flipRoast Kid with Cameline Sauce
Roast Kid with Cameline Sauce
Why this dish? A great medieval lady honored her guests with roasted meat napped in spiced sauces—a direct display of her wealth. Cameline sauce, made with cinnamon and ginger, used precisely those strongbox spices that Alice flaunted on her Kilkenny table.
Roasted meat served with the famous medieval cameline sauce: toasted bread, vinegar, cinnamon, ginger, and clove, bound into a brown, tangy, deeply spiced coulis.
When I entertain here, I spare no expense: bring me the kid well browned on the spit, and the cameline sauce in a silver bowl! Know that the cinnamon and ginger I grind have traveled by sea to my port—and whoever tastes it knows at once to which house he has the good fortune to sup. I want the sauce sharp with vinegar and brown as bark, not bland, for a lady of my rank never serves anything tepid or dull.
- •Kid or lamb — a fine quarter (roasted meat)
- •Toasted bread — a few slices (sauce thickener)
- •Wine vinegar — a cup (acidity)
- •Cinnamon — generously (signature spice)
- •Ginger — a good pinch (spice)
- •Clove — a few (spice)
- •Salt — to taste (seasoning)
Roast Kid with Cameline Sauce
Roasted meat served with the famous medieval cameline sauce: toasted bread, vinegar, cinnamon, ginger, and clove, bound into a brown, tangy, deeply spiced coulis.
Why this dish? A great medieval lady honored her guests with roasted meat napped in spiced sauces—a direct display of her wealth. Cameline sauce, made with cinnamon and ginger, used precisely those strongbox spices that Alice flaunted on her Kilkenny table.
When I entertain here, I spare no expense: bring me the kid well browned on the spit, and the cameline sauce in a silver bowl! Know that the cinnamon and ginger I grind have traveled by sea to my port—and whoever tastes it knows at once to which house he has the good fortune to sup. I want the sauce sharp with vinegar and brown as bark, not bland, for a lady of my rank never serves anything tepid or dull.
Ingredients (period version)
- Kid or lamb — a fine quarter (roasted meat)
- Toasted bread — a few slices (sauce thickener)
- Wine vinegar — a cup (acidity)
- Cinnamon — generously (signature spice)
- Ginger — a good pinch (spice)
- Clove — a few (spice)
- Salt — to taste (seasoning)
Ingredients
- Leg or shoulder of lamb — 1.2 kg (meat)
- Rustic bread, toasted — 2 slices (thickener)
- Red wine vinegar — 8 cl (acidity)
- Ground cinnamon — 1 tsp (signature spice)
- Ground ginger — 1/2 tsp (spice)
- Cloves — 3 (spice)
- Broth or water — 15 cl (sauce thinning)
- Salt — to taste (seasoning)
Method
- Season the meat and roast at 190°C until nicely browned (about 25 min per 500 g).
- Soak the toasted bread in vinegar mixed with a little broth.
- Blend the soaked bread with cinnamon, ginger, and ground cloves until smooth.
- Thin the sauce with broth, adjust acidity and salt—it should remain bold and brown.
- Slice the rested meat and nap with sauce, or serve cameline separately in a sauceboat.
How it was made : Cameline is one of the most cited sauces in medieval cookbooks (Viandier, Ménagier de Paris). Without cooking the sauce, bread and vinegar bound the spices ground in a mortar: the aim was a sweet-sour-spicy flavor, far from the modern French taste for roast meat.
The contemporary twist : Arrange the meat on a wooden board with cameline in a small pot and a dusting of cinnamon, in the style of a revisited medieval banquet table.
Alice Kyteler · Charactorium
