Free Shakespeare's Kitchen by Francine Segan Page B

loosen the pan drippings. Add the remaining 1¾ cups of the wine, the currants, dried plums, dates, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and apples. Return the chicken to the pan, cover with a tight lid, and reduce heat to low. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, or until the chicken is very tender. Remove the chicken from the pan and cook the pan sauce for 5 to 10 minutes, or until reduced by half.
    2.     Place the chicken on a serving platter and pour the sauce over the chicken.
ORIGINAL RECIPE:
To stew a Cocke
You must cutte him in five pieces and washe him cleane and take Prunes, currants and dates, cutte very small and Raysins of the Sunne, and Sugar beaten very small, Cynamon, Ginger and nutmeggs likewise beaten, and a little Maydens [apples] cutte very small, and you must put him in a pipkin, and put in almost a pint of Muskadine, and then your spice and sugar uppon your Cocke, and put in your fruite betweene every quarter, and a peece of Golde betweene every peece of your Cocke, then you must make a lidde of Wood to fit for your pipkin, and close it as close as you can with paste, that no ayre come out, nor water can come in …
THE GOOD HUSWIFES JEWELL, 1587

Chicken and Artichokes
SERVES 6
    If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! if to be old and
merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned …
    KING HENRY IV, PART I, 2.4
     S ACK, A SWEET wine like sherry, was a favorite of Shakespeare. This delicious recipe “on the French fashion” slowly simmers chicken in wine, lemons, and a touch of sugar.
In Dyets Drie Dinner, a 1599 book on dining and health, the author makes a pun on the word lemon and “leman,” the Elizabethan term for a lover. “All say a Limon in wine is good: some think a Leman and wine better.”
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 chicken, cut into 8 pieces (about 4 pounds)
½ cup whole-wheat flour
¼ cup Renaissance Stock
¾ cup white wine
1 lemon, unpeeled, diced, seeds removed
¼ teaspoon ground mace
6 dates, pitted and chopped
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
5 to 6 artichoke bottoms, cleaned, parboiled
           Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour and brown the chicken on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pan and add the Renaissance Stock, wine, lemon, mace, dates, brown sugar, and salt. Bring to a boil and add the chicken and artichokes. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn over the chicken and cook for 15 minutes, or until the chicken is fork tender.

Stuffed Turkey Breast “French Fashion”
SERVES 8
    Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him;
how he jets under his advanced plumes!
    TWELFTH NIGHT, 2.5
     T URKEYS WERE INTRODUCED to Europe from the Americas by Spanish explorers in the late 1500s. Thinking the bird, like so many other new and exotic delicacies, was from the country Turkey, it was consequently misnamed.
1 turkey breast, boned (about 3 pounds)
Salt and freshly milled black pepper
5 minced shallots
8 ounces prosciutto, minced
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
750 milliliters white wine
1 quart Renaissance Stock
3 bay leaves
3 sprigs of rosemary
6 whole cloves
2 mace blades
2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
    1.     Starting from the meat side, cut a vertical slit into each half of the turkey breast, being careful not to cut through to the skin. Season both sides of the turkey breast with salt and pepper. Combine the shallots, prosciutto, and butter and spread one quarter of the mixture into each of the slits. Spread the remaining shallot mixture on the meat side of one of the breast halves and top with the other half of the turkey breast. Wrap the turkey in cheesecloth to keep the skin in place and the stuffing inside and tie securely with kitchen string.
    2.     Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and cook the turkey for 20 minutes, or until very brown on all sides.
    3.