Cook-A-Long

Dance/ Cooks Symposium

2011-12-13T13:32:00.000-06:00

Greetings to all who may still read this quiet list.

I was recently contacted by a friend who is pondering the possibility of a event that will consist of a dance symposium and a cooking symposium. I find the thought intriguing and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Do you think there is an interest in having a cooking symposium?
Do any of you know if something like this is already in the works in the kingdom?
Do any of you have ideas of what you would like to see?

Right now there is nothing fleshed out so all brainstorming is welcome.

Giovanna

Mustard

2011-10-02T15:13:00.010-05:00

I just want to share the work Mana Borisova did recently regarding her first explorations of pre-industrial mustard; I know that there are quite a few of us that are into mustardy goodness. :-) Here are the links:

Notes on Mustard 1

Notes on mustard volume 2 & 3

Notes on Mustard, volume 4

Notes on mustard volumes 5,6,&7

Enjoy. :-)

The way how to make a fysche called soole.

2010-04-23T22:31:00.003-05:00

I made myself a surprisingly quick supper tonight, pictured below:

A "bitter orange", Sole in Civey, Spinach Fried

Sole has been on sale a lot in the local area, so naturally, I bought some. In fact, I bought a bit too much, and we'll be having sole again tomorrow. That said, it offered me the opportunity to have a fast and period supper tonight. The components plated above:

Slices of clementines, also in season right now, served with the peel on to hit the bitter note as a substitute for a Seville orange. I like bitter, so this was fine for me.

Sole in Civey

The original:

SOOLES IN CYNEE. C. XIX. Take Sooles and hylde hem, seeþ hem in water, smyte hem on pecys and take away the fynnes. take oynouns iboiled & grynde the fynnes þerwith and brede. drawe it up with the self broth. do þerto powdour fort, safroun & hony clarified with salt, seeþ it alle yfere. broile the sooles & messe it in dysshes & lay the sewe above. & serue forth.[Forme of Cury, 1390]

My Redaction:

Ingredients

6	oz sole fillets
1	medium onion
1	tablespoon plain bread crumbs
1	teaspoon powder fort
2	oz white wine, sweet
1	water as needed
2	drops yellow food coloring, if desired

Directions

Chop onions. Place onions and 2 oz of the sole into 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water and parboil to done.
Add bread crumbs and spice mixture, and 1-2 oz of white wine. Mix it all up and continue to cook; add more water if needed. Cook until you have a stuffing-like consistency. You can serve this very thin, as if it is a sauce, but it works best cooked like a stuffing.
Broil remaining sole
Place sole on a plate, cover with the stuffing, and enjoy!

Obviously there are some differences here: I swapped out the honey for a couple ounces of Riesling and I left out the saffron. I chose wine over honey based on my preferences and supported by the use of wine in other "[Whatever Meat] in Cyvee/Cynee" recipes. I did put in a few drops of yellow food coloring to at least mimic the look saffron may have given. The civey cooked up into a stuffing-like dish at this quantity, and something I might do in the future is try making the civey and sandwiching it between a couple of fillets and giving it a nice bake. Mm. Stuffed sole.

Spinach Fried

Original recipe:

SPYNOCHES YFRYED. XX.IX. Take Spynoches. perboile hem in seþyng water. take hem up and presse ... out of þe water and hem in two. frye hem in oile clene. & do þerro powdour. & serue forth. Forme of Cury, 1390.

My redaction:
Ingredients

1	tablespoon olive oil
3	cups spinach, raw
1/2	t long pepper
1/2	t grains of paradise

Directions

If desired, parboil spinach. Drain, pressing out water if needed. Otherwise, just use the fresh leaves and allow the next step to cook them.
Heat up to one tablespoon of olive oil and fry the spinach. When done, mix in spices.
Enjoy!
NOTE: The instruction to parboil reduces bitterness. If you have spinach that is not bitter when stir fried, or if you enjoy a slight touch of bitter, skip the parboiling.

I chose these particular spices on a whim. I had it sitting right there in the spice cabinet, and they were begging to be used in such a simple recipe, where there nice qualities would not disappear amongst lots of different flavors. Given the non-directive nature of "powders," I felt comfortable just using a little something period.

And, as a last thought on the spices, I should note that the powder fort I used is the sort sold by Auntie Arwen. Ah, Pennsic, and a moment in the late afternoon to stand in the shop and smell the spices. There's a medieval moment for you. :-)

Rouda's ROUS pie Cook-A-Long challenge. :-)

2009-10-18T11:00:00.004-05:00

Here's the cooking challenge for anyone out there. What Medieval Like Food can you cook with the letters ROUS? A duplicate post from my focused cookery blog:

Okay. So, for the duration of the reign of Siegfried III and Elizabeth in Northshield.... (snippage} ... the Royal whim has been proclaimed, and for the duration of the reign, The Princess Bride is considered documentation for any A&S project. On the Northshield mail list, Gabriella asked for suggestions for altering her feast dishes in ways that might work with this theme. This was my reply:

For instance, you have rabbit, which you are thinking of as the last dish in your first service. And you want this to be your ROUS. Well, then, if you are swapping out the earlier stew for a sandwich--a decidedly post medieval dish--you can balance that by making a ROUS with ROUS. ;-) The soteltie is traditionally the last place in the service order, and so that would work nicely. :-)

ROUS-- a presentation version of the dish, a standing pie that has been decorated and disguised as a Rodent Of Unusual Size. This takes a trip around the feast hall for the Ooohs and Ahhs and then is served to the head table.

A dish of ROUS (Rabbit, Onions, Unguent [the sauce or gravy], Spices) served as simplified standing pies to the remaining tables.

There would be a lot of different dishes you could make with ROUS as the initials--you could be even more clever with a pie made with Rarebit, Oysters, Unagi (Eel!), Squid or shrimp--essentially, a seafood pie in a savory cheese sauce. ;-) An illusion food that completes the illusion by not having any rodent in it. ;-)

Since I have spent much time working on cheese-like sauces, and I love seafood, I think that Aunty 'Rouda's ROUS pie is going to be a dish in development Real Soon. Mixed seafood pies are pretty findable in medieval cookery, so it's a really do-able project. And I'll likely do the other version, too, but it's probably going to have to be red beans or roasted veggies or rice for the r, rather than rabbit. That'll be the totally vegan version.

Rarebit as a sauce isn't provably period, but the Welsh are supposed to have eaten cooked cheese according to this citation from the Wikipedia article on Welsh Rarebit: It is also possible that the dish was attributed to Wales because the Welsh were considered particularly fond of cheese, as evidenced by Andrew Boorde in his Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge (1542), when he wrote "I am a Welshman, I do love cause boby, good roasted cheese."[12] In Boorde's account, "cause boby" is the Welsh caws pobi, meaning "baked cheese". It is the earliest known reference to cheese being eaten cooked in the British Isles but whether it implies a recipe like Welsh rabbit is a matter of speculation. Since I'm putting it all into a pie, the idea of the period nature of cooked cheese isn't worrisome, but I thought it was a fun little bit of speculation about rarebit. ;-)

I would love to see what other people do!

An SCA compatible dish.

2009-06-14T11:54:00.002-05:00

I continue to work on period cookery. I have about 8 redactions ready to go, but no time to write them all up. I do want to share one recent write up with you, though, because it worked pretty well and would be a way for you to offer more range should you suddenly find a vegan on the throne.

Rather than write it up here, though, I'm going to direct you to the entry on my tempoary cooking blog. I'm trying to just set up a new blog on my site specifically for cookery, but I'm more concerned with getting the On Illuminated Manuscripts website moved off of GeoCities right now, so the cookery is currently located here on blogger. That said, I thought I would refrain from posting the whoile thing here as it is strictly SCA compatible; I have no evidence whatsoever that anyone in period ever cooked a veggie burger.

All that verbal meandering aside, please look over here for the first of what will be several SCA compatible veggie burger recipes that you might like to try. http://prettykettle.blogspot.com/2009/06/european-mock-meat-of-sort-part-1.html

A Cambridge Pudding

2009-04-05T10:30:00.002-05:00

A Cambridge Pudding.
(for photos please see my original post here. I seemed to have removed my images from my computer.)

(John Murrell: A new booke of Cookerie; London Cookerie. London 1615) http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/tx/1615murr.htm

Searce grated Bread through a Cullinder, mince it with Flower, minst Dates, Currins, Nutmeg, Sinamon, and Pepper, minst Suit, new Milke warme, fine Sugar, and Egges: take away some of their whites, worke all together. Take halfe the Pudding on
the one side, and the other on the other side, and make it round like a loafe.
Then take Butter, and put it in the middest of the Pudding, and the other halfe aloft. Let your liquour boyle, and throw your Pudding in, being tyed in a faire cloth: when it is boyled enough cut it in the middest, and so serue it in.

---

My initial review of this recipe sounded like a boiled pudding. I have never had or seen one but I had heard of them so I did some online perusal. And found this:
http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=42205
While not identical it gave me some good ratios to start with. I opted to leave the suet out as I had some difficulty finding it and what I did find was in larger quantities then I needed. I wanted to try the recipe first and see how it tasted before investing in ingredients that might go to waste. I also found another pudding recipe from the same Murrell reference that gave the option “If it be a fasting day leaue out the Suit…”

1 ½ cups butter, softened
1½ cups sugar
3 eggs
½ cup warm milk
4 cups (280g) stale breadcrumbs (not dry)
1 cup (150g) wheat/white flour mix
1 cup (150g) currants
1 cup (170g) pitted dried dates, chopped
4 tsps cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp pepper

Combine dry ingredients and incorporate the wet ingredients until the dough holds its shape. Form into a round loaf. Tie up into cheese cloth. (I prepped the cloth by soaking it first and then sprinkling the center with flour to form a barrier to hold the moist pudding in and help form the skin needed for the pudding to hold its shape).

I slowly immersed the pouch into boiling water and tied the ends to the handles of the pot and put a lid over. This then boiled for six hours. I had to replenish the water periodically. After 6 hours I removed the pudding and unwrapped it and allowed it to cool. The pudding became more firm and darker in color as it cooled.

The flavor was good and I seemed to have found a good balance with the spices. I don’t think that anything is missing by not adding the Suet and since Coronation takes place during Lent in our modern year I decided to leave it out. It had a good flavor but needed a sauce. I couldn’t find anything else with in the same text but I decided I will serve with an almond cream which uses almonds, cream, mace, sugar and flour. The pudding tasted really great with ice cream which wasn't a period option so I thought the almond cream might be a good choice.

For the actual entry, I reduced the quantity of currants and dates because I personally can't seem to find dates palatable no matter how many different ways I cook them. And, the more I think about it I wish I would have soaked them a bit ahead of time. I wasn't sure how the extra liquid would have impacted the finished product so I opted not to but some of the fruit didn't really soften during it's six hour bath.

From my reading these puddings are amazingly resilient. They keep for long periods of time. To reheat it on site, I boiled it for another 2 hours. It got a little soggier so I don't think I prepped my cloth appropriately. All in all it was a really good experiment.

Almond Cheese, very basic

2009-03-18T21:59:00.005-05:00

Okay, just to show that it works:

Strictly almond cheese from a period recipe.

Creme Of Almaundes. XX.IIII. V. Take Almaundes blaunched, grynde hem and drawe hem up thykke, set hem ouer the fyre & boile hem. set hem adoun and spryng hem wicii Vyneger, cast hem abrode uppon a cloth and cast uppon hem sugur. whan it is colde gadre it togydre and leshe it in dysshes. (Form of Cury)

There are actually similar recipes as almond creme, almond butter, and almond cheese. However, when you start getting past things that call themselves "creme" you start seeing other ways in which this very basic receipt is modified to include and expand its use.

This was produced from commercially made almond milk, but the ingredient list is pretty simple--almonds, water, sugar. And it was very simple to make:

About 1 qt sweetened almond milk
About 2-2.5 teaspoons of white wine vinegar.

Heat the almond milk to a simmer. Add vinegar. Watch it curdle. Strain curds from leftover liquid and hang in a bag to drain. Once the curds are dry, add sugar or any other spices you might like, and press into a mold.

The primary problem with this? The yield from this is very small. That little disc up there is in a finger bowl, and the cheesefood is about the size of a ping pong ball. Even without any additional spices or additives, it's a smooth, creamy tasting thing, but it feels like putty when you touch it and the quantity of almond milk needed to produce enough to make, say, a cheesecake, is going to be pretty significant. Still, I'm happy to have done it and to find it was so simple. I can again have a little bit of sweet creaminess with my breakfast.

I do have two other solutions in mind in the quest for a creamy umami sauce that will stand in for aged dairy cheese--one is a cheeze that uses the nutmeats leftover from making almond milk, and the other is in my tummy now but is still a little too salty and fatty for me to call it solved. But I have to say, that was bestest, most creamiest non-egg, non-dairy sauce I have had. I can't even call it uncheeze, as it's not vegan. But it's all period ingredients, so I'll keep working on it. :-) And if I get it right, I may not share it unless you come to my house and eat it with me. ;-)

To make fysche pyes in lent

2009-03-06T11:47:00.004-06:00

There it is: A fish pie in Lent. MMmmMMMMmmm.

I am working on faking dairy cheese and making fish pies, as I have maybe mentioned here. I'm sure I mentioned it somewhere. Anyway, while working on the mushroom pie redaction (which I have been working on for more than a year, I just can't get it right quite yet), I scouted the fridge for contents and then browsed cookbooks and websites for fish pies that might work with what I had around.

