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hrjSaturday -- Two 15th Century Cookbooks
For breakfast, I pulled out the remaining batter from the Cheese Slices and heated up the wafer iron. Although my to-do list included a water recipe from TFCCB, the two aren't particularly similar other than including flour and egg. (The TFCCB recipe uses egg white while my Sent Sovi batter used yolks, so that's not actually a point of similarity.) I have learned that the secret to successful wafers is keeping the iron well oiled and having it very hot when you put the batter in. We ate the wafers with some of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
madbaker's orange marmelade.
I scaled back on my ambitions somewhat Saturday, since I'd felt a little ragged around the edges by the end of Friday. (Delightfully, though, I slept perfectly every night at the war. Better than I do at home. It was lovely.) I wanted to do a couple of smallish "tasting" dishes during the day and then focus on several (boringly similar) fruit dishes for dinner.
I began with a very old favorite:
Small Birds Y-stewed
Take smale byrdys, an pulle hem an drawe hem clene, an washe hem fayre, an schoppe of the leggys, and frye hem in a panne of freysshe grece ry3t wyl; than ley hem on a fayre linen clothe, an lette the grece renne owt; than take oynonys, an mince hem smalle, an frye hem on fayre freysshe grece, an caste hem on an erthen potte; than take a gode porcyon of canel, an wyne, an draw thorw a strynoure, an caste in-to the potte with the oynonys; than caste the bryddys ther-to, an lete hem boyle to-gederys y-now; than caste ther-to white sugre, an powder gyngere, salt, saffron, an serue it forth.
I really love how the flavors meld in this dish. As usual, I made it with a package of a half dozen coturnix quail. Sear the quail in a little oil in a large casserole then remove them and fry a finely minced onion in the same oil. Add the birds back, pour in some red wine (it doesn't have to cover, but it has to not cook dry) with cinnamon, cloves, mace, and (long) pepper. Let cook, covered, over a very low heat, until the birds are ready to fall apart (but aren't yet). At this point, I usually remove the birds when I add the ginger, salt, saffron, and a little (very little) sugar and then reduce the contents of the pot (cooking it uncovered) until it's very thick but still liquid. Then I add the birds back and turn them to make sure they get coated before serving.
This dish got served around for tastes around lunch time. I also took some off to the people sitting gate, and to the two merchants who had respectively provided the pot and the fire-box it was cooked in.
Alows de Beef or de Motoun
Take fayre Bef of the quyschons & motoun of the bottes, & kytte in the maner of Stekys; than take raw Percely, & Oynonys smal y-scredde, & 3olkys of Eyroun sothe hard, & Marow or swette, & hew alle thes to-geder smal; than caste ther-on poudere of Gyngere & Saffroun, & tolle hem to-gederys with thin hond, & lay hem on the Stekys al a-brode, & caste Salt ther-to; then rolle to-gederys, & putte hem on a round spete, & roste hem til they ben y-now than lay hem in a dysshe, & pore ther-on Vynegre & a lityl verious, & pouder Pepir ther-on y-now, & Gyngere, & Canelle, & a fewe 3olkys of hard Eyround y-kremyd ther-on; & serue forth.
This was one of those "process oriented" choices and I only planned to make a single roll. For the meat I used veal for scaloppini simply because it was cut to the right thickness already. Mince fresh parsley and about a quarter onion. Mash a cooked egg yolk. Mince my standard fat soruce: a slice of fatty bacon. Mix all together with some ginger, saffron, and salt. Spread the mixture on the slice of veal and roll it up into a sausage shape. I'm curious how the roll was intended to be spitted, since the spit needs to serve the dual purpose of holding the roll together and holding it over the fire. I punted by using several skewers sideways through it and then grilled it over coals until the meat was clearly cooked (and presumably the inside too).
Somehow I totally spaced on the post-grilling part of the recipe. Instead I simply sliced the roll into bite-sized pieces and passed it around. As a physical structure it wasn't very successful. I've done this one before at home and it wasn't entirely successful that time either. Definitely more experiments.
