A Crown Tourney Soup

At the crown tourney of King Edward Grey and Queen Thyra Eiriksdottir in Endewearde, the feast was inspired by medieval Polish recipes.  In the first course, a soup with parsnips and cabbage was served that was so delicious, I had to have the recipe.  Head chef, Lady Leofwyn Wytleseie was kind enough to share it with me.  When my next door neighbor gave me some of his freshly dug parsnips, I knew just what to do with them. 

I modified Lady Leofwyn's dumpling recipe a little as her recipe called for barley flour and mace, which I didn't have, and as I wasn't creating dumplings for 150 people, I opted to cook them right in the soup.  The results were delicious.  Also, since I was cooking them in the soup, I cut her recipe in half so that I would have room for them and all the soupy goodness as well. 

Although I don't have the original recipe which I like to post to share the original source, the recipe itself comes from Food and Drink in Medieval Poland by Maria Dembińska.  

Duszony Por z Pasternak i Gier 
(Stew of Parsnips, Leeks, and Alexanders)

4 pounds leek greens (use the leafy part that is normally discarded
3 pounds small parsnips, trimmed, pared, and sliced on a slant to resemble thick potato chips
2 cups sliced leek, white part only
2 cups white cabbage, shredded as for sauerkraut
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
4 cloves garlic, sliced in half lengthwise
6 tablespoons honey
1/8 teaspoon ground saffron
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cumin1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 cup coarsely chopped alexanders (leaves and small stems only)

Boil the leek greens in 1 gallon of water until soft and until the stock is reduced by one-fourth (about 1 hour). Strain and reserve the liquid, discarding the leek greens. Put the stock in a stewing pot with the parsnips, sliced leeks, cabbage, onion and garlic. Cover and stew 45 minutes, or until the parsnips are tender, then add the honey, saffron, cinnamon, salt, and vinegar. Stew 15 minutes, then add the alexanders. Let the alexanders cook for about 5 minutes, then serve immediately over pieces of stale manchet bread or cheese dumplings.

NOTES:  As the hour was late when I started this dinner, and people were getting very hungry, I opted to use some homemade turkey broth that I had on hand rather than use the leeks to create the base for the soup.  Alexanders or black lovage is a spring plant that is part of the Umbelliferae family (carrots, celery, fennel, dill, caraway, anise, etc).  Reports are that it tastes a little like celery.  Or asparagus.  Or parsley.  Or pepper.  Or chicken.  Well, maybe not that last one, but there does seem to be disagreement as to what it tastes like.  As celery seemed to be mentioned most often, and I had celery in the fridge, I substituted celery for the alexanders.  It was still delicious.

Cheese Dumplings

1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp butter, melted
6 oz feta cheese, crumbled
3 eggs

In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, flour, and nutmeg together.  Stir in butter and feta, making the mixture as crumbly as possible.  Add the eggs, until a soft dough has formed. 

When the soup is just about done, make balls about 1 to 2 inches with the dough and drop them into the hot soup.  When they rise to the surface, the soup (and dumplings) are done.

Two 14th century recipes for dinner

This week's medieval dinner comes courtesy of 14th century England.   The meal consisted of a fish dish, a bean and onion dish, and a green salad with a simple oil/vinegar/mustard/honey dressing.  With a sweet cake or some kind of fruit dish added, this would be a lovely first remove for a feast.

First up is A Dauce Egre or Fish in a sweet and sour sauce.  This is the sort of sauce that it's very important to taste and adjust the sweetness/tartness of it before putting on the fish. I used a cider vinegar for my first attempt and it definitely needed more sugar after the simmering/reducing. Good strong flavor though.   The beans and onions made a lovely accompaniment to the tart fish and had a much milder, more buttery flavor.

A Dauce Egre (Fish in a sweet and sour sauce)
Tak luces or tenches or fresch haddok, & seth hem & frye hem in oyle doliue. & þan tak vynegre & þe thridde part sugre & onyounnes smal myced, & boyle alle togedere, & maces & clowes & quybibes. & ley þe fisch in disches & hyld þe sew aboue & serue it forth.
Source: Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

1 lb haddock fillets (or any other fresh white fish)
olive oil
1 1/2 cups cider or red wine vinegar
1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar
1 medium sized onion, minced
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp clove
1 tsp ground black pepper

In a sauce pan, combine vinegar, sugar, onions & spices. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium. Continue cooking until the onions are thoroughly soft and sauce is reduced. In a frying pan, heat a little olive oil. Fry the fish on both sides in the hot oil until a crispy light brown. Remove from the oil and drain. Place the fish in a serving platter and ladle the sauce on top.