Eventually, I found this in Form of Cury:

XXV - For To Make Tartys Of Fysch Owt Of Lente. Mak the Cowche of fat chese and gyngener and Canel and pur' crym of mylk of a Kow and of Helys ysodyn and grynd hem wel wyth Safroun and mak the chowche of Canel and of Clowys and of Rys and of gode Spycys as other Tartys fallyth to be.

This was too tempting---to make workable for Lenten restictions a fish pie intended to be eaten outside of Lent. And, as it happens, it would do a beautiful job of using up the leftovers I had in the fridge. Sweet!

In modern English, the above roughly says:

25. To make fish tarts when not in Lent. Layer fat cheese, ginger, and cinamon. Next, add a layer of boiled, minced eels, cream, and saffron. Next, add a layer of of cinamon, cloves, and rice; add other seasonings according to what you know excellent pies are made with.

I don't have eels in the freezer, so I substituted whiting. I am accustomed to eel with skin on and with a strong flavor--the whiting fillets I have certainly fit that bill.

The pie was made with:

Oil-based pastry, enough to enclose contents of pie.

4 whiting fillets, aproximately 4-5 ounces of fish all together.

3/4 cup of leftover rice

1/2 cup of leftover cheeze sauce from Makrows. Substitute any cheese sauce of your choice--you are not living with lenten restrictions! :-)

1/8 t of cloves

1/4 t cinamon

1 teaspoon of ginger

two grinds of pepper--probably about 1/2 teaspoon

I boiled the whiting fillets with a bit of lemon juice to cut down on the scent, then minced them up, skin and all, and mixed all but the crust into one cheezy ricey fishy taste melding filling. Yes, I know the recipe says layer this stuff, but since I was making it as an empenada/pastie, that wasn't going to work with this set of ingredients. The other nice thing about this choice was that I could taste the filling to be sure that the spice mixture was sufficient.

Place the filling on to a section of pastry, adjusting according to the size of the pastry circle, dampen the edges of the pastry, fold over, and roll press the edges to close. Preheat oven to 400--if using a cast iron pan to bake, as I am here, have it in the oven heating as the oven heats up. This helps crisp up the bottom of the pie. In any event, lightly grease the baking pan with oil. If desired, brush a light coating of oil on top coat of pie. I used olive. Cook until crust is cooked through--it will be browned, and tapping the empanada/pastie will result in a hollow sound, about 30 minutes, depending on your oven.

I let it cool enough to eat comfortably. The interesting thing about this mixture is that it formed up into a sort of sticky rice kind of quality, which sounds weird when described but which was quite good and had the added advantage of keeping the filling from spilling out of the pastie as I was walking around eating it. Michael tried it, and, while it wasn't what he hoped for (he's a big brightie fan, essentially, the Scots version of a Cornish Pasty), he liked it enough to be willing to eat it again.

To make macrows

2009-02-28T22:19:00.003-06:00

Lent seems to be an especially good time for me to experiment with remaking the comfort foods I love in a way that fits with my dietary restrictions.

One of my biggest issues, since deciding to stick to the modern version of the medieval Lenten dietary style, is a life without cheese--hardly a simple thing here in Wisconsin. For the longest time, I tried everyone else's fake cheeze sauce & never once had anything that tasted remotely like cheese of any sort. So, of course, I went without cheesy things, since I can't do soy. A few days ago, I broke down and bought some vegan rice cheese, in the hope that it would please the palate, having already learned that vegetable burgers don't really taste like hamburgers, but they are a tasty experience on their own, and they fill that burger void in a reasonable way.

The vegan rice cheese? Mighty Frakin' Awful. Not even close to acceptable tasting. I tried feeding some to baby Ry today, and he spit it right out. When even the Ry Guy won't eat it, then you know it's appalling beyond all human ability to explain.

I knew period recipes for almond cheese existed, and I knew, the moment after I spit that rice cheeze abomination out of my mouth, I was going to have to try to make almond cheese. Unfortunately, most of the period receipts I've turned up are not lent
variations. I haven't looked at them all, but I am prepared to mess with stuff until I get what I want.

The above dish is a step on the way to that. It's a vegan version of the ever-popular Macrows/Makerouns. Whole wheat pasta is covered with a sauce that has the same sort of bite to it that sharp, hard cheeses (like romano, parmesan) have, with nary a dairy drop and is almost completely comprised of period ingredients. Alas, I did use nutritional yeast to help the sharp cheese flavor (I've yet to eat a nutritional yeast food product that has anything even close to a cheese flavor; this was the first time it ever delivered a remotely cheese-like flavor; usually it just produces a bland white-sauce flavor. I digress.), but other than that, it's all golden.

It's also far more nutritionally valuable than Kraft dinner, which is a bonus, *and* Miguel-san liked it. I was worried about that, because he does make a mean mac-n-cheese, real mac-n-cheese. MMMmm.

Recipe for you? I'm afraid not. I failed to write down quantities, and I rather suspect that I'm the only one here who is trying to live Lenten. I'll keep working on this medieval fake cheeze for modern dairy and soy free living thing, though, and if I get it consistently good, mostly period, and precisely quantified, I'll let you know. Right now, I'm just so happy that I have something that works, and that I got it by going back to period cookery, that I wanted to share.

From another blog

2009-02-25T08:56:00.001-06:00

Not something I did, but I thought this was a cool experiment in recreating, so I thought I would share:

http://greneboke.blogspot.com/

Gwyneth

On ye dyshes served vpon Saint Nicholas' day.

2008-12-07T00:01:00.007-06:00

I had myself a simple little period meal tonight, ostensibly for celebration of ST. Nicholas' Day, but really for testing out how well they'd work out cold--Boar's Head is coming and I'm beginning to think about the lunch and supper I'll pack. The 2 redacted dishes are:

"Turnips are hard" from Le Menagier:

TURNIPS are hard and difficult to cook until they have been in the cold and frost; you remove the head, the tail and other whiskers and roots, then they are peeled, then wash in two or three changes of hot water, very hot, then cook in hot meat stock, pork, beef or mutton.

Item, in Beausse, when they are cooked, they are sliced and fried in a pan, and powdered spices thrown on.

(from David Friedman)

and Shrimps:

Shrympes. Take Shrympes, and seth hem in water and a litull salt, and lete hem boile ones or a litull more. And serue hem forthe colde; And no maner sauce but vinegre.

(FROM Two 15th Century Cookery Books)

As you can see, 2 very simple recipes. The meal was rounded out with an apple, and orange, and a sour-dough roll I'd made earlier in the week.

As the shrimp were already pre-cooked, all I had to do there was let them defrost and then try them lightly salted and in several different vinegars. The two best vinegars were the cider vinegar I'd received from a friend and the fabulous, traditionally made, 18 year-old balsamic vinegar that I have. The salt and cider vinegar was probably closest to a period combination, but balsamic made right is also okay, it just isn't very likely on an English table unless it had been given as a gift. To the best of my knowledge, balsamic is mostly referred to in Italian records of the era. I confess I ate the shrimps with the balsamic vinegar, though, as it was brilliantly tasty.

The commercial vinegars I had were so strong that they really overpowered the shrimp. I'd probably water them down in future.

The turnips were also easy. As I am not fond of boiling things in multiple changes of water, and I did not want to deal with the bitter issue via salting the water (I inevitably oversalt), I cooked them in one wash of water and included one small potato. I don't know what magic that potato works, but it did draw out most of the bitter.

I then followed the instructions for frying them, and sprinkled them with a commercial blend of spices called "Chai." Cinnamon, sugar, ginger, cardemon--nice sub for powder douce. The turnips pretty much outshone the spice blend--I would have to use a much heavier hand with the spicing to have the spices really noticable. Salt helped, too. I enjoyed them and will likely make them again, working out the recipe a little more exactly. I liked it far better than I have ever liked armored turnips.

No broccoli. Just frozen green beans, mixed vegitables, and plain, canned chick peas.

2008-11-04T14:54:00.003-06:00

Where oh where has everyone gone? Can we try a new recipe? Anyone have some suggestions regarding what they'd like to try? Think of what's still available at the farmer's market. Think of a food type we haven't cooked yet. Think about something you'd wish a feastocrat would try. Think about backwards redacting a dish you love to something recognizable to the period palatte....

Make suggestions, and then we'll get our Fearless Leader to pick. We can't keep improving our food choices iffen we don't cook. :-)

I just had the pleasure of a trip to Jamaica. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort, which meant that we had a lot of food available to us, and I was looking forward to trying all sorts of things.

Unfortunately, what I discovered was that all-inclusive means that there will be a lot of foods familiar to the clientele and only a few of the local dishes. Worse, all of the foods that were supposed to be familiar to the tourists were just a little off. Now, at first, when I tried the things that were supposed to be for the various sorts of New World Spanish peoples, it was all off from what I tend to think of as Mexican or Cuban or Brazillian foods, so I thought, perhaps this is more like what that food tastes like in it's home nation, rather than the americanized versions I am accustomed to. But then I tried the General European cuisines and the General American cuisines, and those were all off, too. Believe me, I know what pancakes, french fries, and peanut butter are supposed to taste like. And, oh my god, I never thought I'd say something like this, but landlocked Wisconsin has better sushi than the specialty asian restaurant at the resort. I was very sad about the fish pretty much across the board. Nearly all of it was chicken-fried. Take chicken, lamb, pork, beef, and chicken fry it all, and pretty much it starts to taste the same all the time.

The things that were really delicious were the Jamaican dishes. Jerk chicken, ackee and saltfish, sweetsop/soursop, breadfruit, curry goat. Things I never learned the name of, because someone would put it in front of me and dare me to eat it--which I would. And anything involving the fruits. The best kiwi's ever. A "fruit smoothie" made from cucumber and ginger. The fresh tropical fruits were always available and delicious, no matter how tired I got of the buffet.

I could go on at length about this issue, because food is one of my favorite things, but this is a blog about period foodways. So, what is my point here?

This type of cookery is one way in which we challenge ourselves to better foods. We grabbed some prunes and some wine and we found a sauce/pie filling that even the most die-hard non-period-food eaters would gobble up. What else is out there waiting for us to find it? We are really limited by what we find in the grocery store. What's in-season now that we can redact and discover all kinds of tasty goodness instead of eating mixed vegetables again? Earlier this year, I harvested the new dandelion leaves from my back yard and cooked 'em up. Free produce. I used a period recipe for greens (which is to say originally used here), and they were quite good. I'd like to see the tide for this blog ebb in for a while. I like to see how people would interpret things differently. :-) What food experiences have you had recently that make you long for something a little better? And how can we all help with that?

To coeke scallops in ye way of Le Menagier

2008-08-24T20:47:00.004-05:00

Since returning from Pennsic, I've been running along with my hair on fire as a result of being st00pid busy. I did, however, get a chance to redact a recipe:

SCALLOPS. Note that scallops which are heaped up and hold together in a pile without scattering or leaving, and are red and of lively colour, are fresh: and those which do not hold together and are separate and of dull or dead colour, are from an old catch. Pick them out, then wash thoroughly in two or three good hot waters, and then do it again in cold water, then dry on a towel briefly at the fire, and fry in oil with cooked onions, and then sprinkle with spices and eat with almost clear leaves, wheat sprouts or sorrel sprouts or leaves of (all-heal?, sainfoin?) or (wild chicory?, barberry?)

The recipe is so simple that I'm going to leave it to any who read this to try their own proportions and procedure. I note, however, that using one of the typically-available packages of scallops produced an amount that was really only suitable for a side dish. Scallops, of course, are rich and mild and expensive in this day and age. Thus, they work well as a side dish, and this was served up as a complement to whole wheat pasta and vegetables that had been sauteed in olive oil. MMmmmMMMmmmmmm.

Pennsic Cupboard 1

2008-07-31T17:30:00.003-05:00

Pennsic is coming, and one of my A&S projects is very involved in period foodways for Pennsic. I thought I might share some of the things I've been looking up and considering in order to have a more period food/persona appropriate eating experiance.

1. TI recently ran a series of articles on food while travelling, supporting the idea that it's period appropriate to buy ready-made food. So I shall not feel the least bit bad in purchasing food from the food vendors at Pennsic, although picking out actually period dishes may be something of a challenge. Hmmm.

2. Locally grown, seasonal produce: Here is a link to a locally grown farmers market; a local food co-op; and the Google search for places where at least some organic foods can be found if you don't want to go all the way to Pittsburgh.

3. The Pennsic Cupboard: foods I will bring with me, that I prepped previously. Unfortunately, I did not get to prep as much as I would have liked, and, even more disheartening, all the recipes I redacted for the project got trashed in a power surge, so I have to start over. I had hoped to have a recipe book for myself when I got to Pennsic, even if I couldn't get everything all canned/frozen. Well, that's okay. I'll shop wisely, experiment with what I have to hand out there, and do the best I can. And for heaven's sake, I am primarily a scribe. I'll buy myself a notebook and write it all down in that! No worries about power surges there!

I have a request to those who are going to Pennsic. While out there, do your best to think about period foodways and bring back a little write up about your experiences. I would love to read about other people's experiments and experiences, and I will certainly be preparing a conversation about my experiences for you! :-)

TTFN, Merouda

Experiments with two cheese tarts

2008-07-05T00:47:00.002-05:00

For those who may be interested I posted my results of my cheese tart experimentation this weekend at my other blog. Torta Bianca and Crustless "Sienese" Tart

Another Cheese Attempt

2008-07-01T19:04:00.004-05:00

I finally got around to trying the Cook-A-Long recipe for May...a soft cheese. I don't understand enough of the chemistry that goes into making cheese so I tried the original author's recipe as I wasn't brave enough to test a new cooking method and one that didn't have the safety net of portions. It actually isn't really difficult overall it is just somewhat time consuming and you have to really pay attention. I didn't understand what the instructions meant by how much of a curd needed to form before I stopped adding vinegar and I didn't find anything on the internet. I got a pretty soft crumb to my cheese so it doesn't hold together real well. I mashed it up into molds because my patties weren't holding together and I thought I remember reading somewhere that cheeses and butters were sometimes molded in period.