Strawberye
Take Strawberys, & waysshe hem in tyme of 3ere in gode red wyne; than strayne thorwe a clothe, & do hem in a potte with gode Almaunde mylke, a-lay it with Amyndoun other with the flowre of Rys, & make it chargeaunt and lat it boyle, and do ther-in Roysonys of coraunce, Safroun, Pepir, Sugre grete plente, pouder Gyngere, Canel, Galyngale; poynte it with Vynegre, & a lytil whyte grece put ther-to; coloure it with Alkenade, & droppe it a-bowte, plante it with the graynys of Pome-garnad, & than serue it forth.
Any excuse for strawberries! Usually I just slice the berries and cook them and worry about pureeing them later, but since this is all about the process, I actually put them through a strainer before cooking. I did cheat a smidge because I'd washed and hulled them at home and then frozen them in bags so they not only wouldn't spoil but could help chill the cooler. About 4 cups total including juice. So they were quite mushy to begin with, but they still took the better part of half an hour to sieve. The puree went into a pipkin with about an equal volume of almond milk. This time I made up my almond milk in single-dish amounts to avoid homogeneity problems. I brought the mixture up to a good simmer then made up a slurry of rice flour and spices (took a short cut by using powder douce) with water and stirred it into the strawberries. Added a small handful of currants. When it was thickened, I added a couple tablespoonfulls of vinegar and stirred it in well. A taste suggested a little more wouldn't go amiss so I think there was a total of about a quarter cup. Also a dab of butter for the "white grease". And I actually did garnish it with pomegranate seeds to serve (for dinner, although several people got special tastes during the afternoon).
Chyryoun
Take Chyryis, & pike out the stonys, waysshe hem clene in wyne, than wryng hem thorw a clothe, & do it on a potte, & do ther-to whyte grece a quantyte, & a partye of Floure of Rys, & make it chargeaunt; do ther-to hwyte Hony or Sugre, poynte it with Venegre; A-force it with strong pouder of Canelle & of Galyngale, & a-lye it with a grete porcyoun of 3olkys of Eyroun; coloure it with Safround or Saunderys; & whan thou seruyste in, plante it with Chyrioun, & serue forth.
The tedium of cherry pitting was broken by having the Treble Makers in camp to perform for the cooks. Having gone through the effort of sieving the strawberries, I decided to short-cut this one and cooked the cherries (in red wine), relying only on the cooking process to mush them up a bit. As with the preceding dish, I added a dab of butter for the "white grease" and made up a slurry of rice flour to add when hot. Also a good dollop of honey and similar volume of vinegar. (This dish worked nicely with an almost "sweet pickle" chemistry.) Add cinnamon and ginger and saffron. When otherwise done, beat up a couple of egg yolks then temper them with a little of the hot liquid before adding them to the dish and stirring thoroughly. At this point, it was removed away from the heat and the last thicking step was entirely on heat-momentum.
I also wanted to do a meat dish to serve at dinner as well as the two fruit dishes, so I made ...
Egredouncye
Take Porke or Beef, whether the lykey, & leche it thinne thwerte; then broyle it broun a litel, & then mynce it lyke Venyson; choppe it in sewe, then caste it in a potte & do ther-to Freyssh brothe; take Erbis, Oynonys, Percely & Sawge, & other gode erbis, then lye it vppe with Brede; take Pepir & Safroun, pouder Canel, Vynegre, or Eysel Wyne, Brothe an Salt, & let 3et boyle to-gederys, tylle they ben y-now, & than serue it forth rennyng.
While it would be interesting to see what sort of taste difference you get by broiling the meat before mincing it, since I was starting with stir-fry cut pork, I just started off by mincing it and browned it in its own fat in a pipkin. Then I added a minced onion (as an onion lover, I do appreciate medieval recipes that automatically call for onions!), chopped fresh parsley and basil (under the "erbis" allowance -- since I'd brought it for something else I didn't make), and dried sage, plus 2 cups of commercial pork broth and about half a cup of vinegar. Also (long) pepper, saffron, cinnamon, and salt. Although the original recipe doesn't explicitly mention a sweetener, the title calls for something (and parallel dishes add sugar) so of course I added about half a cup of sugar. After it had simmered long enough to cook the pork and the onions, I added some fresh bread crumbs as a thickener.
This is really really delicious.
