Game Hens with Hazelnut Sauce
Game hens roasted with a hazelnut and herb sauce
City/Region: Rome | Macedonia
Time Period: 1st Century
Throwing lavish feasts was one foreign custom that Alexander the Great was all too happy to adopt. We don’t have any recipes from Alexander’s court, so I looked to the ancient Roman cookbook, De re coquinaria, to find a recipe that used ingredients that Alexander would have had.
The herbs and seasonings in the sauce combine to form a new complex flavor that is delicious. The hazelnuts are prominent and form a wonderful crust on the game hens, and the garum adds its distinctive savory umami note. You can either make the sauce and serve it forth with poultry that you’ve already cooked, or roast the birds with the sauce like I did.
“Aliter Ius in Avibus, Another Sauce for Birds:
Pepper, parsley, lovage, dried mint, safflower, pour in wine, add toasted hazelnuts or almonds, a little honey with wine and vinegar, season with garum. Add oil to this in a pot, heat it, stir in green celery and calamint. Make incisions in the birds and pour the sauce over them. ”
Ingredients:
- 2 cups (250 g) hazelnuts or almonds
- 1 teaspoon ground long pepper*, or black pepper
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh parsley
- 2 teaspoons dried or fresh lovage*
- 1 1/2 teaspoons dried mint
- A pinch of safflower threads, or saffron threads
- 1 1/2 cups (350 ml) dry red wine
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons garum*
- 2 teaspoons minced celery leaves
- 1 teaspoon minced calamint, or catmint or spearmint
- Whatever fowl you like, I used 2 game hens
- Olive oil, for brushing the birds
*See notes below.
Instructions:
- First prepare to roast the hazelnuts or almonds by preheating the oven to 350°F (175°C). Spread the nuts onto a baking pan and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes, moving the nuts around once or twice during the cook time. You can stir them or gently shake the pan. You’ll know they’re ready when you can smell the toasty nutty aroma.
- Using a mortar and pestle or a food processor, grind the nuts into a coarse powder.
- In a saucepan, stir together the ground nuts and all of the other ingredients except for the celery leaves and calamint.
- Bring the sauce to a simmer over medium heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the celery leaves and calamint.
- You can now serve the sauce forth as-is with cooked poultry, but I cooked my game hens with the sauce for some extra flavor. To do this, first preheat the oven to 400°F (205°C).
- Arrange your poultry breast-side up in a baking dish. Brush them with olive oil. Pierce the breast of the birds several times with a knife, then pour the sauce over them, reserving some of the sauce for serving if you wish. The ground nuts will form a layer on the birds that will become a lovely crust.
- Roast for 35 to 45 minutes for two game hens like I used, but your time may vary depending on what bird you use. Whatever you choose, cook until the internal temperature in the thickest part of the breast and the innermost part of the thigh reaches 165°F (74°C), then serve it forth with reserved sauce if you wish.
Notes
Long pepper was very popular in ancient Rome. It's hotter than black pepper and has a more aromatic, almost flowery quality to it that's wonderful.
Lovage is a mildly sweet herb that can be hard to find. You can use celery leaf as a substitute. Do not eat lovage if you are pregnant!
Garum was a fermented fish sauce that was used in a lot of ancient Roman cooking. You can buy a modern equivalent or use an Asian fish sauce.
Link to long pepper: https://amzn.to/3ui5j5L
Link to modern garum: https://amzn.to/3ulTKKW
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