Benes yfryed (Sauteed beans and onions)

Take benes and seeþ hem almost til þey bersten. Take and wryng out þe water clene. Do þerto oynouns ysode and ymynced, and garlec þerwith; frye hem in oile oþer in grece, & do þereto powdour douce, & serue it forth. Source: Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

1 can cannellini beans 
1 onion, chopped
3 or 4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbs olive oil or butter
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp nutmeg

Drain and rinse beans. Saute drained beans, onions, garlic and spices with olive oil or butter. Serve warm.

Medieval meatloaf and buttered cauliflower

 This week's dinner was also served with a simple salad of greens tossed with an herbed and salted oil and vinegar dressing.

Mortreus de Chare (Pork and Ale Loaf)

Take pork, and seth it ynow; and take it vppe, and bawde hit, and hewe it and grinde it, and in a morter; And cast thereto grated brede, and then drawe the same broth thorgh a streynour, And temper hit with ale, and do al into a potte, and lete boile, and aley hit with yolkes of egges, And then let it boile no more, And cast thereto powder of ginger, Salt, And put hit in disshes in maner of Mortrewes, And cast thereto powder of ginger, & serue it forth.
- Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.

1 pound ground pork
1 1/2 C ale or beer
1 C white bread crumbs
3 raw egg yolks
1 tsp. powdered ginger
1/4 tsp. salt

Sauté pork in a saucepan until brown. Add ale or beer. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for about ten minutes.

Stir in bread crumbs, salt, ginger, and egg yolks. Continue simmering over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture is very thick.

Scoop mixture into a lightly oiled mold or bowl. Allow to cool, and turn out onto a plate for serving, and garnish with powdered ginger.

Serves six to eight.

NOTES: This dish tasted much better than it looked. It is not unlike a pork pate and I think would go really well with some crusty bread to spread it on. I think it's the sort of dish that would look better coming out of a fancy mold so that it looks like something more than a pile of goo. Failing that, serving it on a bed of greens would have been a nice touch.

Buttered Colle-flower (Cauliflower With A Sweetened Cream Sauce)

Take a ripe Colle-flowre and cut off the buddes, boyle them in milke with a little Mace while they be very tender, then poure them into a Cullender, and let the Milke runne cleane from them, then take a ladle full of Creame, being boyled with a little whole mace, putting to it a ladle-full of thicke butter, mingle them together with a little Sugar, dish up your flowres upon sippets, poure your butter and creame hot upon it strowing on a little slict Nutmeg and salt, and serve it hot to the table.
- Beebe, Ruth Ann . Sallets Humbles & Shrewsbery Cakes

1 lb cauliflower, chopped
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp nutmeg or mace
2 tbs butter
1/4 cup cream
1/2 to 1 tbs sugar

Mix milk and nutmeg or mace and bring to a simmer. Add cauliflower and cook until cauliflower is tender but not mushy. Strain milk and set cauliflower aside in serving bowl.

In saucepan, heat butter, cream, and sugar until butter is melted and mixture is very warm. Pour over cauliflower and sprinkle the top with nutmeg. Serve warm.

A pair of recipes for a medieval flavored dinner

It's not hard to find or make medieval recipes.  A quick internet search uncovers hundreds of potential meals.  There are even whole menus online to draw inspiration for feasts.  Unfortunately, I've neither the time, inclination, or diners to create a medieval feast every Sunday night.  Heck, with the number of dishes found in most menus, I can't even really bring myself to do a single remove of a feast most of the time.   What I've started to do instead is base Sunday dinner on a modern "meat and vegetable" format but the dishes made are from medieval sources.  Tonight's mini-feast was roasted pork and an incredible asparagus salad that would be delicious served warm or cold and although the sources for these two recipes are separated by over 200 years, they made a lovely combination for an early spring feast.

Cormarye (Pork with red wine, coriander and caraway sauce)

 The original:  Take Colyandre, Caraway smale grounden, Powdour of Peper and garlec ygrounde in rede wyne, medle alle þise togyder and salt it, take loynes of Pork rawe and fle of the skyn, and pryk it wel with a knyf and lay it in the sawse, roost þerof what þou wilt, & kepe þat þat fallith þerfro in the rosting and seeþ it in a possynet with faire broth, & serue it forth witþ þe roost anoon.
Source: Forme of Cury, S. Pegge (ed.), 1390, London.

