BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Roman Dill Sauce

Add some ancient zing to your summer feasts

Roman Dill Sauce on sausage. Courtesy John Gregory Drummond, BAS.

Summer has finally arrived, and for many of us the preceding months have been long and cold. As you spend time outside with family and friends enjoying the sweet sunshine, bring this ancient Roman recipe to your next backyard barbeque. It’s a simple, no-cook recipe that is perfect for hot summer days.

The recipe, “Cold Dill Sauce for Sausages,” comes to us from Apicius, the first-century CE Roman gourmand we’ve seen a few times in Test Kitchen (see BAR Test Kitchen: Roman “French” Toast and BAR Test Kitchen: Parsnips: Back to Roman Roots. This very simple sauce is poured over cold pre-cooked sausage (or you could use any cold meat). The original does call for asafoetida, which can be hard to find in most grocery stores today; if you can’t find it, just use garlic as we did.

Although the recipe is simple, there are two interesting ingredients for the modern chef. The first is garum, a fermented fish sauce. There were a few different recipes for garum, but in its simplest form it was made by placing fish entrails in a vat with salt and letting the mixture ferment in the sun for a length of time. Here at BAR, we just bought fish sauce from the grocery store.

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The second ingredient that may be new to some is grape must, which is what is left of the grapes once the juice is squeezed out during wine production. Many cooks from certain regions take the must and turn it into juice. You can buy grape must online, or you can call your local winery during the harvest season and purchase it from them.

We hope you enjoy this summer recipe as Apicius himself would have, dining with a group of friends!

BAR’s Recipe

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp brown mustard
• Splash of garum or fish sauce
• 1 tsp honey
• Piece of finely chopped date
• 1 tsp grape must
• Sprinkle of pepper
• ½ clove minced garlic or ½ tbsp asafoetida
• 1 tsp dried mint
• 2 tsp crushed dill seed
• 1 cold pre-cooked sausage

Instructions

1. Mix the vinegar and olive oil in a bowl, then stir in the mustard.
2. Add in the honey, chopped date, grape must, and fish sauce. Stir well.
3. Season with pepper, garlic, dried mint, and crushed dill seed.

Crushed ingredients ready to be mixed into the liquid. Courtesy John Gregory Drummond, BAS.

4. Mix well until fully combined, then serve in a dish for dipping or drizzle over the sausage.
5. Any leftover sauce can be saved for later (it also works well as a vinaigrette over salad).