Alu laukar

My shire had a viking cookout last Saturday. People brought their cooking gear and we did a number of dishes. Since I don't have a fireplace, tripod, pots and such for cooking over fire I decided to try a recipe from the book An early meal, a sauce called Alu laukar.

It is basically a cold green sauce from fresh herbs, beer and vinegar. I used chives, dill and fresh thyme plus geuze (as suggested in the recipe) and malt vinegar.

I was not impressed at first taste, added salt, honey and more herbs, but I suspect that the trick is actually to let it sit for a while allowing the flavours to blend, and that it might be worth the effort pounding all the herbs in a mortar (or whizzing them with a blender). I got fed up with it after the chives, so the rest was just finely chopped.

We ate the sauce with rather fatty smoked pork and it was nice with the acidity and "green" flavour to go with it.

I also made some candied walnuts, just honey, malt vinegar and a pinch of salt boiled together and then tossing the walnuts in the mixture. A bit sticky, but nice.

The others made lamb sausage and a stew from deer or roe, and we made flat bread to go with that. We tried one recipe with mashed peas in it, and one plain flour, water and salt. I liked the pea bread, but some other people were rather sceptic to the whole idea.

Brown? How peculiar.

I seem to have bought brown and orange fabric and I fond that somewhat odd since I normally don't like brown. 

The solid brown will become a 14th century dress, the orange a jacket and the lighter brown herringbone one or two underdresses for my apron dress. 

Market time

It's the first Sunday of Visby medieval week, and soon the market will open. I used to be really excited about all the stuff on the market, but today I'm not so sure I really need anything. Or, I'd like to buy a camp kitchen/stove/grill, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to actually come to a decision. 

The temperature in the tent is still reasonable after the rain last night. We've been meaning to make an inner tent for added comfort, but for now we have hung some clothes against the wall where the morning sun hits, plus Nattfari's full circle cloak as an inner roof. 

Bed done

The bed is in our tent, in the camp in Visby. The rope stretches a bit much, though. I hope it gets better with use.