rissoles-msg – 4/30/06
A stuffed, fried pastry or a dough mixed with various items and then fried.
NOTE: See also the files: frittours-msg, fried-foods-msg, pies-msg, fried-breads-msg, meat-pies-msg, pastries-msg, cooking-oils-msg.
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This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.
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Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 18:15:54 EST
From: Seton1355 at aol.com
Subject: SC - Rissoles on a Fish Day
Well, I redacted and Cooked my first recipe. Here it is:
Phillipa
volume II of Cariadoc's Collection of Medieval and Renaissance Cookbooks.
from Du Fait de Cuisine, trans. by Elizabeth Cook.
RISSOLES ON A FISH DAY
Cook chestnuts on a low fire and peel them and have hard cooked eggs and
peeled cheese and chop it all up small. Then pour on egg yolks and mix in
powdered herbs and a very little free running salt. And make your rissoles.
Then fry in lots of oil and add sugar.
NOTE: In Lent, instead of eggs & cheese put in cooked whiting & sciaena,
chopped very small or the flesh of pike and eel and chopped figs and dates.
Item: On ordinary days they can be made of figs, grapes, chopped apples, and
shelled nuts to mimic pignon nuts and powdered spices. And the dough should
be very well saffroned. Then fry them in oil
2 lbs chestnuts*1
3 hard boiled eggs
2 lbs peeled cheese - ie:gouda*2
3 egg yolks*
a large pinch of powdered herbs*3
a pinch of salt
enough oil to fry in
enough sugar to dust the end product
Cook chestnuts over low flame until soft (about 20 minutes) then peel.
Peel the cheese and peel the hard boiled eggs and chop them small.
Combine the cheese, chestnuts and eggs in a bowl large enough to mix in.
Add the raw egg yolks and the powdered herbs and the salt and mix well.
Make patties out of the mixture and fry in oil until golden.*4
Serve hot but before eating, dust with sugar,
*1 - Having no chestnuts I used "batata" a potato like root vegetable from
Mexico, They can be gotten from many supermarkets. It has a lighter, less
starchy taste than potato and is a good starch substitute for chestnuts.
*2 - For those of us that cannot eat dairy..... I used a cheese-like product
called "Rice Slice" gotten from my health food store. This stuff is very like
processed American cheese slices. It does not melt as smoothly as real
cheese, but, hey, when you are stuck for an ingredient.......
*3 - The powdered herbs I used were: thyme, basil, tarragon
*4 - This dish is meant to be pan fried, which I did with good results, BUT,
for me personally, frying gives me a heck of a stomach ache...so in future I
will lightly oil a cookie sheet and place it in a hot oven (400o) When the
cookie sheet gets hot, I will place the rissoles on the sheet, spray with
cooking spray and bake for about 12 - 15 minutes.
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 19:18:59 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Rissoles on a Fish Day
Seton1355 at aol.com writes:
<< Well, I redacted and Cooked my fist recipe. Here it is:
Phillipa
>>
I would like to begin by saying that I had the great privilege of tasting
this 'first' redaction by Lady Seton. It was in a word....wonderful. :-)
Lady S had asked the Guild if it would be willing to hold a meeting at her
home. Discussion revolved around research methods and sources for historical
information, etc. Toward dinner time, Lady S thought it would be fun to redact
a recipe so , this being my idea of fun also, I readily agreed. We opened up
Cariadoc'e book and ramdomly stabbed our finger at a recipe.
Due to lack of some ingredients and health concerns, we settled on the
substitutions mentioned in the recipe. One of the first questions that comes
to mind is why the 'batata'? Since we had no chestnuts and I had stopped at
Wegman's on the way to Bloomsburg, I just happened to have one in the car. I
remembered the texture was similar to chestnuts so i suggested using it
even though it is a New World plant.
The interesting thing about the substitution is that it worked better than we
thought it would. While sitting with Lady S and her family at the scrumptious
feast she generously provided, her 15 yr. old son, after eating one of the
rissoles asked for another commenting that they tasted like chestnuts. The
irony was that he had been working on a story up stairs the entire afternoon
and was unaware of what had transpired in the kitchen to make the dish. ;-)
All in all, I am pleased with this first attempt and would like to publically
welcome Lady Elizabeth Seton as my newest student and to the Guild of St.
Martha as a guild Apprentice. ;-)
Vivats to a great cook and a most gracious hostess!
Yours in Service to the Dream,
al-Sayyid A'aql ibn Rashid al-Zib, AoA, OSyc
Guildmaster
The Guild of St. Martha
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 17:35:07 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Rissoles on a Fish Day
Phillippa asked for comments on her try at rissoles on a fish day.
