Coronet and stuff
Apr. 8th, 2012 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjSince the wafer recipe I planned to use for my drive-by wafering was from Le Menagier de Paris I thought I'd poke around in there for some other dishes to try for dinner. (I thought briefly of taking the open-fire cooking kit just for fun but thankfully decided it wasn't a good idea for any event where I didn't have cooking-company.) Le Menagier is a bit unbalanced in its food coverage, but I cobbled together some interesting things to try. The section on "Green Porray" (basically: a mess of greens) is rather good on the theme-and-variations side, so rather than sticking to any particular recipe I took an idea from here, an ingredient from there and came up with:
Green Porray
Take spinach, cut up and fry with bacon, then cook it in a little broth and serve with grated cheese. (I had a bag of spinach in the fridge, which was the inspiration for this.) In more detail: Mince one slice bacon and start cooking in a frying pan. Chop and add several handfuls of washed spinach and saute until limp. Add a few spoonfulls of broth -- not enough to make a soup, just enough so it's moist. Put it in a serving dish and grate hard cheese over it. This was really delicious.
I was planning to try the "random spontaneous dinner guests" thing (which didn't work out) so I thought I'd try a couple of meat dishes. The ones I picked had the advantage that both involved a first step of boiling, so I could cut down the number of pots involved (although it meant a bit of "averaging" the recipes).
Mouton au Jaunet
Take pieces of mutton (I used lamb, of course) and cook it in water then grind some ginger and saffron and moisten it with verjuice, wine, and vinegar. More specifically: cook chunks of kebab lamb in half-and-half water and white wine (this was from the requirements of the next recipe). Remove and drain then cut into bite-size pieces. (I didn't want to chop them too small during the first cooking step because it would have been harder to separate the two sets of ingredients.) Grind a pinch of saffron (I always grind my saffron with a little salt to make the grinding more even) with some ginger. Add a splash each of vinegar and white wine to dissolve the spices then add to the lamb. Cook over a low heat while tossing the pieces so they're all coated with the spices. I used enough saffron to really color the lamb (which seems to be implied by the name of the dish) which was also enough that you could actually taste the saffron. The finishing technique worked well for distributing the flavors, but the meat itself was really dry and a bit boring. I don't think that was a matter of not adding enough liquid for the last step -- I think the meat needed to be a bit more fatty. Try it with stewing lamb rather than kebab cubes.
Brouet de Chapons
Cook a capon in water and wine, then dismember it and fry it in grease. (I skipped the frying step due to an insufficiency of pans.) Then grind the guts and livers of your capon with almonds (not having guts and livers, I just used ground almonds) and moisten them with your broth and boil. Then take ginger, cinnamon, cloves, galingale, long pepper, and grain of paradise and moisten them with vinegar and boil. And to serve it forth, put the solid part out into bowls and pour the pottage onto it. As I made it: Quarter a game hen (to fit the pan better when boiling) and cook in half-and-half water and white wine until done. Remove the chicken pieces and set aside. Take an appropriate amount of the remaining broth and add enough ground almonds to thicken into a sauce. Add powder fort to taste (my standard powder fort is roughly equivalent to the list of spices as given) and a splash of vinegar. Simmer until thickened then pour over the chicken parts in the serving dish. This was quite delicious, especially as the chicken was cooked to the point of nearly dissolving. For camping practicalities, it ends up essentially being a one-pot dish.
There was another recipe that caught my eye that I wanted to try:
Soubtil Brouet d'Angleterre (A delicate English brewet)
Take peeled and cooked chestnuts and as much or more of hard yolks of eggs or pork liver (I skipped the pork liver). Bring all together, moisten with warm water, then put through a strainer. Then grind ginger, cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise, long pepper, galingale, and saffron to give color and set them to boil together. In my version: Take 4 cooked egg yolks and an equal volume of cooked chestnuts and grind in a mortar. (I had to grind them separately since my mortar only holds about a cup total -- and less when you're grinding.) I did the moistening with the broth from my chicken/lamb dish since I had extra available. Unfortunately I don't have a strainer in my camp kit (need to add one) and the dish would have been greatly improved by being able to sift out the lumps (and regrind them). I again used my pre-made powder fort, with the addition of a pinch of the saffron/ginger mix I prepared for the lamb dish. I boiled it until it wouldn't thicken any more and probably added too much liquid to start because it was a bit more soupy than seemed the intention. (The leftovers set up a bit more overnight.) As I note above, it would have been improved by achieving the intended smooth texture. Overall it seemed a bit bland (or is that "subtle"?) and a bit too similar in spicing to the other things I made to provide a nice balance. But worth playing with some more.
