easy-p-recip-msg - 3/7/10

Some easy period recipes. Ideal for new cooks or for cooks new to period cooking.

NOTE: See also the files: Camp-Cooking-art, M-Camp-Cookng-art, cheese-msg, fruits-msg, cooking-msg, food-sources-msg, Medievl-Pasta-art, soup-msg, Tourny-Basket-art.

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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
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Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 11:03:15 -0500
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler at chesapeake.net>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Medieval cooking for non-cooks

Here are several recipes, from different periods.  The first is an Elizabethan
recipe, and the remainder are earlier--14th century or so.  If you have any
questions, let me know...they are all pretty simple.

A Carrot Sallad

1 # baby carrots
3 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp. chervil
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
4 tbsp. Salad oil
1/4 tsp. white pepper
1 lg. Sprig parsley

Scrub carrots and cut off green tops.  Bring water, salt, chervil to a boil in
a saucepan.  Add the carrots, cover the pot, and cook until the carrots are
tender but still crisp=97about 10 minutes.
In a deep bowl, mix together the vinegar, oil and pepper. Drain the carrots,
add them to the dressing and stir them until they are nicely coated.  Cover
the bowl and marinate the carrots in the dressing for at least an hour.

Wash the parsley in cold water, shake off the moisture, and snip off the
stems.  Make a rosette of the leaves in the center of a dinner plate.  Arrange
the carrots around the parsley like a sunburst, and pour a little of the
dressing over the carrots.

Original:  Carrets boyled and eaten with vinegar, Oyle, and Pepper serve for a
special good salad to stirre up appetite, and to puyrifie blood.  =96William
Vaughn, Directions for Health

Dining with William Shakespeare, Madge Lorwin.

33.  To make a syrosye.  Tak cheryes & do out the stones & grynde hem wel &
draw hem thorw a streynoure & do it in a pot. & do thereto whit gres or swete
botere & myed wastel bred, & cast thereto good wyn & sugre, & salte it & stere
it wel togedere, & dresse it in disches; & set thereyn clowe gilofre, & strew
sugre aboue.

33.  To make a syrose (cherry pottage).  Take cherries and stone them and
grind them well and draw them through a strainer and place it in a pot and add
white grease or sweet butter and good white bread and add good wine and sugre
and salt, and stir it well together, and put it into a dish and garnish (?)
with cloves and "strew sugar about". (III.  Utilis Coquinario from Curye on
Ingysch)

Redaction:  (Serves 8)

2 1# cans Tart Red packed in water cherries
2 1/2 tsp. sugar 
2 Tbsp. Butter
=BC tsp. salt
3/4 Cup White bread crumbs   whole cloves
1/2 Cup sweet white wine   Caster sugar

1.  Process cherries until they form a smooth sauce.
2.   Add in butter, bread crumbs, wine, sugar, and salt, and process until
smooth.
3. Garnish with cloves, sprinkling sugar about on dish

188.  Spynoches yfryed.  Take spynoches; perboile hem in sethying water.  Take
hem vp and presse out the water and hew hem in two.  Frye hem in oile & do
thereto powdour douce, & serue vorth.

188.  Spynoches yfryed.  Take spinach, parboil them in boiling water; Take
them up and press out the water and cut them in two.  Fry them in oil and
sprinkle them with poudre douce and serve them forth. (Forme of Curye from
Curye on Inglysch)

Redaction: serves 4

1 10 oz bag Spinach
1/8 tsp. Cinnamon
2 tsp. Vegetable Oil
1/8 tsp. Cloves
1/4 tsp. Ginger
1/8 tsp. Mace

1.  Clean spinach, parboil, then drain thoroughly.
2.  Cut spinach leaves in two.
3.  Fry them in oil quickly, tossing them to keep them from cooking too
thoroughly
4.  Place in serving bowls, sprinkle with spices and toss lightly.

Confiture de noiz

Prenez avant la saint Jehan noiz nouvelles et les pelez et perciez et mectez
en eaue freshce tremper par .ix. jour, et chacun jour renoivellez l’eaue, puis
le
 laisser secer et emplez les pertuiz de cloz de giroffle et de gingembre et
mectez boulir en miel et illec les laissiez en conserve. (Menagier de Paris
from Early French Cookery, Scully).

Yield: about 2 cups

Redaction: by Scully

1 cup liquid honey
10 - 15 whole cloves
2 Tbsp. finely sliced slivers of fresh ginger
8 oz whole or halved (or large pieces) walnuts

1.  Combine honey and spices over low heat.
2.  Let spices marinate in warm honey for 5 - 10 minutes.
3.  Add walnuts and bring to a boil.
4.  Cook, stirring occasionally until honey reaches soft ball stage.
5.  Spoon out walnuts (include some cloves & ginger), and set them to cool and
harden on tinfoil.
6.  Store in tightly sealed container.

I hope these work for you!  They are fairly easy, should be inexpensive and
and are quite tasty.

Kiri


From: Pat <mordonna22 at yahoo.com>
Date: January 6, 2005 2:19:04 PM CST
To: Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>
Subject: Re: A simple dish for your "easy" file

You are right, the description probably should be modified a bit for better clarity.  Try this version.

