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Pignolat2ways-art - 2/16/18

"Pignolat – Two Ways" by Lady Marie Hélène of the New Forest.

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This article was added to this set of files, called Stefan's Florilegium, with the permission of the author.

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Thank you,

Mark S. Harris...AKA:..Stefan li Rous

stefan at florilegium.org

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Pignolat – Two Ways

by Lady Marie Hélène of the New Forest

I saw a reference for pignolat in The Medieval Kitchen – Recipes from France and Italy. It was under the recipe ‘128. Fruit patties’ and it mentions that they couldn’t find a medieval recipe for pignolat; but that in the 16th century, Nostradamus mentions it as ‘a light nougat made with pine nuts’. I have found a partial recipe that has egg whites, which sounds like a nougat recipe and one for what is essentially a pine nut praline, and, while not a nougat, is the more “accepted” recipe for pignolat (which in French means ‘made with pine nuts’). There is also mention of pignolat on the Webpage Oldcook:Fruit in Medieval Europe:

‘Nuts (pine nuts, almonds, walnuts), they were also candied, else made into more elaborate confectionery, some ancestor sort of nougat: pignolat in France, pinyonada or torron in Catalonia, torrone or copeta in Italy.’¹

Pignolat de Nostredame or Nostradamus’ Pine Nut Pralines

From Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France

A quick, delicious treat for Passover!

2 cups pine nuts

2 cups sugar

2 tablespoons rose water

2 tablespoons crushed fennel seeds*

*Note: If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, the easiest way to crush the fennel seeds is to put them in a zip-top bag and bang them with the flat side of a measuring cup or a rolling pin.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Toast the pine nuts in the oven or in a sauté pan until they are dry and fragrant and lightly browned.

In a heavy-bottomed sauce pan, heat 1/2 cup water with the sugar and the rose water. Stir until the sugar is just dissolved and let cook over medium heat without stirring for 20 minutes or until the syrup reaches 250 degrees. Add the pine nuts and the crushed fennel seeds, and mix quickly with a wooden spoon until the sugar becomes white. Remove from the heat.

Using 2 teaspoons and working quickly, make small disks by dropping heaping teaspoons of the pine nut mixture on the lined baking sheets. Allow them to dry for a few hours before peeling them off of the paper and serving. The pralines can be decorated, as Nostradamus explains, with little pieces of gold leaf.

Yield: About 40 pinenut pralines (P)²

She doesn’t give an actual date for the recipe, but since it is ‘Nostradamus’ Pine nut Pralines’, it is a good assumption it at least dates back to the 16th century. This recipe is collaborated by the website called The Cultivated Life where in their March 3, 2012 article, they show a picture (several actually) from the event called “The Gothic Dessert Culinary Workshop at the Getty”. The article mentions the use of anise seed instead of fennel seed.³

The other recipe can be found as To make pine-nut candy (Pour faire le pignolat en roche) from The Good Cook: Candy by Time-Life Books.⁴

This is only a partial recipe, but it does follow the nougat recipe with the use of egg whites:

pine nuts

sugar

rose water

egg whites

According to the website, I will need to go to the original site or buy the book- so I went; instead, to The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook for a nougat recipe and using that recipe as a guide, I created this recipe for pine nut nougat:

1 cup pine nuts, toasted and chopped

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups light corn syrup (insurance vs crystallization)

1/4 cup water
2 egg whites

1 tsp rose water

1/2 tsp finely ground fennel seeds

1/2 cup butter

Heat the sugar, corn syrup and water in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently until it reaches 250ºF. In the meanwhile, beat egg whites to a stiff peak. Still beating, gradually pour in about a quarter of the sugar mixture. While still beating the egg white mixture, add the rose water, heat the remaining sugar mixture to 300ºF, then pour into the egg white mixture while it is still on high speed beating, and add the butter. With a wooden spoon fold in the pine nuts then spoon evenly into a parchment-lined baking pan. Let set at least 12 hours or overnight. With kitchen shears and a damp towel, cut into 1” pieces.

I believe, in time, I could find a more ‘medieval’ way to make this recipe.

References:

Books:

The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy Odile Redon, Franςoise Sabban, and Silvano Serventi

The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook

Website references:

¹http://www.oldcook.com/en/medieval-fruit

² http://joannathan.com/recipe/pignolat-de-nostredame-or-nostradamus-pine-nut-pralines

³ http://thecultivatedlife.wordpress.com/2012/03/03/hippocras-and-krapfen-or-be-still-my-ancient-heart/

⁴ http://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/recipes/520866/to-make-pine-nut-candy

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Copyright 2017 by Sandi Rust. <feo2mouse at yahoo.com>. Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided the author is credited. Addresses change, but a reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that the author is notified of the publication and if possible receives a copy.

If this article is reprinted in a publication, please place a notice in the publication that you found this article in the Florilegium. I would also appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track which articles are being reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.