1 lbs. pork loin
3/4 tsp. coriander
3/4 tsp. ground caraway
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup broth

Mix spices and garlic with wine and pour over pork in a roasting pan. Prick the loin with a knife or fork, cover, and bake at 350°, basting regularly, until cooked to an internal temperature of 145, approximately 45 minutes to an hour. Strain the drippings from the roasting pan into a saucepan and add the broth. Bring to a boil and simmer until reduced by half, about 15 minutes. Serve sauce with pork.

 Diuers Sallets boyled (Warm asparagus and onion salad)

Diuers Sallets boyled. Parboyle Spinage, and chop it fine, with the edges of two hard Trenchers vpon a boord, or the backe of two chopping Kniues: then set them on a Chafingdish of coales with Butter and Uinegar. Season it with Sinamon, Ginger, Sugar, and a few parboyld Currins. Then cut hard Egges into quarters to garnish it withall, and serue it vpon sippets. So may you serue Burrage, Buglosse, Endiffe, Suckory, Coleflowers, Sorrel, Marigold leaues, water Cresses, Leekes boyled, Onions, Sparragus, Rocket, Alexanders. Parboyle them, and season them all alike: whether it be with Oyle and Uinegar, or Butter and Uinegar, Sinamon, Ginger, Sugar, and Butter: Egges are necessary, or at least very good for all boyld Sallets.
Source : A New Booke of Cookerie, J. Murrell. 1615. London.

1 lb fresh asparagus, chopped into 3 inch pieces
1/2 onion sliced into 1/4 inch rings
1/4 cup currants
2 tbs butter
1 tbs cider vinegar
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ginger
1/2 tsp Sugar
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped

Parboil currents, onions and asparagus. Drain. In a skillet over low heat, add butter and vinegar, ginger, cinnamon, sugar. When butter is melted and ingredients combined, add drained ingredients and toss to coat. Serve topped with chopped hard-boiled egg. Good warm or cold.

NOTE: The original recipe says this is a good method for many kinds of vegetables, and is written for spinach, but says this is a good method for cooking other vegetables like cauliflower, onions, rocket, and even leeks, for my Endeweardian cousins.

A Bevy of Swans Pluming Their Feathers For Aphrodite: A case for the elusive, yet tasty, period creampuff swan.

 My first A&S entry came as a bit of an afterthought.  You see, Endewearde's Tourney O' Love was yesterday and there was a call for desserts.  Then someone suggested that desserts that were period could be documented and entered in the A&S competition.  My original dessert idea had been to make cream puff swans to go with the romance angle of this very fun tournament and that made me wonder, are creampuff swans period?  It turns out, with a couple of very small changes to the recipe, they are.  Here, in all it's glory, is my documentation for my A&S entry at Tourney O' Love titled A Bevy of Swans Pluming Their Feathers For Aphrodite: A case for the elusive, yet tasty, period creampuff swan.

Entrant: Christiana Crane
Category: Food
Specific art form: Soteltie

Entry Contents: Six creampuff swans on a platter, plus more in reserve for dessert.

Background
    When the call went out for desserts for the Tourney o’ Love, I was more than happy to lend a hand.  Then, it was suggested that entries could also be submitted to the A&S exhibit.  My mind immediately went to the soteltie.  As I considered options for the dessert, I started thinking about swans.  Swans have long been associated with grace and elegance and love.  The Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, is often depicted with swans.  My original thoughts were of a dessert made from crisp merengue, but in researching the idea, I stumbled across a modern recipe for cremepuff swans.  It seemed like the exact sort of thing that would have delighted the medieval epicurean, and I began to wonder, could there have been such a thing as a period creampuff swan?

Description 
    Sotelties or Subtleties are a well documented part of medieval feasting. Early sotelties were simple, yet colorful and exotically spiced, filler dishes between courses.  By the 14th century, the soteltie had evolved into much more elaborate presentations, often putting the cooked animal into a lifelike pose, or redressing an animal, notably birds, in their original plumage.  English cooks were particularly fond of playing with pastry, using it to form all manner of objects for the delight of their diners. (1)

The Pastry: The invention of  Choux pastry is attributed to Pantarelli, the pastry chef of Catherine d’Medici, in 1540.  Pantarelli used the dough to make small cakes in the shape of women’s breasts, called Popelins.(2)  The dough was originally used to create a cake, called Pâte à Panterell, but chefs soon found other uses for the versatile dough.

