Name: Terentine Minutal
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: 2–3 discs of tracta or cornflour to thicken; 50 ml passum; 100 ml wine; ½ tsp dried oregano or 1 tsp fresh oregano; 2 tsp dried mint; 300 g minced lamb; ½ tsp lovage seed; 1 tbsp fish sauce; 20 g soft bread crumbs; 1 level tsp celery seed; generous freshly ground pepper; 40 ml olive oil; 1 small leek, chopped; 500 ml lamb stock (cube or fresh); 1 tbsp fish sauce (and more, perhaps, at the end)

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Cooking Apicius

By Sally Grainger

Published 2006

About

This recipe for a minutal, a basic stew, is made with mince (Latin isicia) which was certainly an everyday ingredient. Other minutals are often made with cooked meat. It is a creamy and soft pottage, a true ‘comfort food’ in texture, while also having the subtle tang of celery and lovage. It is thickened with a special dried pastry known as tracta which means it’s a meal in itself: starch and m