbs, spiced.
recipes with a bit less onion:
White Geneva tarts
summary: tart of cheese & onions.
English puree
summary: boiled pea & onions mash.
Benes yfryed
summary: fried beans with onion
Sauce for peiouns (pigeons)
summary: minced parsley, onion, garlic.
Ambroyno (a sweet food) and a version without onion
summary: sauce of onion, almond & spice for chicken.
Noumbles in Lent / Chawdon for Lent
summary: fish & fish blood & breadcrumbs & onions & spices.
Rew de Rumsy
summary: roast pig foot & onion?
Bukkenade
summary: meat & onion soup?
Bruet of Almaynne / Bruet of Almayn
summary: meat broth with almonds and in these 2 versions (but not others), (equal weight of ?) minced onion.
Fylettes in Galytyne / ffelettes in galentyne / felettes in galentyne / Fylettys en Galentyne and versions without onions Filetus in Galentine / Fylettes Of Galyntyne
summary: veal broth with breadcrumbs & onions.
Pottage of alideme of eggs
summary: onions & herb broth thickened with egg yolks.
And the recipes I chose...A common theme of a lot of the above recipes is an onion broth thickened with breadcrumbs. I decided to try a couple from le menagier de Paris (France, 1393):
seeded soup
SEEDED SOUP is a winter soup. Peel onions and cook them all chopped up, then fry them in a pot; it is appropriate to have your poultry split through the back and browned on the grill over a coal fire, or if it is veal, the same; and whether it is veal cut in pieces or chicken cut in quarters, put it with the onions in the pot; then have white bread browned on the grill and moistened with some other meat stock: and then grind ginger, clove, grain and long pepper, mix with verjuice and wine, without sieving, and set aside: then grind the bread and put through the sieve and add to the soup, and strain it all together and boil; then serve.
my version:
- parboiled onions about 25 mins
- drained and fried onions in a pan in oil
- added onions to a pot
- cut up some old lamb roast (didn't have chicken or veal)
- toasted (oops burnt) bread, poured some beef stock over it, soaked up all stock, 5 mins later ground in food processor. added to pot.
- soaked ground ginger, cloves and extra black pepper (lacked other spices) in verjuice, 5 mins then added to pot.
- boiled pot.
- froze and reheated later
Comments:The burnt toast ruined the taste of this dish.
Onions
also from le menagier de Paris (France, 1393):
"The liquid from the peas on a meat day is of no account. On a fish day and in Lent, fry the onions as is told in the preceding chapter, and then put the oil in which the onions were fried and the onions in along with bread-crumbs, ginger, cloves and grain, ground: and sprinkle with vinegar and wine, and add a little saffron, then adorn the bowl with slices of bread."
Obviously I also needed to read the preceding bit to do with onions:
"On a fish day, when the peas are cooked, you should have onions which have been cooked as long as the peas in a pot and like the bacon cooked separately in another pot, and as with the bacon water you may nourish and serve the peas, in the same way; on fish days, when you have put your peas on the fire in a pot, you must put aside your minced onions in another pot, and with onion water serve and nourish the peas; and when all is cooked fry the onions and put half of them in the peas, and the other half in the liquid from the peas of which I spoke above, and then add salt, And if on this fish day or in Lent there is salted whale-meat, you must do with the whale-meat as with the bacon on a meat day."
my version:
- had no pea water. parboiled onions about 25 mins
- drained and fried onions in a pan in oil
- added fried onions to a pot of water. (washed out that last bit of caramel on bottom of frypan into pot too, since I probably wasn't using enough oil)
- added breadcrumbs (air dried) and spices (ground cloves, ground ginger, and ground black pepper as I hoped grain referred to grain of paradise, a gingery pepper taste, so extra ginger too)
- added a little white wine and verjuice to pot (hadn't a vinegar open)
- omitted saffron as expensive, and probably mainly a colouring agent (and caramel was doing that)
dorres, note
http://www.godecookery.com/pepys/pepys03.htm
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