>RISSOLES ON A FISH DAY
>
>Cook chestnuts on a low fire and peel them and have hard cooked eggs and
>peeled cheese and chop it all up small. Then pour on egg yolks and mix in
>powdered herbs and a very little free running salt. And make your rissoles.
>Then fry in lots of oil and add sugar.
...
> Item: On ordinary days they can be made of figs, grapes, chopped apples,
>and
> shelled nuts to mimic pignon nuts and powdered spices. And the dough should
> be very well saffroned. Then fry them in oil.
(snip; this is part of her version):
>Make patties out of the mixture and fry in oil until golden.
>Serve hot but before eating, dust with sugar,
The recipe says "make your rissoles" but doesn't tell you how. Here is a
parallel recipe from a roughly contemporary English source:
Ryschewys Closed and Fried
Two Fifteenth Century p. 45/97
Take figs, and grind them small in a mortar with a little oil, and grind
with them cloves and maces; and then take it up into a vessel, and cast
thereto pines, saunders and raisons of corinth and minced dates, powdered
pepper, canel, salt, saffron; then take fine paste of flour and water,
sugar, saffron and salt, and make fair cakes thereof; then roll thine stuff
in thine hand and couch it in the cakes and cut it, and fold them in
ryshews, and fry them up in oil; and serve forth hot. [end of original;
spelling modernized]
Note that this recipe gives some detail to "making your rissoles" (I'm
assuming rissoles are the same thing as ryschews). You make a sweetened
flour-water dough flavored with saffron. You make "cakes" out of the dough,
put the filling in the cakes, cut it (?) and fold it the way you are
supposed to fold ryshews--I simply make a round flat piece of dough, put a
limp of filling on it, fold over and pinch the edges to seal. You then fry
this. Given that the "ordinary day" version of your recipe says, "And the
dough should be very well saffroned", I suspect the same thing is being
done here.
Elizabeth/Betty Cook
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 11:00:39 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Regarding the Size of Rissoles
To: Barbara Benson <voxeight at gmail.com>, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Also sprach Barbara Benson:
> It is always interesting when someone relatively new to the whole
> cooking gig starts playing with recipes. Especially when the recipe is
> one that you have worked with long enough to consider it a given.
>
> Whenever I have made rissoles for a feast I have used won ton wrappers
> for conveniences sake, but even when I have seen them done from
> scratch they always seem to be about that same size. This good gentle
> asked me why everyone makes them so small? He thinks that it is
> unnecessary extra work because you need to have at least 3 - 5 per
> person to have a serving. He wants to make them more the size of a egg
> roll so that 1 - 2 would be a meal.
>
> I think it is a very interesting idea - and my question here is
> weather or not anyone has seen anything in a period source that states
> or implies how big a rissole should be or was in period?
>
> Barring that, what size would you make them and why?
I'm not aware, offhand, of any dimensions given for rissoles in
recipes, although cuskynoles, which have been argued to be a variant
of rissoles, are measured at three fingers wide by a palm-and-a-half
long, which, using my hand, is about 2.5 inches by 5.5 inches. A
little larger footprint than an egg roll, but not much, and also
flatter, I suspect, so probably an approximately similar volume and
mass.
Other factoids to throw in the mix would be that whenever I've seen
rissoles used as an entree, an entree serving seems to be three or so
(in the Alec Guinness movie "The Captain's Paradise", a plate of
rissole, mash and, I believe, sprouts is something of a plot element,
and it's shown in close-up, although these are not, of course,
medieval rissoles), and then there's the consideration that there's
probably a practical size limitation on how much cold filling will
cook and/or reheat before the pastry burns in the frying oil. You can
adjust the oil temperature up to a point to address this, but there
are limits.
I'd make them about the size of a Scotch Egg, myself, and for me, the
preferred commercial wrapper is an empanada wrapper.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 08:07:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Pat <mordonna22 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] The size of Rissole
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Margaret asked:
> sorry to drag out inter-kingdom terminology again, but I had difficulty
> with this thread at first not realising that a 'rissole' might be
> something in pastry.
Hmmm, actually, Margaret, I am confused, too. Are we talking about a
Medieval Rissole?
I've found a couple of recipes for examples:
From "Apicius, The Roman Cookery Book" translated byFlowers and Rosenbaum"
(for brevity, I won't type in the original Latin)
Book II, I, 5
Rissoles, Another Method.
Put in a mortar pepper, lovage, and origan: pound: moisten with
liquamen, add cooked brains, pound thoroughly to dissolve lumps. Add
ive eggs, and beat well to work all into a smooth paste. Blend with
liquamen, place in a metal pan, and cook. When it is cooked, turn out
on a clean board and dice. Put in the mortar pepper, lovage, origan;
pound, mix together: Pour in liquamen nd wine, put in a saucepan and
bring to the boil. When boiling crumble in pastry to thicken, stir
vigorously, and pour in the serving-dish over the diced rissoles:
sprinkle with pepper and serve.
