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. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. 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. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ 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 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Regarding the Size of Rissoles To: Barbara Benson , Cooks within the SCA 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 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] The size of Rissoles To: Cooks within the SCA 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 wiœ apples and peeres ypared and > ypiked clene. Do œerto gode powdours and hole spices; make balles > œerof, 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 Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] The size of Rissoles To: Cooks within the SCA 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] The size of Rissoles To: "Cooks within the SCA" 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" 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 Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Regarding the Size of Rissoles To: Bill Fisher , Cooks within the SCA --- Bill Fisher wrote: > On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 09:09:05 +1000, Margart Rendell > 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" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Rissoles To: "Cooks within the SCA" > 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 Edited by Mark S. Harris rissoles-msg Page 9 of 9