I have just invented and cooked this rather left-field recipe and it was well received.

Trout - cleaned, scaled and gutted but with their heads and tails.
Onions sliced in circles and some finely chopped.
Herbs and seasoning.
Make a strong herbal tisane with two teaspoons in half a cup of boiling water. Allow it to brew. I used a rather nice apple and lemon tisane.

Line a large flat oven-proof dish with foil and oil it. Cover the base of the dish with circles of onion and place the trout on top. Place the finely chopped onion inside the fish with seasoning and herbs. Pour the tisane over the fish including the leaves and fruit. Sprinkle herbs and seasoning over the fish. 'Tent' the foil over the trout and place in a pre-warmed oven at 180•C for 30 minutes. Open the tent and drizzle olive oil on the fish and return to the oven for another ten minutes.

Serve with potatoes and vegetables.. Enjoy!

Blanc Mang, from the Forme of Cury, 1390, combined chicken, nuts, rice and spices. It was inspired by the Arabic and Persian inspired foods that were brought back to England by Crusaders. The recipe has obvious parallels with Korma.

Here's the original recipe from 1390 with my modern reinterpretation below.

Blanc Mang

Take Capouns and seeþ hem, þenne take hem up. take Almandes blaunched. grynd hem and alay hem up with the same broth. cast the mylk in a pot. waisshe rys and do þerto and lat it seeþ. þanne take brawn of Capouns teere it small and do þerto. take white grece sugur and salt and cast þerinne. lat it seeþ. þenne messe it forth and florissh it with aneys in confyt rede oþer whyt. and with Almaundes fryed in oyle. and serue it forth.

In modern English:

Take capons and seethe (boil) them, then take them up. Take blanched almonds. Grind them and chop them up with the same broth. Put milk in a pot. Wash rice and add thereto and let it seethe (boil). Then take the flesh of the capon, chop it small and add thereto. Take white grease (lard), sugar and salt and put them in. Let it seethe. Then mix it up and garnish it with any sweetmeat red or white, and with almonds fried in oil. And serve it forth.


Many different mediæval versions of this recipe exist, often incorporating ginger and saffron. Blanc Mang eventually evolved into blancmange, which was a staple of school dinners when I was a child.

Blanc Mang - my modern version
Stir-fry chopped onions and garlic, add chopped chicken breast and nutmeg and cook through. Cover and take off the heat.

Cook rice with chopped ginger, stock and ground almonds. Once all the liquid has been taken up and the rice cooked, combine with the cooked chicken. Top with chopped coriander, fried flaked almonds and crystallised ginger.

Dine like Richard II and enjoy!

This evening, between 6.00 and 7.00 pm, make sure you are following @HistoryNeedsYou's official Twittercast for Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznik's Q&A on their new book and tv series, Untold History (tagged #untoldhistory). 

Oliver Stone has an illustrious and controversial career as a film maker and television producer/director. 

Join us this evening and expect the unexpected from the man who says on his own website: Either you're born crazy or you're born boring.

In our two latest radio shows for EGH Media, Matthew discussed Richard III (including his own meeting with the king) and other monarchs or heads of state whose remains have no known resting place, including Alfred the Great.

If you missed either show, you can listen to them below. 

Don't forget to tune in on April 23 for our special St George's Day show.

Last month, Matthew attended the press conference we all wanted to be at ... where the answer to the question 'is it Richard?' was revealed. Not only that, but he found himself face to face with the man himself. Matthew related his unforgettable experience to the Birmingham Post. 

You can find out more about Richard III, and other missing monarchs, in Matthew's next radio show for EGH Media, to be broadcast live next Tuesday 19 March from 8.00pm. Put your questions to Matthew via @HistoryNeedsYou at Twitter.

Cullen skink is a hearty Scottish fish soup or stew from a wee place called Cullen in NE Scotland.

There are loads of variants on this traditional dish so here is the version that I am cooking today.

Ingredients
Smoked haddock
Milk
Cream
Potatoes
Shallots
Herbs and seasoning

Pour the milk into a pan and bring it to a simmer. Add the smoked haddock and seasoning. I leave the skin on so that it stays together. Poach for a few minutes then remove the fish and place to one side.
Add cubed potatoes and chopped shallots to the milk and poach until they are soft.
Add cream and herbs. Place fish on top and warm through again.

Serve with oat bread and some veg. I have served it with string beans today.

Enjoy!

This gingerbread recipe is from A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen, 1617.

'To make red Ginger-bread, commonly called Leach-lumbar.'

'Grate and dry two stale Manchets, either by the fire, or in an Ouen, sift them through a Sieve, and put to it Cinamon, Ginger, Sugar, Liquorice, Anis-seed: when you haue mingled all this together, boile a pint of red wine, and stirre it, that it be as thick as a Hastie-pudding; then take it out, and coole it, and mould it with Cinamon, Ginger, Liquorice, and Anise-seede, and rowle it thinne, and print it with your mould, and dry it in a warme Ouen.'

In simple terms, add grated and sieved white breadcrumbs to mulled wine, or alcohol-free equivalent. Blend it to a thick paste, like a biscuit mixture. Either roll out and cut into shapes or use a gingerbread mold to create shapes. Dry them in front of the fire or in a cool oven. They should be dried, not baked.

When dried they can be decorated with edible gold to make culinary bling!

This recipe for 'The Best Pancake' is from
The English Husewife by Gervase Markham, published in 1615.

''To make the best pancake, take two or three eggs, and break them into a dish, and beat them well; then add a pretty quantity of fair running water, and beat all well together; then put in cloves, mace, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and season it with salt; which done, make it as thick as you think good with fine wheat flour; then fry the cakes as thin as may be with sweet butter, or sweet seam, and make them brown, and so serve them up with sugar strewed upon them. There be some which mix pancakes with new milk or cream, but that makes them tough, cloying, and not crisp, pleasant and savoury as running water.''

Ingredients
2-3 eggs
Plain wheat flour - about 8oz
Water - about a pint (or replace some or all of it with milk and/or cream)
Salt
Ground spices: mace, cinnamon, cloves nutmeg

Mix the dry ingredients together, mix in the egg then gradually add the liquid. Beat well and let it stand for a while. Fry in a good heavy frying pan using a little butter or suet.

Serve with sugar or with fruits preserved in brandy.

Enjoy, because the Lentern fast begins tomorrow!

This fruit cake recipe is from Gervase Markham, top-selling food author of the C17th. For Twelfth Night the tradition was to bake a bean into the cake. Whoever found the bean was the Bean King, Lord of Misrule, leader of merriment and mirth.

"To make a very good Banbury Cake, take foure pounds of Currants, & wash and pick them very cleane, and drie them in a cloth: then take three egges and put away one yelke, and beate them, and strayne them with barme [yeast], putting thereto Cloves, Mace, Cinamon and Nutmegges, then take a pint of Creame, and as much mornings milke and set it on the fire till the cold be taken away: then take flower and put in a good store of cold butter and sugar, then put in your egges, barme, and meale and worke them all together an houre or more: then save a part of the paste, & the rest breake in peeces and worke in your Currants: which done, mold your Cake of what quantity you please: and then with what that paste which hath not any Currants cover it very thinne both underneath and a loft. And so bake it according to the bignesse."