Meatballs with Aulx Vers

This recipe came about as a way to enjoy the green garlic sauce (the Aulx Vers). We first planned it as another sauce to eat with just bread. When I first made a batch of this to try it out, early one morning, and tasted the … rather intense sauce, my thought was it might be a bit too strong a taste.

However, when combined with meatballs, it worked very well!

Meatballs

We didn’t really use a period source for this, but were inspired by various recipes. This was the recipe we used:

• 500 gr minced meat (we used mince that was a mix of beef and pork)
• 1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground ginger (powder)
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 80 gr bread-crumbs

Mix and knead everything well together. 500 grams of minced meat makes about 25 smallish meatballs. Bake until done. We served them cold, which means using a little more salt, in my experience.

Aulx vers

Green garlic sauce from Le Viandier de Taillevent, §158

Original:

Beolés aux et pain et verdeure, deffaites de verjus

Redaction:

• 4 cloves of garlic
• 4 tbsp white bread-crumbs (about 1 slice of bread)
• 4 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 4 tbsp lemon juice
• 4 tbsp green herbs (we used flat-leaf parsley and rosemary, you can add some sorrel if you can get it)
• 1 tsp ground ginger (powder)

Mix everything well by chopping it very fine in a food processor or use a mortar.

Depending on how fine you want it, you can push the sauce through a sieve.

The original recipe calls for verjuice, which we replaced with the wine vinegar and lemon juice.

I made the sauce the Thursday before the event.