Stockfish in walnut sauce (medieval)

A medieval fish sauce made with nuts and bread

The second stockfish sauce recorded on page 109 of the same fifteenth-century culinary collection takes a very different approach.

Instead of a light broth flavoured with parsley, ginger and verjuice, it creates a thick sauce from walnuts, garlic, bread, pepper, salt and fish cooking liquid.

The ingredients are ground together in a mortar, then loosened with the liquid in which the fish was cooked.

This produces a rich, textured sauce without relying on butter, cream or eggs.

The basic structure has parallels in other historical European nut-and-bread sauces, but the surviving recipe is specifically identified as a sauce for stockfish.

Its simplicity is deceptive. The relative quantities of walnuts, garlic, bread and liquid determine whether the finished preparation becomes a thick paste or a sauce capable of coating fish.

The manuscript provides the ingredient combination and method, but not those proportions.

The recipe below is therefore a practical interpretation rather than a claimed transcription of medieval measurements.

Historical name and terminology

The medieval heading explicitly identifies this as an alternative manner of making stockfish sauce.

It is not evidence of a separate named regional speciality with a known town of origin.

Middle English — Sauce for stokfysshe in an-other maner

Modern English — Sauce for stockfish in another manner

Main ingredient — Stockfish

Walnut — Middle English walnotys

Garlic — Middle English garleke

Bread — Middle English brede

Scientific name of walnut — Juglans regia

Scientific name of garlic — Allium sativum

Fish species — Usually Gadus morhua in modern reconstruction

What the manuscript actually says

The recipe instructs the cook to take walnut kernels, garlic cloves, pepper, bread and salt.

These are placed in a mortar and ground finely.

The paste is then tempered or loosened using the same broth in which the fish was boiled.

The sauce is served with the fish.

This gives three secure historical elements.

First, walnuts and garlic provide the principal flavouring.

Second, bread is included as part of the sauce rather than merely as something served alongside the finished dish.

Third, fish cooking broth is used to adjust consistency.

The original text does not give exact quantities, a nut-to-bread ratio, a heating temperature or a resting time.

It does not mention mayonnaise, cream, olive oil or lemon juice.

The reconstruction should not add those ingredients and then describe the result as a faithful historical recipe.

The culinary setting

The recipe comes from Ashmole MS 1439, reproduced in Thomas Austin's nineteenth-century edition of fifteenth-century cookery texts.

Its preservation in a manuscript demonstrates that the combination was known within an English written culinary tradition.

It does not establish that every medieval household prepared it.

Walnuts were available in medieval Europe, and garlic and bread were familiar ingredients.

But access to particular foods, kitchen equipment and elaborate fish preparations varied with geography, wealth and season.

Stockfish was an imported preserved product that could travel through established northern European trade networks.

It was relevant to the consumption of fish during religious fasts and other meat-restricted occasions.

The sauce's reliance on nuts and bread is also noteworthy.

Both ingredients can create body and richness in the absence of dairy.

This is useful in considering historical cooking for days when particular animal products were restricted, although the manuscript itself does not specifically identify this recipe as a Lenten dish.

The role of walnuts

Walnuts contain substantial oil within their cellular structure.

Grinding breaks the nut tissue and releases some of that oil.

The remaining finely divided nut solids contribute body, flavour and texture.

Walnuts also provide proteins and fibre, which become dispersed through the sauce.

The result is a thick mixture rather than a clear liquid.

The quality of the walnuts matters.

Old or poorly stored nuts may develop unpleasant rancid flavours as their oils oxidize.

Fresh, good-quality shelled walnuts should therefore be used.

The original medieval source does not specify a particular walnut cultivar.

The role of garlic

Garlic is an especially important flavouring here because the sauce does not contain many competing spices.

Crushing garlic damages its cells and brings together enzymes and sulphur-containing compounds that are separated in intact tissue.

Alliinase acts on alliin, resulting in the formation of allicin and related compounds involved in fresh garlic's pungency.

Those compounds change with time, heat and processing.

A sauce made with very finely crushed raw garlic may taste sharper than one in which the garlic has been heated.

The manuscript instructs grinding the cloves with the other ingredients but does not explicitly instruct cooking the garlic separately.

The editorial reconstruction therefore uses raw garlic in the mortar.

The measured amount remains a modern choice.

Why bread thickens the sauce

Bread provides starch and an absorbent structure.

When softened with liquid and ground into the walnut mixture, it helps distribute moisture through the paste.

It also binds some of the free liquid, producing a more cohesive sauce.

Unlike raw flour, bread has already undergone baking.

Its starch has experienced hydration and heat during breadmaking, so it behaves differently from dry uncooked flour added directly to broth.