Which says nothing about a wrapper Apicius has many recipes for
rissoles, and none of them mention a wrapper.
and from Curye on Inglish,
190. Rysshews of fruyt. Take fyges and raisouns; pyke hem and waisshe
hem in wyne. Grynde hem wiþ apples and peeres ypared and ypiked clene.
Do þerto gode powdour and hole spices; make balles þerof, frye in
oile, and serue hem forth.
Rissoles of fruit. Take figs, and raisins: pick them, and wash
them in wine. Grind them with apples and pears, pared and picked
clean. Do thereto good powders and whole spices, make balls thereof,
fry in oil, and serve them forth.
Again, no mention of a wrapper.
This wrapped rissole may be a modern dish, but I am unfamiliar with it.
Pat Griffin
Lady Anne du Bosc
known as Mordonna the Cook
www.mordonnasplace.com
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:47:59 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] The size of Rissoles
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteora.org>
Also sprach Pat:
> Margaret asked:
>> sorry to drag out inter-kingdom terminology again, but I had difficulty
>> with this threa at first, not realising that a 'rissole' might be
>> something in pastry.
>
> Hmmm, actually, Margaret, I am confused, too. Are we talking about
> a Medieval Rissole?
> I've found a couple of recipes for examples:
>> From "Apicius, The Roman CookeryBook" translated by Flowers and
>> Rosenbaum"
> (for brevity, I won't type in the original Latin)
> Book II, I, 5
> Rissoles, Another Method.
> Put in a mortar pepper, lovage, and origan: pound: moisten with
> liquamen, add cooked brains, pound thorougly to dissolve lumps. Add
> five eggs, and beat well to work all into a smooth paste. Blend
> with liquamen, place in a metal pan, and cook. When it is cooked,
> turn out on a clean board and dice. Put in the mortar pepper,
> lovage, origan; pound, mix together: Pour in liquamen and wine, put
> in a saucepan and bring to the boil. When boiling crumble in pastry
> to thicken, stir vigorously, and pour in the serving-dish over the
> diced rissoles: sprinkle with pepper and serve.
>
> Which says nothing bout a wrapper Apicius has many recipes for
> rissoles, and none of them mention a wrapper.
Actually, Apicius never calls his dishes "rissoles"; it's his
translators who have indulged in some equivocation: Apicius calls
them exicia or isicia. Rissoles appear to be a French dish which has
long been loved by the English, and today, you find them more in
England than in France. Since the days of La Varenne, they're pretty
much always wrapped in a thin layer of shortcrust, and fried. In
fact, some modern culnary dictionaries define them as being the same
thing as a croquette, but for the pastry, which is, as far as they're
concerned, the distinguishing factor.
> and from Curye on Inglish,
> 190. Rysshews of fruyt. Take fyges and raisouns; pyke hem and
> waishe hem in wyne. Grynde hem wiÏ apples and peeres ypared and
> ypiked clene. Do Ïerto gode powdours and hole spices; make balles
> Ïerof, frye in oile, and serue hem forth.
>
> Rissoles of fruit. Take mushrooms, and raisins: pick them, and wash
> them in wine. Grind them with apples and pears, pared and picked
> clean. Do thereto good powders and whole spices, make balls
> thereof, fry in oil, and serve them forth.
>
> Again, no mention of a wrapper.
>
> This wrapped rissole may be a modern dish, but I m unfamiliar with it.
I believe the Form of Curye recipe to be an exception rather than the
rule.
Rissoles, whenever they're actually called by that name, as far as I
know, always have some kind of crust. Either by being deep-fried and
forming their own, or being wrapped in pastry of some kind before
being fried. Modernly, as far as I can tell, they're pretty much
analagous to samosas, with either a pre-cooked ragout-type filling,
say, something chopped in a sauce like a salmi of game or creamed
whatever, or else a light forcemeat filling like the stuff you make
quenelles out of (which would then be used raw, but cooked in the
frying process).
I suspect that, essentially, rysschews closed and fried, which used
to be one example of a family of dishes, has become the modern
default setting for all rissoles. My error for failing to make that
distinction when I mentioned a crust.
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:24:30 -0400
From: Daniel Myers <edouard at medievalcookery.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] The size of Rissoles
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
On Oct 13, 2004, at 11:07 AM, Pat wrote:
> Hmmm, actually, Margaret, I am confused, too. Are we talking about a
> Medieval Rissole?
> I've found a couple of recipes for examples:
>>
>> From "Apicius, The Roman Cookery Book" translated by Flowers and Rosenbaum"
> Book II, I, 5
> Rissoles, Another Method.
