Recipes from the Wagstaff Miscellany - 183 Welkes Boyled

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 © 2015 by Daniel Myers, MedievalCookery.com

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183. Welkes Boyled
Do welkes yn a pott with watyr so that they may flete ther yn set hem on a esy fyre let hem seth sokyngly & long then take hem up & poure a wey the watyr & pyke the fisch out of the shill with a pikke & take of the hatte fro the hedde so hem on a vessell with a lytyll cold watyr so that they be unnethe helyd & a grete dele of salt & scoure the welkes well with thyn hond let all the slyme goo of & wesch hem yn othir iiij waters & ley hem yn othir clene water till thu serve hem forth then do hem a brode yn dysches & strew on fayles of percelley.

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This recipe is a match for recipe 119 from A Noble Boke off Cookry.

To boile welks put them in a pot with water so they may flot then set them on the fyer and let them stond longe or they sethe then tak them out of the water and tak out the fisshe with a prik and put away the hulles then wesche them well with watire and salt ij or iij tymes then lay them in clene water till ye serue them with grene parsly.  [A Noble Boke off Cookry (England, 1468)]

There is another version of the same recipe in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.

Welkes boyled. Take welkes, and caste hem in colde water, And lete hem boyle but a litull; And caste hem oute of the vessell, And pike hem oute of the shell, and pike awey the horn of hem, and wassh hem and rubbe hem well in colde water and salt, in two or thre waters; And serue hem colde, And caste vppon hem leves of parcelly ywet in vinegre, And sauce to hem is vynegre.  [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books (England, 1430)]