I didn't really like the ginger/honey combination for flavoring. In looking at some of the period recipes I have found I am surprised they didn't mix savory ingredients with their cheeses. Ginger, Cinnamon, Honey, Mace, and Pepper seem to be the common additives. I am also somewhat curious as to how it would work with the ale I see in a lot of recipes but I am not sure I am brave enough to mess with a formula that I know works until I have tried it a few times.

I believe I am going to take Merouda's suggestion of making the cheese into a tart because I think it would work really well. I have found a few interesting cheese tart recipes and one of them is crustless and uses almonds which sounds very yummy. I will share my results if I manage to make it work and I hope to try that this weekend. Actually, I spread some of the cheese on a piece of bread and covered it in the conserve I also made and it was mighty tasty.

All in all it wasn't nearly as terrifying of an experience as I thought it would be. I am very boring in my personal tastes I guess because for me my favorite cheese is a smoked mozzarella--salty, smoky, and yet simple and creamy. This wasn't quite to my tastes but I am definitely excited about experimenting.

I also wonder how this cheese would work in place of the goat cheese in a recipe I have for herb encrusted goat cheese.

I am thinking of hosting a cooks day at my place again after WW and having people make cheese and cheese based recipes.

Queens of Compote

2008-06-30T23:34:00.003-05:00

A trip to the local farmer's market yielded a quart of strawberries that, after a day or so in the fridge, showed some quick signs of wiltage. Hm. Well. What do my period cookbooks say about preserving strawberries? The berries got tossed in the pot with a little too much water and wine. Such is the trouble with period recipes... not so much with the guidance regarding amounts. A few stalks of rhubarb from my garden fixed the issue, but then my compote was not, to the best of my knowledge, period-like anymore. Nonetheless, it was delish.

Sarra also had the same bright idea. And she did a better job. Her description is here: http://relativelylucid.blogspot.com/2008/06/thing-week-part-26-conserve-of.html

Yay Sarra!

On ye vse of a yeast.

2008-06-13T20:12:00.005-05:00

This was my Joy of Period Cooking day last weekend, when the rains were moving in and my basement was flooding. There are several wonderful things there, as you can see, and not one of them is a thing I am displeased with, although there are lessons in learning not to fool one's self into expecting vegan, non-soy substitutes to taste like the things they are replacing. You have to expect tasty but different.

Anyway, what's up there is a Lenten feast: a loaf of sourdough bread, my final redaction of a period crepe that is sans eggs and sans baking soda/powder, a mushroom tart that is very vegan, and loverly Lentan apples royal.

Finding an adequate cheese and egg substitute for the mushroom tart was tough, and I'll talk about that some other time. What I really want to talk about are the crepes.

See, I love pancakes. And waffles. MMmmmMMMmmmmMMmmm. Period pancake or waffle-like dishes exist, but they are sooo egg dependent that I can't have them. After looking and looking, I finally found 2 recipes that, bashed together, would create a period like crepe that I could eat.

But it would take a while for me to figure it all out. Some of the wrong paths:

1. The best of the "Flour and Yeast Only" pancakes I tried, a la the Dutch "Pancakes in Lent" recipe. The period receipt suggests a kind of pan-baked bread, but that's not what I was looking for. This was plain old sourdough poured straight to the pan. It was not bad tasting, but kind of gummy.

2. A more traditional sourdough pancake, sans egg, with a commercial egg replacer. Kind of salty.

3. A modern vegan pancake spiced like a period crepe, a la Good Huswifes Jewell. Tasty but not what I am looking for.

4. The squished up mess that was almost what I wanted. Tasty but, eh, squished. And leavening agents were no help. But was good! Changed the proportions and got what I wanted. Yum!

The period like crepes I made combine the two recipes. It's plausibly period rather than a period redaction. It's the sourdough, almond milk, apples royal, the spices, and flour enough to make a thin crepe batter.

Yum. :-)

Sambode

2008-06-13T20:02:00.003-05:00

This is the cheesecake I made from the green cheese I'd made earlier in April. We ate about half of it for 35th Anniversary, and the rest I saved in the freezer for Border Skirmish.

Alas, since flooding has taken out the event, I won't be defrosting it. Maybe it will make a nice brekkie at WW. It's good but a little odd plain; with a small spread of the elderberry jam I made to go with it, it's unbelievably delicious and not odd to the modern palate at all.

I essentially followed the recipe over at gode cookery. It did not need any modification, since it used egg whites, but I think that the next time I try it, I'll see if it can be made without eggs at all.

Crepes, wafers, et cetera

2008-04-27T10:29:00.002-05:00

Gentle friends,

I was making waffles for my lovely Michael and my lovely Baby K yesterday, thinking about how much I miss them (waffles, not Michael and Baby K). There are plenty of vegan pancake recipes on line that I can modify away from soy based products, and a few medieval or renaissance "pancake/waffle" type receipts on line that do not use milk and can be modified away from the use of eggs, but the problem is that both sets of recipes rely on something I don't want in my redactions -- either it's eggs, or it's baking powder.

There is a nice redaction of a 14th c. crepe at the Thorngrove table, and a nice redaction of a late 15th, early 16th c. wafer at Coquinaria. I've seen the pancake redaction at Gode Cookery and the wafer redaction at Medieval Cookery and both redactions go with eggs. So what I am hoping for is that the fine readers of this blog can suggest medieval crepe, pancake, waffle, wafer recipes. I just want to see as many recipes of this class as possible before I start working on a redaction that will avoid eggs & baking powder. It's going to have to be a plausibly period dish, I guess, as I doubt there is a perfect lenten pancake out there. :-)

Meanwhile, off to beg for a sourdough starter.

Merouda

On the making of cheese

2008-04-15T23:04:00.007-05:00

Just a quick review

1. Milk on the boil.

2. Curds draining and whey reducing. I decided to try for gjetost rather than ricotta with the whey.

3. Whey boiled down to the stage where the whey sugars are carmelizing--what you use to make gjetost.

4. And the three fresh cheeses. Kiernan helped me mix it up in the final stages; he enjoyed that, but he wouldn't taste it. Alas, 5 year olds are so picky. :-)

I'm going to cut and paste commentary I've made elsewhere about this project here, because I should have been in bed an hour ago.

1. From the persona diary:

On ye day of St Vincent Confessor, I set to making cheese according to ye fashion of ye receipt sent to me by I know not whom, 7 it made a simple fresh cheese of a mild sweetness et flavor, and though it is good enow, it is my desire to add to it more sweetness or make of it a cake yt might serve vpon a banquet table, thinking the cheese might be improved by more honey or ginger.

2. From a letter to the CAM list:
I noted that your vinegar was not as strong as that which is commercially produced; it took about a cup, cup and a half of it to make the cheese curds start forming, when the expectation was that it would only take 1/3 to 1/2 a cup. Nonetheless, the flavor of the cheese was just fine and I was glad to have the opportunity to experiment with vinegar that was not the carefully controlled science in a bottle we usually get at the grocers.

And lastly, writ new for this journal, the gjetost was a fun experiment; there is no period evidence for gjetost that I know of*, but I grew up eating it and so that's what I wanted. The boiled down whey does in fact taste like the whey food product I remember. What was problematic, however, was that the recipe I found on the web only went as far as boiling down the whey to the right stage. Real gjetost requires further preperation, so what I actually have is a brittle lump of whey candy. Miguel says it tastes like peanut brittle without the peanuts. The uneaten portion of the cheese is now waiting in the freezer for my traveling lunch at 35th Anniversary; I may experiment with using it in a cheesecake recipe. I think that next time I might use the whey for breads that I can freeze. The whey candy is well and fine, but a nice bread could freeze well and work for a couple of traveling lunches.

*If you know of evidence for reduced, caramelized whey food product in period, please share.

Tusser in April

2008-04-05T10:33:00.003-05:00

Hello, everyone, Merouda here.

As I have previously posted, one of my A&S 50 projects is to do something from Tusser each month, in part, to help me understand the agricultural flow of the year. We've not got a recipe for April up yet, but I wanted to invite y'all to do the April Tusser task with me, particularly since I know at least one of you is interested in the same project.

There it is, some of the ingredients I bought to make cheese. Cheese making is the April Tusser Task. I will be using someone else's redaction, found here, because I simply do not have time to experiment with cheese recipes.

I was kinda sad when I got to the store and discovered that the local dairy didn't have any product in there, so I got the best, freshest milk they had. The cider vinegar is a gift to me from Gwynedd merch Megan o Fon; she made it from her own apples. I'm excited to try this.

I also wanted to share a store I found in Wauwatosa, called Oro di Oliva. It's not as spectacular as Vom Fass in Madison, but it is a good place to sample a variety of olive oils and balsamic vinegars that those of us in Milwaukee can reasonably get to. I walked out about $60 lighter, with an 18 year old balsamic, a black current balsamic (which is so flavorful that a couple of spoons in a pitcher of water would make a delicious drink), and a basil olive oil. I could have easily spent more. Since going over to a semi-vegetarian and then to a piscetarian diet, I cook with A LOT of olive oil, but store boughten stuff just isn't as nice (as noted in the parsnip redaction below). Now I have these oils/vinegars to add flavor, and, I mean, they have FLAVOR--far more powerful than any flavored vinegar or oil I've ever made. I expect these bottles to go a long way.

Meanwhile.... April recipe? Someone?

To make a pie of parsnips another way.

2008-03-31T20:16:00.006-05:00

Greetings from Merouda.

I tried this recipe thrice, and I think it still needs a little work to make it something that I would eat on a regular basis. It's like the classic "armored turnip" in that all the components are things that I like, and the recipe itself is always worth eating, but there just has to be a way to put it together that I will like more.

The first thing I did was salt lemons. Some long time ago I'd read about salting lemons in a way that would make them usable by the next morning, so I made 2 batches--an overnight batch, and a more traditional, takes-a-month version.

Attempt #1:

I peeled, chunked, and boiled a pound of parsnips. While that was preparing, I chopped a medium yellow onion and fried it to translucence in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I then mixed the the cooked parsnips, the onions, a tablespoon of chopped mint, 1/2 a lemon that had been salted overnight, 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg and a teaspoon of pepper. I dumpd this into a pie crust I'd prepared, drizzled more olive oil over the filling, and popped it into a 350 degree oven. About 1/2 way through the cooking time, I added enough sangria to cover the bottom of the pie.

I found that the flavors did not mix really well; there would be a minty spot, and a very salty lemon spot, and a bland spot. I also noted that the wine only flavored the bottom 1/2 of the pie, so the pie had two distict flavor layers, with the wine sopped layer being tastier, to me.

Attempts #2 & #3

The second attempt included 2 pounds of chopped, boiled parsnips, one large onion sauteed in 1/4 c olive oil to translucence. Pretty much the same so far, eh?

However, I used the month-long salt-preserved lemon. This was noticably diferent than the overnight version. The skin becomes very translucent, and the salt is so powerful that you have to rinse the excess. Further, I threw the rinsed lemon, a fistful of mint, 1 t of nutmeg, and some freshly ground pepper into a 1/2 c of olive oil and whirled it to teensy bits in a blender. I then took about 3/4 of the boiled parsnips and mashed it with the olive oil-spice blend. I mixed in the onion and poured it into the pie crust. I then sprinkled more nutmeg and pepper over the parsnips, put on the top crust, and popped it into the oven to bake. Once again, about 1/2 way through the cooking time, I poured in my favorite red cooking wine, sangria.

Since I still had some leftover parsnips and some leftover crust, I tried mixture #3. This time, instead of lemons, I used an Asian indian condiment called "Hot pickled limes." It is exactly what it implies: limes that have been brined, then preserved in oil with chillies. It's very odd on its own, but when mixed into things, it's very nice. This I folded over into a pasty; I, too, thought more crust might change the balance of the dish.

Regarding version #2: I knew that mashing all the ingredients together would make for a more even flavor. What I was not prepared for was the way the flavors kind of disappeared. Things I'll do diferently next time: 2x the onion, lemon, mint, pepper. I'm not huge on nutmeg, so maybe only 1.5x as much. And I will mix the wine in from the get-go; trying to pour it through the holes in the top crust didn't work at all. On the other hand, the pastry recipe baked up well in the frying pan (this is a 16th c. style pottery fry pan I bought from Eadric), particularly since the pan was well-oiled from frying up the onions, and I was able to slide the thing out intact for a standing pie. Yay. I've been trying to figure out how to do that without making an inedible crust. Problem now solved.

Regarding version 3: This was my favorite version. Of course, it's also the version with the non-period condiment. However, it does suggest that making a similar condiment with the ingredients for this recipe would likely work well, especially since the oil will be far more nicely flavored. I think that this is the primary problem I am having with this dish; olive oil provides the right mouth feel, but not the flavor of butter. If I want this pie to be tasty and work for me, I'm going to have to get a more flavored oil and use a larger proportion of the flavoring ingrediants.

Hmm. Off to invent the perfect lemon/mint oil-based condiment.

A Pie of Parsnips

2008-03-15T21:19:00.003-05:00

I was somewhat skeptical about this recipe only because it didn't seem like something that would appeal to my own particular taste preferences but part of this experience is trying new things.

