Emplumeus
Source:
France, 15th c.
Spain, 16th c.
Recipe by Daniel Myers
While this variant of applemus (without the saffron or rosewater) was considered to be food for the infirm, a little added spice makes it into a tasty dessert. It has a nice, warm quality that makes it especially good for cold days.
Ingredients
4 apples
3 cups water
2 cups blanched almonds
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
pinch saffron (optional)
2 tsp. rosewater (optional)
Method
Peel, core, and slice apples. Bring water to a boil and add apple slices. Cook until soft and then strain, reserving liquid. Chop apples into small pieces and set aside. Grind almonds well and place in a bowl. Add the liquid that the appleswere cooked in and allow to steep for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour through a fine sieve into a pan with the apples. Add remaining ingredients and simmer until thick. Serve hot.
73. Again, emplumeus of apples: to give understanding to him who will make it, take good barberine apples according to the quantity of it which one wants to make and then pare them well and properly and cut them into fair gold or silver dishes; and let him have a fair, good, and clean earthen pot, and let him put in fair clean water and put to boil over fair and clear coals and put his apples to boil therein. And let him arrange that he has a great quantity of good sweet almonds according to the quantity of apples which he has put to cook, and let him blanch, clean, and wash them very well and put them to be brayed in a mortar which does not smell at all of garlic, and let him bray them very well and moisten them with the broth in which the said apples are cooking; and when the said apples are cooked enough draw them out onto fair and clean boards, and let him strain the almonds with this water and make milk which is good and thick, and put it back to boil on clear and clean coals without smoke, and a very little salt. And while it boils let him chop his said apples very small with a little clean knife and then, being chopped, let him put them into his milk, and put in a great deal of sugar according to the amount that there is of the said emplumeus of apples; and then, when the doctor asks for it, put it in fair bowls or pans of gold or silver.
243. MIRRAUSTE OF APPLES. You must take the sweetest apples and peel off their skin, and quarter them; and remove the core and the pips. and then set a pot to boil with as much water as you know will be necessary; and when the water boils, cast in the apples. And then take well-toasted almonds and grind them well in a mortar; and blend them with the broth from the apples; and strain them through a woolen cloth with a crustless piece of bread soaked in the said apple broth; and strain everything quite thick; and after straining, it cast in a good deal of ground cinnamon and sugar; and then send it to cook on the fire, and when the sauce boils remove it from the fire; and cast in the apples which remain well drained of the broth; but see that the apples should not be scalded; so that you can prepare dishes of them; and when they are done, cast sugar and cinnamon on top.
Published: 2006-07-10