rec-AFCF-art - 9/17/97 The recipes from Aethelmearc’s First Crown Feast. NOTE: See also the files: feasts-msg, feast-ideas-msg, feast-decor-msg, Fst-Menus-art, fst-disasters-msg, headcooks-msg, kitchen-clean-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This article was submitted to me by the author for inclusion in this set of files, called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org Copyright to the contents of this file remains with the author or translator. While the author will likely give permission for this work to be reprinted in SCA type publications, please check with the author first or check for any permissions granted at the end of this file. Thank you, Mark S. Harris...AKA:..Stefan li Rous stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ The recipes for Aethelmearc’s First Crown Feast. Please note: The Large Sotelties are prepared by the team of Master Dyfan ap Iago from our Northern Neighboring Shire, Sterlynge Vayle and our own Lord Ragnar Keitelsson and Lady Rowan of Ashebrook. Many of the Crown Dishes will be prepared by cooks from throughout the Kingdom-to-be. Most notable are the contents of the Third Course (the dessert course), all of which are donated by the Cooks of Aethelmearc and the Known World. Please enjoy these recipes in the spirit they are offered---in peace and with the kind support of those around the cooking staff who have washed dishes and humored us in the hopes that we would survive until the next time. Lady Aoife Finn of Ynos Mon AND the Cook’s Guild of Endless Hills. Pickled Lemons (adapted from Preserved Orenges, Dawson, and A Sallet of Lemons from A book of Fruits and Flowers, and various anecdotal evidence such as Elizabeth Ayreton’s Food in Briton, etc.). This recipe copyright 1997 by L. Herr-Gelatt. 2 blemish-free lemons Juice and zest of 1 lemon (no white) 1 cup white wine (sweet, like Rhine wine) 1 c. sugar 1/3 cup vinegar (I used home-made costmary/lemon verbena vinegar) Cut a small round hole in the 2 lemons the size of the end of your little finger. Remove the piece of peel. Insert a paring knife into the hole and give it several twists to loosen and break the membranes. Insert little finger and press gently against the flesh to try and loosen any pits. Remove the pits that fall out, and reserve the draining lemon juice for syrup, below. Gently bring to boil 1 quart of water in a suacepan. Lower lemons into the pan and boil rapidly 5 minutes. Remove and drain. Repeat 3 more times with fresh water (it is more efficient to have a pan heating while boiling in another). Drain them well. In a separate saucepan combine remaining ingredients (and the drained lemon juice from above). Bring to a boil to combine, and turn off heat. When lemons have been boiled in the 4 changes of water, put them (drained) into the wine-syrup mixture and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer approx. 15 minutes or until syrup volume has reduced by 1/3-1/2. Cool. Remove lemon zest and reserve for another use (it is now candied). Store in an airtight container. Slice lemons thinly or dice and use pieces in salads. A Grande Sallet (adapted from T. Dawson, The Good Huswife’s Jewel, 1596) To Make a Sallet of all kinde of hearbes Take your hearbes and pick them very fine into faire water, and picke your flowers by themselves, and washe them al cleane, and swing them in a strainer, and when you put them into a dish, mingle them with Cowcumbers or Lemmons pared and sliced, and scrape Suger, and put in vinegar and Oyle, and throwe the flowers on the toppe of the sallet, and of every sort of the aforsaide things, and hard egges boyled and laide about the dish and uppon the sallet A Grande Sallet 2 heads loose-leaf lettuce (red bib is pretty), washed and torn 1 large bunch dill, roughly chopped 1 large bunch Chives, roughly chopped 1 cucumber, pared and sliced 1 pickled lemon, diced finely, with 1/4 cup syrup reserved 2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered for garnish Marigold, Nasturtium or rose petals (or any edible flower), washed and white pith removed. Red wine vinegar Olive oil Toss the washed lettuce, chopped herbs, sliced cucumber, and diced lemon. Put into the serving dish. Arrange hard-boiled eggs and flower petals in a pretty pattern. Sprinkle with the lemon syrup, red-wine vinegar and oil to taste (or, mix these to taste, and then pour gently over). Serve immediately. 