House Capuchin 3

This page is in chronological order from the first test dishes for the feast to the point where things were going to be used during the feast.

4-21-19 – Louisa and Anja got together online and starting doing some Winter Feast planning. We’re going to switch over to German Renaissance as a theme and they’re already hunting down cookbooks and recipes. One of the dishes that Anja knows about got done for the potluck and she found both stuffed French toast (dunno how else to ID it, even if it’s German!) and a chicken dish with a rose and ham sauce. Lots more planning to come!

Project Day – Since it was potluck day we started with cooking. Loren got a bread loaf going, then pulled out the tri-pot and Anja started cooking with the carrots. She did a honey/ginger carrot dish, but added some elderly dates and figs and ginger, then had to liquefy the honey, since it had crystallized hard. The bottle deformed pretty badly, so we transferred to canning jars once it was liquid enough. Canning jars can be nuked, if need be.

Amy came in as we were waiting for the pork to come up to temperature. We got her filled in on various projects and then she headed out, since she’d already eaten.

We actually started eating around 6:30. That took *way* longer than it should on the pork roast. Everything turned out pretty well, although Loren liked the carrots which Anja didn’t. Otherwise it was a good mix of foods. We put by a serving for Sash, that we’ll take to him on Tuesday.

Recipes

A traditional German dish

• 2 quarts Water
•  1 Tbsp salt
• 1 kielbasa (easiest sausage of the right style to find) or better still real german sausage.
• Bag of egg noodles
• 2 stick butter
• Several cloves of garlic (more if you really like it) minced or at least chopped.

• 

  1 Tbsp caraway

Method

1. Start water boiling in a large pot with salt.
2. While that’s getting started cut the sausage in 1/2 inch “coins”. Cut each coin into 1/4’s and set aside.
3. When the water boils add the noodles, cover and turn off the heat.
4. In a medium frying pan melt 1 stick of  butter with the caraway.
5. When the noodles are tender, 10 minutes or so, strain the water from the noodles.

6. 

   Put the noodles into a large bowl, then pour the melted butter over and toss.

7. Cover with a towel or something to keep in the heat.
8. Melt the 2nd stick of butter and then add the garlic. Simmer for 1 minute, cover and turn to low.
9. After 10 minutes add the cut kielbasa, turn the heat back up and heat through, tossing constantly.
10. Pour over the noodles and serve hot.

 

5/19/19 – A couple of interesting recipes showed up in feast research. One is for “pickled chicken”, which made Anja laugh and say, “Oh, I *gotta* do that one!”. It’s not so much pickled as sweet and sour, but it’s funny, still, considering how many pickles she does. 🙂

The other chicken, that got done for the potluck as a test, is a chicken roasted with mace and cinnamon and lemon zest. Anja decided to “steam roast” it in a crockpot, since the original was cooked in a bladder. Cooking bags might have been an option, too.

Translations are hard to come by, apparently, and google translate does an horrible job….I thought it was bad in Czech and Russian!

Project Day – …started with the cheese, which hadn’t curdled. We added more fig twig and reheated and then let it sit. Anja went out to work on her plants. Some of the harvest went into

sandwiches >>> and garnish and others went into the Kaltes Kraut. Loren was fighting with a pumpernickle/rye recipe. He kept complaining that the dough was too dry.

Eventually, the chicken was in. Loren got the pumpernickel baked. He says that he thinks that the recipe wasn’t quite right (and it got tough on the bottom) because he was using a convection oven, rather than a regular one. He’s going to try the next one at 350F instead of 400. It was *really* tasty, though! …and that’s a *nice* crumb! The crows got the crusts and they were quite appreciative. 🙂

The first courseRecipes

Chicken with Lemons

Ingredients

• Whole chicken
• Salt
• Mace
• Cinnamon
• Lemon or lemon zest.
• Sprinkle of beef bouillon

Method

1. Take a whole chicken and wash it.
2. Salt the inside and sprinkle in and out with mace and cinnamon.
3. Put it into a crockpot that barely fits it, so it’s standing on end with 1/2 cup of water and let cook on high, basting regularly inside and out to get the mace, cinnamon and salt all over it. Move the bird occasionally so that it doesn’t stick to the pot.
4. When it is up to 155F, baste one more time and sprinkle it with lemon zest.
5. When it reaches 165, turn off the pot, take off the lid and let it stand for 10 minutes before you lift it out, then serve.

Anja’s note – Aside from the jets of cinnamon that inundated the interior of the bird and overwhelmed the other flavors, I wasn’t quite happy with this one. The overwhelming cinnamon made some of the meat bitter, and the taste, overall, wasn’t much different than any baked chicken. It also took 7 hours to completely come up to temperature in the crockpot. You couldn’t taste the lemon at all.

The other thing was that my thrifty Czech peasant soul was very unhappy at having to toss the drippings and carcass rather than making soup, but the stuff left in the crock was horrible-tasting, so I didn’t even try.

We’ll try this dish again, with a better mix of spices and add some lemon juice to the whole. We might also try it as chicken parts, rather than a whole bird, pretty much starting at the point where in the original you take it out of the bladder and add the lemon.

201 How to prepare a capon with lemons – From Das Kuchbuch de Sabina Welserin

First take a capon, which should have been stabbed two days before, in this way it becomes tender. When it is cold, let it freeze and pluck it beforehand, When it is not cold, it should not be plucked before it is needed. Afterwards wash it clean and put it in a thoroughly clean ox bladder and tie it up well with raffia, so that no water can get inside. And salt the capon inside and put some mace and cinnamon thereon, after that put it into a pot and fill it with water and let it cook until it is done. Afterwards take the capon of the bladder along with the broth. And remove the wings, thighs and heart and lay it in a dish and cut two lemons into very thin slices and put them all over the capon and pour over it the capon broth which was in the bladder. If there is not enough, one can also pour a good meat broth over it. And set it over the heat and cover it with a bowl and let it cook, not too long, or else the broth will become bitter from the lemons. When it is ready, one should serve it. It is a good dish.

A Madez Krawt – from MI 128, fol. 325V-326R (We found out later in the year, that this was a weird translation. The right name for this is “Kaltes Kraut”.)

Ingredients

• Small head of cabbage
• 1 turnip
• 1 leek
• A double handful of turnip greens (plus other greens)
• 1 cup wine
• 2 Tbsp ground yellow mustard
• 1 Tbsp honey
• a good shake of ground cumin
• fennel greens (an 1/2 handful)

Method

1. Peel and chop turnip.
2. Put in a large pot and boil until soft.
3. Chop cabbage and other greens
4. Add to the pot and when cooked, drain and let cool.
5. Heat the wine to boiling to drive off the alcohol.
6. Take off the heat.
7. Add honey and stir until mixed.
8. Add mustard and cumin and stir well.
9. Pour over vegetables, toss and let cool.
10. Serve cold.

Anja’s Note – We actually ate this warm. We tried it on Monday, cold. It’s an interesting flavor combination, rather a sweet and sour. It needed salt, though, and I actually prefer cabbage to be buttered. We are talking about trying this again with just turnips and the greens to see how it does. BTW the “Madez” which google translates as “Canned” my grandmother’s german neighbor would have called, “keeper cabbage”. This one wouldn’t keep, though, so I’m not sure what up with that.

A madez krawt – Wildu make a move, So seud white herb hawbter and nym czway tail seniff and ain third tail honey and the same prue make by another with wine and a kumy and anis enough and put daz underneath a soaked and therefore give it cold. So magstu piessen can do synonymous, just daz you dye dye * boiled scholt with the wurcz and with the draw, and even then give it so cold.
* M. Lexer: Mhd. Handwörterbuch: bie ჳ en-blat stn. leaf of the white turnip

“Made” cabbage – If you want to make canned cabbage, then cook white cabbage heads. Take two parts of mustard and one part of honey, mix this liquid with wine, season enough with cumin and anise, put the boiled cabbage in it and serve it cold. In this way you can also prepare white turnips, but you should cook the turnips with leaves and roots. Serve it cold as well .

5/26/19

It turned out that the cabbage dish, with a little salt added and ham cut over the top is *really* good. Dunno how period that is, but it was tasty!

6/2/19 – Loren had done another recipe of the pumpernickel for Susanne and Anja for Sunday. We’ve been discussing the recipe and trying to find more info. It was still soft and tasty on Tuesday, when we ate the last of it.