I started by peeling and dicing the parsnips and putting them into water to boil. I decided to season them as they were boiling so that the flavor would be more incorporated so I added some salt, pepper, and about a 1/4 tsp of nutmeg. While that boiled, I zested a lemon and brined the peel in salt water and lemon juice. I had forgotten to salt my own lemons ahead of time and hadn't located any commercially. This may have overall impacted the final product. Once the parsnips were cooked I removed them from the heat and drained them before mixing in onions fried in butter, the brined lemon zest, and the mint. I baked this in a crust made of butter, flour, salt, and water for about 45-60 minutes at 375 degrees F. I didn't have any wine on hand either so there again I missed a step which may have impacted the overall product.

Having tasted the pie I am still not particularly crazy about it. There are definitely a lot of flavors going on...the onions and nutmeg added some sweetness, the parsnips seemed sweet and woodsy at the same time but had an interesting bite to them. The lemon and mint kept hitting me at different points throughout. Part of my opinion may have been changed by the ingredients I didn't have access to while I was making this. I also wonder if this would work better as pasties rather than a whole pie so that all the flavors sort of come together at once in a more concentrated way rather than in a larger pie. I am also thinking that pairing this with a creamier dish or a spicy meat might complement it. Overall it was an interesting experience and I am glad I gave it a try.

March Recipe: A Pie of Parsnips

2008-02-28T21:26:00.004-06:00

Haue millons at Mi[c]helmas, parseps in lent:
In June, buttred beanes, saueth fish to be spent.
With those and good pottage, inough hauing than:
thou winnest the heart, of thy laboring man.

Greetings from Merouda, guesting as the recipe-picker this month.

As some of you know, I am very interested in persona pursuits. Something I have been doing recently to help me understand the seasonality of one's life in period is perform some little task or another as mentioned in Thomas Tusser's Hundred Points of Husbandry, a poetic guide to good farming practice written near the end of period (first published about 1557). For the cook-a-long, I thought it might be fun to do a little something in line with this guide. I also wanted to choose a side dish, as we haven't really done that yet, and I wanted to choose a recipe that did not involve the usual poudre douce-type seasonings.

The above passage, from the "March" section of Tusser's work, suggests our recipe, with its instructions to serve parsnips in Lent.

My desire to do something a little different with the spices led me to this recipe:

To make a pie of fresh Parsnips. Take the parsnips well washed, & put them to boil until they are cooked, then take two or three chopped onions & fry in butter, a salted lemon in pieces, nutmeg, & pepper, a little chopped mint, & put all together in the pie, & butter enough.

Note it is necessary to cut the parsnips into pieces, when the pie is half cooked put therein a little Spanish wine.

This is from Ouverture de Cuisine, published in France, in 1604 (the translation is at Medieval Cookery). While the publication of the book is slightly post period, the recipes shared by this French master cook were developed in the course of his career--in the late 1500's.

I can think of several different ways I might like to try this, and I am very excited to see what you come up with!

February: Lenten apples

2008-02-19T20:03:00.007-06:00

I decided to try frying the apple dish in oil, without the fish shell. In theory it should work, with enough ground almonds to hold everything together.

I started with frozen Regent apples, thawed them and ground them in my blender to the cosistency of chunky applesauce, about 2 cups.

To this I added 1/4 c. of sugar, 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of ginger. 2 3/4 c ground blanched almonds, or enough to make a thickish dough. (I had to add some wheat flour to make the dough thick enough, about a cup.) I think that I would have had a different consistency if I had started with fresh apples and I probably should have drained the crushed apples thouroughly by placing them in a clean cloth and squeezing out the excess. I fried the dough in small balls in veggie oil, couple of minutes per side. I think you could also use animal fat.

The orginal recipe is not very specific as to the shape of the dough during frying, but there are countless recipes for dumplings and fritters so I thought a small ball would work well. It's about the size of a donut hole. Rolling the fried dough in sugar really adds to the flavor. Num!

I didn't do as good grinding the almonds so there are largeish bits on ocassion, which isn't horrible, but I think it should be a bit more consistantly ground. Manthra had a suggestion of using Almond Flour from Bob's Red Mill, which I think is a great solution.

Catching Up: Plum tart

2008-02-19T18:37:00.009-06:00

This is my redaction of the December recipe for Plum Tart.

For the first recipe: I started with dried plums. 1, 10 oz package and added about 1 1/2 c. wine (burgundy) and placed it in a heavy pan over medium heat until the plums were softened, about 30 minutes.

For the crust: I used 2 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, 2 eggs beaten, and approx 1/4 cup water to make a thick dough. This was enough for 2, 8" pie crusts. I rolled it out, as a normal pie crust. the dough was very springy, more like a bread dough. I lined my pie plate and crimped the edges as you do.

The prunes soaked up the majority of the wine so there was nothing to strain. I mashed them slightly with a wooden spoon into a thick paste. To this I added 2 beaten eggs, 1/4 c sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon and scraped the mixture into the crust. I folded the edges of the crust over the filling and baked it in the oven at 350 for 40-45 minutes.

For the second recipe I used dried plums as well, cause that's what I had. I will try it again with fresh. I used the same crust as for the first tart. I lined a baking pan with the dough and sprinkled cinnamon sugar over the bottom. I cut the dried plums in half and lined the bottom neatly. Over this I sprinkled more sugar and cinnamon and dotted the top with 2 T of butter. It too was placed in the over for 350 for 40-45 minutes.

Well I know why they would use fresh plums for this version of the tart because I now have a dry, crunchy prune tart.

Yummy.....or not. Oh well. Soaking the prunes to plump them could have solved the problem if I was stuck using dried fruit again. The crust turned out really nice for this dish, although a bit on the stiff side, and I think the crust would work well to make small turnovers since it is quite strong, almost like a pasty.

The eggs I used were from a local couple in WI and they are on the small end. Some have a greenish hue, but I'm not sure which chickens lay that color eggs. They are wicked cute.

It's a fish, really it is...

2008-02-17T20:56:00.004-06:00

I tried the "fish" recipe today. I was inspired by Ealasaid's fish from Coronation, and thought I would try to make one that looked like that. I'll admit based on the above picture, it doesn't.

Here's what I used:

6 small apples, various varieties, peeled, cored and chopped (it seemed to make 3-4 cups of apple bits)
1/3 cup almonds, chopped fine
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
pinch saffron

Pie crust (I used commercial pie crust)

Here's what I did:

Cut up apples and chopped almonds. I also don't have a mortar and pestle big enough to put apples in, so I tried several options. I put them in a big bowl and used a potato masher, but it didn't do much. I tried a meat tenderizer hammer, which also didn't do much. I added a little bit of water, and got wet unsmashed apples. I put all of the apples into a plastic bag, and tried with the tenderizer hammer again, which seemed to work, until a corner of the bag broke, and the one bit of apple that smashed flew everywhere. ::Sigh:: So, I decided they were smashed enough. I added the spices a little at a time until they tasted right. I thought I might need more sugar, but realized the apples were sweet, and 1 tablespoon was enough. I also like ginger, so I added more than the cinnamon.

When all the ingredients were mixed, I made half of the pie crust into an oval. I mounded the apple mixture in the middle. I added the other half of the crust on top, and shaped it into a crescent.

I decorated the "fish" by cutting sort of scale-like pattern into the body, washed it with a saffron tinted color, and sprinkled it with sanding sugar in an attempt to make the scales sparkle. I baked it in a 350 oven for about 35 minutes, until it was golden brown.

We tasted it at room temp, and two of us thought it was very good. One of us did not like the almond bits in it, but he doesn't like nuts that much anyway. It did not, however, look like a fish, or come off of the cooking pan easily, so it looked worse after I put it on the plate.

Things I would change:

-Make my own crust. I don't like the flavor of the commercial one any more.

-Spend a little more time on the shape, and make the extremities (in this case the tail) out of crust without filling.

-I would like to try fresh ginger, as opposed to dried, to see how it changes the flavor.

-More finely chop the almonds. The chunky bits gave a good flavor, but were a little disconcerting.

Things I liked:

-While more color would be nice, and you can't really see it in the picture, the textured crust was nice and tasty.

-Ratio of ginger and cinnamon. I liked ginger and apples.

-Chunky apples. I liked the texture.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Eat Pie.

2008-02-11T21:21:00.000-06:00

My version of the flan.

Who's going to try the apple taco? :-)

(Helmet is Michael's, a reproduction of the Battlestar Gallactica helm ;-)

My experiments this month...

2008-02-10T08:13:00.000-06:00

Flowyns in Lent:
I pre-baked the crust a little longer than I should have and so that got a little too dark. I am glad I did though as I think it would have been a soggy mess otherwise. I also used a crust I like because it is very flaky but it's puffiness meant that it loses it shape when made as a shell or in shaped forms. I will go another direction next time I try this.

This recipe took some experimentation and I am not sure I achieved exactly what the recipe was aiming for. I continue to not like dates or figs very much but the almond paste and crust were lovely.
Fake Fish:
I really enjoyed this recipe. I don't have a mortar and pestle large enough so I had to be creative wish some of the tools in my kitchen. I also decided to use the ground nuts remaining from the strained almond milk so as not to be wasteful. About 10 minutes before this finished baking I brushed on an egg wash with crushed saffron to give it a nice golden color. I was going for a catfish shape for the fish as that is the heraldry of the local group.

Fish from Coronation

2008-02-07T11:27:00.000-06:00

I believe this dish was made by Mistress Ealasaid for the A&S Competition at Hagan and Ellis's Coronation, but I may be remembering wrong. The filling was a flavorfull apple with dried fruits and spices, quite lovely.

I'd be interested in hearing more about the decorating techniques.

Happy Lent. Except, of course, Lent is not about happy.

2008-02-07T00:04:00.000-06:00

First time I ever tried to decorate my food. I need practice, but it was the most fun I had today. :-)

This is a redaction of, of course, the Fish Pie.

I'll tell you what I did if you tell me what you did. ;-)

Fish Pie!

Specialty Store: Vom Fass

2008-01-31T12:26:00.000-06:00

I was taken to a new place full of culinary goodness on 1-27. The place is called Vom Fass, which roughly translates to "from the barrel". As the name suggests the store originates in Germany and specializes in selling specialty oils, vinegars, liquors, scotch, pretty much anything aged that you can drink or cook with.

I purchased 2 types of oils (Thistle and Madonia Olive oil) I purchased 2 balsamic vinegars as well (an Apple blend and a Lemon and Ginger blend). You get to go around the whole room and try all the oils and vinegars and the Scotch (but the employee serves you)! It was a lot of fun and I could see myself buying lots at this store! Everything was highly tasty!

February Recipe: 2 Lenten dishes

2008-01-31T12:07:00.001-06:00

Both dishes looked like a lot of fun so I made both of them the February recipe. You can cook one or another or both, whatever you choose.

Flownys in Lente

PERIOD: England, 15th century SOURCE: MS Douce 257 CLASS: Authentic
DESCRIPTION: Almond Cream Custard Pie

ORIGINAL RECEIPT:
For to make flownys in lente, tak god flowr & make a god past; & tak god mylk of almandys & flowr of rys other of amydoun & boyle hem togedere that they be wel chariand. Wan yt is boylid thykke take yt vp & ley yt on a feyre bord so that yt be cold, & wan the cofyns ben makyd tak a perty & do vpon the coffins, & kerf hem in schiueris; & do in hem god mylk of almandys & fygis & datys & kerf yt in fowre pertys, & do yt to bake & serue yt forth.

- Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS 55. London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888.

Fake Fish and Calf's Ears
The original text as given in the manuscript. KANTL 15, vol.1, recipe 64.

Om gheuormde wijs te maken in die wasten ende oeck calfsoeren.
stoet jn enen mortijer vijf of sees appellen schon gheschelt sonder kersel huijs ende doter jnne van ghestoten amandellen of gheroost pepercock met een luttel sofferaens ende backt dese jn olye of mackt groten wijs backse gheuerwet ende van gheghat jnden ouen
Item calfs oeren maeckt aldus nempt gheplet deck sausijer ronde maeckt dat dobbel ende dan slaet die tve langen eynden te samen ende dan nempt scherp eynde tussen tve wijnhgheren ende steckt jrst dat runt ende en luttel daer nae met allen ende als dit stijf is nempt dat wijt ende doet daer jnne vanden vorseyde stof sonder sieden ende dijnt dat.

Translation
To make formed fish during lent and also calf ears

Crush in a mortar five or six apples, peeled and cored. Add sugar, ginger and cinnamon, and add some pound almonds or toasted gingerbread with some saffron. Bake this in oil. Or make a big fish: bake this in the oven, painted and with some holes in it.

Calf ears are made thus: Take the flattened dough, rounded like a saucer. Make it double, and take the two long ends together. Then take the pointed end between two fingers, and put first the rounded end in [the boiling oil], and shortly afterwards the whole. Take it out when it is crunchy, and put some of the afore mentioned stuffing in it without boiling [it], and serve it.

February recipe ideas

2008-01-22T11:06:00.000-06:00

I decided that January was simply going to be a wash and not stress about it and move onto February. Anyone have any dishes that they would like to suggest? Any culture/ time/ food stuff?

Please make suggestions in the comment section.

Thanks.

Giovanna

Alinore's redaction - Stwed Beeff

2008-01-06T14:59:00.000-06:00

I spent most of last week pondering the idea of the plum mixture used in the plum tarts tweaked slightly to be used as a sauce for meat. I thought it would be exceptionally tasty, and so I did a little searching around Gode Cookery to see if there were any recipes there that agreed with me. I found this recipe for Stwed Beeff.

I had all the ingredients but the currents, and I decided that dried plums would be just as lovely in this dish. I had planned to be using my oven all day, and this looked like the kind of dish that would be improved by low, moist heat cooking, so I decided to use my crock-pot for this.

