Maelgwn Medieval Pottage Stew

October is LGBT History Month. For tonight's dish, lets go back to the age of King Arthur. We pay homage to one of his contemporaries the early Welsh King Maelgwn Gwynedd. Yes, he too was “a friend of Dorothy”. With fall weather a hearty pottage stew from that time will comfort Your King at His feasting table.

Beef, carrots, celery, spinach, and some good white beans slow cooked in an earthenware crock will delight all who are invited to join at your table.

Ingredients

• 1 pound cubed beef meat
• 1 cup chopped onion

• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 1 32 oz container beef broth – low sodium
• 1 can beans
• spinach
• 1 pkg frozen 4 Cheese Tortellini *
  

Wipe out the slow cooker and spray with cooking spray. Set on low

Do your cutting: chop the onions and carrots, set aside.

Trim off any fat off the beef. Fat adds taste but should be cooked out. This doesn't happen in a slow cooker. So trim it off. 

I add the chunks of fat to the oil I have heating in a large skillet while I cut up the rest of the beef. 

 

Cut into 1 – 2 inch cubes.

Mix ½ cup of flour with a ½ tsp of salt + pepper to taste. Roll the cubes in a half cup of flour until coated on all sides.

Save back a bit of left over flour to make a surry for thickening if needed. But throw away any not cook today!

Now remove the chunks of fat from the skillet, they have done their job, throw them away. 

 

Saute the beef until browned on all sides. The flour will have given it a nice touch of a crust. 

 

Set aside, add the onion to the same skillet and stir them around picking up any bits of that wonderful beef flavor. “Sweat” the onions until they start to turn transparent.

Now to the slow cooker:

add the carrots, then the onions

Now the beef and pour in the 32 oz carton of beef broth.

 Cover and let cook for 6 ½ hours on low.

While this is simmering, cut the stems off the spinach and drain the white beans.

At the 6 ½ hour mark, add the spinach by handfuls, stirring each in as it wilts. Pour in the beans.

Add the frozen Tortellini 

Cover and cook for an additional hour.

*If you wish to use regular pasta, I suggest thin noodles or angel hair. Add at the end of the cooking time. Re-cover, turn off the heat, and let sit for 20 minutes. The pasta will be fully cooked and not mushy.

Such a hearty royal dish fit for your King or Master

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrv7XvYryTA&feature=youtu.be

Serving my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

Maelgwn Gwynedd died c. 547 was one of the first kings of the North Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd in the 6th century A.D.

It is said that "Malgo, king of the Venedotians" addicted himself to sex with other men!

We know that Maelgwn had at least three wives, and according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, also had male lovers.

He is nicknamed Maelgwn Hir, or Maelgwn "the Tall" in Welsh. He was sent to St. Illtud's school and given a prestigious education. His royal courts were filled with musicians, poets, and bards, including the famed Dark Age bard Taliesin.

He lived in a time of great political change. He was a contemporary of the historical King Arthur. His life span crossed the time from the general peace Arthur had wrought, to the wars resulting in Arthur's death.

In The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens by Mike Ashley, he is listed as homosexual.

The only contemporary information is provided by Saint Gildas, who includes Maelgwn among the five British kings who he condemns in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae.

Maelgwyn is descried as "first in evil" and stating that he was "drunk on wine pressed from the vine of the Sodomites". Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote that he "made himself hateful to God, for he was given to the vice of homosexuality."

How much more interesting the Arthur legend is knowing some of the other Kings around him were guy. Lets fantasize our own legend of the gay king Maelgwn!