The World That Was - Roman Hardboiled Eggs in a Pine Nut Sauce

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was!

This week, I'm making some hard-boiled eggs in a pine nut sauce, as recorded by Apicius. This is a quick and easy recipe that would have served as a cheap but filling meal for many Romans in antiquity - requiring at least eggs, pine nuts, and garum. However, the recipe recorded by Apicius gives us a glimpse at a more middle-class meal!

In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above! If you like what you see, consider supporting me on Patreon!

Ingredients
200g pine nuts (soaked overnight in water)
4 eggs
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp garum (or fish sauce)
pepper
salt
dried lovage (or celery seeds, ground)

Method

1 - Prepare the Sauce
To begin making this recipe, we need to soak our pine nuts in some water overnight. So start making this the day before you want to eat it!

Place the soaked pine nuts into a mortar and pestle, and get to grinding. They should break down fairly easily. Grind this into a consistency you like - I enjoy a few whole pine nuts here, but you could of course make this entirely smooth!

Then, add in some pepper, and some dried lovage. This herb can be a little hard to come by, so you can of course use some celery seeds instead! They both have a similar taste profile.

On top of the seasonings, add a tablespoon of honey, a tablespoon of vinegar, and a tablespoon of garum - the staple of Roman cuisine! Garum is a fermented fish sauce, which appears frequently in Roman recipes, but is difficult to come by today - mainly because the method used to make it has been replaced by more sanitary methods - but Vietnamese fish sauce works well as a substitute! Mix everything together until it's well combined. Don't be dissuaded by the addition of fish sauce here! It won't actually have a fishy taste!

2 - Boil Eggs
Next we need to do the most technically challenging part of this recipe: boiling some eggs. Place four eggs into a saucepan and fill it up with cold water until the eggs are just submerged. Place this pot over a high heat and let everything boil for 3-5 minutes.

When the eggs are cooked to your liking, shock them by dropping them into some very cold water, and peel them.

Cut the eggs in half and arrange them in a fancy pattern in a bowl. Onto these eggs, spoon a little bit of your sauce. Eat at room temperature and dig in!

The finished dish is a wonderfully savour treat! The sauce has a deep, meaty flavour thanks to the garum and pine nuts, with a warm background due to the addition of pepper!

Though I hard-boiled these eggs, it is likely that they were served soft-boiled as well - the yolk mixing with the sauce to form a rich luxurious sauce in the bowl!

Although I used chicken eggs here, the Romans would have most likely made use of pigeon/dove eggs, or other wildfowl (such as quail or duck). Ostrich eggs from North Africa may have also been used! Although these would have been reserved for only the most extravagant events in Rome - given the rarity of ostriches within the city normally.

No matter what kind of egg you choose to use here, this is a quick and simple recipe for any party you need to cater for!