Recipes

Apple puffs – created out of 3 recipes from Das Kochbuch de Sabina Welserin plus a fruit fritter recipe from Spruce Eats. 

These are interesting. They’re pretty easy to put together, and not particularly expensive. The hard part was deciding when they were done, so we fried them at several levels, when they “rose” (not done), when they “rose” and were flipped and given that long again (apple still chewy, but very good), given until they began to brown (apple was quite cooked), and then to quite brown (too eggy, they got tough) It seems like the best level was just as they begin to brown, flip them and then let them start to brown again.

Yes, the dough is *very* eggy* and the fritter recipe had salt in it, which was a bad idea. Frying them in butter they don’t need any at all.

We’ll try another batch in the future that is 1 egg and add some extra water to thin it, so see whether the eggy dough is better or not.

They’re tasty hot and still tasty when just warm. We’ll have some for breakfast and let you know how they are, cold.

…and they were better cold than warm!

Apple puffs

• 1 cup sifted flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 sticks butter
• 2-3 apples depending on size. Or 1 can pitted pie cherries (not bing/sweets!)

1. Mix flour, sugar, eggs and water.
2. Core apples and slice very thin. Chop pieces that don’t slice.
3. Melt butter and turn to high, so that a drop of water “spits” when it hits the butter
4. Dip apples in batter and drop into pan. Fry separately.
5. When the slices are gone(or if you’re using cherries) mix the bits into the batter and fry like a fritter. Cherries should be 3-5 to a clump.
6. Each pan takes about 5 aves before it floats and another 5 before it should be flipped…then 10 more and pull out with a slotted spoon. …. (How period of me…but I didn’t have a stopwatch. These are *fast* and do not need to brown to be done. An Ave is between 15 and 20 seconds.)
7. Sugar the tops with toast sugar, if you have it, or regular sugar. Confectioner’s melts too fast. (1 pt cinnamon, 3 pts nutmeg, 20 sugar and add a ¼ vanilla bean to the container, let sit for at least a week,)

Original

101 To make apple puffs – Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin

Then put flour in a bowl and put some fresh spring water therein. It should not be too thin. And beat the batter very carefully, thin it after that with eggs, and when you put the thin apple strips in the pan of butter, then shake the pan well, then they rise up.

165 To bake sour cherry puffs – Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin

Take hot water, lay fat the size of a walnut into it, and when the fat is melted, then make a batter with flour, it should be thick. Beat it until it bubbles, after that thin it with egg whites. If you like, you can also put a few egg yolks into it. Tie four sour cherries together, dip them in the batter and fry them. Shake the pan, then they will rise. The fat must be very hot.

166 To bake puffed apples – Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin

Take milk with a little water in it and heat it well, until you can still just stand to dip a finger into it. Make a firm batter with flour, beat it until it bubbles, lay eggs in warm water and thin the batter with them. Cut the apples in circles and as thin as possible, draw them through the batter and coat them with it. Shake the pan, then they will rise. And the fat should be very hot, then they will be good and rise nicely.

6/9/19

The puffs got chowed down on, on Monday. Everyone thought they were pretty good, even cold.

Lots of recipe research this week. Anja is making a list of the various recipes in the late period German cookbooks that she’s finding.

6/16/19

On Tuesday Anja was doing some more research, trying to track down the beet and horseradish salad/sauce. She found a period one, so went ahead and tried it, adapting from both it and a recipe from Tres Bohemes (see below).

On Thursday she set up the pork roast, so it would be finished and put by for Sunday, rather than having to roast it that day along with the other trial dishes. Also, apples and a watermelon got picked up for apples with sweet cicely and watermelon tea.

Potluck – We didn’t eat until 9pm because of the power being off until nearly 5pm. First we had to sort out some of the stuff that didn’t get done between 3 and 4, which was mostly finding things (yeah, the back of the shop was dark during the power outage) and then get the butter and water heating for spaetzle. It was 7pm by the time that was even ready to cook. I had intended to get the water heating at 3pm.

• Marzipan (done)

• 

  

  

  

  

  

  

Recipes

Spätzle – (traditional German) 

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup water
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• butter for finishing

Method

1. In a large bowl mix together the flour and salt. Add the water, milk and eggs to a measuring cup and whisk together well.
2. Pour into the bowl with the flour and immediately start vigorously stirring the batter with a wooden spoon until there are no more lumps and you start seeing bubbles forming. Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
3. When ready to make the Spätzle bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and add a knob of butter to it.
4. Place a coarse metal grater (or a special Spätzle maker if you own one) over the pot. Add about 1/3 cup of batter on top of the grater and gently stroke over it with the back of a spoon. Remove the grater and let the Spätzle cook until they come to the surface. Remove with a slotted spoon and drop into the hot pan. Proceed the same way with the remaining batter, adding more butter to the pan as needed.

Giano Balestriere I can’t confirm spätzle specifically, but there is a late 1400s recipe that involves an egg-based dough pulled into pieces and boiled (in milk, though). That comes reasonably close, and variations must have existed. Most pasta recipes that survive from period Germany are for knife-cut noodles.

Giano Balestriere Take good white flour and make dough with egg whites. Have boiling milk ready in a pan and pull the dough into little pieces, throwing them in as the milk boils. It must be salted beforehand. Also add fat. See that it stays worm-shaped. Do not oversalt it. Serve it.(Dorotheenkloster MS#150) After Bach, Volker: The Kitchen, Food and Cooking in Reformation Germany

Beet Sauce (redacted from Rumpolt)

Ingredients

• 3 beets, trimmed & peeled
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup vinegar
• 1 1×3 inch horseradish root, peeled and grated (last inch was cut and added to beets)
• ¼ cup Muscat
• ¼ cup Tbsp. cider vinegar
• 1 tsp. brown sugar
• ¼ tsp whole coriander
• ¼ tsp whole aniseed
• 1 tsp whole caraway
• pinch of sea salt
• 1 tsp. brown sugar
• pinch of sea salt

Tools

• Saucepan
• Peeler
• Microplane
• Masher
• Knife
• Stirring spoon
• Glass canning jar

Directions

1. Place the beets in a medium saucepan and cover with water and first amount of vinegar.
2. Peel and grate horseradish.
3. Cut last inch and add to beets.
4. Bring to a boil and then cover and cook until tender, about 20 minutes.
5. Put grated horseradish in jar and add wine and vinegar, spices, salt and sugar and let stand.
6. Drain beets and mash in the pot.
7. Then add the beets to the jar and stir well.
8. Refrigerate overnight so all the flavors have a chance to blend well and stir again before each use.

Store in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Source

Beet Sauce – Rumpolt

Ein New Kochbuch. Marx Rumpolt. 1581, Transcribed by Dr. Thomas Gloning; Translated by Gwen Catrin von Berlin.

Rote Ruben eyngemacht mit klein geschnittenen Merrettich/ Aniss/Coriander/ und ein wenig Kuemel/ sonderlich wenn die Ruben geschnitten/ gesotten mit halb Wein und halb Essig.

 Red beets preserved with small cut horseradish/ anise/ coriander/ and a little caraway/ special if the beets are cut/ marinated in half wine and half vinegar.

Bohemian Beet and Horseradish Relish – Červená řepa s křenem  BY KYTKA MARCH 27, 2018

Ingredients

• 3 beets, scrubbed and trimmed
• 1 6 to 8 inch horseradish root, peeled and grated
• 2 Tbsp. vinegar (Yes, you can use apple cider vinegar to make it healthier)
• 1 tsp. sugar, brown sugar or honey
• inch of sea salt

Directions

10. Place the beets in a medium saucepan and cover completely with cold water.
11. Bring to a boil and then cover and cook until tender, about 35 minutes.
12. Drain and set aside to cool.
13. As it is draining, peel and grate your horseradish.
14. When the beets have cooled, grate them into a bowl, or better yet, pulse in your food processor, realizing it will look like a bloody mess all over the place and there will be a lot of clean up!
15. Then add the beets, grated horseradish, vinegar, brown sugar or honey, and a pinch of salt to a large plate or mixing bowl and blend the rich goodness all together.
16. Work together until well combined and voila! You now have Bohemian beet and horseradish relish.
17. Transfer the delicious and colorful concoction to a glass container.
18. Refrigerate overnight so all the the flavors have a chance to blend well.

The best part is that you can store it in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

This is quite loud! It’s good, but you have to use it in similar amounts to mustard or some other spicy sauce. Don’t eat a whole heaping teaspoonful!