The other recipe I intended to do was for Saturday breakfast:
Arboulastre (herb omelette)
Take [an assortment of herbs and greens], wash, dry, and grind them in a mortar. Beat some eggs and add them to the herbs. Heat butter in a frying pan and spread your eggs in the pan, turning them often over and over with a spatula, then put grated cheese on top. (The menagier took a lot more words to say this.) Despite having put "pick fresh herbs" on my packing list, I managed to forget that entirely, but the original list had included spinach and since I had that for the other dish, I ended up with a spinach-only omelette. I skipped the bit about grinding the herbs in a mortar and simply chopped the spinach finely then mixed into the beaten eggs. Cook in butter and grate cheese over the top when they're almost cooked. What's not to like? I'd still like to try it with a bigger variety of greens.
Gauffres
The drive-by wafering worked out very well. I used Scully's interpretation of one of the Menagier wafer recipes (increased 1.5x): beat 6 eggs, mix in 1.5 tsp salt, 3 tbsp sugar, 6 tbsp dessert wine, 3-4 tsp oil. Add a scant cup flour, a little at a time, until it's a runny paste. (Since I made the batter on Friday, it was important to re-mix it Saturday night when I was getting things prepared, because the flour settled out.)
My wafer set-up was as follows:
wafer iron & potholder
small container of cooking oil with brush
pitcher of batter
plate
(not in the original description, but for fun) small pots of lemon curd, spiced plum goo, and devonshire cream with spreaders
all set up on a small folding table. Since my wafering technique is to heat the iron then cook the wafer with only the residual heat, my needs in terms of fire space were minimal: just a reasonably hot place to stick the iron. The rhythm went something like: remove the iron from the fire, open while holding one of the handles so that side of the iron was flat, pour a little batter in the middle of the iron, close the other half and hold together until the steam stops escaping, open the iron and peel the wafer off onto the plate, put the iron back in the fire to heat while spreading filling on the wafer and delivering it to the recipient. Oil the iron every 4-5 wafers. I'd brought both of my wafer irons but only used the iron one -- and I wouldn't have been any more productive with more irons since there wasn't any real delay waiting for the iron to heat the way I was doing it. The hardest part of the process was convincing people to put in their requests, but they got the hang of it eventually. Lemon curd was the favorite. (I believe this was Gianetta's lemon curd I was using -- she gave me a pot as a housewarming present.)
People really seemed to like the fireside wafering -- I could definitely see doing it again. If so, it might be nice to set up a more stable working surface for the equipment. (The first thing I did was knock over my pot of plum goo and I was constantly afraid I was going to knock over the oil container.) But using the folding tray table worked well otherwise since it was a good working height. I didn't really count how many wafers I made -- the recipe estimated 45 which might have been about right. Probably about the right size batch for the future since it felt like the gimmick had reached its limit about the time I used up the batter. (Also, for some reason the way I was holding the wafer iron ended up pinching a nerve in my index finger so I a temporary numb patch at the moment. So I need better ergonomics if I'm going to do more.)
Green Porray
Take spinach, cut up and fry with bacon, then cook it in a little broth and serve with grated cheese. (I had a bag of spinach in the fridge, which was the inspiration for this.) In more detail: Mince one slice bacon and start cooking in a frying pan. Chop and add several handfuls of washed spinach and saute until limp. Add a few spoonfulls of broth -- not enough to make a soup, just enough so it's moist. Put it in a serving dish and grate hard cheese over it. This was really delicious.
I was planning to try the "random spontaneous dinner guests" thing (which didn't work out) so I thought I'd try a couple of meat dishes. The ones I picked had the advantage that both involved a first step of boiling, so I could cut down the number of pots involved (although it meant a bit of "averaging" the recipes).
Mouton au Jaunet
Take pieces of mutton (I used lamb, of course) and cook it in water then grind some ginger and saffron and moisten it with verjuice, wine, and vinegar. More specifically: cook chunks of kebab lamb in half-and-half water and white wine (this was from the requirements of the next recipe). Remove and drain then cut into bite-size pieces. (I didn't want to chop them too small during the first cooking step because it would have been harder to separate the two sets of ingredients.) Grind a pinch of saffron (I always grind my saffron with a little salt to make the grinding more even) with some ginger. Add a splash each of vinegar and white wine to dissolve the spices then add to the lamb. Cook over a low heat while tossing the pieces so they're all coated with the spices. I used enough saffron to really color the lamb (which seems to be implied by the name of the dish) which was also enough that you could actually taste the saffron. The finishing technique worked well for distributing the flavors, but the meat itself was really dry and a bit boring. I don't think that was a matter of not adding enough liquid for the last step -- I think the meat needed to be a bit more fatty. Try it with stewing lamb rather than kebab cubes.