The resulting sauce can be adjusted with cooking liquid until it reaches a desired pouring consistency.

Too little liquid produces a stiff paste.

Too much liquid gives a weak, watery sauce in which the ground solids may settle.

This is why gradual addition is useful.

Recipe: walnut and garlic sauce for stockfish

Serves 4 · Approximately 45–60 minutes after rehydration · Modern reconstruction, not kitchen-tested

Method

1. Cook the stockfish. Place the prepared fish in gently simmering water.

Begin checking tenderness after approximately 20 minutes and continue until it is cooked through and tender.

2. Reserve cooking liquid. Before draining, reserve 250 ml of the liquid.

This provides enough for the measured sauce and a little extra for adjustment.

3. Soften the bread. Take 50 ml of the reserved liquid and pour it over the bread.

Allow the bread to absorb the liquid.

4. Grind the walnuts and garlic. Place the walnuts and peeled garlic in a mortar.

Grind until the mixture forms a fine but slightly textured paste.

A small processor can be used as a practical alternative, but avoid excessive high-speed processing.

5. Add the bread. Incorporate the softened bread and black pepper.

Work the ingredients together until evenly distributed.

6. Loosen the sauce. Gradually add another 100–150 ml warm cooking liquid, stirring continuously.

Aim for a thick but pourable sauce.

7. Adjust seasoning. Taste the sauce after the fish has been fully cooked. Add salt only as required.

8. Serve. Arrange the fish on plates, spoon over the walnut sauce and add cooked greens or potatoes.

If the sauce thickens while standing, loosen it with a little additional warm cooking liquid.

The greens or potatoes are modern accompaniments in this reconstruction. The manuscript does not specify them.

The texture of the finished sauce

The sauce should retain a recognizable walnut character.

A completely uniform, glossy emulsion would not necessarily reflect the mortar-ground preparation.

The finished mixture may be beige or pale brown, depending on the walnuts and bread.

Small nut particles can remain.

The bread should not form visible lumps.

The sauce should coat the fish rather than run away as a thin broth.

The garlic should be noticeable, with enough depth from the walnuts to create balance.

Because the fish cooking liquid provides much of the salt and flavour, its strength can substantially affect the result.

Medieval sauce-making and modern interpretation

A mortar and pestle are particularly appropriate for this reconstruction.

Grinding by hand applies pressure and shear, breaking down ingredients gradually.

It allows the cook to stop while the mixture still has texture.

A modern high-powered blender can produce a much finer dispersion and may change the flavour by introducing heat.

Neither texture can be proven to match every fifteenth-century cook's result, but mortar grinding follows the explicit historical method more closely.

The sauce also illustrates how medieval cooks could build substantial textures from plant ingredients.

Nuts, bread and broth perform some of the roles that cream or thickened butter sauces might perform in modern kitchens.

This does not mean that medieval European cooking was universally dairy-free. It simply shows one documented alternative.

Comparisons and variations

The manuscript's neighbouring stockfish sauce uses parsley, ginger, verjuice and a separately prepared fish broth.

The walnut sauce uses a completely different structural principle.

Its thickening comes from ground nuts and bread rather than the light broth of the parsley version.

The two should be treated as distinct historical recipes.

There are other European culinary traditions involving ground walnut or almond sauces, but similarities alone do not demonstrate direct historical descent.

A careful editorial treatment should avoid claims that the stockfish sauce is an ancestor of a particular modern national recipe unless documentary evidence connects them.

For practical purposes, cooks may vary how finely they grind the walnuts and how much broth they add.

Those adjustments are texture variations, not separate regional specialities.

Recognizing problems

The sauce is grainy in an unpleasant way. The walnuts may not have been ground sufficiently. Further mortar work can improve the texture.

The sauce is gluey. Excess bread or mechanical processing may have produced too dense a mixture.

The sauce is watery. Too much cooking liquid may have been incorporated.

The flavour is bitter. The walnuts may be old, rancid or naturally strongly flavoured.

The garlic overwhelms the fish. Raw garlic strength varies; the recipe's quantity is an editorial reconstruction rather than a historical fixed value.

The stockfish remains tough. Check rehydration and cooking rather than compensating with more sauce.

Safety and allergens

Rehydrate stockfish below 4°C and cook thoroughly.

The general fish cooking temperature is 63°C.

Use fresh, properly stored walnuts.

The principal allergens are fish, tree nuts and wheat gluten from the bread.

The source does not supply a historical storage method or shelf life for the finished sauce.

Because the preparation contains cooked fish broth, it should be consumed promptly or refrigerated safely.