Ancient Roman Sweet and Sour Sauce
Stewed beef in a dark sweet and sour sauce made with garum, vinegar, and dates
City/Region: Rome
Time Period: 1st Century
Commodus was one of Rome’s worst emperors. The quintessential nepo baby, Commodus was spoiled, cruel, and the object of multiple assassination attempts. The one that stuck began with a dish of poisoned beef and ended with a strangling in the bathtub.
This recipe for a sauce for meat, from the Ancient Roman cookbook that is attributed to the gourmand Apicius, is one of my favorite Roman recipes I’ve made on the channel. The garum, lovage, honey, vinegar and defrutum make for a complex sweet and sour sauce with a classic Ancient Roman flavor profile.
I really enjoyed the balance of flavors with the quantities in the recipe below, but feel free to change them up as you like to suit your taste. As with all ancient recipes, your interpretation will be just as accurate (or not) as mine.
“Sauce for a Bowl of Meat:
Pepper, lovage, parsley, a little onion, toasted almond, date, honey, vinegar, garum, defrutum, oil.”
Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 onion, sliced
- 2 lbs (900 g) beef stew meat
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 teaspoons garum* or other fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons defrutum* or mosto cotto
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
- 1 tablespoon lovage seeds*
- 1/2 cup (57 g) slivered almonds, or a scant 1/2 cup (57 g) blanched whole almonds
- 2 large dates
- Parsley, for garnish
*See notes below.
Instructions:
- Heat the olive in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onions and stir them to coat them in the hot oil. Cook them for about 3 to 4 minutes, stirring frequently, until they get a little color.
- Add in the stew meat and stir it occasionally, browning it on all sides.
- When the meat has browned, add in the red wine vinegar and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. When the vinegar starts to simmer, stir in the honey, garum, and defrutum. Once it simmers, reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and let it simmer for 1 to 3 hours. How long it simmers depends on what cut of meat you’re using. You want it to be very tender. Check the pot every once in a while, and if the liquid has cooked away and it looks as if it might burn, add in either some water, wine, vinegar, or a mix of any of them.
- While the meat cooks, grind the peppercorns in a mortar until coarsely ground, then add in the lovage seeds and grind it all to a powder.
- Toast the almonds in a dry pan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until they’re lightly browned and fragrant.
- Add the almonds to the mortar and grind until they’re a coarse powder, leaving some larger pieces of almond for texture if you'd like.
- Remove the pits from the dates, chop them finely, and add them to the mortar as well. Grind them as well as you can.
- When the meat is almost done, add the contents of the mortar to the pot and stir them in. Add some more liquid if you'd like a thinner sauce. Let it cook for another 10 minutes, then garnish it with some chopped or torn parsley, and serve it forth.
Notes
Garum was a fermented fish sauce that was used in a lot of ancient Roman cooking. You can buy a modern equivalent or use an Asian fish sauce.
Defrutum was a 1/3 reduction of grape must and is sweet and delicious. Today saba is pretty much the same thing. It can be expensive, so you can reduce some grape juice instead. It won't be as complex as saba, but it will work just fine.
Lovage is a mildly sweet herb that can be hard to find. In this recipe, you can use celery seed as a substitute, but I’d reduce the amount to 1 teaspoon to 1/2 tablespoon. Do not eat lovage if you are pregnant!
Link to garum: https://amzn.to/3ulTKKW
Link to defrutum: https://amzn.to/3JGkbyK