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Wine Caudle
1229. Make two or three pints of oatmeal gruel, and flavour with half a pint of either port or sherry wine, add a clove or two, and, if desired, the yolks well beaten of two or three eggs. Sweeten with white or brown sugar.
CURRANT GRUEL (rather Aperient). 1230. To a quart of half-made water gruel, put in two ounces of Zante currants well washed; add sugar, but no spice, and finish boiling. To this simple water gruel, the addition of a spoonful of cream is a great improvement. The gruel may be made of water in which the currants have been boiled, if the currants are not approved.
A caudle is thin sweet gruel fortified with wine — invalid food rather than a dish for the table. The single thing that decides whether it works is heat control at the end: the wine and yolks go in off the boil.
- Oatmeal gruelMeaning thin oatmeal porridge: roughly 1 oz (about 1/4 cup) fine or medium oatmeal per pint of water, simmered 20-30 minutes and strained. Steel-cut or pinhead oats give the closest texture; rolled oats give something cloudier and starchier.
- ProportionsHalf a pint of wine to two or three pints of gruel is roughly one part wine to four to six parts gruel. Taste as you go.
- "Half-made" gruelIn the currant version this means gruel that has been simmering only part of its time, so the currants finish cooking in it and give up their sugar and colour. Add them at roughly the halfway point.
- Zante currantsDried black Corinth grapes, sold today simply as currants — not fresh red or black currants, and not raisins. Two ounces is a scant half cup.
- Adding the wineBetter to draw the pan off the heat first. The recipe does not say so, but prolonged boiling after the wine goes in will drive off some of the alcohol and dull the flavour.
- The egg yolksTemper them: beat the yolks, slacken with a ladle of the hot gruel while whisking, then return the mixture to the pan and hold it over low heat, stirring, until it reaches 160F. Straight into a hot pan they scramble.
- ClovesOne or two whole cloves, added during the simmer and fished out before serving. Ground clove at the same nominal quantity will overwhelm the wine.
- Yield and servingThree pints of gruel plus the half pint of wine makes something over seven cups. Serve hot in a cup or tumbler rather than a bowl; it should pour, not mound on a spoon.
- "Rather aperient"A period note that the currant gruel is mildly laxative, from the dried fruit. It is a description of intent, not a warning.