Apples with Sweet Cicely

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds cooking apples
• honey or other sweetener to taste, about ¼ cup honey
• 2 cups water
• 2 teaspoons minced sweet cicely

Core and chop apples. Put into a crockpot and add honey. Cook overnight. Use a potato masher to roughly mash down. Stir the sweet cicely into the apples and cool in the pan. Serve warm or cold with whipped cream.

6/23/19 – Got a suggestion from our German “consultant” that a potato ricer works really well for making spaetzle.

7/7/19 – Aa batch of strawberries preserved in sugar got made. We never got a picture of them until Sunday (7th) so I’ve included a pic from a previous batch.

 

7/14/19 – We set up a sugar-preserved raspberry jar on Monday, then strawberries on Friday, adding to the previous jar and starting a 2nd. Also set up a mushroom catsup, the sugared blueberries, stew, pork roast…. that kind of thing.

 

 

7/21/19 –

Project Day – James mashed the kraut while Loren was doing bread. Mashing the cabbage took more doing then the recipe said, but by the time the cabbage was all in, there was enough brine.

Next up were the girdle cakes. Anja and James made the batter, than Anja demonstrated how to fry one and he took over from there while she was doing photos.

As the girdle cakes cooked Anja and Loren got the rest of the feast ready. We sat and ate and discussed the foods involved, what we’re planning for the Winter Feast and chatted with Josh, who attended by phone.

Everything turned out to be really tasty. Adding the barley to the stew mitigated the saltiness and that was James favorite. Anja really liked this batch of girdle cakes and the pork is her favorite.

We didn’t get as fancy as we have sometimes, but we were quite stuffed when done. The marzipan and comfits filled all the room we had to fit things into after that good meal!

James took home enough for a meal and a snack and Anja and Loren have at least two meals of leftovers.

Recipes

How To Make Sauerkraut | Easy And Homemade – Easy to make homemade sauerkraut. – https://www.hiddenspringshomestead.com/how-to-make-sauerkraut-easy-homemade/?fbclid=IwAR1yTf58jziyMZKi1XeY4flu6pf4a-DnhcWv6H7prqyfJo2ABgyIfsMw7vM

• PREP TIME – 25 minutes
• FERMENTING TIME – 7 days
• TOTAL TIME – 7 days – 25 minutes
• YIELD: 1 QUART

Ingredients

• 1 Regular Size Cabbage Head
• 1 TBSP Canning Salt
• Clean Mason Jar
• For Brine: 4 cups water and 1 additional TBSP Canning Salt

Instructions

• Remove rough outer leaves and set them aside for later
• Wash cabbage head under cold running water and drain
• Quarter cabbage into wedges and remove hard core (set core aside for later)
• Thinly slice wedges, length wise, into 1/4″ stripes. (These don’t have to be perfect)
• Put chopped cabbage into large bowl and sprinkle with 1 TBSP Canning Salt – Mix well
• Let salted cabbage sit for 15 minutes
• Next start mashing /crushing cabbage to force juices to flow out of it. It will become very limp and change color. Do this for about 7 minutes
• Now take clean jar and firmly pack mashed cabbage in to remove as many air bubbles as possible
• Continue to pack jar leaving a 1″ headspace.
• Once all mashed cabbage is out of bowl, gently pour salt brine into jar completely covering cabbage
• Pour brine to finish filling jar
• Now tear a piece of cabbage leaf a bit larger than opening of jar
• Stuff it down and tuck under edges to completely submerge cabbage. (If left exposed, it will need to be thrown out
• Now cut a cabbage stalk a bit longer than 1 inch and place it on top of the leaf
• Wipe rim clean and put on plastic lid – fingertight only
• (Lid will press down on stalk. Anything exposed will need to be thrown out after fermentation process is done)
• Store jars where they can sit for 1 week. You will want to put a dish under them to catch the juices as it bubbles out
• After 1 week, smell and taste sauerkraut. If it tastes good – it’s done. If not, submerge it back under brine, put lid back on and check again in a few days.
• The longer it ferments, the better it tastes.

Notes – Any cabbage that is not completely submerged by salt brine will need to go into the compost

TO MAKE A 2% SALT BRINE:

If you didn’t have enough salt brine to completely cover cabbage you will need to make one – In a bowl, dissolve 1 TBSP Canning Salt in 4 Cups non-chlorinated water

Girdle Cakes [Anja’s version] adapted from https://www.dublininquirer.com/2019/03/06/how-to-cook-medieval-legume-girdle-breads

Ingredients

• 1 cup. wheat, barley or oat flour
• 1 cup pea flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/8 cups water
• Unsalted butter
• 2 Tbsp of caraway seed, mustard seed or other flavoring.

Method

1. Whisk the flours together, then mix in the salt.
2. Add water and eggs and whisk together, making sure to get the dry stuff from the bottom of the bowl.
3. Mix thoroughly.
4. Let stand at room temp for an ½ hour to an hour.
5. Heat butter in a non-stick frying pan over a moderate heat.
6. Spoon into bubbling butter.
7. Cook on one side until golden, approximately 5 minutes, then turn over and repeat.
8. Repeat, until all the blend has been used.

Note – The original of this recipe with the amounts suggested above supposedly made a dough. No, it made a *batter*, so these instructions reflect that.

7/28/19 -Sauerkraut got “burpers” on Wednesday. These are a little silicone discs with a hole in the “nipple” part that lets gasses out. You set them on the jar and screw a canning ring down over them.

 

8/4/19

We finally got the sauerkraut uncapped, tasted and fridged on Wednesday. It’s pretty loud, but it’s summer and it got left for 10 days, instead of 7.

…an idea started to get tossed around last week, when we found a picture of an Italian wedding cookie table. It’s worked its way around to putting all the desserts onto one table in the pattern of a german eagle and a set of boxes so folks can fill a box to take home. No one is unstuffed by the time we get around to the last part of our feasts, so this would make something pretty and sobtelty-ish and make it easy to not have that part of the feast be 99% left over.

We have a rolling table that could be set up in the morning, covered and set aside to make this *really* easy.

8/18/19

Cookery – Started a tvarog on Tuesday evening, but we didn’t have any cream, so it didn’t get cooked until Friday. …and we needed a pickle broth… and couldn’t find any veal cutlets for the weiner schnitzel.

Louisa and Anja have been back and forthing about the feast menu, so Louisa decided to try a fruit recipe, since she had quite a harvest.

Then on Saturday we did a tvarog, a pickle broth, that then went into pickled eggs, pickled beans, and mushrooms.

…and Louisa found veal cutlets in Eugene!

I went in the back to work on the weiner schnitzel at around 5, planning on eating at 6pm….

Well, it was closer to 6:30… but it tasted great! There’s a learning curve on this stuff, though. I kept losing the coating when I turned them. …and the recipe is wrong, not nearly enough of the ingredients. (comments below)

One lady’s nose pulled her into the back to where I was cooking the schnitzel… so she got a copy of the recipe. 🙂

 

• Weiner Schnitzel (not just veal but chicken and pork)-   comments in the recipe
• Ymbre Day Tarte [Alys] – This was really good with leeks for part of the greens
• Sauerkraut – This is the stuff that we made. Suggestions were to can and age although everyone liked it, but one, and two said it was perfect as is.
• Rice with almond milk and sugar (recipe below) – comments in the recipe
• Vegetable stew (turnip, rutabaga, parsnip, carrot, italian seasoning, onion, spinach, lentils.) Everyone liked this, which means we have a vegetarian option.
• Ginger Carrots in honey – Our standard, but the dried ginger wasn’t as good as the usual fresh. We’re thinking to do tri-color carrots with this, along with parsnips. Maybe we can find purple carrots, too.

 

• Pear Tart [Louisa] This was yum, sweet, dough was a mite hard, suggested a butter-layer pie crust, these were asian pears, thinking to use Bartletts for the feast.
• Plum Tart [Louisa] Also very tasty, again crust a bit thick.

Recipes

Louisa’s Tart recipes are still being worked on, so here’s the source, with notes….

Ymbre Day Tarte – Alys has a full-length version, but I’ve cut it down to the essentials.

• Deep pot
• Olive oil
• 1 1/2 onion
• Greens of two leeks
• fresh sage, thyme and rosemary
• 10 large eggs
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 1/3 cup currants
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp saffron
• 1/4 tsp poudre douce
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 2 pie shells
• about a cup shredded mozzerella

Method

1. Saute onions, greens/herbs and let cool.
2. Add ingredients from Eggs to Ginger, mix well.
3. Add sautee’d stuff and mix again.
4. Pour into pie shells and to pwith cheese
5. Bake for 45 minuts to an hour at 350F.

