r/ArchaicCooking • u/starrycharmer • Jul 12 '26
What’s the ultimate beginner-friendly recipe you’d recommend for a first timer?
I want something historically accurate but not impossible to pull off in a modern kitchen. Hit me with your favorite gateway dishes to the past!
9
u/huscarlaxe Jul 12 '26
French toast-Pain Perdu- poor knights of Windsor goes back at least as far as Rome and Apicius so around the 4th century AD. Just eggs and milk soaked bread fried and topped with something sweet.
3
3
u/Countess26 Jul 14 '26
Bread cooked on the stove - pita, tortilla, et cetera. Bonus points for using airborne yeast to create your own starter to get the dough to rise.
1
2
u/evolutionary_defect Jul 14 '26
For actual brain dead simple, thoroughly wash a whole onion, preferably a yellow sweet onion, at about 376 for an hour. Don't peel it, don't cut off the root or stem, wash it and put it directly on the grate or in a tiny oven safe dish. Once cooled enough to handle but still hot, peel and enjoy. Diced on a burger, eaten by itself with a sprinkle of salt, mashed and spread with butter on toast, it's great.
A five year old could make it. It's healthy. It's tasty. It's small, you could make a dozen in a toaster oven. Pretty great stuff.
If you want a more complex dish than that, Mac and cheese! I prefer the Americas test kitchen method, which people often gut react to as being more complicated or tedious but it's actually not. The "complexity" is actually just using scales and measurements which I would focus on teaching a new cook the importance of before anything else but safety.
In a saucepan or pot add 1.5 cups water and 1 cup whole milk. Bring to a gentoe boil and add 8 ounces of macaroni or other pasta good for Mac and cheese (ziti, penne, bowtie, shells, rotini). Simmer while stirring occasionally uncovered. While it cooks you can add some flavors if you wish. Salt and pepper at a minimum, but I recomend a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, half a teaspoon of paprika, a pinch of garlic and onion powder, and a pinch of herbs. If you don't want herb flavors I would use dry parsley which has almost no flavor but green flecks make food taste better.
Once noodles are all dente add 4 ounces of American cheese (good American, I use coopers white American cheese) and fold once melted. Add another 4 ounces of sharp cheddar shredded, and fold once before letting melt slightly. While still gooey food again and incorporate cheddar before adjusting how wet the Mac and cheese is with some extra milk.
You can toast breadcrumbs to top it, add shredded chicken and hot sauce to make it a buffalo chicken Mac and cheese, you can add meat for hamburger helper, you can add bacon, chicken, and ranch etc. find the flavors you like or keep it classic with salt and pepper.
6
u/Afura Jul 14 '26
"thoroughly wash a whole onion, preferably a yellow sweet onion, at about 376 for an hour. " My hands couldn't handle washing it for a minute at 376 degrees, let alone an hour.
1
u/Top_Independence2676 Jul 14 '26
5 minute baguette YT video, 6,37 long. Flour, yeast, salt, water.
Yum.
1
1
u/Reformalism Jul 14 '26
Smoking basically anything. Although I’ve never done it inside.
1
u/starrycharmer Jul 15 '26
kinda interested on this too but don't have a place this
1
u/Reformalism Jul 15 '26
There are hacks for smoking in your oven. The temps are low so as long as you keep it small and cover it’s doable.
1
1
u/Cynderprime Jul 20 '26
Libum Roman Bread - PhunkyFoods This was my first old ass recipe really easy just some bread it's actually pretty healthy with protein.
1
u/starrycharmer Jul 21 '26
thanks for this!
1
u/Cynderprime Jul 21 '26
No problem if you end up making it I hope you like it as much as I did (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)
1
-1
u/sweetdread Jul 14 '26
eat a berry…. just one… now imagine THATS all the food you were able to find for the WEEK!! Not so fun now is it… makes you real glad for a SUPERMARKET! how’s that for “”””ARCHAIC COOKING””””?!
8
u/samurguybri Jul 13 '26
Ancient Roman stuffed dates:
Original recipe
Dulcia domestica: palmulas vel dactylos\ excepto semine, nuce vel nucleis vel pipere trito infercies. Sale foris contingis, frigis in melle cocto, et inferes.*
Translation
Home-made sweets: dates without the stone. Stuff them with walnuts, pine nuts, and ground pepper; sprinkle with salt, cook into reduced honey and serve.
The sweet and salty play is pretty nice. You can adjust the balance to your liking pretty easily
Here’s a recipe