    Head chef to Pope Pious IV, Bartolomeo Scappi published a series of seven cookbooks in 1570, which contained over a thousand recipes.  The fourth book, Quarto Libro, Dellimbandire Le Vivande is a collection of menus for each month of the year.  Among the menus for October, he mentions works of “empty pastry”. His fifth book, Quinto Libro, Libro Delle Paste, contained numerous recipes for pies, tarts, brioche, and fritters, but none specifically called “empty pastry”.  In spite of this, there are recipes which very closely resemble our modern choux pastry that he specifically notes can be baked instead of fried (see Preparations and Deviations below).

 The historical base for the swan pastry comes from the 1584 cookbook, The Book of Cookrye:

To to make Bennets. Put butter and water over the fier in a faire pain, and when it boyleth put therto fine Flower and Salte, and so let them boyle, but stir them well for brenning, and when it is wel thick, put it into an earthen pan, then break Egs into it and boyle them so togither, than boyle a good quantitye of Butter clarified over the fire, and with a spoone put in your other stuffe and so frye them till they be browne, and that doone, serve them foorth with Sugar on them. (3)

The Custard:  Both savory and sweet custards have a long and well documented culinary history.  Most recipes with custard were used to make pies or quiches, but there is a recipe for a non-baked custard in Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks by Thomas Allen, called “Creme Boylede”.(4)

Take creme or mylke, and brede of paynemayn, or ellys of tendre brede, and breke it on the creme, or elles in the mylke, an set it on the fyre tyl it be warme hot; and thorw a straynour throwe it, and put it into a fayre potte, an sette it on the fyre, an stere euermore: an whan it is almost y-boylyd, take fayre yolkes of eyron, an draw hem thorw a straynowr and caste hem ther-to, and let hem stonde ouer the fyre tyl it boyle almost, an till it be skylfully thikke; than caste a ladel-ful, or more or lasse, of boter ther-to, an a good quantite of whyte sugre, and a litel salt, an than dresse it on a dysshe in maner of mortrewys.

    The ingredients and methods to create this pudding-like custard are not dissimilar to modern pastry cream.

Preparations and Deviations
Exact quantities of ingredients are not given in the above recipe for the bennets recipe, so a modern recipe containing the same ingredients and methods was used for correct proportions.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 425º. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

In a large saucepan, bring butter, water, and  salt to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove pan from the heat and add the flour all at once. Stir quickly until all the flour is incorporated, about a minute. Return to the heat and cook, stirring constantly, for another minute or two.

Transfer the dough to the bowl. Either by hand or with a mixer beat at medium speed for 1 minute to cool the dough down a little.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; beat until the dough loses its “slimy” look, and each egg is incorporated. The dough should be thick, too thick to be a batter, but too thin to be a kneedable dough.

Pipe into small balls (or in my case, the bodies and necks of swans) and Bake 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375º and bake until puffed up and light golden brown, about 25 minutes more.

Let cool on the baking sheet.

    Liberties were also taken with the cooking method based on alternative methods recommended by Scappi.  While doughs of this nature are often fried, he mentions in a couple of recipes that the dough can be baked, especially if forming shapes.  His recipe is as follows:

To make various types of fritters, and first to make Venetian fritters. Put to boil six pounds of goats milk, in a tin lined casserole, with six ounces of fresh butter, four ounces of sugar, four ounces of rose water, a little saffron and enough salt.  When it is boiling and starts to rise one adds to it two pounds of fine flower a little at a time, mixing constantly with a wooden spoon.  Mix until it becomes firm, like bread dough, then empty it from this pan and put it into a marble mortar.  And pestle it for a quarter of an hour then take it out and put it into a copper or ceramic  bowl.  Then mix it with a wooden stick or your hands until it is cool.  Then have 24 fresh eggs and put them into the paste one at a time, mixing constantly with the wooden spoon or with your hands, until this pastry becomes liquid.  When you have finished adding the eggs beat for another quarter of an hour, until it makes blisters (?).  Then let it rest for a quarter of an hour, covered, in a warm place and then beat another time.  Then have ready a frying pan with hot lard in it and take this mixture and put it over a knife, and with the mouth of a carafe, bathed in cold lard, or with a canon of white iron*4 cut the fritters and put them into the lard.  Give them a gentle heat and several times move the pan so that the fritters turn in the lard, without touching them.  And when the fritters begin to be cooked they will wrinkle, because by nature they expand and become like the skin of medlars, and many times they turn by themselves, and one can see that they have taken enough color.  And serve them hot with fine sugar above.  With this pastry one can make various works with the syringe but you want to make the dough a little firmer than that for fritters for it to be good with the syringe, let them cook in an oven which is not too hot for half an hour and serve them with fine sugar on top. (5)

    I chose instead to use the bennet recipe over Scappi because of the quantities of ingredients that Scappi suggests.  Six pounds of goat milk, two pounds of flour and two dozen eggs are a lot of ingredients for a first time experiment, and as such, I opted for the similar recipe.  When spring comes and I have access to goats milk, I will try scaling back this recipe and see how it comes out.

