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Scillas (King Prawns)

Scillas (King Prawns) is a traditional Ancient Roman recipe for a dish of fried king prawns served in a spiced white wine vinegar and egg yolk sauce. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Ancient Roman version of: Scillas.

prep time

10 minutes

cook time

10 minutes

Total Time:

20 minutes

Serves:

4

Rating:

Tags : Ancient Roman Recipes

Original Recipe

Though often attributed to Apicius this recipe is actually derived from the fifth century 'The Excerpts from Apicius by Vinidarius the Illustrious Man'. Vinidarius was the compiler of a small collection of cooking recipes, preserved in a single 8th century uncial manuscript, claiming to be excerpts from the recipes of Apicius. In fact, though the Apician manuscript and Vinidarius' writings are stylistically similar there is actually very little overlap between them. Today, Vinidarius' work is generally presented as an appendix to Apicius. In fact the recipe below can be derived by combining three Apicina recipes together and represents a late evolution of Apician techniques.

Locustam (et scillam) (from Vinidarius' ApiciExcerpta AVinodario viroillustri)

Locustam <et Scillas>: Teres piper, ligusticum, api semen, effundes acetum, liquamen, ovorum vitella et mixta in unum perfundis et inferes.

Translation

Crush pepper, lovage, celeery seed, pour in vinegar, broth, yolks of hard boiled eggs, mix well together and dress the boiled shellfish meat with it and serve.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

500g cooked and prepared king prawns
1 tsp lovage seeds (or celery seeds)
1 tbsp lovage
Û tsp ground celery seeds
2-3 tbsp white wine vinegar
100ml liquamen
4-5 finely-diced yolks of hard-boiled eggs
olive oil to fry

Method:

Fry the prawns gently until cooked (should only take 40s or so). Pour the contents of the frying pan into a bowl and add ground pepper, celery seeds and lovage. To this add the Liquamen and diced egg yolks and mix thoroughly before serving.

Find more recipes from Apicius' De Re Coquinaria along with information on Apicius and his cookbook, all part of this site's Ancient Roman recipes collection.