Dishes on the TFCCB to-do list that weren't done (even by substitution): stewed beef, cold cream of almonds, boiled cream, pommes, poached eggs, applade ryall, payn perdue, crisps, apple fritters, froyse out of lent. (I actually had never meant to do all these dishes, it was just a list of things that I had ingredients to do if I wanted to.)
Dinner and clean-up as before. For after-dinner entertainment, we made spit-roasted eggs.
Hopefully someone else will provide the references for this amusing little trick, but here's my take on the process. It is essential to be able to control rotation of the egg, so you need to use a skewer that isn't round. The holes where the skewer goes in and out need to be as small as possible, not only to avoid having egg leak out but because of item #1. If the holes are too big, your spit won't have anything to grip on.
Other people's previous experiments had suggested that starting with a hot skewer was important to success (perhaps to cook the egg around the entry holes?) but I'm not so sure -- and trying to spit an eggshell with a red-hot skewer is a bit hazardous (asblondefeather found out. I seemed to have some success by gently but firmly twisting the point of my skewer into the large end of the egg until it broke through and then carefully pushing it straight through the other end of the shell.
Now here's the technique part. The egg contents are eventually going to expand. If they expand when the egg around the entry holes isn't cooked, most of your egg will leak out. Amusing, but unsuccessful. So you need to cook both ends of the egg first before you do the larger part. The narrow end is fairly easy, since that's the end away from you (and towards the fire). The tricky part is getting the large end (the one towards you) cooked. My technique involved fairly constant rotation and movement (it reminded me a lot of glass bead making). Keep the egg turning and make sure you get it far enough into the fire that the near end is getting heated up. Once the ends are sealed, then continue rotating the body of the egg over a heat source, turning constantly so that you're cooking it into the center fairly evenly. This means that when it expands sufficiently to crack the outer shell, you won't have egg explosion over everything. Using this technique, when the outer shell cracks, you can pretty much assume the interior is cooked. At that point remove it from the fire and start picking off the shell as it cools sufficiently. Eat it off the spit.
I got edible eggs three times out of five using this approach.
In addition to the egg-spitting, I did go out and wander around to see what else was going on outside the cooks' camp but failed to find anything that looked interesting to me.
For breakfast, I pulled out the remaining batter from the Cheese Slices and heated up the wafer iron. Although my to-do list included a water recipe from TFCCB, the two aren't particularly similar other than including flour and egg. (The TFCCB recipe uses egg white while my Sent Sovi batter used yolks, so that's not actually a point of similarity.) I have learned that the secret to successful wafers is keeping the iron well oiled and having it very hot when you put the batter in. We ate the wafers with some of
madbaker's orange marmelade.I scaled back on my ambitions somewhat Saturday, since I'd felt a little ragged around the edges by the end of Friday. (Delightfully, though, I slept perfectly every night at the war. Better than I do at home. It was lovely.) I wanted to do a couple of smallish "tasting" dishes during the day and then focus on several (boringly similar) fruit dishes for dinner.
I began with a very old favorite:
Small Birds Y-stewed
Take smale byrdys, an pulle hem an drawe hem clene, an washe hem fayre, an schoppe of the leggys, and frye hem in a panne of freysshe grece ry3t wyl; than ley hem on a fayre linen clothe, an lette the grece renne owt; than take oynonys, an mince hem smalle, an frye hem on fayre freysshe grece, an caste hem on an erthen potte; than take a gode porcyon of canel, an wyne, an draw thorw a strynoure, an caste in-to the potte with the oynonys; than caste the bryddys ther-to, an lete hem boyle to-gederys y-now; than caste ther-to white sugre, an powder gyngere, salt, saffron, an serue it forth.
I really love how the flavors meld in this dish. As usual, I made it with a package of a half dozen coturnix quail. Sear the quail in a little oil in a large casserole then remove them and fry a finely minced onion in the same oil. Add the birds back, pour in some red wine (it doesn't have to cover, but it has to not cook dry) with cinnamon, cloves, mace, and (long) pepper. Let cook, covered, over a very low heat, until the birds are ready to fall apart (but aren't yet). At this point, I usually remove the birds when I add the ginger, salt, saffron, and a little (very little) sugar and then reduce the contents of the pot (cooking it uncovered) until it's very thick but still liquid. Then I add the birds back and turn them to make sure they get coated before serving.