I diced up an onion and put it in the bottom of my crock-pot mixed with half a cup of fresh loosely chopped parsley. In a separate pot I took 2 cups of red wine and added 1 cup of chopped dried plums, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. cloves, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 long pepper cone and 1/4 c. sugar and boiled it down to a syrup. I decided to use long pepper rather than regular pepper in this dish because I thought the floral notes in it would accent the fruitiness of the plums. I browned a couple pounds of beef short ribs in some olive oil, then placed them in the crock-pot, pouring the syrup over the top. About 5 hours later, I decided that they were tender enough and sliced the meat from the bones. I strained the sauce and spooned most of the fat off the top, then reduced it to about half and poured it over the meat.

I thought it was extremely tasty. I think this sauce may become a new staple around our house for pouring over roasts when you want a slightly different flavor. It wasn't overly spicy and the fruit and wine blended together with the meat and onions to make a rich thick sauce that was very lovely.

To prepare a plum tart to be served vpon Twelfth Night

2008-01-05T14:50:00.000-06:00

Bonjour, c'est Merouda. There you have it, my little 12th night feast. Food fit for a noble in my dining room. The picture's a little blurry, of course, because I was taking it by candlelight. The food was very good. The meal consists of:

Meatballs, Chicken, Armored Turnips, Artichoke hearts, Beets, Yogurt, Strawberry preserves, Raisins, Almonds, Plum tart, and washed down with a Riesling. It sounds like a lot, but I was careful to serve myself only tasting portions of most of it, as one would expect a 12th night feast to have a lot to taste. :-) And yes, I was in period-style clothing. I'm home alone tonight, all my holidays sucked at some level or another, and I wanted at least one fest my way.

The meatballs started out as Poume d'Oranges but as I found I didn't have this and didn't want that, it morphed so many ways that I couldn't list out a redaction if I wanted to. The only thing I wanted to note was that this was the first time I ever followed the instruction to boil a meatball and then bake it. Yeah. Dry. Very dry. I won't do that again, I don't care how medieval it is.

The armored turnips? I've done this dish a bunch of different times, usually following one of the many redactions on the web. I have yet to find a redaction that I really like. I'm thinking, I should like it: I like turnips. I like cheese. I like the usual array of spices. But no, nothing yet. Most of the redactions I have seen feature cheddar, so this time I tried a mix of Parmesan and Swiss, and stuck with freshly ground pepper for the spice, as I had over-salted the parboiling water. I liked this version best, but still feel like this dish just is not as good as it should be.

And the last of the dishes that I actually want to discuss is, of course, the plum tart.

Note the heraldic decoration on the pie! This is the badge of Sept Pendray. If you look at the first picture in this article, you can see a tile decorated with a colored version of the badge. Next heraldic food experiment; colored pie crust.

Delish, delish. Has passed the Miguel-san test, which surprised me a little, since he wouldn't even try Tarte of prunes, included in the entry here. This time, however, I had to chase him away, because he was ready to sail into the filling with a spoon.

I worked according to the first recipe cited in the December recipe entry. There are at least 3 egg yolks in this recipe, and that's three too many for me. Here's my redactions and my experiments!

18 or so prunes
1.5 cups red wine plus extra as needed.
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 t cinnamon
1 t oatmeal
commercially prepared pie crust without egg

Simmer the prunes in the wine upon the stove until the prunes are plump and soft. Mash the plums into the wine, then stir in sugar and cinnamon. Taste, add a little more sugar, wine, cinnamon if you think you need it--we were fine with 1/3 c sugar and 3/4 t cinnamon, and I had added wine as needed to keep the total liquid at about 1.5 cups. When you have it to your taste, turn off heat and quickly grind 1 teaspoon of oatmeal with a mortar and pestle. Add to syrup/mashed plum mixture to thicken it up a little, return to heat briefly if needed.

Regarding the crust: I searched carefully through the pie crusts at my store. All of them were made with unreasonable amounts of animal fats, so the best I could do was choose something egg-less and not the same brand I bought last time (with its fat content so high that the quiche crust tasted like grease). The receipt could be understood as enclosing the pie in a double crust, but I didn't understand it that way, I thought it could also be said to be decorated. I was also very interested in the possibility of using this recipe as a traveling dish, so I decided to use 1/2 of the top crust to make a sort of turnover. I used the remainder of the top crust to decorate the pie. The seeblatt crust, empty pie crust, and filled turnover all went into the oven at the same time, and all cooked up pretty well. I poured the filling into the baked crust, slipped the seeblatt into the middle, and It Was Finished.

I haven't eaten the seeblatt-decorated pie yet, but the turnover was just wonderful. I would say that it would be an excellent period sweet for a tourney dinner.

Alinore's redaction - Plum Tart

2007-12-30T20:11:00.000-06:00

I chose to make the first recipe using dried plums, because they are so readily available in the dried fruit section. I was a bit skeptical of the dough recipe given, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it. It did make a passable dough, although I think that perhaps I didn't roll it thin enough because it was a little tougher than I'm used to. The other interesting thing was that it had a flavor that was similar to homemade noodles, which makes sense given the ingredients, but was rather unexpected in a pie.

It's a fairly straightforward recipe, and I did exactly what they said to do. I cut up about 15 dried plums and boiled them in about 1.5 cups of red wine, 3/4 cup of sugar and a tsp. of cinnamon until they were reduced to a thick syrup. I had forgotten about mixing in some eggs into the filling, so I didn't do that, but the fruit mixture was so rich and delicious that it didn't need it.

I think that when I make this again, and I will because it passed both the adult and the 3 year old test as a yummy dish, I will probably use a traditional pie crust because I didn't like the texture of the egg and flour crust.

I also think that if you didn't add quite as much sugar and added more cinnamon to this mixture that it would be a lovely sauce for poultry or beef. It was so fruity and good that we were scraping the pan with a spoon to get all of the syrup out of the pan.

To make a gelly of pork.

2007-12-14T22:36:00.000-06:00

Merouda here.

It kind of stuns me that so many people don't really care for terrines and galantines. I grew up eating a terrine called "Sylta;" my grandmother made it every Christmastide as part of the festival foods. Traditionally, sylta is made of veal, pork, and some spices, but the recipe my grandmother "gave" to me contained only 3.5 things: Pork, allspice, onions, and, if there was not enough bones with the pork to gel the broth, a packet of unflavored gelatin.

I decided that I wanted to have a sylta for Boar's Head, because, as you likely realize, sylta as I know it is essentially the same thing as headcheese/brawn. Of course, it could not be eaten on site, but there are certainly opportunities to eat during the day that have no bearing whatsoever on the event. So I decided to look over my recipe, compare it to some period receipts for jellied meats, and make a period version of sylta.

Medieval Cookery has an interesting beta feature, in which it will offer not just the recipe you desire to look at, but a list of similar recipes. After reviewing the recipes it sugested, the recipe I chose to be the altering agent for the sylta I grew up with was Jellied Pig's Trotters from Wel ende edelike spijse, a late 15th C. Dutch cookery manuscript.

Jellied pig's trotters. Boil them well in water, let them cool. Take the sinews of the bones and feet and crush well in a mortar. Temper with wine and some of the cooking liquid of the trotters, strain it, and let it cook for a while. Temper ground saffron, ginger, cinnamon and cloves with the brew. Pour it on the trotters in wooden dishes and let it cool.

I chose this one because it was comprised of the single meat, pork, with a spice array that is close to the allspice range. Historically, as Columbus is supposed to have brought allspice to Spain*, I could have shrugged and used it secure in the knowledge that I may have run into it in my husband's home**, but where is the adventure in that? However, I also wanted something that I would recognize as sylta, so I wanted the spices that allspice was said to combine and evoke.

Here's how I interpreted it:

About 2 lbs of pork "country rib" cooked in water (with an onion & 1-2 ground peppercorns) and deboned.
1 t ginger
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t cloves
1 packet unflavored gelatin

Boil the pork in water with an onion. Boil until the meat is very tender but still capable of being sliced and the water, onion, and meat juices (et cetera) have reduced to a thick broth, about a cup's worth.

Remove the pork from the bones; strain the broth if you wish. Keep the broth on very low heat while you begin to assemble the terrine.

Remove the pork from the bones. Trim and discard as much fat as possible. Cover the bottom of a 3 inch by 6 inch terrine (or a small loaf pan) with a layer of pork. Sprinkle a bit of the spice mixture (cloves, cinnamon, ginger) over the first layer, then sprinkle a bit of the gelatin over the top of that. Place another layer of pork over the first; sprinkle with a bit of the spices, then a bit of the gelatin, and so on, until you've layered all the pork. Mix the remainder of the spices and the gelatin into a quarter cup of heated broth and pour over the top layer of pork. If this is not enough liquid to fill the terrine, use the remaining broth to finish filling. Cover. Place aside to cool, and when sufficiently cool, put into fridge (or, at this time of year, on a cold porch, as I did) to chill overnight.

To remove from terrine, dip the terrine into a hot water bath for 3-5 seconds and then invert on to a plate. The jelled terrine should slip from the terrine mold with ease.

Serve cold with a good mustard sauce and a hearty bread.

I did not have saffron or a suitable wine for this redaction, which is why they are not included in the dish. I threw the onion and the pepper into the broth just to give it a little something to work with beside the meat.

For my Boar's Head traveling lunch, I had this with Wild Flour's Multigrain Sourdough (which I love because there is no egg involved and the breads are hand shaped and baked in a traditional-ish stone/brick oven, closest I'll ever get to buying my bread from the period baker--don't laugh, I looked at a lot of local bakers to see just who was closest to period bread baking techniques, Wild Flour wins, followed by Breadsmith), a dijon style mustard, the Apples Royal I had canned for Pennsic but never got around to eating while there, and 6 oz of bitter beer.

It was delish.

As to the comparison of the traditional sylta and the jellied pork terrine based on the period receipt, both were good, but I have to confess that the spice mixture used above didn't flavor as nicely as just the allspice. On the other hand, the ginger added a nice touch, and I'm curious regarding how a boil in a bit of wine might affect the taste.

One of the things that I especially love about this is that it keeps well, and I can make it, eat what I want of it, and then bust it back down to stock and pork bits to make a soup or a casserole. Michael won't eat this as a cold brawn on bread with mustard, but he will eat it as a broth with pork and noodles.

As far as cooking for dietary restrictions goes, this is a fairly brilliant meal for someone trying to reduce intake of saturated fat, sodium, and eggs. What fat there is in the broth will separate and float to the top while the terrine sets, allowing you to just scrape off and discard that before eating.

*This is disputed. Other histories of the spice put it in Europe in the early 17th c. Trust me on this. Don't dismiss allspice as acceptable because Columbus may have grabbed a few grains and dropped them in Isabella's hand.

**Provided, of course, that Columbus actually brought allspice and that the King and Queen of Spain decided that they'd share their novelty with the English wife of one of their ambassadors.

December Recipe: Plum Tart

2007-12-03T13:49:00.000-06:00

This month I am including 2 recipes for a tart with plums. Both are 16th c. German from Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin. Try one or both or whatever you wish.

In the name of the Holy Trinity I, Sabina Welserin, begin this cookbook. God grant me His holy grace and wisdom and understanding and judgment with which I through His Holy will live here in this time and with Him forever. Amen. anno 1553

70 A tart with plums, which can be dried or fresh Let them cook beforehand in wine and strain them and take eggs, cinnamon and sugar. Bake the dough for the tart. That is made like so: take two eggs and beat them. Afterwards stir flour therein until it becomes a thick dough. Pour it on the table and work it well, until it is ready. After that take somewhat more than half the dough and roll it into a flat cake as wide as you would have your tart. Afterwards pour the plums on it and roll out after that the other crust and cut it up, however you would like it, and put it on top over the tart and press it together well and let it bake. So one makes the dough for a tart.

71 Another tart with fresh plums Take the stones cleanly out and cut them open in the middle and make the tart and sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on the bottom crust and after that lay the plums as closely together as possible and put sugar and cinnamon on them again. Put also some butter thereon. Make after that the tart dough in the manner which is recorded in number [seventy].

Not enough time. . .

2007-12-03T13:29:00.000-06:00

I fear I did not get to this recipe this month. My cooking time was spent prepping for our local event, for which I am cooking one of the courses in the feast. I did have a lovely squash for dinner one night, with some broiled pork, when I realized I wasn't going to be able to make it.

Pompions, part II

2007-12-01T00:19:00.000-06:00

Merouda here.

I was just plonking around on http://cunnan.sca.org.au/ and I noted that they had a period food and a period recipe section. The wiki could use our help in filling it out with good, cited information.

That's primarily why I'm typing this, but since Cunnan did have Gourds in Pottage up, I thought I'd also briefly record this:

I did a second redaction of the Gourds in Pottage, this time, without meat products. I didn't get a picture, I'm recording it here mostly so I have a record of it. :-)

1 Butternut squash
3 onions
1 cup sangria
2 tblsp olive oil
1/2 cup ground almonds
ginger, cinnamon, salt

Cut and peel butternut squash; cut into chunks. Chop onions and saute in olive oil until translucent, then place sangria, almonds, and squash into the sauce pan and add enough water to cover; boil until tender. Add 1/2 t salt. Start with a tsp of cinnamon and a 1/2 tsp of ginger. Mash up the squash, taste , and add additional cinnamon and ginger as needed.

Sangria, again, adds sweet enough that you don't need to add sugar, and, of course, I left out the eggs lest I break out in hives. This was also very good. However, I would probably treat this as a side dish, whereas my earlier redaction could serve as a main dish. And, oh boy, was peeling the butternut squash easy. Something to be said for smmooooth squash. I'd also be interested in trying this with pumpkin and bacon, but I haven't gotten to it yet. That's my plan for the 10 minute version. ;-)

December's recipe

2007-11-30T10:21:00.000-06:00

I'm thinking of a traditional pudding or a sweet. Anyone have specific suggestions?