8-10 servings. Roasted Pork Whole bone-in pork loin was smeared with a mixture of the following: Fennel seed, Pepper, Salt, Garlic powder, onion powder, cilantro. Pork was refrigerated to incorporate the flavor, and then roasted until done. Savory Toasted Cheese--with many thanks to Master Dyfan ap Iago and the cooks of SCA-COOKS for the “Cheese Goo” recipes, and to Lord Valerie Killmister who is preparing this dish for Crown. 1 round Loaf of bread sliced in 1/2 1/2 lbs Cream Cheese 1/4 lbs Brie 2 Tbs of Butter 3 Tbs of onion finely chopped 1 Thin Slice of Ham (optional) In double boiler melt 1 Tbs of the butter, Cream Cheese, Brie. Blend until smooth and creamy. Saute onions in the remaining butter, drain off butter then add to melted Cheese, stir. Spread over the 2 rounds of the bread, place Ham strips or (design) on top. Place in a broiler until Cheese is toasted 2-3 min. Let cool till it is safe to eat (melted cheese burns your mouth and hands). Basic recipe from Dyfan The original recipe for Renaissance Applesauce: From The Goode Huswife's Jewel by Thomas Dawson, 1596: To Make Apple Moyse Roste your apples, and when they be rosted, pill and straind them into a dish, and pare a dozen of apples and cut them into a chafer, and put in a little white wine and a little butter, and let them boil till they be as soft as Pap, and stirre them a little, and straine them to some wardens rosted and pilled and put in some Suger, Synamon, and Ginger, and make Diamonds of Paste, and lay them in the Sunne, then scrape a little Suger uppon them in the dish. In modern terms: Take pie crust dough and cut it into 4 inch square diamond shapes. Bake these in the oven (according to package directions) until crisp. Sprinkle sugar on them as they come out of the oven. Roast 6 apples and 6 pears in the oven (roast them whole) until soft (about 350 degrees, and I suggest you put 1/2 cup of water in the dish to speed things up a bit, and cover them with foil). Meanwhile, peel and core and slice 6 more apples. Put the slices in a large pot, add 1/2 cup white wine, 1/4 cup of butter, and 1/2 cup of sugar. Cook these covered, and stir occasionally, over low heat until very soft (the slices will break apart somewhat. That's OK. You're making fancy applesauce). When soft, take them off the heat and put them aside. When the apples and pears in the oven are soft, cool them a little to make them easy to handle. Take off the peels gently, take out the cores, and put them into a strainer (colander) Hold this over your pot with the wine/apple slices. Mash the apples and pears through the strainer into the pot. (A redaction note: I found the pears (I used Bosc) hard to mash and had to whirl them in the food processor. The pears have been left out for this feast version: Instead a combination of apples were used---Empire (a Macintosh Highbrid) for tartness, Granny Smith for High Apple Flavor, and Cortland for sweetness, rich color, and resistance to excessive browning ). Add 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon and 1/4 tsp. Ginger. I added a dash of nutmeg, which was not in the original. Mix well. Cool. Put into a fancy bowl. When ready to serve, top with your pastry "diamonds" To make a Tarte of Spinadge , The Good Huswife’s Jewel, T. Dawson 1596 Take spinadge and seeth it stalk and all, and when it is tenderly sodden, take it off, and let it drayne in a Cullynder, and then swing it in a clowte, and stamp it and straine it with two or three yolkes of egges, and then set it on a chafin-dish of coales, and season it with butter and Suger, and when the paste is hardened in the Oven, put in this commode, strake it even. As this recipe was very bland, I “doctored” it, however the results justify the change! We baked the spinach custard rather than creating a stirred custard for convenience sake. 2-- 9-inch pie shells, prebaked 7-10 minutes 1--1 lb. spinach, washed and tough stems removed 1 medium sweet onion, sliced thinly and then roughly chopped 4 tbsp. butter 8 egg yolks 2/3 cup light cream 2/3 cup Romano or Parmesan Cheese, grated Salt and Pepper to taste Pre-bake the pie shells. While they are in the oven, plunge the spinach into boiling water for 3 minutes. Remove from heat, and then plunge into cold water. Drain very well. Wring out