Wrapped fish, baked on a coal fire Archaeologists and archaeobotanists are experts in reconstructing cooking methods and ingredients that were possibly used during Prehistoric times. However, a ‘prehistoric cuisine’ does not exist. What was on the menu depended on the millennium, the time of the year, the location and available resources, and perhaps also on…
MENU
Fritters from vine leaves
Grape vines do not just yield grapes. During the summer the leaves can be picked and pickled or used straight away. The best-known use of vine leaves is the Greek dolma, where they are used to wrap around rice. However, in this eighteenth-century recipe the vine leaves themselves are the main ingredient. Just in case…
Vanilla ice cream
This is a very rich ice cream, with sugar, fat and cholesterol. So, why would you want to make it? Because it is simply delicious! The secret for enjoying this ice cream is self-control. Do not make it all the time (just occasionallly), and eat small portions. Governments and manufacturers are wrong in thinking the…
Thank you!
Thanks to your gift Coquinaria can remain online without introducing a paid membership. I appreciate it very much. Below a little something as a token of my appreciation (a recipe, a picture, a little fact). Once in a while the ‘little something’ will be changed. Delicious rice salad for the Summer season When we have…
Cucumber Salad
Straight to the recipe A familiar recipe with a twist One of the first modern recipes I published in the Dutch section of this website was a cucumber salad. That was back in 2002. In the following years I kept adding recipes to this page which eventually contained cucumber salads from all over the world. This is the first historical recipe for cucumber…
Vol-au-vent with fish
A pescetarian alternative for ragoût with meat Recently I have published the recipe for vol-au-vent with ragoût of chicken meat. That once was a classic Dutch first course for Christmas dinner. Here is an alternative for people who do not eat meat, but do eat fish. This ragoût can also be used as stuffing for…
Anchovy sauce
This recipe is from a manuscript that is kept in the Royal Library in The hague. It dates from around 1780. A transcription is in progress. The original recipe *wel vervarschd (well rinsed) – desalted by putting in water which has been changed regularly Modern adaptation of the recipe Butter sauce with anchovies can accompany…
Surprise Eggs
Straight to the recipe A Dutch recipe from the eighteenth century This decorative dish consists of whole, emptied eggs shells that are stuffed with raw eggs with crayfish and mushrooms and heated until the stuffing has congealed. When the eggs have been peeled and placed on a dish, they will be a very attractive side…
Tulip bulb soup
Straight to the recipe A recipe from the Hunger Winter ’44/’45 For a long time I hesitated whether to publish this recipe. For some Dutch people this dish raises memories to a traumatic period in thier lives. The tulip bulb soup was served during the Amsterdam Symposium to Food in January 2015, which had the theme ‘Food,…
Red mustard the Roman way
Straight to the recipe This is not the first recipe for mustard on Coquinaria. The first mustard-recipe, from the fourteenth-century cookbook Le Ménagier de Paris, was published fifteen years ago. Mustard in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times is comparable to tomato ketchup or soy sauce in some restaurants: there is a bottle on…
Pickle Herring, the ‘forgotten fish’
It is time to change that! In February 2016 I organized a cookery course for the first time in nearly ten years, with members of the re-enactment group Het Woud der Verwachting (litt: ‘the forest of expectation’, after a historical novel by the Dutch author Hella Haasse). The menu was in concordance with the date of the course:…
Quince jelly
In the Dutch language quinces are called quince apple or or quince pear. According to the sixteenth-century recipe for quince pie, quince apples must cooked and quince pears baked. I am not sure why, the form of a quince makes no difference in the preparation. The recipe on this page is for quince jelly from…
Coulibiac with chicken, a recipe from Carême
Straight to the recipe Russian pastry from the classic French cuisine Coulibiac or coulbac is a traditional Russian pie that has been assimilated in to the classic French cuisine as early as the nineteenth century. The Russian name koulibiac has its origins in German: Kohlgeback (pastry with cabbage). Some versions of coulibiac do contain cabbage. The version with…
Sauce espagnole
Straigh to the recipe The first new historical recipe of 2018 concerns small chicken pies from nineteenth-century French cook Carême. The stuffing is seasoned with one spoonful of sauce espagnole. That will be easy, I thought, just look up what Carême has to say about this sauce and prepare it. But things were slightly more…
Puff pastry
On Coquinaria are several historical recipes for puff pastry. On this page is a modern version. While I was searching online I saw some recipes for puff pastry that are actually just for flaky dough. Puff pastry is a kind of flaky dough, but to make puff pastry it takes something extra. Because just folding…