Original receipe (from Pleyn Delit, “A Tarte in Ymbre Daye”

Take and perboile oynouns and erbis, and presse out the water and hew hem small. Take grene cheese and bray it in a mortar, and temper it up with ayren. Do therto butter, safroun and salt and raysons corauns, and a little sugaur with powder douce and bake it in a trap and serve it forth.

Rice with almond milk and sugar from Ein Buch von guter spise

• 1 ½ cups of risotto rice
• 5 cups almond milk
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• sugar to taste

Method

1. Put ingredients into a crockpot on low overnight (6-8 hours)
2. Fluff with fork.
3. Sprinkle with brown sugar before serving. [We let people choose their own amounts, but for the feast we’ll probably sprinkle it on before serving, just to make it easier on the servers]

74*. Untitled (Untitled)

Der wölle machen ein gut gesoten ris. der erlese ez schoene. und wasche ez schoene. und legez in einen hafen. und saltz ez niht ze vil. und siedez biz ez trucken werde. und menge ez mit einer mandelmilich. und rüers ein wenic. biz daz ez aber siede. untz in sine dicke kumme. und gebz mit eime zucker dar. daz ist auch gut.
He who wants to make a good boiled rice, he selects it well and washes it well. And lays it in a pot. And does not salt it too much. And boils it until it becomes dry. And mixes it with an almond milk. And stirs it a little, until it but boils. And it becomes thick. And give it with a sugar there. That is also good.

Authentic Wiener Schnitzel Recipe – By Jennifer McGavin – Updated 06/03/19 – https://www.thespruceeats.com/wiener-schnitzel-recipe-1447089

Ingredients [Comments below and changes in brackets in the recipe]

• 4 (5-ounce) veal cutlets (or chicken or pork cutlets, pounded to 1/4-inch thickness) [2 veal, 2 pork and 2 chicken]
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour (or brown rice flour) [used well over a cup]
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs (large and well-beaten) [Used 4, but enough was left for the cakes]
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs [more like two cups and left-overs in the cakes
• Oil or lard (for frying, lard is traditional) [Used a cup bacon grease and then another stick of butter]

Steps to Make It

1. Gather the ingredients.
2. To pound meat thinly, place the cutlet between sheets of plastic wrap for easier washing up. Use a heavy, flat-surfaced pan to pound if you don’t have a meat mallet.
3. Pound the meat evenly to 1/4-inch thickness for best results.
4. To bread the schnitzels, set up 3 shallow dishes: place the flour and salt in one dish, the eggs in the second dish, and the breadcrumbs in the third dish.
5. In a large skillet, heat at least 1/4-inch of oil to 350 F.
6. Working one at a time, dredge cutlets first in flour until the surface is completely dry.
7. Dip in egg to coat, allow the excess to drip off for a few seconds.
8. Then roll quickly in the breadcrumbs until coated. Do not press the breadcrumbs into the meat. The crust should not adhere completely but form a loose shell around the schnitzel.
9. Immediately place meat in the pan with the hot oil. Do not crowd the pan. Cook the schnitzel in batches, if necessary. [two per batch in our largest pan]
10. Fry the schnitzel for 3 to 4 minutes on one side. Make sure the breaded meat “swims” in fat. Contrary to instinct, the breading will take on less oil than if the meat is sticking to the pan. Also, the breadcrumb topping has a chance to puff up a little, and your clean-up is easier! You may want to swish them around a little with your fork to make sure they are not sticking to the pan.
11. Turn them over once and fry an additional 3 minutes or until both sides are golden brown. Remove from pan, allow the oil to drain off. [It took a minimum of 10 minutes per side]
12. Enjoy!

Tips

• As with many simple recipes, the quality of the ingredients is what will make or break your experience with this golden fried treat.
• Even if you can buy or cut a very thin cutlet, it’s important to pound your meat before coating and cutting it. Of course, pounding makes the meat thinner, but it also tenderizes it. This an important step for schnitzel, which should be a very light, delicate dish. While a properly tender schnitzel is delicious when improperly prepared it can be, in the words of the New York Times’ Kurt Guttenbruner, “like a piece of lead.”
• Avoid old oil or less-than-perfect meat and watch your schnitzel carefully to avoid burning.
• Eating it fresh also is important. This is not a dinner that gets better reheated the next day. [We put the remnants into mushroom soup to reheat and it was good, there.]

Recipe Variation

• Traditional recipes for wiener schnitzel are made with veal cutlets, but chicken or pork cutlets can be used instead. […and we did]

Anja’s comments – There is a learning curve on these. The first of each meat was pounded, the 2nd was really hammered. The 2nd of each meat was a lot more tender. We found that putting the pounded meat into the flour and letting it sit for 2-3 minutes on a side made the 2nd pork and chicken come out perfectly for the coating. The veal cutlets must just take longer. All 3 of the meats were well received, but the veal was tougher than the pork and the 2nd chicken, that had been pounded until there were holes in it…..(i.e. it was darned nearly chicken *lace*) had the best texture of all.

8/25/19 – We did another trial run of the weiner schnitzel on Wednesday and it worked. Apparently the trick is to make sure that the meat is completely floured with a dry surface, even down into the hammer pocks. We also started an 1/2 gallon batch of sauerkraut, this time with a little onion added, and some allspice.

On Friday we set up some bean pickles and the sauerkraut is bubbling along.

9/1/19 – The sauerkraut was bubbling away and we set it down on the concrete so’s to not let it get too hot, since it actually got pretty warm in Waldport. We were supposed to do a trial run on seedcakes on Tuesday, but the plans fell through, so that will be this coming week.

9/8/19 – The sauerkraut went into the fridge.

9/22/19 – On Saturday we started a crockpot of onions to caramelize for the onion pie.

The onion pies were first, since they could be served cold. We shared one of them, warm, and decided it needed a touch more salt (since we hadn’t added the bacon, which will probably fix that…)

Next was the cabbage pottage, pretty much ham, onion, cabbage and caraway. That just took cooking, once everything was hacked up.

Loren set up the sausages. He has a method of mixing that works very well, as well as Anja’s dump-it-in-the-mixer. They got cooked last and were served on small rolls.

 

Recipes

Onion pie – Makes 8 in a mini-pie maker

• 1 1/2 pounds onions
• 1 1/2 stick butter (1/4 pound)
• 4 slices bacon
• 2 prepared pie crust (1 box)
• 3/4 cups cream
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 egg
• 1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp. ground caraway
• Optional: grated gruyere or parmesan cheese

Method

1. Slice onions finely. Caramelize in the butter. (I prefer to put them into a crockpot overnight with 1/4 cup water and the butter.) Let cool.
2. Fry bacon slices until crisp. Drain and set aside to cool, then crumble
3. Mix cream, egg, salt, nutmeg and caraway.
4. Use mini pie cutter to make 8 crusts (set aside dough scraps to re-roll)
5. Prep mini pie maker with 4 crusts.
6. In each place about 1/2 cup of onions. Gather to center and press down lightly.
7. Put an 1/8 of the custard mix in each (about an 1/8 cup). Sprinkle with crumbled bacon.
8. Close lid and cook for 10 minutes.
9. Raise lid and sprinkle with cheese if desired.
10. Cook 2 more minutes or until custard is set (and at least 165f), crusts are brown and edges of the filling are turning golden.
11. Serve hot or cold.

Cabbage pottage

• 1 large onion
• 1/2 a small head of cabbage.
• About a cup to 1.5 cups of ham chopped fine (I used the “rind” from a ham and ran in through a grinder)
• 1/2 Tbsp of ground caraway.
• Salt, if needed

Method

1. Slice onion and chop cabbage to a small and fairly uniform size.
2. Chop ham.
3. Add just enough water to be visible (not quite covering) and turn to medium until it boils.
4. Add caraway and stir.
5. Turn it down to a simmer and cook until fairly soft.
6. Taste and add salt, if necessary.
7. You can serve with the liquid, or drain and add a pat of butter.

