Sauce Sarcenes

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Sauce Sarcenes

Sauce Sarcenes (literally Saracen Sauce) is a traditional Medieval recipe for a highly-spiced sauce using spices brought to England from Africa during the Crusades. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Medieval version of: Saracen Sauce (Sauce Sarcenes).

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

20 minutes

Total Time:

40 minutes

Serves:

6–8

Rating:

Tags : Sauce Recipes British Recipes English Recipes

Original Recipe

Make a thykke mylke of almondys; do hit in a pot with floure of rys, safron, gynger, macys, quibibis, canel, sygure: & rynse the bottom of the disch with fat broth. Boyle the sewe byfore, & messe hit forth.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

450ml Almond milk made with red wine
8 tbsp rice flour
½ tsp each of ginger, mace, cubeb pepper and cinnamon
1 tbsp sugar
120ml Gode Broth (without the breadcrumbs)
3 saffron threads ground in 1 tbsp water in a pestle and mortar
salt to taste

Method:

Pour the almond milk into a saucepan and warm slowly. Blend-in enough of the rice flour until you have a thick but smooth sauce. Mix in the spices and sugar (including the saffron and its seeping liquid) then add the Gode Broth so that the sauce thins to about the consistency of gravy.

Most Sarcene sauces a deep red in colour and use the dye Alkanet to attain this colour (it was a common misconception in Europe at the time that Saracens had red skin pigmentation). Cubeb should add a little red to the sauce but if it's not a deep red either add a few drops of red food colouring or add two teaspoons of paprika (not authentic but it may be a better alternative if you're worried about food colorants).