Versatile Appetizer (Turned-Out Mould)

Ingredients

• white beet
• leeks
• celery
• bulbs (grape-hyacinth/onion bulbs)
• snails
• chicken giblets and wing-joints
• forcemeat (isicia)
• mallow leaves
• Damascus plums (damsons)
• Lucanian sausages
• liquamen (Roman fermented fish sauce)
• olive oil
• wine
• vinegar
• pepper
• lovage
• ginger
• pellitory (pyrethrum)
• eggs
• passum (raisin wine) or sweet wine
• starch (amulum)

Instructions

1. Prepare minced white beet, rested leeks, celery, bulbs, boiled snails, chicken giblets and wing-joints, and forcemeat cooked in stock.
2. Grease a patina and line with mallow leaves; arrange the pre-mixed vegetables loosely, then mix in inverted bulbs, damsons, snails and forcemeat, and chop in short Lucanian sausages.
3. Add liquamen, oil, wine and vinegar and let it cook.
4. When it boils, grind pepper, lovage, ginger and a little pellitory, moisten, add, and let the patina bubble.
5. Break in several eggs, stir in the remaining mortar-juices, and let the patina set.
6. Make an oenogarum: grind pepper and lovage, moisten with liquamen and wine, temper with passum or sweet wine, add a little oil, boil, and thicken with starch.
7. Turn the patina out onto a platter, remove the mallow leaves, pour over the oenogarum, sprinkle with pepper and serve.