excess moisture with your hands by squeezing. Roughly chop the spinach. Saute the onion in the butter until transparent, and add this to the spinach. Lightly combine the egg yolks, cream and cheese. Toss with the spinach and divide this mixture between the pie shells. If desired, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake approx 30 minutes, or until egg is set. Protect the edges of the crust, if necessary, to prevent burning. To make a Tart of Parsneps and Scyrrets, from Martha Washington 1749, containing recipes from at least the previous century. Seeth yr roots in water& wine, then pill them & beat them in a morter, with raw eggs & grated bread. bedew them often with rosewater & wine, then streyne them & put suger to them * some juice of leamons, & put it into ye crust; & when yr tart is baked cut up & butter it hot, or you may put some butter into it, when you set it into ye oven, & eat it cold. Ye juice of leamon you may eyther put in or leave out at yr pleasure. We chose carrots for flavor and color, Scyrets (a white root resembling the shape and flavor of carrots) not being available. Besides, that makes the tarte red and white! The redaction (Redacted By Lord Ragnar Keitelson, Prepared by he and his Lady Wife Rowan of Ashebrook): 3/4 lb. carrots 3/4 lb. parsnips 2 c. wine 2 tbsp. butter 1/2 c. sugar 1/2 c. wine and/or rosewater 2 eggs 1 c. breadcrumbs 1 deepdish pie crust egg for glaze Peel and chop roots. Boil in 1 qt H2O and the 2 c. wine until soft. Mash roughly with 1 c. breadcrumbs, the eggs, the butter, melted, sugar, and rest of wine/rosewater. A rough texture here is fine. Put into pre-glazed pie crust (brush some of the egg across the bottom to prevent soggy crust), glaze top with remaining egg, put in pre-heated 400 degree oven for 50 mins. Beef and Game Pies--as posted on SCA-Cooks by Aoife “I've been reading about the "bastardized beef in the form of Red Deer", and have come to the conclusion that it was a common practice to marinate venison before cooking. When the Deer Population died out from over-hunting, (England) in period, the same method was applied to Beef in an attempt to mask the beef flavor. Apparently, it was met with varying levels of success. “I'll give the originals, which we followed fairly closely, from Martha Washington. Although it can be argued that she's "Not Period", I'd like to point out that the frontspage of the book says "Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery and Booke of Sweetmeats: being a Family Manuscript, curiously copied by an Unknown Hand in the Seventeenth Century, which was in her keeping from 1749, the time of her Marriage to Daniel Custis, to 1799, at which time she gave it to Eleanor Parke Custis, her Granddaughter, on the occaision of her marriage to Lawrence Lewis." This puts a great many of the recipes within our grasp (whatever date we individually decide our "grasp" is), and it is fairly clear to me that some of these recipes are indeed direct from England during our period---otherwise why on earth would someone in the colonies want to fake "Red Dear" when venison was so readily available here? I have chosen to use recipes that have strong elements of other period practices, and it was my job to sort this out for myself before presenting these recipes for redaction. This discussion could take long hours to resolve, so I'll just go right to the recipes.” “To Make Red Dear of Beef “ rcpt 48 “First take a piece of young buttock of beefe & larde it. Yn season it wth nutmegg, ginger, pepper & salt. Yn lay it in calrret wine, & a little wine vinegar for a day or two, then put it in a coarse paste with a good deale of butter, & when you set it into ye oven, put in the vinegar & let it be well soaked. A neats tongue soe seasoned is excellent good meat, & allsoe veal.” “Another Way To Make Beef Like Red Deare” rcpt 49 “Take a piece of ye clod of beefe next ye legge & cut ye sinews from it; then put it in a clean cloth & beat it extremely; yn lard it very well, & season it with nutmegg, pepper, & salt; then lay it on a clean dish & pour upon it halfe a pinte of white wine & as much wine vinegar. let it lye insteepe al night, & ye next day poure away ye vinegar & wine. put ye meat in a round coffin of paste crust & lay s or 3 bay leaves under and as many above it. put in a store of butter, & let it