Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 63 Turbut rostyde in sauce

Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany (Beinecke MS 163)

This manuscript is dated about 1460.

The 200 (approx.) recipes in the Wagstaff miscellany are on pages 56r through 76v.

Images of the original manuscript are freely available on the Yale University Library website.

I have done my best to provide an accurate, but readable transcription. Common abbreviations have been expanded, the letters thorn and yogh have been replaced with their modern equivalents, and some minor punctuation has been added.

Copyright © 2013 by Daniel Myers, MedievalCookery.com

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63. Turbut rostyde in sauce
Cut a way the fynes of the turbut & cut the fysche in maner of a hastelynge put hit one a rounde broche whene hit ys halfe rostyde cast ther yne smal salt take vergeus or venyggere & wyne & poudyre of gyngere & a lytylle canelle & cast ther one in the rostynge & have a vesselle ther undyre to kepe the styllyons downe & cast hit one aghene whene hit is rostyde ynowghe hete the same sause & cast hit one the fische yne dischys al hote.

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This recipe is a close match for number 174 in A Noble Boke off Cookry.

To dight turbot rost in sauce tak and cutt away the fyn of the turbotte and cutt the fisshe in the manner of felettes and put them on a round broche and when it rostis springle on salt then tak vergius venyger or wyn and pouder of guinger and canelle and cast ther to in the rosting and set a vesselle under to kep that fallithe and cast it on agayne and when it is rost cast the sauce upon the fisshe in disshes and serue it.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

As with the recipe for pike above, there is also a version of this recipe in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.  Curiously, It retains the word hastlet/hastling which Noble replaces with fillet.

Turbut roste ensauce. Take a Turbut, and kut of the vynnes in maner of a hastelette, and broche him on a rounde broche, and roste him; And whan hit is half y-rosted, cast thereon smale salt as he rosteth. And take also as he rosteth, vergeous, or vinegre, wyne, pouder of Gynger, and a litull canell, and cast thereon as he rosteth, And holde a dissh vnderneth, fore spilling of the licour; And whan hit is rosted ynowe, hete the same sauce ouer the fire, And caste hit in a dissh to the fissh all hote, And serue it forth.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]