10/6/19

On Wednesday, Anja and Loren spent the afternoon and evening at Sasha’s and we baked seed cakes. The recipe isn’t completely period, since it’s based on one from 1640 or so, but it’s very close. We also subbed vanilla extracted in rum for the sherry and the rosewater, since we had neither, but they turned out with a nice, soft internal texture and a slightly crisp, more cookie-like than cake-like crust. You can see the “crumb” in this pic. We used a silicon cupcake pan and a shallower muffin-top pan. The muffins turned out fine, but not “cake-ish” enough. The ones in the biscuit pan were overfilled, but were the perfect depth. We made 12, but because of the “overfill” we’re guessing that the double recipe will make 16-18 instead of 12. Recipe below.

Recipes

Seed Cake (English, 1640) – Anja’s recipe, edited from https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2019/03/12/seed-cake-recipe-thomas-tusser/?fbclid=IwAR279hBfaLilyd1kwy9gWsHmvfdderd6Y9C6dN2McLG3SDwDl6V7cx-S6uY

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon caraway seeds
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon mace
• 2 stick butter, room temperature
• 1 Tbsp vanilla (extracted in rum)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 4 egg whites (yolks can be saved for something else)
• 2 Tbsp vanilla (extracted in rum)

PREPARATION

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2. Prepare 3 silicone 6-muffin-top baking molds and place on cookie sheet/s.
3. In mixer (large bowl), cream butter, vanilla, and sugar.
4. Add two whole eggs.
5. One at a time add caraway, mace and salt.
6. 1/2 cup at a time add flour.
7. Set aside.
8. Using a mixer (a 2nd large bowl), whip the egg whites until they hold their form.
9. Fold the cake batter very gently into the whites maintaining the fluffiness of the whites even if it means the batter looks clumpy.
10. Pour the batter into your prepared molds.
11. Place it on a baking sheet in the middle of the oven.
12. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden and set in the middle.
13. A cake tester will come out clean when it is completely cooked. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before flipping onto clean cloth. Either serve warm or when completely cool, store air-tight.

NOTE – Serve warm or room temperature with tea, coffee, fresh fruit, or preserves.

10/20/19 – The spaetzle batter, that needs to rest for 30 minutes, got done.

Once the spaetzle was rested, next up was that process. It took 1/2 an hour for that batch and then another 20 minutes to fry some of it.

The finished spaetzelThe spaetzle was great but we *have* to cut down the size of the recipe. We have at least 14 more servings!

The Sauerkraut “went”. <sigh> This is the one that bubbled out a lot of the liquid, so we added more.

It apparently did more of that in the fridge when we weren’t looking, being only 2/3 full and it *had* been full when it went in. (Uh-oh, right there) When it was opened, the “cap leaf” was moldy… and yeah, that had penetrated the dry stuff below it and the liquid was cloudy. We put samples onto dishes to sniff… no, it was not edible. Loryea is going to pick up a couple of cabbages so we can try again.

Loryea and Amy both loved the strawberries and enjoyed the ginger/apple compote.

 

10/27/19 – Susanne picked up her potato ricer with *great* thanks! The difference that made in doing the spaetzle was amazing.

For supper that night we had a trial run of girdle cakes made with chickpea and oat flour. I think I like *all* of these variations, actually. I ended up using some of the over-the-top garlic butter for frying. *That* was delicious! We had those with leftovers from the potluck.

On Saturday Loryea brought us some cabbages for making more sauerkraut.

Recipes

Girdle Cakes [Anja’s version 10/19] adapted from https://www.dublininquirer.com/2019/03/06/how-to-cook-medieval-legume-girdle-breads

Ingredients

• 1 cup. wheat, barley or oat flour
• 1 cup pea, bean or garbanzo flour)
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/8 cups water
• Unsalted butter
• 2 Tbsp of caraway seed, mustard seed or other flavoring. (opt)

Method

1. Whisk the flours together, then mix in the salt.
2. Add water and eggs and whisk together, making sure to get the dry stuff from the bottom of the bowl. Add the optional seasoning, if desired.
3. Mix thoroughly.
4. Let stand at room temp for an ½ hour to an hour.
5. Heat butter in a non-stick frying pan over a moderate heat.
6. Spoon into bubbling butter. (Use a ladle that holds about an ½ cup to get a good consistent size)
7. Cook on one side until golden, approximately 5 minutes, then turn over and repeat.
8. Repeat, until all the blend has been used.

Note – The original of this recipe with the amounts suggested above supposedly made a dough. No, it made a *batter*, so these instructions reflect that.

11/3/19

Since everyone loved the strawberries we decided to include them in the feast menu. That means making a larger batch! I’m hoping for some raspberries in time, too.

Strawberries – We’re going to have to do several batches. The ones from last summer are about 1/3 gone. So, the first batch happened on Wednesday. [pix above]

Sauerkraut – We had two big beautiful cabbages and a partial one from Loryea and another partial that Anja and Loren had in the fridge from the previous week. Thursday evening Anja finally got started getting the outer leaves off, chopping, coring, salting, mashing and then finally getting the kraut into jars with a cover leaf and the core to keep it under the brine. Two jars got finished that night, leaving two cabbages that were each 1/3 used. The other two got done on Friday, along with setting up a tvarog, but the last jar was really short. Loren grated a turnip for that, once it was peeled.

Tvarog

You can see above the photo of the tvarog from Friday night, and on Saturday evening it went into the blue crockpot to cook. The sauerkraut also got brine added and the jars are “rocked” each day to get the bubbles to the top.

Project Day – Was a bit of a swiz again because the shop was *that* busy. We finished the cheese, early on. It came out as a cream cheese this time, very damp, but a good bread-spread.

That and photos was pretty much it. …and rocking the sauerkraut….

We pulled out some of the woodworking equipment. Anja needed a sauerkraut poking stick and so Loren worked on that.

Recipes

Sugar-Preserved Strawberries

Quoting from https://housecapuchin3.wordpress.com/portfolio/activities-through-7-1-18/ [This link has process pictures as well as this recipe/method]

Strawberries – On Saturday, as part of herbs, we prepped most of a 2 pound box of strawberries. The best got eaten. The least ripe went into a strawberry pickle and the most ripe and bits went into a sugar preserve and the 5 left over got frozen for breakfast. Now, we don’t have a clue how period these methods are… at least for strawberries. All the strawberries were cleaned, sliced and packed at the same time, then the pickling brine got done and added.

So, first the sugar preserve… the method is from Townsends. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNTpZkiiqUs

1. Take your container (1 pt canning jar) and put a layer of sugar on the bottom.
2. Make a layer of strawberry slices and pieces.
3. Cover with sugar.
4. Tap down by tapping the jar on the table and add more only if necessary.
5. Alternate until the jar is full, ending with a layer of sugar.
6. Keep in the fridge until the sugar has turned into syrup and the strawberries are partially dehydrated, then eat. About a month for them to “finish”.

Steven Angelo – Interestingly, your post mentioning rose sugar made me research it to see if it was exactly what it seemed to be (it is); and in doing so, I came across this article that cites a 1594 recipe for such.
So at least 16th century if not quite “period”.
“ The following is a recipe from Delights for Ladies by Sir Hugh Platt, published in 1594:
Dip a rose that is neither in the bud, nor over-blowne, in a sirup, consisting of sugar, double refined, and Rose-water boiled to his full height, then open the leaves one by one with a fine smooth bodkin either of bone or wood; and presently if it be a hot sunny day, and whilest the sunne is in some good height, lay them on papers in the sunne, or else dry them with some gentle heat in a close roome, heating the room before you set them in, or in an oven upon papers, in pewter dishes, and then put them up in glasses; and keepe them in dry cupboards neere the fire. You may prove this preserving with sugar-candy instead of sugar if you please.”
See the full post: https://toriavey.com/…/the-old-fashioned-way-sugared…/

Daniel Myers – To preserve all kind of fruits that they shall not break in the preserving. Take a Platter that is plaine in the bottom and lay Sugar in the bottom, then Cheries or any other fruit, and so between every row you lay, throw sugar and set it upon a pots head, and cover it with a dish, and so let it boyle. [A Book of Cookrye (England, 1591)]
MaryAnne Anja Bues Bartlett These don’t need to be boiled… is it possible that the “boyle” above means to ferment?
Daniel Myers I don’t think so. The language around recipes was pretty stable by then.