I'm looking forward to seeing some of you at Boar's Head, and I'm very excited for the feast.

Giovanna

Gourdes in Pottage

2007-11-17T15:37:00.000-06:00

10. Gourdes in Potage. Take young Gowrdes; pare hem and kerue hem on pecys. Cast hem in gode broth, and do þerto a gode pertye of oynouns mynced. Take pork soden; grynde it and alye it þerwith and wiþ yolkes of ayren. Do þerto safroun and salt, and messe it forth with powdour douce.

- Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

GODE COOKERY TRANSLATION:Stewed Gourds. Take young gourds; pare them and cut them in pieces. Put in good broth, and add a large amount of minced onions. Take boiled pork; grind it and add it along with egg yolks. Add saffron and salt, and serve it with powder douce.

The stock: I began my redaction by preparing my broth. I had saved the bones from a pork butt that had a bit of meat on them still and those became the foundation to my stock. To the bones I added 8 cups of water, 1 onion peeled, 4 bay leaves, 2 stalks of celery cut large, 5-6 whole pepper corns, 1 T salt, 1 T herbs de Provance. I brought this mixture to a boil and simmered it for approximately an hour.

I strained out the meat, veggies and herbs, discarded the herbs and picked the bones of all meat. The bones yielded approx 1 cup of pork. I ended up with 6 cups of stock.

I chose to use a butternut squash. I cut it, scooped out the seeds, peeled it and cut it into largish chunks. I put the squash into a medium size pan and added 2 1/2 c. of broth and one minced onion and let that simmer for 20 minutes.

The squash was nice and tender after cooking for 20 minutes and I used a potato masher to make the squash into a thickish paste. I think I could have used less broth because the dish was more runny then I would prefer, or I could have poured off a portion of the broth prior to mashing, which would have worked too.

I minced up the pork with a knife and added it to the squash along with the yolks of 3 eggs. I added several threads of saffron, 1 T of salt and mixed that in thoroughly. I transfered the dish into a stone pot and sprinkled the top with approx 2 tsp of poudre douce.

I let the dish rest for while I finished the decreases on DJ's socks, before dishing up a portion to try. Overall I found the taste to be pretty nice. I think it could use some more salt, but the mixture of the squash, onion, pork, cinnamon and sugar was very pleasant. I still think it is too runny and should be thicker, it's similar to a runny pudding. I'm wondering what the taste would be like if I put the pork through a grinder and but the squash in a blender. Maybe next time.

This dish did meet the almost 1 yr old test and was happily gobbled up to bouncing and yummy noises.

Giovanna

On Poudre Douce

2007-11-12T10:48:00.000-06:00

As Merouda pointed out, there is an excellent article on Medieval Cooking powders at the Thorngrove site. Alinore also pointed out that Poudre Douce is similar to Pumpkin Pie spice.

The poudre douce mixture that I create is based on a set of guidelines provided to me by Aramanthra. This is not an exact recipe, but a guide to the types of spices that were found and the approximate rate at which they were mixed. Poudre douce is essentially mixed to the taste of the individual (be that merchant or cook) and there was no propretary mix used throughout. I like to think of it in the same way as I think of curry mixtures. Curry is made up of several spices, but they are mixed at different ratios to the taste of the individual/ house.

Here are the guidelines that I follow:

1-3 parts each: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, sugar
1/2-1 part each: cloves, galingale
maybe some: cardamom, mace, grains of paradise, saffron

Happy cooking!

Giovanna

Alinore's redaction-Gourdes in Pottage

2007-11-11T10:12:00.000-06:00

For this recipe, I decided to use the two acorn squash that I got from a coworker's garden. I decided that I wanted to try out a vegetarian version of this recipe, because I like the idea of having veggie dishes be strictly vegetarian for feasts so that non-meat eaters have a variety of options. I looked at the recipe Giovanna linked to in Gode Cookery and that article talked about using walnuts instead of the pork. I liked the idea of using the nuts instead of meat as a flavoring agent for this dish.

I started out by making a spice mixture to recreate the powder douce. From what I could find using Google, it is a mixture of spices that is somewhat similar to a pumpkin pie mixture. I used 3 tbs. sugar, 2 tbs. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. cloves, and 2 tsp. ginger. I was pleased with the way the mixture smelled and tasted.

Next I finely chopped half an onion and put it in a pot with 1 can of vegetable broth. Then I started to attempt to peel the squash, which didn't work out as well as I would have liked it to, so I put them in the microwave until half cooked, then I peeled and cubed them and put them into the boiling stock. I added a little salt and a couple threads of saffron at this point and let them simmer.

When the squash was cooked, I used a potato masher to mash everything together and added 4 oz of ground almonds, two egg yolks and 2 tsp. of the powder douce. I kept the heat on and stirred to let everything come together, then put a lid on it and let it sit for about 30 minutes before serving.

I was mostly happy with the flavor of the dish. Next time I would use a little less saffron, 2 threads instead of 4 and a little bit more powder douce. I would also grind the almonds much finer, almost to a powder, and put them in to simmer with the squash. This dish didn't pass the 3 year old test, she wasn't a fan. I did serve it to a fellow SCA member who said that if they were served this at a feast they would eat it, so I suppose it passes that test. I think this is a nice dish to do if you like squash, if you don't like squash then it's probably not the dish for you.

To boyle pompion in the olden manner

2007-11-10T13:53:00.001-06:00

Today, I tried our receipt as part of a simple fall meal. We are not doing the Thanksgiving cooking this year, so I thought I'd give myself a little meal time today. The below meal consists of the Gourds in Pottage recipe, a redaction of Tart of Plums from Good Housewife's Jewel, (English, 1596, by Thomas Tusser), two toasted slices of French peasant bread from Breadsmith, and a glass of el cheapo sangria. More on the Sangria as we go on.

First, some more conversation on the squash, this time, as a link that discusses the entomology of the name and cites some of the period appearances of the fruit that we are cooking today. Only Americans really call it squash, it's something else everywhere else. Enjoy this article: Cucurbita pepo.

You might also enjoy reading the preview of the book Food in Colonial and Federal America as it has a nice discussion on the era in which NWF and OWF were mixed, and who brought what to the table. I believe I will add that book to my reading list when I am finished with NaNoWriMo this year.

I would also like to recommend to you the Medieval Cookery site. I use Gode Cookery a lot, but Medieval Cookery is just as nice and has plenty of complementary articles and receipts, as well as links to places where period cookbooks are online. There are far more online than one might realize. The online versions are very helpful to me as my period cookbook selection is only about 10-15 manuscripts big, but with the links provided by this site, I have vastly more available to me.

Lastly, a site that lists what foods are in season now: Eat the Seasons. I find it helpful. I also like Think Vegetables, but they don't appear to have a USA counterpart.

On to the cooking.
Our first redaction is the Gourds in Pottage that Giovanna so kindly selected. Yay! Something English! As it happenes, I had pork in the freezer and had purchased a couple of acorn squash at my last trip to the farmer's market. Isobel had cooked one up, but I still had the leftovers and the untouched squash, so that seemed more than enough.

Beside this ingredient list, you see a picture of the pork and the squash, to give you an idea of amount. I didn't weigh either, so I'm not positive regarding how much I used. I think it was about 1 to 1.25 pounds of pork and 1 & 1/2 acorn squash.

My redaction:

7 cups "good broth"
1 lb pork
1 and 1/2 acorn squash
1 onion
"powder douce"

Now, "good broth" and "powder douche" are two of those things that vary from time to place to cook. Here is the Thorngrove discussion on powder douce and other powders; our old friend Gode Cookery has a receipt for "good Broth." As I like to make my own, this is what I did:

The recipe calls for boiled pork, so I set 10 cups of water to boil with a carrot, the pork, an onion, and the following herbs from my garden: sage, thyme, rosemary, bay. All together it was about a handful of herbs. I let this boil down until the pork was tender and then added 1/4 cup of sangria and let the alcohol boil out. I then added a tablespoon of beef base and a teaspoon of vegetable base to give it a robust flavor. I removed the carrots for eating later and left the herbs and onions.

MmmmmMmmm.

As the squash was already partly cooked, I cut and cleaned the other acorn squash and placed it in the microwave, in a covered dish, to get it to the same cook-stage Isobel had left the other squash in. Thus, I learned something. It's way easier to cook a squash and remove the contents when the squash is completely cooked. But, if you're only partly cooking it, it's way easier to get the squash out of the rind if it's cold rather than if it's hot.

In either event, I noticed that the squash was pretty bland, so I was glad that I'd chosen a broth that was flavorful without being overwhelming.

I then put the squash, the pork, and the powder douce into the pot and let it simmer away!

Now, for powder douche I used a mixture of approximately 1.5 t cinnamon, 2 t ginger, 1/2 t ground cloves, and 3/4 t fennel seed, which I ground in my mortor before adding. I went a little light on the seasoning because the sangria also adds a touch of sweet and spice.

I did not add salt, as there was plenty in the broth from the commercially prepared bases. I did not use eggs, as a result of my allergies. I did not add extra sugar, as the sangria added enough sweet for my taste.

However, just cooking the mixture down was enough to make the squash begin to break down into the broth and this created a thick pottage on its own.

edit, 1 Dec 07: there is a second, meatless redaction of gourds in pottage from me, here.

The side dish is a redaction of Tart of Prunes/Tarte of Damsons from Good Housewife's Jewell.

To make a Tarte of Prunes. Put your Prunes into a pot, and put in red wine or claret wine, and a little faire water, and stirre them now and then, and when they be boyled enough, put them into a bowle, and straine them with sugar, synamon and ginger.

To make a Tarte of Damsons. Take Damsons and seeth them in Wine, and straine them with a little Creame, then yoyle your stuffe over the fire till it be thicke, put thereto, suger, synamon and ginger, put set it not into the Oven after, but let your paste be baked before.

There is not a lot of difference between these two recipes. They could be labeled as the regular and the Lenten version, had England still observed Lent in 1596; what differences are there are minor. One's using fresh plums, the other's using dried plums and adding some extra water. One's going straight to the bowl, the other gets a little cream and a pre-baked pie crust.

It's a surprisingly specific set of recipes, so it was easy to redact into a one person serving.

10 prunes--I just used Aldi's brand.
1 cup of water.
1/2 cup of Sangria
1/8 cup of honey or more
1 t cinnamon
1 t ginger

I had to put the honey in because we're out of sugar; it seemed a reasonable substitute. I can't be sure how much honey it was because it was the end of the bottle. I'd suggest starting out with 1/8 cup and increasing to taste.

I let the prunes, honey, wine, and water boil together until the prunes were sufficiently boiled to be mashed. I tasted it at that stage and it was nothing special. I added the spices and let it cook down to the point that I had mashed plums in syrup. I tasted it at that time and it was frakkin' delicious. It was however a little too jammy for me, so I added just a couple so tablespoons of skim milk as suggested by the second recipe, to make it more like a pudding, and it was even more delicious. I think it would be better as a small side dish accompanying, say, beef or goose, than as a slice of pie, and it worked very well with the bread; however, I did end up putting 3/4 of the portion away. It was quite rich.

So, in the picture you see them plated for one, with bread and wine. This was the first time that I've cooked for this blog and really loved whatever it was I cooked. The gourds in pottage was both sweet and savory and the tarte of prunes was a lovely little treat. The only thing I would change about this meal is that I'd probably serve it with a bitter ale; the sweet wine was a little too much by itself (I usually use sangria to make hypocrys, but never without adding a burgandy to it--it needs to be watered down or otherwise modified as it's too sweet on it's own for my taste and I'd forgotten that), so with the touch of sweet in the foods it was a little overwhelming to the palate. The bitter would have balanced beautifully, and if we ever get a winter site that will allow us to bring in off-board foods, I can definitely see myself eating this meal.

And, hey, did you notice the subtle heraldry? ;-)

On Gourds

2007-11-07T23:13:00.002-06:00

AERTSEN, Pieter
Market Woman with Vegetable Stall
1567
Oil on wood, 11 x 110 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

Gourd. Courge - Gourd is the name given to many species of the Cucurbitaceae family. Cucurbitaceae pepo include the summer and autumn pumpkins (yellow gourds), the vegetable marrows, and various summer squashes. Cucurbitaceae maxima include the North American winter squashes. Cucurbitaceae moschata include the Canada or cushaw, Quaker or Japanese squashes (or pumpkin). Gourds are one of the oldest vegetables known to man although it is doubtful if any of the many kinds which grow today could be identified with any of the original species. The word gourd is reserved in North America for the decorative inedible variety. Winter and summer squash as well as pumpkin are grown on a very large scale. Winter squash can often be used in place of pumpkin.

Taken from: Larousse Gastronomique, The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine and Cookery, by Prosper Montagne'. Crown Publishers, Inc. New York, 1961. B000B9EJCK

Pretty much any squash that I will have available to me will be a hybrid or an American heirloom variety. For the November recipe I've decided to use one of the varieties of winter squash available from the local growers at the Farmer's Market and see how the recipe turns out.

Giovanna

November recipe: Gourdes in Pottage

2007-11-06T10:25:00.000-06:00

Original recipe: English, 14th c. Forme of Cury
Squash Cooked in Broth

10. Gourdes in Potage. Take young Gowrdes; pare hem and kerue hem on pecys. Cast hem in gode broth, and do þerto a gode pertye of oynouns mynced. Take pork soden; grynde it and alye it þerwith and wiþ yolkes of ayren. Do þerto safroun and salt, and messe it forth with powdour douce.

- Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

GODE COOKERY TRANSLATION:
Stewed Gourds. Take young gourds; pare them and cut them in pieces. Put in good broth, and add a large amount of minced onions. Take boiled pork; grind it and add it along with egg yolks. Add saffron and salt, and serve it with powder douce.

I hope this recipe will be fun. It is rather simple, but I thought it could be a clever addition to the Thanksgiving meal.

Start thinking about December's recipe/ or January since some might want to take December off, and you are always welcome to try a recipe in your repertoire and post your redactions on the list.

Giovanna

A month goes by really quickly

2007-10-30T13:09:00.000-05:00

Here we are on the doorstep of November and I haven't even done October's recipe. Oy.

I do appreciate all those who did embark on the "Cheesy Chicken" dish by Nola. I loved reading all of the different redactions from each cook and I now feel better equipped to visit this dish myself when time permits. Thank you all!

Now is the time to start thinking about November's recipe. I am open to suggestions. Do we want to tackle another Nola recipe or choose another genre? Please make your suggestions in the comments.

Thank you all for your participation in this Cook-A-Long!

Giovanna

Alinore's redaction-ALMODROTE QUE ES CAPIROTADA

2007-10-21T12:01:00.000-05:00

After reading through the recipe about fifty times and discussing it with a coworker who raises chickens and is more familiar with the processing of birds from death to table, I decided to ignore the part about putting the chickens in the coals for a Paternoster. My coworker's theory is that portion of the recipe was used to clean off any stray hairs or other things from the skin.

I used a 3.5 lbs whole chicken for my redaction, I roasted it by cutting it up the backbone, then pushing it until the breast bone snapped and it lay flat on my baking sheet. I find that this method of roasting small chickens evens up the cooking time so that all parts of the bird are done at about the same time. I cooked it at 375 for about an hour, before placing it into the oven I salt and peppered both sides and rubbed it down with olive oil. I also made up a foil packet with two heads of garlic, one soft neck Californian grown garlic and one hard neck locally grown head. The garlic was drizzled with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and then roasted next to the chicken for about 45 minutes.

I have a theory about the bread for this recipe and that is that it was a way to use up hard day old bread. If you soaked fresh bread in broth, it would melt and get icky (technical term). So the day before I made a batch of Mistress Aramanthra's Egg bread. Then I sliced it into nice thick slices and let them sit out to dry out and get hard, before toasting them slowly in a 350 oven for about 30 minutes.

I was unable to find lamb or mutton stock in the store, so I used 1 can of beef broth and 1 can of chicken broth. To take away from the canned flavor of them, I went out to my herb garden and grabbed a handful of thyme, sage and chives and threw that into the pot with the stocks along with 3 peppercorns and some dried parsley. I brought that to a simmer and let the herbs flavor the broth for about 20 minutes before straining them out.

To assemble the dish, I brought the broth up to a simmer and then ladled about 3-4 ladles full of broth over the toast which I had placed into a roasting pan. The chicken was sliced and a mixture of dark and white meat was placed onto the toasts. For the sauce I put all the roasted garlic into my food processor, then I added 4 oz. of chevre, 4 tablespoons of parmesan, and 4 egg yolks. I processed this until it was smooth, then drizzled in two cups of stock to temper the egg yolks. I poured this mixture into what was left of the stock, and stirred it over med-high heat until it had reduced by half and formed a smooth silky sauce. I poured it over the toasts and popped it into the oven to heat everything through.

I found that it tasted very nice. The bread was still quite crunchy and had a lovely texture, the chicken was juicy and the sauce wasn't overwhelming cheesy or overwhelming with garlic. All the flavors blended quite well. This dish even got the 3 year old approval of being yummy. It was a lot of steps, so I don't know if I'll make it again at home just casually, but I can definitely see using it for a feast or making something similar to use up some left overs. My one complaint is that visually, it's very yellow. There isn't a lot of color to add interest. I don't know if that's a modern view, but if I was making it again I'd probably stir some finely chopped chives or parsley into the sauce to add some visual interest to the dish.

To prepare chicken cookked in the way of the Sarceans,

2007-10-14T22:59:00.000-05:00

Greetings from the humble scribe, Merouda Pendray

Today's medieval meal attempt was worthy, but I must be honest and upfront confess that one of the receipts has been interpreted in a way that produces something entirely outside the intended product.

Today's goals:
*Make a meal with products purchased at the farmer's market. I regularly incorporate daily life into my persona play, and I thought it might be interesting to cook based on what I could scout up.

*Create a quiche-type dish that I can eat. I had Amber Day Tart in mind.

And those two goals influenced my choices sufficiently that I ended up making tasty food that a 16^th c. individual would recognize, but I can't call them finished redactions, yet.

The only usable things we came away from the market with were freshly laid chicken eggs & leeks. I did briefly consider cooking tomatoes as described by Gerard in his herbal, but I decided against it—this time. Anyway. On to the cooking.

Individual dishes and plated for one.
Click on picture for full view.
I initially wanted to try a couple of different quiche recipes, but I came to my senses and realized that I was never going to be able to handle that much egg without getting sick, nor would Michael enjoy eating that much egg substitute.

The first I wished to try, from Cury on Inglishe, was Tart in ymbre day, but what I actually ended up redacting was the Mushroom Tart in The Goodman of Paris with additional modifications based on the Ymbre Day recipe.

Mushrooms of one night be the best and they be little and red within and closed at the top; and they must be peeled and then washed in hot water and parboiled and if you wish to put them in a pasty add oil, cheese and spice powder.

The second one I wanted to try was this, from Platina:

Make your crust in the way you usually do for pastry; and when it is rolled out, put meal over it so that it can hold up all around, and put it in a pan near the fire to dry out. Then, when you have removed the the meal from the top crust, put in boiled chickens or pigeons cut in morsels, with almond milk, two egg yolks, and a little saffron, ginger, cinnamon, verjuice and rich juice. When it is cooked, take it from the oven and pour over it sugar and rosewater.

First problem: egg yolks. Tons of egg yolks here. Second problem: boiled rather than baked chicken. Ugh. We are not big on the boiled poultry. Third problem: no onions, just leeks. Fourth problem: No herbs I want to use—everything still viable in the garden is overwhelming. The Rue is still going strong, but we are not eating it. Next, the Michael man is going to have to be led up to eating fruit and onions

So, and to this very moment I am not sure what free-floating brain chemical became this idea, I decided that I would deal with the egg problem by trying to make one egg + ¼ egg substitute + ½ cup milk go the distance for both recipes.

Additional inspiration for the end products come from Ymbre day tart recipe quoted on Godecookery and a recipe from a 1381 manuscript called Ancient Cookery and cited in Seven Centuries of English Cooking by Maxime de la Falaise.

The meal, then, is a synthesis. Be absolutely aware of that. Have I warned you enough yet?

Okay, so, first, the chicken. It occurred to me that all the ingredients could be used to make a nice breading and the milk and egg mixture would function as the wash that would hold the breading to the poultry. So I mixed up the milk and egg. The breading was made from ¾ cup crushed crackers, about 1 tsp cinnamon, about 1 tsp ginger, about ¼ cup ground almonds. I omitted saffron as I didn't have any. I dipped the chicken in the milk-egg mixture, covered it wit the crumb mixture, and set the wings into a 350 degree oven to roast until done.

All the ingredients I had available to me from the chicken pie recipe are there, but it's plainly not a pie. It would occur to me later that the idea for breading the chicken came from the 1381 recipe “For to make a bruet of Sarcynesse.” I'd experimented with that recipe some months ago, and had the memory of the breaded beef patties baking away somewhere in the back of my brain.

We sprinkled the roasted wings with rose water and tucked in; it was actually very good, and it strikes me as a nice item for the traveling lunch. I think, however, that I could move it just a little closer to the original recipe by placing the chicken pieces close to each other in the bottom of a baking pan, pour about ½ the egg-milk mix over the chicken and covering it with the crumb mixture. One could then invert it on to a plate and have something closer to a pie for serving. However the individual pieces are very handy for serving and storing.

Next, the Amber Day Tart. The fairly quick realization that something with leeks and fruit was not going to go over well with Miguel-san made me start looking for other “vegetable in cheese” pies that could suggest substitutions that would be acceptable on the table.

Godecookery came to my rescue with a mushroom tart that is in about the same time frame as Cury on English and so I ended up doing the mushroom tart with lots of leeks added.

So, the tart is in a commercially prepared crust, and I prebaked it. I cut up two leeks and opened a can of mushrooms (as the mushrooms above are peeled and parboiled). I sauteed it all in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil then grated 2 oz of farmer's cheese (leftovers used up, baybe!) and 3 oz of sharp cheddar. I placed the vegetables, the leftover breadcrumb/spice mixture, and the cheeses into the piecrust, then poured the remaining egg/milk mix over the whole thing. I baked it at 350 degrees until the cheese melted.

On the whole, it worked well. I liked it but decided that it needed more milk/egg mixture; Michael felt it needed more mushrooms, and fresh ones, at that. The thing that took me, though, was the effect of the commercial pie crust. Ugh. Too greasy. I'd no idea they were that fatty—although, it could just be that my taste for fat is so changed that I notice it so much more these days.

It's plated out for a meal for one with fruit juice (sorry, no wine!), the ever present beets, and yogurt. MMMmmmmmmMMMMmmmm.

Suggestions solicited!

To cook a hen in the way of the Spaniard called Nola

2007-10-01T21:51:00.000-05:00

This was our supper tonight. This is plated for 2, but it does a good job of showing how someone might cope with such a high fat recipe--balance the meal with a lot of vegetables and fruit. Another grain would have been nice but I was too ~~pressed for time~~ tired to cook any more and really, there is plenty to eat here. :-)

To cook the main dish--the redaction of almondrote que es capirotada--I used:

2 Cornish Game Hens
3/4 a loaf of Breadsmith's Rosemary Garlic Ciabatta
4 cups of broth
--broth made with:
---bouquet garni of lovage, sage, rosemary, bay
---6 cups water
---2 teaspoons chicken base
---1 teaspoon vegetable base
---1 teaspoon beef base
---dripping from hens
-----this was boiled down to create 5 cups of broth. 4 of which went into the redaction.
2 heads of garlic
3/4 lbs of shredded, low fat farmer's cheese
1/4 cup egg substitute
1 tsp bacon grease
olive oil as needed

I split the hens in half and put them under the broiler while I peeled the garlic. When the garlic was peeled, I put about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan, threw the garlic cloves into the oil, covered it, and popped it into the oven to roast. I then moved the hen halves from the broiler to a baking pan and roasted them at 350 degrees F. While that roasted, I toasted the chibatta (chosen mostly because we just are not eating it fast enough and I thought the rosemary in the bread might complement the poultry), shredded the cheese (chosen because it's a fresh, slightly sour cheese that can be found in a low-fat version and seems to me similar in taste to the simple, fresh goat cheeses I have had), and blended the broth. There isn't a lot of mutton stock in my grocery store, and I didn't want a broth that was obviously beef or chicken or vegetable, so I tried to blend something that was tasty and not obviously one or the other. I basted the hens once with the bacon grease and the rest of the time just basted them with their own juices.

When the garlic and hens were finished roasting, I prepared the sauce. I just mashed the garlic in the roasting pan as this would use the roasting olive oil as a substitute for the bad, bad lard suggested by the receipt. I added the egg substitute, 1/2 lb of cheese, and 2 cups of broth and noted that the sauce looked like.... em... something Miguel would not eat if it kept on looking like that.

So I warmed the sauce to make your average cheese sauce.

I placed the bread into the bottom of a baking pan and poured the remaining 2 cups of broth over it; this soaked the bread. I did not choose to bone the hens or layer the meat and the bread. Instead, I placed the hen halves over the bread and poured the sauce over it all. I sprinkled the remaining cheese over the dish and popped it back into the oven to melt.

I intended to leave it long enough to let the cheese get toasted but we were too hungry, so we took it out when the middle of the cheese was melty and bubbly and the edges were toasted.

We each deboned our own hen and I pulled the skin out of mine before eating. I wanted to leave the skin in for flavor, and Miguel certainly can eat it, but I shouldn't, so leaving the hens intact worked well for us.

The other components of the meal were:
Brussels sprouts cooked per the receipt on godecokery, here
Pickled beets, mushrooms, cucumbers
Really wonderful antique variety russet apples and a pink pearl apple.*
Almonds
White wine

Even with the removal of the egg yolk and lard, the minimal use of bacon fat, the substitution of a low fat cheese and the use of nicely unsaturated olive oil in places where fat is needed, this is a pretty high fat recipe. Michael liked it a lot, and I thought it was okay. I'm not sure the step for broiling was needed, and I might try a whole grain bread next time. I'm also not sure that the egg substitute proved enough of a binding/thickening agent in the sauce to make it worth adding; you might be able to skip that if you are not going to use egg yolk. I'm also not convinced that the single tsp of bacon grease I included made a flavor difference; next time, I'd just baste in the hen's drippings.

*There is a local orchard that grows antique apples including several period varieties. Unfortunately, their White Pearmain died this year, but cort pendu plat and Caville Blanc d'Hiver are about to come in season, so hopefully I can get a bunch to experiment with in some period receipts.

Another redaction-ALMODROTE QUE ES CAPIROTADA

2007-09-30T13:15:00.000-05:00

Howdy! This is Gwyneth, from Northshield, and I also redacted and made this recipe today. I realize, as I read over this, that it is long, and I apologize for my verbosity.

I'm going to talk first about my ingredient choices, for just a moment. A little on-line research seemed to indicate that guinea fowl or Cornish game hens were probably the best replacement for pigeon, and for expediency sake (the store on the way home from work sells them fresh) I got the Cornish game hens. I used two whole hens.