Brouet de Chapons
Cook a capon in water and wine, then dismember it and fry it in grease. (I skipped the frying step due to an insufficiency of pans.) Then grind the guts and livers of your capon with almonds (not having guts and livers, I just used ground almonds) and moisten them with your broth and boil. Then take ginger, cinnamon, cloves, galingale, long pepper, and grain of paradise and moisten them with vinegar and boil. And to serve it forth, put the solid part out into bowls and pour the pottage onto it. As I made it: Quarter a game hen (to fit the pan better when boiling) and cook in half-and-half water and white wine until done. Remove the chicken pieces and set aside. Take an appropriate amount of the remaining broth and add enough ground almonds to thicken into a sauce. Add powder fort to taste (my standard powder fort is roughly equivalent to the list of spices as given) and a splash of vinegar. Simmer until thickened then pour over the chicken parts in the serving dish. This was quite delicious, especially as the chicken was cooked to the point of nearly dissolving. For camping practicalities, it ends up essentially being a one-pot dish.
There was another recipe that caught my eye that I wanted to try:
Soubtil Brouet d'Angleterre (A delicate English brewet)
Take peeled and cooked chestnuts and as much or more of hard yolks of eggs or pork liver (I skipped the pork liver). Bring all together, moisten with warm water, then put through a strainer. Then grind ginger, cinnamon, cloves, grains of paradise, long pepper, galingale, and saffron to give color and set them to boil together. In my version: Take 4 cooked egg yolks and an equal volume of cooked chestnuts and grind in a mortar. (I had to grind them separately since my mortar only holds about a cup total -- and less when you're grinding.) I did the moistening with the broth from my chicken/lamb dish since I had extra available. Unfortunately I don't have a strainer in my camp kit (need to add one) and the dish would have been greatly improved by being able to sift out the lumps (and regrind them). I again used my pre-made powder fort, with the addition of a pinch of the saffron/ginger mix I prepared for the lamb dish. I boiled it until it wouldn't thicken any more and probably added too much liquid to start because it was a bit more soupy than seemed the intention. (The leftovers set up a bit more overnight.) As I note above, it would have been improved by achieving the intended smooth texture. Overall it seemed a bit bland (or is that "subtle"?) and a bit too similar in spicing to the other things I made to provide a nice balance. But worth playing with some more.
The other recipe I intended to do was for Saturday breakfast:
Arboulastre (herb omelette)
Take [an assortment of herbs and greens], wash, dry, and grind them in a mortar. Beat some eggs and add them to the herbs. Heat butter in a frying pan and spread your eggs in the pan, turning them often over and over with a spatula, then put grated cheese on top. (The menagier took a lot more words to say this.) Despite having put "pick fresh herbs" on my packing list, I managed to forget that entirely, but the original list had included spinach and since I had that for the other dish, I ended up with a spinach-only omelette. I skipped the bit about grinding the herbs in a mortar and simply chopped the spinach finely then mixed into the beaten eggs. Cook in butter and grate cheese over the top when they're almost cooked. What's not to like? I'd still like to try it with a bigger variety of greens.
Gauffres
The drive-by wafering worked out very well. I used Scully's interpretation of one of the Menagier wafer recipes (increased 1.5x): beat 6 eggs, mix in 1.5 tsp salt, 3 tbsp sugar, 6 tbsp dessert wine, 3-4 tsp oil. Add a scant cup flour, a little at a time, until it's a runny paste. (Since I made the batter on Friday, it was important to re-mix it Saturday night when I was getting things prepared, because the flour settled out.)
My wafer set-up was as follows:
wafer iron & potholder
small container of cooking oil with brush
pitcher of batter
plate
(not in the original description, but for fun) small pots of lemon curd, spiced plum goo, and devonshire cream with spreaders
all set up on a small folding table. Since my wafering technique is to heat the iron then cook the wafer with only the residual heat, my needs in terms of fire space were minimal: just a reasonably hot place to stick the iron. The rhythm went something like: remove the iron from the fire, open while holding one of the handles so that side of the iron was flat, pour a little batter in the middle of the iron, close the other half and hold together until the steam stops escaping, open the iron and peel the wafer off onto the plate, put the iron back in the fire to heat while spreading filling on the wafer and delivering it to the recipient. Oil the iron every 4-5 wafers. I'd brought both of my wafer irons but only used the iron one -- and I wouldn't have been any more productive with more irons since there wasn't any real delay waiting for the iron to heat the way I was doing it. The hardest part of the process was convincing people to put in their requests, but they got the hang of it eventually. Lemon curd was the favorite. (I believe this was Gianetta's lemon curd I was using -- she gave me a pot as a housewarming present.)
People really seemed to like the fireside wafering -- I could definitely see doing it again. If so, it might be nice to set up a more stable working surface for the equipment. (The first thing I did was knock over my pot of plum goo and I was constantly afraid I was going to knock over the oil container.) But using the folding tray table worked well otherwise since it was a good working height. I didn't really count how many wafers I made -- the recipe estimated 45 which might have been about right. Probably about the right size batch for the future since it felt like the gimmick had reached its limit about the time I used up the batter. (Also, for some reason the way I was holding the wafer iron ended up pinching a nerve in my index finger so I a temporary numb patch at the moment. So I need better ergonomics if I'm going to do more.)
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Date: 2012-04-09 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-12 02:05 pm (UTC)love the drive by wafering!