Ea Fleming Petits Propos Culinaires (PPC) #20, “Rose Sugar and Other Medieval Sweets” by Joop Witteveen, has two definitely period methods of making rose sugar (“suker rosaet). Layers are not specified, but, looking at Steven Angelo link, those roses don’t appear to be layered either. The “Naturen Bloeme” recipe, between 1265 and 1270, says: “Rose sugar (suker rosaet) is made in the following way: rose petals that have been rubbed fine with sugar are put in a glass jar and left in the sun for 30 days; the contents must be stirred daily; the jar must be well sealed and it will remain good for three years.” (Eelco Verwijs, Jacob van Maerlant’s Naturen Bloeme.”
Witteveen also cites a 1600 Dutch recipe: “Take as many red roses as you wish and rub them very fine, adding three times as much sugar. Mix this well and set it well sealed in the sun. Mix it now and then with a spatula.” (Carolus Battus, Secreet-Boeck van veele diversche en heerlicke Consten in veelderleye Materiën.”
Those two seem to say the same thing so that looks like at least 400 years in The Netherlands of making rose sugar.

11/10/19

Sauerkrauts got tested and fridged Sunday evening. #1 & #2 (both with onion and caraway) were the ones from Thursday. Oddly, #2 was a little stronger. #3 and #4 were the ones done on Friday. They were about the same strength as #2, both had onion and #4 had turnip, as well. Other than a slightly odd scent about #4, (just odd, not off-putting), they were pretty good, as well. All of them were under pressure and had plenty of brine and you can see in the one pic what kind of pressure they were under. We made the folks in the Herb Bunch laugh with it shooting off!

11/17/19

Since we got the sauerkrauts put away on Sunday the fridge is very full. There’s a

whole box of pickles, and another of the strawberries and other such things. Half of one shelf is our stuff for the feast, including the pickled grape leaves, although those might get used for potlucks for dolmas (Greek) instead. The liqueurs were being shaken all week.

Btw, as far as we can tell Rumtopf is *not* period, but it’s highly likely that something of the sort was being made as soon as distilled spirits showed up.

We made hippocras in Herbs on Saturday (pix below) and the rest of the cookery stuff is in Sunday’s section.

…and folks got us a little more on the onion pie documentation.

we made the spices for hippocras from the Tallivent recipe, then set up one bottle with the mix and everyone got to take some home. We discussed the various spices involved and the history of those, and then talked about the history of spirits and liqueurs as well as the spiced wine predecessors of those.

Spenat (recipe below)

Leek soup (recipe below)

Chicken with Lemons (recipe in a previous post)

Right before 5pm the final cooking got going, first the leek soup, then the spenat and finally, once the chicken was up to temp getting the juice and zest on and giving it another couple of minutes to finish up. Then there was nothing but serve and eat!

During the afternoon we did a lot of discussing of how to put the menu together. James is going to donate a sizeable amount to the food purchasing. …and even though we didn’t bother with a 3rd course tonight, it looks like we’ll have something spectacular for the feast!

The hippocras was tasty. We finally have the proportions right and the hint about using white wine instead of something darker with more flavor worked perfectly. The interesting thing was the Loren said there was a hint of “bitters” in it. Maybe the clove? Hmmm.

James got to try all the sauerkrauts. He liked the full caraway version the best, the wimpier on caraway the least, and the one with turnip pretty well. The flavors have changed a little over the week. Anja thinks that the “plus turnip” version is almost as good as the full-on caraway. …and we’ll probably mix for the feast, anyway.

The spenat literally took 2 minutes right at the last of the cooking, as James was getting the chicken into the tripot crock. Everything was ready but for chopping the egg, and that was cold and pre-peeled from breakfast-time. The butter had been sitting, melting, from when the leeks came off the heat, but with the burner turned off. The burner was turned back on and within a minute we were ready to roll. When the sorrel hit the butter there was a hiss and Anja was frantically flipping the sorrel to keep it from over-cooking, and in maybe 50 seconds, she had the pan off the fire and was grabbing the serving bowl. Dump and the greens were in. A scoop and the ginger was in, and then the egg got chopped. That’s a quickie that she uses for hard-boiled eggs. Using an egg slicer, cut the egg across, the usual way, then turn the egg 1/2 turn, so you’re slicing longways and upside down and you have chopped egg that dumped right into the bowl. Very quick!

…and the lemon chicken worked right this time! We may want for the feast to cut the chicken breasts apart (1/3rds or 1/4rs) ahead of time, for ease of serving, but doing them in a covered flat in the roaster with the spices worked quite well. They were at temperature in 2 hours (30 minutes per pound) despite pulling the plug while the frying and leeking were happening. We’re thinking that adding the lemon zest and juice for the last 1/2 hour of cooking, instead of for 10 minutes after it hits temp, might be the hot tip and “fill” the flavor, but letting it sit in the steam pan overnight in the fridge after the cooking and adding, (iow, letting it cool *with* the lemon, and then re-heating) might do even better.

One box of the leeks got the rest of the broth added and went into the freezer. That one will probably land in soup, but maybe in the Kaltes Kraut. The rest of the leeks went into the fridge to be cooked up this week. …and everything else got put away. …and it looks like we’ll have sufficient sorrel and dandelion greens for the kraut, assuming no hard freezes over the winter.

Recipes

Medieval Leek Soup – Italian

Ingredients (for two plates)

• 4 leeks
• 1 cup ground almonds plus water (or use purchased)
• brown sugar
• olive oil
• coarse sea salt
• cinnamon

Method
Grind the cinnamon and pound the sugar in the mortar. To prepare the almond milk, grind the almonds and dilute with water, then strain them with a cloth to collect the liquid.
Parboil the leeks for 2 or 3 minutes, then mince them.
Add in a pot the leeks, olive oil, almond milk, two pinches of sugar and one pinch of coarse sea salt. Cook for about ten minutes, then serve still hot sprinkling with ground cinnamon.

If you want to prepare the fat version, use a broth made with beef, chicken, or capons (the most common during the Middle Ages) and seasoned with spices (for example, black pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon). In this case, we suggest substituting olive oil with lardo (cured pork fatback), melting it in the pot before adding the other ingredients.

Anja’s version of the Leek soup for a Fat Day

Ingredients (8 potluck servings)

• 5 leeks (2 inch) or 8 1″ (too much!!! This many would have made 24 servings!)
• beef broth 2 cups
• clove pinch
• nutmeg 3 grinds
• cinnamon 1/2 tsp
• Pepper (on the side)
• bacon fat

1. Using a 2 quart pyrex measure, boil 1 quart of water.
2. While that’s going chop your leeks.
3. Once it boils toss the leeks into the water and let stand 5 minutes, then drain.
4. Melt bacon fat in the bottom of a deep frypan.
5. Toss the drained leeks in the fat until they begin to change color.
6. Add spices.
7. Pour broth over until just covered and stir.
8. Turn heat to low (you’re trying to simmer), cover and cook or 10 minutes until the leeks are soft.
9. Can be kept warm in a crockpot for a couple of hours.

Spenat (Gogor found this recipe a long time ago) a 1 inch roll of large leaves is about 2 large feast servings (perfect for 4 “tastes”) and takes 1 egg.

1. Harvest and wash your sorrel, making sure you get rid of the snails!
2. Roll the leaves up and cut crossways (chiffonade).
3. Melt butter in saucepan.
4. Wilt the sorrel, just until it changes color, sprinkle with salt, stir and remove to serving dish.
5. Sprinkle with currants or raisins and top with chopped hard-boiled egg. Serve warm.

11/24/19

Recipes

Almond Milk Cheese by HL Bronwyn ni Mhathain found on http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-DAIRY/Al-Milk-Cheese-art.html 

Recipe can be found here: Full text of “Two fifteenth-century cookery-books. Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553, & Douce ms. 55” ( http://www.archive.org/stream/twofifteenthcent00aust/twofifteenthcent00aust_djvu.txt )

Interpreted Recipe  Makes approximately a quarter of a pound of “cheese”

• 2 cups thick almond milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. red wine vinegar*
• Sugar to taste
• Pouder Douce

1. Once you have made the almond milk, you will need to strain the mixture through a sieve to remove as much of the almond bits as you can. Put the strained almond milk and salt into a pot and heat to boiling being careful not to overheat or to burn it. Note: Saffron can be added to the almond milk to make it yellow like butter at this stage. I did that and I was impressed with the results.
2. Heat for five minutes and then add a dash of wine or vinegar to your almond milk. It will immediately thicken and start to curdle. You can also add a dash of wine to the mixture instead of vinegar. Continue to cook for another five minutes or so stirring so that the milk doesn’t burn.
3. Remove from heat and strain through a cheesecloth for several hours or overnight. When the dripping has stopped, remove the almond mixture from the cloth and place it in a bowl. Unlike making cheese from dairy, the liquid that is produced from the almonds can be discarded. The whey from cheese making is full of whey protein and can be used in smoothies or baking.
4. Add sugar to taste in the bowl. If the mixture is a bit too dry or crumbly wine can be added as well. I used approximately 2 tablespoons of sugar and then I added 2 teaspoons of the pouder douce to this. I did not need to add wine because the addition of the sugar made the almond “cheese” very smooth, similar to cream cheese. At this point I imagine you would be able to caste it into molds, or serve it in bowls garnished with comfits, or flowers if you see fit.

