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0:00 Today we are cooking a recipe from the 17th century from the book The Closet of Sir Kennel Diggby opened. 3 years after the death of Ken Digby, his main servant published and collected his works together. The recipe that I'll be cooking today is called Queen's Hot Pot. The queen that we're referring to is Henrietta Mariah, the mother of Charles II and the wife of Charles I. Stews are basic. Um, it's meat and usually vegetables. And it's the same for this recipe here. It has a few twists to it, things that we're not necessarily used to in the modern day world.
0:46 Right, let's get on with dicing up the meat and we can get that into the stew base. The recipe actually stipulates mutton. We don't produce mutton anymore. Mutton is any sheep that's over two years old. We like our um sheep quite young. So, this is lamb. So, we've got a bit of neck of lamb. And we've got the top of the leg of lamb here. Just going to cube that up nice and roughly, big chunks. Neck is nice and tough, very tasty, good marbling, lots of fat in there. Penel Digby's recipe also stipulates that you can use buff or beef. And I've tried that this stew with beef and it is really really nice too. Elizabeth first she was a great proponent of eating
1:33 breakfast which was bucking the trend in tuda times. Usually breakfast was uh not eaten but Elizabeth first used to like mutton stew. Um and she stipulated that that's what she had first thing in the morning to get her going. So that's my meat roughly chopped. I've got a little fry pan here with some butter in here. Um, but you can use any kind of fat that you want to. I'm going to actually fry off my meat to seal it and make it a little bit golden. Um, and that'll just enhance the flavor while it's in the stew. Right. I'm going to batch fry that so it doesn't steam. It actually fries. I know that your frying pans at home will probably be quite modern, maybe teal and stuff like this. This is a very
2:19 very expensive Georgian model. It's actually a copper pan, but it's tinned on the inside. Cooking on copper is not necessarily a good idea. So, the pans were tinned and they were very, very expensive. If you can get a hold of a tinned copper pan, you're on a winner. Kenel Diggby's recipe says that after about 3 hours of boiling in a posit or the cauldron as we have, um, that ensures that the meat is sort juicy, the the meat that we like to eat these days. and frying it off like this helps that happen. Okay, so my cauldron's on the fire. Um, in the recipe it actually says pausnet. Pausnet is a ceramic pot um that most people cooked in. Um, but we're using this bronze cauldron today. The recipe says add your meat to the
3:04 boiling water. So that's what's going to happen. There it goes. That's my lamb in the cauldron. Now, that's going to simmer away nice and low and slow for about 3 hours. So, it all tenderizes, starts falling apart, gets nice and juicy and anxious, and the fat breaks down. Um, and we're going to leave it and go and have a cup of tea. Right. So, my stew has been simmering away for about 2 hours, 2 and 1/2 hours now. It's smelling really, really nice. And it's at the stage now where we need to add vegetables. In the recipe, it stipulates that you add turnips and if you like, add carrots. We have lots of carrots now, so I'm going to be adding carrots. Uh we don't have so many
3:51 turnips, so I'm going to be adding a parnip. And that will give it an anxious flavor anyway. And also another onion. Add them in. And they're going to stew away for the last hour or so. In go the thyme and a little bit of rosemary. Lamb loves rosemary. I've got a nice pepper mix here. Also some salt. That's smelling great. I'm going to put the lid back on. Seal all those flavors in. We got to the stage where I need to start thickening the stew up. In Kenel Digby's recipe, you actually do that with a piece of bread. He actually calls for a fist-sized piece of bread crust
4:38 and crumb. In other words, you use the outside and you use the inside as well. It's about fist well, it's a bit smaller than fist side. This is sourdough bread. And this is my thickening agent. Nowadays, when we make a soup or a stew, if you want to thicken it up at the end, we add corn flour or a corn flour slurry or we make a r with butter and flour. The only problem with that is that you have to cook it out. So, you have to remove the taste of the flour or the taste of the corn flour. Otherwise, you just get this stodgy um taste in your mouth. If you use bread, sourdough bread to thicken up soups and stews, that's already done. You don't need to cook anything out on that. That's a that's a perfect thickener readymade for you. It's a little top tip from the 17th century. So, I'm just going to toast
5:24 this off and that will also impart a nice toasted flavor to the stew. Once I've toasted this off and got it nice and charred, like a piece of morning toast, we're not going to add butter. We're going to add vinegar. Now, that might seem strange, but vinegar adds a little bit of acid to the stew. It gives it that umami flavor. It's actually called pointing up. In old cookery methods, you point up with vinegar and sometimes with a sweetener, sugar. We don't need to add any sugar to this stew. Lamb is already quite sweet as it is. I'm going to use a red wine vinegar. Uh I suggest that if you're doing this recipe at home that you use something similar or cider vinegar or white wine vinegar. Nothing too harsh. No malt vinegars. Um you don't want it to be too strident. You want it nice and soft and
6:11 mellow but with a little bit of acidic taste. Soak that briefly in the vinegar. The toasted bread is already starting to fall apart. Get this stew back on. Nice. Let's get my bread, toasted bread and vinegar in there. So, there we are. That's in. And that can simmer away for about half an hour. Look at that. There we have it. So, the vegetables have stewed away nicely. It's all been finished and I've put it in a nice little bowl. It's Ken Digby's recipe at its finest. The recipe actually says at the end if you need it, you brighten it up. You give it a little bit more acidity with a a half a squeeze
6:56 of lemon. So, I'm just going to put a quick squeeze of lemon in there. Not too much cuz I don't think it needs it. And there we go. All you need with that is a cold English wintry evening such as it's going to be tonight. Couple of mates around, pint a beer, and you got party right there. 17th century style. Talking of mates, any mates to come and try this? Here we go. Did you bring the beer? >> No, unfortunately. No beer. No beer. But I did bring a spoon. >> Okay. All got your own spoons. Have a go at that. What do you reckon? >> It smells really nice. Smell. You can smell the vinegar, but not in a bad way. >> I think on its own, it's really nice. It would go really well with a bit of mashed potato or even some roasted
7:42 potato >> or some bread and butter. >> Bread and butter. Yeah. Absolutely. >> That is really good. You're right. There is a vinegary smell to it, but when you taste it, you actually can't. >> It's not overwhelming or overpowering at all. >> And I'm getting an aftertaste of pepper. And I really like the fact that the meat is very melt in the mouth kind of meat. >> Yeah. It's very tender. Everything's cooked really, really nicely. You know what, Zach? I think it's fit for a queen. >> Absolutely.