> [...snip...]
> Which says nothing about a wrapper Apicius has many recipes for
> rissoles, and none of them mention a wrapper.
>
> and from Curye on Inglish,
> 190. Rysshews of fruyt. Take fyges and raisouns; pyke hem and waisshe
> hem in wyne. Grynde [...snip...]
> Again, no mention of a wrapper.
>
> This wrapped rissole may be a modern dish, but I am unfamiliar with it.
How about this one?
Le Menagier de Paris (Janet Hinson, trans.)
RISSOLES ON A MEAT DAY are seasonable from St. Remy's Day (October 1).
Take a pork thigh, and remove all the fat so that none is left, then
put the lean meat in a pot with plenty of salt: and when it is almost
cooked, take it out and have hard-cooked eggs, and chop the whites and
yolks, and elsewhere chop up your meat very small, then mix eggs and
meat together, and sprinkle powdered spices on it, then put in pastry
and fry in its own grease. And note that this is a proper stuffing for
pig; and any time the cooks shop at the butcher's for pig-stuffing :
but always, when stuffing pigs, it is good to add old good cheese.
- Doc
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edouard Halidai (Daniel Myers)
http://www.medievalcookery.com/
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 16:47:27 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] The size of Rissoles
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Rissole has two seperate meanings. As a noun it refers to a pastry in Old
French deriving from the Vulgar Latin "russeola" meaning red paste. As a
verb or adjective (often with an accent over the final "e"), it refers to
browning being the past participle of the French "rissoler" (to brown) and
possible deriving from the earlier noun.
So the usage appears to move from the specific (the pastry) to the general
(the action of browning). One needs to be careful in considering
translations whether the translator is using the word as used at the time or
in its modern context.
Bear
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:46:09 +0200 (MEST)
From: "Kai D. Kalix" <kdkalix at gmx.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rissoles
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
I found the following;
Rissoles
Rissoles on a meat day be in season from St. Remy's day. Take a haunch of
pork and remove all the fat until none remaineth, then set the lean to cook
in a pot with plenty of salt; and when it is nearly done, take it off and
have eggs hard boiled and cut up very small, and mix the eggs and the meat
together and scatter spice powder over them, then make it into a paste and
fry in its own fat. And note that it is the right stuffing for a pig: and
sometimes cooks buy it from roasters in order to farce their pigs with it.
Natherless in stuffing a pig it is good to put good cheese in it.
Le Menagier de Paris, 1395
Is the term rissoles from Apicius a correct translation?
kai
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 19:27:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris Stanifer <jugglethis at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Regarding the Size of Rissoles
To: Bill Fisher <liamfisher at gmailcom>, Cooks within the SCA
<sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
--- Bill Fisher <liamfisher at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 09:09:05 +1000, Margart Rendell
> <m_rendell at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>> sorry to drag out inter-kingdom terminology again, but I had
>> difficulty
>> with this thread at first, not realising that a 'rissole' might be
>> something in pastry. So if US 'rissoles' are wrapped i pastry, what
>> would you call an Australian rissole: basically a large
>> meatball/roundish hamburger patty fried in a pan or grilled (I think
>> you'd say 'broiled')?
From what I can gather about the Rissole, in both period and modern texts, thee is no 'one true Rissole'. Some rissoles are composed of fruits or meat wrapped in pastry, some are fruits or meat mixed with a batter (very much like a fritter), and some are simply shredded/chopped/mashed ingredients formed into patties and fried.
In Le Menagier de Paris, 'Ordinary Rissoles' are composed of figs,
raisins, roasted apples and walnuts, formed into patties and fried in fat.
In all cases, however, the concoction seems to be browned in fat, and seems to support the notion that, regardless of size, a Rissole is anything which is browned in fat. It seems to be a very generic term, even in antiquity. Fr. rissoler (to brown in fat)
So, in this context, your 'Australian' beef patty could be construed to fit the description, as well. Thre is no precedent that all Rissoles need to be covered in pastry. Some were, and some weren't.
'Ordinary Rissoles' are included on my period menu for the first Saturday of Estrella, if anyone would care to sample them. Just drop by The Fray encampment anytime after sunset.
William de Grandfort
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:23:15 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rissoles
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
> Is the term rissoles from Apicius a correct translation?
> kai
The Latin term being used is "isicia," which I believe is being used to
describe a dish where the ingredients are ground together. Flower and
Rosenbaum translate this word as "rissole" and "forcemeat." I believe they
are trying to provide a clear, modern culinary description of the dish
rather than imbuing the word "rissole" with any historical connection to
Medieval rissoles.
It would be interesting in this instance to compare Milham's translation
with that of Flower and Rosenbaum.
Bear
<the end>