Iron Age Recipes

Tegen's Recipes

For making bread or yeast-based bread, Tegen would have used a clome oven, a clay dome with a fire inside it. The ashes would have been raked out or banked against the sides when the food was put inside. She might also have used a griddle for some things – a sort of flat iron pan a bit like a frying pan. When travelling, or in a poorer household, stones (preferably granite as it doesn’t crack in heat) would have been put into the centre of the fire, then hauled out, dusted off, and used as a griddle for ‘thin’ food such as bannocks or oatcakes.

Griff's Honey Cakes

Eggs were seasonal in the Iron Age, so here are a winter version with no eggs, and a summer one with them. The summer one is nicest, but as I have a friend who is allergic to eggs, the Winter one is a treat for him!

Winter

  1. Heat your oven to gas 6, or 200 C degrees electric
  2. Dust a baking sheet with barley flour or cover with baking parchment.
  3. Put the barley flour, oatmeal, butter or margarine, honey and hazelnuts into a bowl.
  4. Mix until they make a thick, even paste. Add enough milk to make a ‘dropping consistency’ (that means a dollop drops off your spoon easily).
  5. Put spoonfuls of mixture onto the tray. I get about 15 cakes from this amount.
  6. Cook for about 15 mins in the top of a gas oven, or the middle of an electric oven.
  7. They will be going nicely golden when they are ready.

Summer

It’s very simple, stir in one large egg before adding the milk. The Romans introduced chickens, so Tegen would have used a duck or goose egg. If you are lucky enough to be able to use a goose egg, double the quantity of everything else as these are huge!
Cook for about 20 minutes, as above. Again, they should be going nicely golden.
Cool on a wire rack.




Here I am sitting in an Iron Age Kitchen. Me next to a bread oven, called a 'come' oven.



This is a quern, used for grinding flour.



How meat and fish was kept.


Inside an Iron Age Hut.

 

Oatcakes

These are fairly bland, but are heaven when eaten with cheese, honey, or if you are cheating, Marmite or peanut butter!

  1. Heat the oven to number 6 / 200 degrees.
  2. Dust a baking tray with a little flour or oatmeal.

  3. Put all the ingredients except the water, into a bowl, and rub them between your fingers until the butter is worked in.
  4. Add the boiling water just a little at a time until it makes a firm, non-sticky ball of dough.
  5. Break off little pieces of dough and roll them into balls about the size of walnuts, then squash them gently into flat little biscuits about the thickness of a 50p piece.
  6. Arrange on a baking tray and put at the top of a gas oven, or the middle of an electric oven for about 20 minutes.
  7. Do NOT let them go golden; that means they are overcooked.

  8. They will be very fragile when you take them out of the oven, cool on a wire rack.

Bread

is uses spelt, a very early form of wheat. If you prefer your bread a bit lighter, you can mix it half and half with strong white bread flour, but that’s cheating!

  1. Heat the oven to 180 decrees C or gas mark 4, and dust a baking sheet with spelt.

  2. Put the water, 1/3 of the flour and the honey into a bowl and beat it with a balloon whisk. If you are really being authentic you can make your own whisk with hazel or willow twigs looped over and bound together.

  3. When the dough looks the consistency of cake mix, put it in a warm place for about an hour.

  4. Next, add the oil or melt the butter or lard (not too hot, just so it’s runny), add it to the mixture with the salt and mix in gently with a wooden spoon. Slowly add the rest of the flour.

  5. When it is too heavy to stir, tip it all onto an oiled surface and begin to knead. Keep working it until you have a smooth, even, non-sticky lump. If it is still sticky, keep dusting it with a little more flour until it goes smooth and dimples when you touch it.

  6. Hint: flour can sometimes vary as to how much water it absorbs, so have a little extra to hand just in case.

  7. Divide into 12, then and re-knead, shape into buns and arrange them on the baking tray. Try not to let them touch, or they will squash together as they rise. Put these in a warm place for about ½ to 1 hour, then put in the oven for about 25 minutes. A cooked loaf should sound hollow when you tap it underneath.

  8. If she didn’t have a clome oven, Tegen would have put thin ‘pizza-base’ loaves on to hot stones, and turned them as the bottom sides cooked.