    The custard recipe used was a modern equivalent of the 15th century Creme Boylede recipe, found in Cariadoc’s Miscellany, a modern translation of Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook.

5-10 slices torn-up white bread
1 quart light cream
8 lightly beaten egg yolks
6 T melted butter
1/2 c sugar
1 t salt

Soak bread in cream. Heat until hot to the touch but not boiling. Pass through a coarse sieve or mash thoroughly. Heat again, stirring constantly. When almost boiling, stir in egg yolks. Keep heating, stirring, not boiling, until it thickens. Stir in butter, sugar, salt. Serve in bowls.

    Instead of serving them the custard in bowls, it is, of course, served in the pastry.  In addition, I substituted the white bread for very fine bread crumbs, which were what I had on hand at the time.

    To assemble the swans, I used a sharp serrated knife and sliced off the top third of the pastry.  This top was then cut in half, so that each side formed a “wing”.  The bottom of the pastry was then filled with the custard and the “head and neck” were inserted into the custard and the “wings” were arranged on the back.

Closing Notes
    What began as a somewhat humorous exercise to justify creampuff swans revealed some decent evidence that such a soleltie could have existed in the later years of the SCA period.  Certainly, variations of the modern creampuff components were being prepared prior to 1600 and with the well-documented fondness for illusion foods, I think the creampuff swan would have been a not unfamiliar yet welcome addition to the medieval table.

References
(1) Scully, Terence. The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge. 1995.  pg. 104-109
(2) The Chefs of Le Cordon Bleu. Le Cordon Bleu Patisserie and Baking Foundations. Delmar, Clifton Park, NY. 2012.  pg 7
(3) A.W. The Book of Cookrye. Edward Allde, London. 1584.  Online source used. http://jducoeur.org/Cookbook/Cookrye.html
(4) Allen, Thomas.  Two Fifteenth Century Cookery-Books. N. Trubner, London.  1888  Online source used.  
      http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=cme;cc=cme;rgn=main;view=text;idno=CookBk
(5) Scappi, Bartolomeo, Quinto Libro, Libro Delle Paste, translated June 2006 by Mistress Helewyse de Birkestad.
      http://www.medievalcookery.com/helewyse/pastavoto.html

More medieval dinners

This recipe is not directly from a medieval source, but it contains only ingredients used in medieval cooking and follows a medieval flavor paradigm.  It is a soup that is pleasing to modern palates and at the same time, not at all out of place on a medieval feast table.

Sherried Carrot Soup

1 medium onion, chopped
2 tbsp butter
5–6 medium carrots, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1/4 cup dry sherry (or other fortified wine)
1 tbs cider vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
pepper to taste
1 cup heavy cream

Saute the onion, carrots and spices in the butter until onions are soft and caramelized. Add the sherry, vinegar and stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until carrots are tender. Puree in a blender until smooth. Return mixture to cooking pot and add the cream. Reheat to serving temperature, being careful not to boil. Serve hot.

Sunday Medieval Dinners

There are so many things that I'm excited to try my hand at that now that I've returned to the current middle ages.  The trick is that I've also got a mundane life that needs tending as well, so I can't simply rush headlong into too many projects at once.  

My solution for my cooking interest is that Sunday dinner is now a meal from the past.  There are many great period recipes online and I thought for our first Sunday dinner, I'd try something pretty simple - the basic meat pie.

The recipe came from the Boke of Gode Cookery.com.  It is essentially a list of options to choose from to make a filling.  These were the choices I made and the amounts of the various ingredients.  This was very tasty and would be good cold as well as hot.  Anything with raisins and dates makes me think of fall through, so this would be a much better dinner for right when the leaves are starting to change.

Beef and Pork Pie
1/4 cup red wine
1/2 c raisins
1 lb ground pork
1 lb minced beef

1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 cup stock
4 dates, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp clove
4 egg yolks
1 9" pie crust with top crust

Soak raisins in wine until plump, anywhere from an hour to overnight. Sauté pork, beef and onion until onion is translucent. Add the stock, dates, soaked raisins and wine, salt, and spices. Let filling reduce and thicken slightly. Remove from heat and let cool. Add egg yolks, stirring well after each and put filling into a prepared, uncooked pie crust. Top with remaining pie crust and bake at 350 for 45 minutes until crust is golden.