I spent a lot of time considering the cheese. I wrote to two Spanish cheese importers, asking if there was a substitute widely available in the US as a replacement for the Cheese of Aragon, and was told simply no. I ended up using a Spanish cheese from Trader Joe's called Iberica, a semi-hard cheese made with a mixture of sheep, goat and cow's milk.

The bread was the other thought-provoking thing for me. After toasting, but before preparing, it says to "scald or soak" the bread in broth before assembling. I wanted something that would toast nicely and stay a little crunchy - I really dislike mushy bread stuff. So I ended up using an Italian ciabatta. It stayed together nicely during the assembly, and even retained a little crunch on the crust after soaking and being covered with sauce.

I chose beef broth instead of mutton or chicken - I couldn't find commercially available mutton broth, but thought it would have a stronger flavor than chicken, so I went with beef.

I realized, as I was making this, that I didn't have the garlic cloves at home as I had thought, and I wasn't in a position to go to the store, so I used some minced garlic from the fridge, roasted in a custard cup while the game hens were roasting. I think I got a very similar result.

Here's what I used:

2 Cornish Game hens
2 cups beef broth, separated
2 cloves garlic, roasted (or 1 1/4 Tsp, minced)
1/2 loaf ciabatta bread, sliced (about 14-16 slices would be right for this amount of meat, I think)
4 oz Iberica cheese, grated
2 egg yolks
1 Tbsp lard
Salt and pepper to taste

I roasted the game hens in a 350 oven for about an hour, or until done. I sprinkled them with salt and pepper almost instinctively before I roasted them. When they were done, I cooled a little and then sliced the meat off the bones. The skin did not come out attractively, so I ended up taking the skin off before using it.

While the meat was roasting, I roasted the garlic in the same oven for about the last 15 minutes. I also sliced my bread, and set it on the oven racks to toast.

I used a beef bouillon to make the broth, so I heated two cups of water to almost boiling and mixed in the bouillon. I then set aside 1/2 cup of the broth for the toast. I put the larger amount of broth, garlic, cheese and two egg yolks into the blender, and mixed until smooth.

At that point I thought I had made a horrible mistake. It smelled awful, and the broth really came through overwhelmingly. Ick. But I was determined to try it all the way through. I did, however, decide to heat the sauce up, because it had cooled substantially. I heated it carefully over medium heat just until it was steaming, and added the tablespoon of lard, stirring it in until it was melted.

I soaked the bread in the extra broth, and made stacks of bread/meat/bread/meat/bread. I poured a ladle-full of sauce over it, and sat down to try my feast. It was . . . underwhelming. But it better than it smelled earlier. I ate my first little stack, thought about it, and went back for a second.

I have to admit, I decided everything is better with a little salt and pepper, so I added some before sitting down to try the second taste.

Something happened, between the first and second tastes. I don't think it was only the salt and pepper, I think it was the sauce actually melding. But it was substantially better. In fact, I might even say it was good. I went back for a third taste, and it was still pretty good.

So there ends my saga. I don't know that I would add this to my everyday dinner rotation, as I would some other medieval recipes that my family likes. But I would make it for a medieval event.

almondrote que es capirotada, redaction

2007-09-24T10:03:00.000-05:00

I am posting this by proxy, enjoy.

Greetings,
My name is Bronwen Ferq Lloid and I am a member of the Shire of Cum an Iolair's cooks guild. We had a cooks night on the 13th of September and included the almondrote que es capirotada recipe in our menu for the evening.

Here is our redaction:
4 chicken thighs
2 boneless chicken breasts
8 oz of feta cheese
2 eggs
2 heads of garlic
2 cups chicken broth
1 loaf of crusty bread
salt and pepper to taste
Put the chicken pieces in a baking pan and salt and pepper the skin. bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour.
While chicken is baking peel all the garlic cloves from the 2 heads of garlic and put them in a shallow pot with about 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil. Cover and cook the garlic slowly until the cloves are soft like butter. (do not fry them we want to simulate roasting the garlic but much faster)
While garlic and chicken are cooking in a blender or food processor put feta cheese and eggs and slowly blend in warm chicken broth until sauce is creamy. Set aside.
Cut the bread into 3/4 inch slices and put into a baking pan. When chicken comes out of the oven put bread into broil. 1-2 minutes on each side.
Skin and bone the chicken. In another baking pan (we used a 9x13) layer cheese sauce, bread, chicken and continue until all is layered together ending with sauce. Put in the oven at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes and then serve.

I chose dark meat chicken instead of partridge because of cost and availability. I chose feta cheese because most Spanish cheeses are goat of sheep's milk cheeses and you can get feta anywhere. I think I am going to try this again and use French chevre cheese instead of feta. We pan roasted the garlic because of time constraints.
I felt that this was a wonderful tasty and fairly easy dish.

Some of the comments from the evening where:
Fiona, "I can see this as a feast meal. Toast bread put on sliced chicken then some sauce and rewarm. We ate half the pan and there were just 4 of us here."
Marguerite, "Very tasty dish-savory- I think it would be good with Cornish game hens instead of chicken. I would be interested to see how a different cheese choice would change the quality of the sauce."

YIS,
Bronwen Ferq Lloid
butterflydeb915 at yahoo dot com

To seeth fresh salmon

2007-09-23T12:31:00.000-05:00

Good morrow, gentle friends: ye omble scribe Merouda Pendray greets you.

I do a lot of cooking on my own, just because I like to experiment with medieval cooking and I often find event offerings are not able to adequately meet either my curiosity, my desire for authenticity, or my dietary issues.

This fine fall afternoon I'm trying a salmon recipe cited in Lorna Sass's "To the Queen's Taste" and on Godecookery at http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/grec56.htm. In truth, I am essentially following the Godecokery redaction, except I have substituted bay leaves for parsley (as I have no parsley) and am using fresh herbs--bay, rosemary, thyme--from my garden. I have also cooked the fish on the stovetop, low fire, as it will make the house too hot to use the oven, and there's nothing in the original that states "put it in dish and cover it wH coles until it be done enow" or some such thing.

The sauce doesn't seem to affect the taste much. Essentially, there is not much difference in the taste from a decent brand of canned salmon. The flesh is a bit nicer in texture. But it's ready for a meal, and we'll see how it goes.

Also on the stove: turnip greens. I briefly glanced at Goodcokery for a turnip green receipt, and only found a mention that "women know how to cook that so I'm not putting it in my cookbook." So I grazed through my Platina and noted a couple of recipes for unspecified "herbs". The greens are on the stove now with a bit of sugar and olive oil, and I'm thinking a bit of mustard with the salmon, another dose of oil on the greens, and some rice might make a nice little late period supper for us. I'll edit this later to record how it all came out.

Edt, 3:17 PM

There's the meal. The salmon was fine with a subtle touch of mustard. The turnip greens were really, really bitter, and I spent some time digging through my period cookbooks looking for evidence of greens (spinach, potherbs, whatever, something other than cabbage [i.e., marry cabboges]) cooked with a milk/yogurt sauce in order to ease the bitterness, but most of my reputable sources only offered a butter sauce.

So, I cooked two pounds of turnip greens in a change of water, with the second change of water containing some sugar and some olive oil, based on two receipts in Platina, titled simply, "Brew."

Brew

Plunge herbs into boiling water and take them out again immediately and cut them up finely. When they have been cut up, then grind them in a mortar. When they are well pounded, let them boil until they are cooked, after adding sugar in the right amount.

Brew

Herbs are cut up and cooked as was said before, and simmered in rich juice either from meat or oil and butter.

Once the greens were boiled, I drained them and added butter. However, the bitterness was still so great that I ended up mixing the greens with the rice on the plate. The combination of the bitter, buttered herbs and bland rice was enough to make a reasonably tasty side dish, if not precisely what the receipt called for.

The beets are commercially prepared, added to the meal because I totally love beets and beets are period. ;-)

Suggestions for modifying this meal completely welcome. One of the things that will be apparent in my posts is that I have need to follow a modified fat, low-egg, low-soy regime, so many of my choices in redacting will be about cooking foods that are both recognizable to medieval person and tasty to a person who can't use egg yolks, should use olive oils or fat-free yogurts rather than butter, et cetera. This would be why I was looking for a herbs in a dairy sauce receipt, but the only thing I had to hand with lots of vegetables (cabbage, onions, spinach) in dairy sauce would be SALLETS, HUMBLES, & SHREWSBURY CAKES, hardly the best respected cookbook out there.

TTFN!

Moorish Eggplant

2007-09-14T12:44:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone!

I'm working on a feast (Calontir's Crown Tourney, Nov 3rd) which I've decided to do along a late period Spanish theme. I'm getting 90% of my recipes from De Nola. Which is why the recipe I suggested for this month just happens to be a De Nola recipe which also just happens to be on my feast menu. :) Funny how that happens! I'll be trying the Almondrote tonight.

Last night I redacted another one of my recipes. Here's the original:

52. MOORISH EGGPLANT
BERENJENAS A LA MORISCA
Peel the eggplants and quarter them, and their skins having been peeled, set them to cook; and when they are well-cooked, remove them from the fire, and then squeeze them between two wooden chopping blocks, so they do not retain water. And then chop them with a knife. And let them go to the pot and let them be gently fried, very well, with good bacon or with sweet oil, because the Moors do not eat bacon. And when they are gently fried, set them to cook in a pot and cast in good fatty broth, and the fat of meat, and grated cheese which is fine, and above all, ground coriander; and then stir it with a haravillo like gourds; and when they are nearly cooked, put in egg yolks beaten with verjuice, as if they were gourds.

And here's my redaction:

1 eggplant
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups veggie broth
4 oz grated cheese
1/2 tsp ground coriander
2 egg yolks
1 tsp white wine vinegar

Peel and chop the eggplant into rough chunks. Boil in water for 10-15 minutes, drain. Press eggplant between two cutting boards to remove excess water. Then mince fine.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, and add the eggplant. Fry on a medium or medium low heat for about 10-15 minutes and all the oil is absorbed. Put the eggplant in a sauce pan (or leave in the fry pan if it's got decently high sides) and add the coriander, broth, and cheese and bring to a simmer. Stir frequently and encourage the eggplant to fall apart further. Again, the liquid should absorb and/or evaporate. While cooking, whisk the egg yolks with the vinegar. Once it is all cooked throughly, and the eggplant is nice and mushy, add in the eggs and blend well. Serve warm.

This would serve 4 as a side dish, 2 hungry people, or a table of 8 in feast type circumstances.

I changed it to veggie broth instead of meat to ensure I had some vegetarian dishes, and I didn't add the extra fat for modern concerns/tastes. Plus, I'll have enough fat in the other dishes... Oy! De Nola does love his cheese and bacon. It was really good with a surprisingly mild flavor. I like it a lot. I will use a different cheese however. Since cheese is not a really good diet food, and I'm trying to lose weight, I don't have much in the house, and what I had was some Queso Blanco I bought for another recipe, and it really didn't work in this. It stayed like little cheesy semi-melted chunks and never really incorporated into the rest of the dish. I think I'd like to try it with a mix of Parmesan and mozzarella. Something nice and melty and something with a hint of a stronger flavor.

What do you think? Comments? Suggestions? Have a different redaction? I'd love to hear them!

-Gwen A'Brooke

October 2007 recipe, Almodrote que es Capirotada

2007-09-06T14:06:00.000-05:00

ALMODROTE QUE ES CAPIROTADA
42. ALMODROTE (31) WHICH IS CAPIROTADA (32)

You shall take partridges and after they have been well-plucked, put them between the embers; and when they have been there for the space of a Paternoster (33), take them out and clean everything off them, and roast them, and baste them sufficiently with your bacon fat; and when they are roasted, cut them as if to make portions of them, and then grate good cheese of Aragon that is fine; and take two whole heads of garlic roasted between the embers and then peel them very well and cleanly, and grind them in a mortar; and then put the cheese in the mortar, and resume grinding it all together; and while you are grinding them, cast a good spoonful of lard into the mortar, with some egg yolks, and grind it all together; and when it is all well-ground, blend it with good mutton broth that is half cooled, because if it were very hot it would consume the cheese; and then make slices of bread and toast them, and scrape off the burnt parts, and then scald or soak these toasted slices of bread with good mutton broth in an earthenware bowl or a deep plate; and then take them out and put them on a large plate, all around, in this manner: a layer of bread slices, and another of partridges, and in this manner fill up the plate with a platform of bread slices and another of partridges; and when the plate is full, cast the almodrote on top of it all and then take melted lard and scatter it over the plate.

This recipe is from "Libre del Coch", 1529, by Ruperto de Nola, English translation by Robin Carroll-Mann."

Welcome to the Cook-A-Long

2007-09-06T13:48:00.000-05:00

Greetings cooking enthusiasts!

The purpose of this blog is to provide a virtual kitchen, of sorts. With our virtual kitchen we can explore Medieval and Renaissance cooking texts, share out findings, tips, triumphs and even failers. The nice thing is we can do it at our liesure in the comfort of our home kitchens.

The plan is to have a new recipe posted each month (or every other month) and each of us will have that month to prepare this dish. You may work alone, in groups, as a guild, it is up to you. Please share what you have learned for this list is meant to serve as a teaching tool as we continue to grow in our culinary skills.

While we will have "official" recipes for each month, please feel free to share any redactions that you have been working on. As always, please include the original recipe, translation and which book/ article/ etc. that you got the recipe from, it's origins and original writer.

The comment section is open to everyone, but if you wish to be an author of this blog, please contact me privately so that you may be added.

Welcome!

Maestra Giovanna di Battista da Firenze (OL Pavilions, Cooking and Clothing)
Kingdom of Northshield
Barony of Nordskogen