Original:
 
To make a syrosye               (#33,  III: Utilis Coquinario 
Curye in Inglysch  p.90 )
 
Tak cheryes & do out the stones & grynde hem wel & draw hem thorw a 
streynoure & do it in a pot. & do therto whit gres or swete botere & 
Myed wastel bred, & cast therto good wyn & sugre, & salte it & stere
 it wel togedere, & dresse it in disches; & set theryn clowe gilofre & 
strew sugar aboue.
 
My translation:
 
Take cherries and remove the pits.  Grind them well, and force through
a strainer.  Place in a pot with lard or butter, bread crumbs, wine,
sugar, and salt.  Stir it well and dress it in dishes and decorate
with cloves and sprinkle with sugar.
  
Easy Recipe:
 
1 can cherries packed in water
1 half cup bread crumbs
2 TBS. Butter
1 half cup sweet red wine
2 TBS. Sugar
1 half tsp. Salt
8 whole cloves
powdered sugar
 
Drain cherries.  Place in a blender or food processor with the next 5 
ingredients.  Puree.  Pour into a one quart casserole dish.  Bake
until set in the center (about 30 min.) at 375.  Dot with cloves and
sprinkle with powdered sugar.
 
The original calls for fresh cherries, and does not call for baking, but for stirring over a flame.  I can rarely find fresh cherries, so I use the ones canned in water.

I bake it in the oven because oven baking is much less labor intensive.  I’ve tried it both ways, and could truly not tell the difference.

Pat Griffin
Lady Anne du Bosc
known as Mordonna the Cook
Shire of Thorngill, Meridies
Mundanely, Millbrook, AL


Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 10:07:59 -0400
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler1 at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Easy Recipe search
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

wildecelery at aol.com wrote:
>  Greetings!
>
>  My mother's middle school tema wants to do a medieval fair as a
>  culminating project for their students. They are looking for simple,
>  inexpensive recipes for the kids to do. I have a few, but most of mine
>  are more Roman than "medieval" Any ideas?
>
>  -Ardenia

Not sure whether or not I have the recipe handy, but we've done
gingerbread (breadcrumbs, honey, pepper and ginger, garnished with
cloves) with a great deal of success. Another possibility, though it's
veggies and a lot of kids don't like them, is the following marinated
carrot recipe:

*A Carrot Sallad--*

1 # baby carrots
3 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp. chervil
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
4 tbsp. Salad oil
1/4 tsp. white pepper
1 lg. Sprig parsley

Scrub carrots and cut off green tops. Bring water, salt, chervil to a
boil in a saucepan. Add the carrots, cover the pot, and cook until the
carrots are tender but still crisp - about 10 minutes.

In a deep bowl, mix together the vinegar, oil and pepper. Drain the
carrots, add them to the dressing and stir them until they are nicely
coated. Cover the bowl and marinate the carrots in the dressing for at
least an hour.

Wash the parsley in cold water, shake off the moisture, and snip off the
stems. Make a rosette of the leaves in the center of a dinner plate.
Arrange the carrots around the parsley like a sunburst, and pour a
little of the dressing over the carrots.

Original:
Carrets boyled and eaten with vinegar, Oyle, and Pepper serve
for a special good salad to stirre up appetite, and to puyrifie blood.
ñWilliam Vaughn, /Directions for Health/

_Dining with William Shakespeare_, Madge Lorwin.


Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2006 20:14:09 EST
From: Bronwynmgn at aol.com
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Foods for Begining SCA Cooks
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

SilverR0se at aol.com writes:
<<Does anyone have any suggestions for good foods to introduce to  newbies?
The recipes must be able to be made the night before and served  room  
Temperature or cold. >>

I have successfully used "Drye Stewe for Beeff" for such a purpose.  It's
effectively pot roast, using wine as the liquid, and putting diced onions,
whole cloves, blade mace, and ground pepper on top of the meat while cooking.
Bloody easy to make.  It's from a 15th century English  manuscript known as
"Arundel".

Take a fair urthen pot, and lay hit well with splentes in the bothum that
the flessh neight hit not; then take rybbes of beef or faire leches, and  couche
hom above the splentes, and do therto onyons mynced, and clowes, and maces,
and pouder of pepur and wyn, and stop hit well that no eyre goo oute, and
sethe hit wyth esy fyre.

Brangwayna Morgan


Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 09:28:44 -0800
From: Susan Fox <selene at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Foods for Begining SCA Cooks
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

> This recipe sounds great, but what are "splentes"?
> Renata

Splints.  You put it pieces of wood in the pot to keep the meat from
actually touching the bottom and burning.  Modern equivalent could be
one of those steaming baskets.  Although come to think of it, a nice
citrus or stone-fruit wood, still green, might add something to the
flavor.  If you want to try it with fresh plum, orange or lemon branches
I can arrange that.

Selene C.


Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:37:33 EST
From: SilverR0se at aol.com
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Foods for Begining SCA Cooks
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Ah, now it is clear why it is called a "Drye" stew! I appreciate your  
Offer of wood, but I will try it first in a steamer.

Renata ::not always brave when faced with a new recipe...::

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Edited by Mark S. Harris	easy-p-recip-msg	6 of 6