This dish got served around for tastes around lunch time. I also took some off to the people sitting gate, and to the two merchants who had respectively provided the pot and the fire-box it was cooked in.
Alows de Beef or de Motoun
Take fayre Bef of the quyschons & motoun of the bottes, & kytte in the maner of Stekys; than take raw Percely, & Oynonys smal y-scredde, & 3olkys of Eyroun sothe hard, & Marow or swette, & hew alle thes to-geder smal; than caste ther-on poudere of Gyngere & Saffroun, & tolle hem to-gederys with thin hond, & lay hem on the Stekys al a-brode, & caste Salt ther-to; then rolle to-gederys, & putte hem on a round spete, & roste hem til they ben y-now than lay hem in a dysshe, & pore ther-on Vynegre & a lityl verious, & pouder Pepir ther-on y-now, & Gyngere, & Canelle, & a fewe 3olkys of hard Eyround y-kremyd ther-on; & serue forth.
This was one of those "process oriented" choices and I only planned to make a single roll. For the meat I used veal for scaloppini simply because it was cut to the right thickness already. Mince fresh parsley and about a quarter onion. Mash a cooked egg yolk. Mince my standard fat soruce: a slice of fatty bacon. Mix all together with some ginger, saffron, and salt. Spread the mixture on the slice of veal and roll it up into a sausage shape. I'm curious how the roll was intended to be spitted, since the spit needs to serve the dual purpose of holding the roll together and holding it over the fire. I punted by using several skewers sideways through it and then grilled it over coals until the meat was clearly cooked (and presumably the inside too).
Somehow I totally spaced on the post-grilling part of the recipe. Instead I simply sliced the roll into bite-sized pieces and passed it around. As a physical structure it wasn't very successful. I've done this one before at home and it wasn't entirely successful that time either. Definitely more experiments.
Strawberye
Take Strawberys, & waysshe hem in tyme of 3ere in gode red wyne; than strayne thorwe a clothe, & do hem in a potte with gode Almaunde mylke, a-lay it with Amyndoun other with the flowre of Rys, & make it chargeaunt and lat it boyle, and do ther-in Roysonys of coraunce, Safroun, Pepir, Sugre grete plente, pouder Gyngere, Canel, Galyngale; poynte it with Vynegre, & a lytil whyte grece put ther-to; coloure it with Alkenade, & droppe it a-bowte, plante it with the graynys of Pome-garnad, & than serue it forth.
Any excuse for strawberries! Usually I just slice the berries and cook them and worry about pureeing them later, but since this is all about the process, I actually put them through a strainer before cooking. I did cheat a smidge because I'd washed and hulled them at home and then frozen them in bags so they not only wouldn't spoil but could help chill the cooler. About 4 cups total including juice. So they were quite mushy to begin with, but they still took the better part of half an hour to sieve. The puree went into a pipkin with about an equal volume of almond milk. This time I made up my almond milk in single-dish amounts to avoid homogeneity problems. I brought the mixture up to a good simmer then made up a slurry of rice flour and spices (took a short cut by using powder douce) with water and stirred it into the strawberries. Added a small handful of currants. When it was thickened, I added a couple tablespoonfulls of vinegar and stirred it in well. A taste suggested a little more wouldn't go amiss so I think there was a total of about a quarter cup. Also a dab of butter for the "white grease". And I actually did garnish it with pomegranate seeds to serve (for dinner, although several people got special tastes during the afternoon).
Chyryoun
Take Chyryis, & pike out the stonys, waysshe hem clene in wyne, than wryng hem thorw a clothe, & do it on a potte, & do ther-to whyte grece a quantyte, & a partye of Floure of Rys, & make it chargeaunt; do ther-to hwyte Hony or Sugre, poynte it with Venegre; A-force it with strong pouder of Canelle & of Galyngale, & a-lye it with a grete porcyoun of 3olkys of Eyroun; coloure it with Safround or Saunderys; & whan thou seruyste in, plante it with Chyrioun, & serue forth.
