Historical Recipes: Fiery stuffed eggs (Viking-Style)

Here’s an oddly modern, super simple, very seasonal and really tasty Viking Age recipe: ‘Fiery stuffed eggs’.

Far from the ”roasted meat and barrels of mead” type of meal usually portrayed for Viking diners, this is a light lunch, starter or snack that the Viking Age inhabitants of Britain could have enjoyed around this time of the year.

Let’s stop this myth that Viking food was only big chunks of meat washed down with ale or mead! Think about Viking age farmers and artisans, working long hours and needing a quick pick-me-up before a ploughman’s type lunch..

Brought to you by Caroline Nicolay, archaeology educator & Iron Age specialist at Pario Gallico.

Ingredients:

– Goose eggs (very seasonal as geese never lay eggs all year round, even in the 21st century, and will soon have finished laying!), boiled, one per person.

OR: duck eggs, chicken eggs… any egg will do!
– Wild garlic leaves, washed and finely chopped
OR
– rocket leaves, washed and finely chopped
AND/OR
– wholegrain mustard, 1/2 tsp per egg
– salt, 1 pinch per egg
– milk, 1 tsp per egg

– poppy seeds (find from Oakbank crannog)

– 1 handful of crushed hazelnuts
(foraged, find from the crannog too)

Serve with honey oat cakes, shortbreads, toasted brioche… as you like!

Recipe:

  • Boil your eggs in water for at least 10 minutes for duck and chicken eggs, a bit longer for goose eggs.
  • Leave to cool down completely, then peel / remove the shells and cut in half each egg.
  • Remove the yolks and put them in a separate dish.
  • Add a pinch of salt per egg, chopped up wild garlic leaves or rocket leaves … you can add 1/2 tsp (or less, depending on personal tastes!) of wholegrain mustard to the mix.
  • Mash it all together. Add 1tsp of milk and mix again until you get a soft, smooth paste.
  • Put this egg yolk mixture back in each half egg white, top it up with a decorative leaf, chopped up herbs or a dash or wholegrain mustard and serve … ideally with a salad and warm bread.
  • Though a slice of smoked salmon would work wonders with these fiery eggs too!
Enjoy!

Archaeology educator and Iron Age specialist, living historian and experimental archaeologist, Caroline Nicolay, Director at Pario Gallico. Caroline will be back at the festival this year demonstrating Iron Age cookery and how to make ancient paints, among other things.

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Twitter: @pariogallico