Still trying to track down what “thick almond milk” means..

12/1/19 – We did another iteration of the leek soup for Thanksgiving dinner!

12/8/19

Cookery – Tuesday was cookie day. Most of what got done was experiments. The marzipan shortbread turned out well, although we’re going to try stamping rather than roll-impressing the cookies. The ones “impressed” with a fork turned out very well, so a stamp will work. The sugar cookies were just sugar cookies. There’s more dough for next week, but we really need a stamp. I put out an announcement on the House Facebook page, hoping that someone will get Reannag Teinne to make us a stamp of the House device.

We’re going on making cookie dough when we have time each day. Some’s getting frozen and we’ll thaw to bake for the feast. Some’s getting baked up now for potluck and the holidays.

A tvarog got set up Wednesday evening to be cooked up on Thursday. Oddly, it didn’t “set” they way it usually does, so Anja cooked it into a scalded milk cheese, instead.

12/8/19

Starting on Wednesday various cookery began to happen. Hippocras mix was first, then a beet/horseradish relish, then beet greens were prepped and put by for stew. Cacik for snacking got salted and put by. Cherry sauce for the pork loin got done.

1/5/20

Cookery – Monday night was girdle cakes of barley and pea flour.

 

 

Almond cheese was on Sunday.

Almond cheese – Edited Recipe – Makes approximately a quarter of a pound of “cheese”

Make thick almond milk, first

• 5 cup ground almonds
• 2 cup water

1. Put in food processor and whirl until creamy.
2. Strain through a fine sieve to get the almond bits out.
3. Then put the following into a pot and heat to boiling. Be careful not to overheat or burn.

• 2 cups thick almond milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• Pinch saffron, rubbed (optional)

4. Heat for five minutes and then add vinegar to your almond milk. It will immediately thicken and start to curdle. You can also add a dash of wine to the mixture instead of vinegar. Continue to cook for another five minutes or so stirring so that the milk doesn’t burn.

• 1/2 TBSP. red wine vinegar
• Sugar or salt to taste
• Flavorings (powder douce, garlic and rosemary, or whatever suits you) Suggested 2 tablespoons of sugar plus 2 teaspoons of the powder douce
• Garnish (comfits, flowers, fresh herbs, etc.)

5. Remove from heat and strain through a cheesecloth for several hours or overnight.
6. When the dripping has stopped, remove the almond mixture from the cloth and place it in a bowl. Discard liquid.
7. Add sugar (or salt) to taste in the bowl. If the mixture is a bit too dry or crumbly wine can be added as well. Flavorings can be added in the bowl (stronger) or while cooking (milder)
8. Garnish

After 8 hours dripping out….

The flavor is good, in fact it tastes like pumpkin pie without the pumpkin! The texture is good, like a cream cheese spread. There’s a slightly bitter aftertaste that is either the amount of cinnamon, or the red wine vinegar, mostly likely, but after the first bite, you don’t notice it at all.

So next up is a savory, since we’ve done a sweet.

Excerpted from http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-DAIRY/Al-Milk-Cheese-art.html 

a fyne xij. Fride Creme of Almaundys. — Take almaundys, an sta?«pe hem, an draw it vp wyth thykke mylke, y-temperyd wyth clene water; throw hem on, an sette hem in fe fyre, an let boyle onys : fan tak hem a-down,an caste salt )7er-on, an let hem reste a forlongwey  or to, an caste a lytyl sugre Jier-to ; an J^an caste it on a fayre lynen clothe, fayre y-wasche an drye, an caste it al a-brode on fe clothe with a fayre ladel : an let Je clothe ben holdyn a-brode, an late all j^e water vnder-nethe fe clothe be had a-way, an panne gadere alle fe kreme in fe clothe, an let hongy on an pyn, and let fe water droppe owt to’ or .iij. owrys ; ) an take it of Je pyn, an put it on a bolle of tre, and caste whyte sugre y-now ]7er-to, an a lytil salt  and if it Tvexe Jikke, take swete wyn an put ]jer-to ‘pat it be nojt sene : and whan it is I-dressid in the maner of mortrewys, take red anys in comfyte, or ]’e leuys of borage, an sette hem on Je dysshe, an serue forth.

Recipe can be found here: Full text of “Two fifteenth-century cookery-books. Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553, & Douce ms. 55” ( http://www.archive.org/stream/twofifteenthcent00aust/twofifteenthcent00aust_djvu.txt )

For more information on this and similar recipes, please visit Dan Myers “Medieval Cookery” at http://www.medievalcookery.com

xij – Fride Creme of Almaundys. Take almaundys, an stampe hem, an draw it vp wyth a fyne thykke mylke, y-temperyd wyth clene water; throw hem on, an sette hem in the fyre, an let boyle onys: than tak hem a-down, an caste salt ther-on, an let hem reste a forlongwey (Note: Other MS. forlange.) or to, an caste a lytyl sugrether-to; an than caste it on a fayre lynen clothe, fayre y-wasche an drye, an caste it al a-brode on the clothe with a fayre ladel: an let the clothe ben holdyn a-brode, an late all the water vnder-nethe the clothe be had a-way, an thanne gadere alle the kreme in the clothe, an let hongy on an pyn, and let the water droppe owt to (Note: two.) or .iij. owrys; than take it of the pyn, an put it on a bolle of tre, and caste whyte sugre y-now ther-to, an a lytil salt; and 3if it wexe thikke, take swetewyn an put ther-to that it be no3t sene: and whan it is I-dressid in the maner of mortrewys, take red anys in comfyte, or the leuys of borage, an sette hem on the dysshe, an serue forth.

12. Cold Cream of Almonds. Take almonds, and stamp them, and draw it up with a fine thick milk, tempered with clean water, throw them on, and set them on the fire, and let boil once: then take them down, and cast salt thereon, an let them rest a furlongway or two, and cast a little sugar thereto; and then caste it on a fair linen cloth, fair washed and dried, and cast it all above on the cloth with a fair ladle: an let the cloth be held above and let all the water underneath the cloth be had away, an than gather all the cream in the cloth, and let hang on a pin, and let the water drop out two or three hours; then take off the pin and put it in a bowl of wood, and caste white sugar thereto that it is not seen: and when it is dressed in the manner of mortrewys, take read anise in http://giveitforth.blogspot.com/2015/09/comfits.html” comfit, or the petals of borage, and set them on the dish, and serve it forth.

Almond milk link – http://giveitforth.blogspot.com/2015/01/almond-milk.html

Interpreted Recipe  Makes approximately a quarter of a pound of “cheese”

•  2 cups thick almond milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. red wine vinegar*
• Sugar to taste

Once you have made the almond milk, you will need to strain the mixture through a sieve to remove as much of the almond bits as you can.  Put the strained almond milk and salt into a pot and heat to boiling being careful not to overheat or to burn it.

Note: Saffron can be added to the almond milk to make it yellow like butter at this stage.  I did that and I was impressed with the results.

Heat for five minutes and then add a dash of wine or vinegar to your almond milk. It will immediately thicken and start to curdle. You can also add a dash of wine to the mixture instead of vinegar. Continue to cook for another five minutes or so stirring so that the milk doesn’t burn.

Remove from heat and strain through a cheesecloth for several hours or overnight.  When the dripping has stopped, remove the almond mixture from the cloth and place it in a bowl.  Unlike making cheese from dairy, the liquid that is produced from the almonds can be discarded.  The whey from cheese making is full of whey protein and can be used in smoothies or baking.

Add sugar to taste in the bowl.  If the mixture is a bit too dry or crumbly wine can be added as well.  I used approximately 2 tablespoons of sugar and then I added 2 teaspoons of the pouder douce to this.  I did not need to add wine because the addition of the sugar made the almond “cheese” very smooth, similar to cream cheese. At this point I imagine you would be able to caste it into molds, or serve it in bowls garnished with comfits, or flowers if you see fit.

