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A shallow earthenware bowl of thick, smooth, ivory-white chicken and almond pottage, strewn with a little orange-brown ground mace and a few dark crushed cubeb berries.
Blaundesorye, a white pottage of chicken, almond milk and rice.

Blaundesorye, Almond Chicken Pottage (1430)

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Blaundesorye, the white pottage of Henry IV’s third course: poached chicken pounded and simmered in almond milk with rice flour and ginger, strewn with mace and cubebs.

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Recipe makes
4 servings
Prep
Cook
Total

Poach the chicken first; the pottage itself takes about 15 minutes.

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Blaundesorye, a white pottage of chicken, almond milk and rice.

The story behind the recipe

Blaundesorye opens the third course of Henry IV’s coronation feast, the first of eighteen dishes before the curlews, quails and fritters. The same manuscript gives it in four lines: almond milk, rice flour and the “brawn,” the flesh, of capons or hens, boiled together with ginger and made thick; when it is dished up, maces and cubebs are strewn on top.

What was blaundesorye?

The name is a French one in an English kitchen’s spelling, and Thomas Austin, the book’s editor in 1888, lists in his glossary versions from other manuscripts as “Blaundesore to potage” and “Blank de Sirre.” It belongs to the family of white dishes made from almond milk, rice and pale meat, near relations of the blancmange that follows it in the same book. Cubebs are the dried berries of a pepper vine from Java, with a sharp, piney heat; medieval cooks used them as a spice beside pepper.

A cook of the 1430s or 1440s wrote this down, a generation after the feast.

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Making it today

Chicken breast stands in for capon. Poached and pounded, or pulsed in a food processor, it disappears into the almond milk the way “brawn” did. Unsweetened almond milk from a carton saves pounding almonds. Cubebs are sold by spice merchants; if you can’t find them, a little coarsely ground black pepper is the nearest taste. We add a little salt.

The other almond-milk dish of the feast is Viaund Ryal, Rice Cream (1430), on the first course. Who sat where in Westminster Hall is told in What Was Served at Henry IV’s Coronation Feast?

Blaundysorye.—Take Almaunde Mylke, an flowre of Rys, and brawn of Capounys or of hennys, & pouder Gyngere, ...

Harleian MS. 279 (about 1430)Potage dyvers no. 81, Blaundysorye, in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, ed. Thomas Austin (London: Early English Text Society, 1888), p. 21

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Ingredients

For 4 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 4 servings.

  • Boneless, skinless chicken breast400 g
  • Unsweetened almond milk750 ml
  • Rice flour40 g
  • Ground ginger1 tsp
  • Salt1/2 tsp
  • Ground mace1/4 tsp
  • Cubeb berries, crushed1/2 tsp
Ingredients as written here
  • 400 g boneless, skinless chicken breast
  • 750 ml unsweetened almond milk
  • 40 g rice flour
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp ground mace
  • 1/2 tsp cubeb berries, crushed
Equipment
  • Medium saucepan with a lid
  • Food processor or mortar and pestle
  • Heavy saucepan
  • Whisk
  • Instant-read thermometer

Instructions

  1. Put the chicken breast in the medium saucepan, cover with cold water, bring to a simmer and poach gently, covered, for 15 to 20 minutes, until the thickest part reads 165°F (74°C). Lift it out and let it cool a little.

  2. Tear the chicken into pieces and pound or pulse it until very finely shredded.

  3. Whisk the rice flour into the cold almond milk in the heavy saucepan. Add the chicken, ginger and salt.

  4. Bring slowly to a simmer, stirring and scraping the bottom, and cook gently for 10 to 12 minutes, until thick enough to hold a spoon upright for a moment.

  5. Spoon into warm bowls and strew the mace and crushed cubebs over the top. Serve hot.

Nutrition

190calories per serving

Recipe makes
4 servings
Servings
4

Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for chicken breast, unsweetened almond milk and rice flour.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Keep about 55 g rice flour to each liter of almond milk for a thick pottage.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

Keeps 2 days, covered, in the refrigerator; loosen it with a little almond milk when reheating, and bring it back to a simmer. Contains tree nuts (almond).

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.

Sources and attribution

After Harleian MS. 279, Blaundysorye, as printed in Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, ed. Thomas Austin (London: Early English Text Society, 1888)

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Recipe details

Course
Soup
Dish family
Soups & Broths
Region
British
Era
Medieval
Main ingredient
Poultry & game birds
Difficulty
Easy
Occasion
State banquet