The tedium of cherry pitting was broken by having the Treble Makers in camp to perform for the cooks. Having gone through the effort of sieving the strawberries, I decided to short-cut this one and cooked the cherries (in red wine), relying only on the cooking process to mush them up a bit. As with the preceding dish, I added a dab of butter for the "white grease" and made up a slurry of rice flour to add when hot. Also a good dollop of honey and similar volume of vinegar. (This dish worked nicely with an almost "sweet pickle" chemistry.) Add cinnamon and ginger and saffron. When otherwise done, beat up a couple of egg yolks then temper them with a little of the hot liquid before adding them to the dish and stirring thoroughly. At this point, it was removed away from the heat and the last thicking step was entirely on heat-momentum.
I also wanted to do a meat dish to serve at dinner as well as the two fruit dishes, so I made ...
Egredouncye
Take Porke or Beef, whether the lykey, & leche it thinne thwerte; then broyle it broun a litel, & then mynce it lyke Venyson; choppe it in sewe, then caste it in a potte & do ther-to Freyssh brothe; take Erbis, Oynonys, Percely & Sawge, & other gode erbis, then lye it vppe with Brede; take Pepir & Safroun, pouder Canel, Vynegre, or Eysel Wyne, Brothe an Salt, & let 3et boyle to-gederys, tylle they ben y-now, & than serue it forth rennyng.
While it would be interesting to see what sort of taste difference you get by broiling the meat before mincing it, since I was starting with stir-fry cut pork, I just started off by mincing it and browned it in its own fat in a pipkin. Then I added a minced onion (as an onion lover, I do appreciate medieval recipes that automatically call for onions!), chopped fresh parsley and basil (under the "erbis" allowance -- since I'd brought it for something else I didn't make), and dried sage, plus 2 cups of commercial pork broth and about half a cup of vinegar. Also (long) pepper, saffron, cinnamon, and salt. Although the original recipe doesn't explicitly mention a sweetener, the title calls for something (and parallel dishes add sugar) so of course I added about half a cup of sugar. After it had simmered long enough to cook the pork and the onions, I added some fresh bread crumbs as a thickener.
This is really really delicious.
Dishes on the TFCCB to-do list that weren't done (even by substitution): stewed beef, cold cream of almonds, boiled cream, pommes, poached eggs, applade ryall, payn perdue, crisps, apple fritters, froyse out of lent. (I actually had never meant to do all these dishes, it was just a list of things that I had ingredients to do if I wanted to.)
Dinner and clean-up as before. For after-dinner entertainment, we made spit-roasted eggs.
Hopefully someone else will provide the references for this amusing little trick, but here's my take on the process. It is essential to be able to control rotation of the egg, so you need to use a skewer that isn't round. The holes where the skewer goes in and out need to be as small as possible, not only to avoid having egg leak out but because of item #1. If the holes are too big, your spit won't have anything to grip on.
Other people's previous experiments had suggested that starting with a hot skewer was important to success (perhaps to cook the egg around the entry holes?) but I'm not so sure -- and trying to spit an eggshell with a red-hot skewer is a bit hazardous (as
blondefeather found out. I seemed to have some success by gently but firmly twisting the point of my skewer into the large end of the egg until it broke through and then carefully pushing it straight through the other end of the shell.Now here's the technique part. The egg contents are eventually going to expand. If they expand when the egg around the entry holes isn't cooked, most of your egg will leak out. Amusing, but unsuccessful. So you need to cook both ends of the egg first before you do the larger part. The narrow end is fairly easy, since that's the end away from you (and towards the fire). The tricky part is getting the large end (the one towards you) cooked. My technique involved fairly constant rotation and movement (it reminded me a lot of glass bead making). Keep the egg turning and make sure you get it far enough into the fire that the near end is getting heated up. Once the ends are sealed, then continue rotating the body of the egg over a heat source, turning constantly so that you're cooking it into the center fairly evenly. This means that when it expands sufficiently to crack the outer shell, you won't have egg explosion over everything. Using this technique, when the outer shell cracks, you can pretty much assume the interior is cooked. At that point remove it from the fire and start picking off the shell as it cools sufficiently. Eat it off the spit.
I got edible eggs three times out of five using this approach.
In addition to the egg-spitting, I did go out and wander around to see what else was going on outside the cooks' camp but failed to find anything that looked interesting to me.