stand 6 hours in ye oven. make a hole in ye lid & fill it up with butter when it comes out of ye oven.” “Redaction Experiments made by Sigurd.” “Now, we adulterated these recipes slightly for several reasons: I have a small supply of real venison, enabling me to put some in each pie. So we used approx.2 lbs beef and 1 lb venison, which we cut up to mingle. Then we followed the recipes as we chose: Claret is a sweet wine, so it makes an excellent marinade. We added nutmeg, ginger, salt, pepper, and red wine vinegar. The meat needs to be wrung out fairly dry before putting into the pastry. Bay leaves go above and below it, as stated--we used 6-8 fresh ones.It is then dotted with 2 tbsp. butter and a little vinegar poured on (we used my own herbed vinegar, but red-wine vinegar would do). We made a hot-water pastry with whole wheat flour, butter, salt, and hot water, and raised a coffin to put the meat in (it took about 1 1/2 lbs flour). This type of pastry hardens when cool but uncooked (reminiscent of play-doh), enabling the filled crust to stand alone like a semi-soft box (coffin) with a lid. Had it been left to chill it would have hardened. It was baked at 350 for about 1 1/2 hours, and was quite juicy and wondeful. When we do this for real, we'll give it a longer marinade time. It only had 2 hours due to time constraints.” “To Season a Venison Pasty” rcpt 51 “Take out ye bones & turn ye fat syde down upon a board. Yn take ye pill of 2 leamons & break them in pieces as long as yr finger & thrust them into every hole of yr venison. then take 2 ounces of beaten pepper & thrice as much salt, mingle it, then wring out ye juice of leamon into ye pepper & salt & season it, first takeing out ye leamon pills haveing layn soe a night. then paste it with gross pepper layd on ye top & good store of butter or mutton suet.” “Redaction experiments by Lord Valerie Killmister. This is straight forward and quite tasty: we again mixed small chunks of beef and venison in a (pounds) 2:1 proportion. We seasoned with a marinade of fresh lemon peel, lemon juice, salt--we used rather less than called for--and pepper. This sat about 4 hours. Again, it needs to be wrung out (pressed) pretty throroughly, as the meat/ venison retained much of the marinade. Again, we raised a wheat coffin and put in the meat mixture, and sprinkled with pepper and lemon zest rather heavily, a sprinkle of lemon juice, and dotted with about 2 tbsp. butter before closing the pastry. It was baked the same as the above pie. This one was my favorite.” “I'd like to note that these redacted recipes are the creation of the cook's guild of Endless Hills, and not specifically my own. I had a hand in supervising (and tasting!), but some of these were made by novices, with truly wonderful results. They did a fabulous job....some of them were redacting for the very first time.” “'Raising coffins' also belongs to another discussion another day, but for those who have not tried hot-water pastry, I urge you to experiment. Imagine making pastry without any flour flying all over the counter/floor/cook! You don't need pie plates (which render your creations "tarts" and not pies), and the contents of the pies are generally denser and more satisfying (at least to my brit-blood palate). Besides, they're fun to make, thus appealing to the kitchen hands who're looking a little bored.” White Torta (Ginger Cheesecake) as featured in Tournaments Illuminated Spring 1993, Issue #106, based on two White Torta recipes, from On Honest Indulgence, and Epullario. Cheese Filling: 24 oz. Ricotta cheese 12 egg whites 2 c. sugar 3/4 lb. softened butter 1/2 c. milk 1 2-inch piece of ginger root, peeled and chopped fine dash of rosewater 2 9-inch pie shells, pre-baked Variations: add any of the following: 2 tbsp. cinnamon, or 2 pinches saffron, or 1/4 cup liqeur Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. While pre-heating, beat Ricotta with mixer or whisk until smooth. Add sugar and beat again until smooth and light. Blend in the butter and milk. Add ginger (and other flavorings if desired). Beat egg whites untill stiff. Fold into cheese mixture. Add a dash of rosewater. Fill pie shells and bake for approx. 45 minutes (or until center is firm). Chill well before serving. Note: we topped with a red sugar “escarbuncle”. Edited by Mark S. Harris rec-AFCF-art 7 of 7