1/19/20

Quick Chicken and Mushroom soup

• 2 cups Chicken Broth (made in this case from the giblets and necks of the chickens, plus some salt)
• Chopped chicken bits (liver, heart, and bits of meat from the necks) (optional)
• 1 onion
• 1 cup barley
• 1 large can mushrooms

1. Strain the broth, first, if you made your own. Discard most of the giblets. Pick the accessible meat from the necks…. or just ignore this and toss all of it….
2. Measure the broth.
3. Taste to see whether it needs salt.
4. Chop onion and add.
5. Add barley and simmer until barley is soft.
6. Drain mushrooms and add to soup.
7. Add spices if you wish, but this had none.

   

   

   

   

   

1/26/20

On Wednesday Anja set up tiny Rumtopf jars as thank yous for the feast. She ran out of rum before she was done, so they got an extra splash after they were all set up and a bit of sugar, as well.

On Friday, the chicken left-overs were turned into chicken salad with some celery, onion, water chestnuts and olives added to the mix.

On Saturday we started with finding the ingredients for Bieroks that we knew were in the freezer. Loren ran back and forth with bags of stuff for Anja to ID. We ended up with a mushroom onion set and a pork/beef/barley/onion set so we got those thawed and a dough made and started in. We also decided to add some ground pork, so that had to be cooked, then the filling heated to make sure it was ok, then dough. When that was ready teh dough had to be rolled, cut and filled.

“Runza” the Czech name for these, means “little bindles” and that’s what they look like as they’re formed. When they’re rising they’re flipped onto the extra dough and baked.

The dough turned out a bit tough, but this was more like a pizza dough than a bread dough. We might try them with a standard dough, but that’s going to be hard to roll out… and since we were baking only 4 at a time, some of the batches were harder than others. With pouring butter over them while hot, they softened up, too.

Recipes

Bierok (Runza) These are a traditional lunch or supper dish, eaten cold or hot, as you please.

Bierok filling

• Sauerkraut
• Ground beef/pork/lamb mix
• Onion
• Barley
• Salt
• Spices (pepper, horseradish, mustard, caraway or what suits you)

1. Cook the meat with the onion, drain and cool.
2. Cook the barley until soft and cool.
3. Rinse a double handful of sauerkraut and drain thoroughly, patting dry on paper towels to get the liquid out.
4. Mix the meat, barley, salt and spices in a small bowl.

Bierok dough

• 1 tbsp sugar
• 300 ml warm water (1 ¼ cups)
• 1 package of active dry yeast (2 ¼ Tbsp)
• 500 g all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting (4 cups)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing

1. Make dough in breadmaker.
2. Roll dough to 16 inches
3. Cut in 4×4 squares with a pizza cutter or knife (should have 36 approximately)
4. Put a scoop of sauerkraut in each, then a scoop of the meat mixture.
5. Bring edges together and pinch shut.
6. Grease baking sheet or use parchment.
7. Place each on baking sheet, sealed side down.
8. Let rise until they “puff”.
9. Bake at 350 until they brown, but don’t burn. (To get the time for your oven, do just a couple at first and cut open to check for doneness.)

2/2/20

Lebkuchen and focaccia baked on Monday.

The focaccia didn’t come out right, so that got ground on Tuesday to dry for breadcrumbs. Tuesday was also a use-up-the-12th-Night-Cheese cooking effort (mostly got turned into lasagna) and then the 2nd batch of bierocks.

Wednesday was all cookbook up until 7pm, then the Feast Cooks meeting. Intense couple of hours, there.

Thursday – baked garlic for garlic butter and got that made and put by. Also, a honeybutter. Working on quick-drying breadcrumbs about a third of them took flying lessons and one batch scorched… <sigh> We’ve got about a quart.

Friday some shopping happened. Research on how to get a chunk of horseradish root happened, too. Turns out we have a local fellow…..

Saturday was chicken broth for the soup and mustard, spicy pear mustard. It’s darned near weaponized while you’re making it. My nose ran for an hour and *burned*! Made a radish and cream cheese spread after that, not period, but pretty, and intended for sandwiches. A 2nd batch of chicken broth happened.

Radish spread

Sunday was finally the bacon/blue butter. (above)

Recipes

Pear Mustard – German Mustard (Spicy pear/wine) Makes 3 cups and a little over.

• 1 can preserved pear halves
• 1 cup ground yellow mustard
• ¼ cup ground ginger
• 1 TBSP salt
• ½ cup sweet white wine (Pinot Grigio) (May need another ¼ cup)

Method

1. Drain the pears, leaving as little juice as possible. (Save the juice for breakfast, or add to wine and reduce for a yummy syrup)
2. Mash the pears.
3. Zap for three minutes in the microwave.
4. Add mustard and mash.
5. Add ginger and mash.
6. Add salt and mash.
7. Zap for 2 minutes in the microwave.
8. Add /1/4 cup wine and mash.
9. Zap for 1 minute.
10. Add /1/4 cup wine and mash, making sure that it’s mixed as well as you can. It’s going to be lumpy, that’s the pears, but they smooth out when it’s spread on something.
11. Box and refrigerate at least overnight to let the flavors blend.
12. You may freezer after that for up to a month.
13. Before serving, let thaw overnight.
14. 20 minutes before serving time, zap in a nuker for 3 minutes. Add ¼ cup of wine, if it’s too thick for what you need.

34 To make the mustard for dried cod – Welserin
Take mustard powder, stir into it good wine and pear preserves and put sugar into it, as much as you feel is good, and make it as thick as you prefer to eat it, then it is a good mustard.

2/9/20

Feast Progress – Horseradish on Monday meant that shopping needed to happen, more than ever. The trip was planned for Tuesday, but didn’t happen until Thursday, although we picked up cheese ingredients and figs on Tuesday.

Early Week – On Monday the Horseradish guy came in with a whole bucket of roots. We have plenty for the beet and horseradish relish! I’m going to grate some up with vinegar and freeze it, so we’ll have some when we need it. (Happened on Sunday!)

Cookery – On Wednesday we started with prepping horseradish. The girdle cake kits got made. We did a batch of fig pudding and tasted it and it turned out great! We also set up a pear pudding to cook overnight.

That got finished on Thursday and put by about 1 1/2 pints of pudding and 1/2 a pint of liquid to go into cereals and the like.

Friday the tvarog got finished and other foods started. We were working on the beet/horseradish relish, but finally put it by to cook overnight.

…and it got most of the way put together on Saturday. We did discover that the hand grinder will not handle horseradish. We had to put it into the electric herb grinder!

On Sunday we ate up the last of the trial run fig pudding with cream. Wow! Yums!

Cheese and Wine Night – We had a tvarog to finish. The tvarog was set to culturing early on Thursday. Things happened and we left the cheese to finish cooking. (It was turned off and swathed in towels to hold the temp. That got finished on Friday and tasted on Saturday. Nutmeg and honey in tvarog turns out to be pretty darned good!

Recipes

Pear pudding – Combined set of recipes

• 6 Bartlett pears, as ripe as possible
• 2 cups pinot grigio (sweet white wine)
• ¼ tsp clove
• 3 TBSP honey
• 3 lebkuchen

Method

1. Core and slice pears.
2. Toss into crockpot with the rest of the ingredients and cook on low overnight, stirring occasionally. Let cool so it can be handled.
3. Put a colander over a bowl and pour the pears in. Stir to let the liquid through.
4. Put the solids in another bowl and stir in breads crumbs, 1/4 cup at a time. Let stand 15 minutes and stir before adding more. Ours took only 1/2 cup to get it to pudding consistency.
5. Heat before serving. Add 1 TBSP butter per cup.

Fig pudding – Welserin

• 1 cup wine
• 2 3 inch cookies lebkuchen
• Bread crumbs
• Malt extract (opt)
• Pinch Saffron
• Almond crumbs (didn’t use)
• 4 large Dried figs
• Currents to fill up cup, maybe ¼ cup
• Butter (forgot)

1. Heat wine 2 minutes in microwave
2. Add saffron to wine and let stand for 5 minutes.
3. Add lebkuchen and let stand for ½ and hour. If the cookies don’t seem to be softening, pull them and chop up and toss back in.
4. Take stems off figs and chop (I cut into ¼’s and cut cross-ways). Put into a one cup measure.
5. Add currents to the one cup line. Shake and check level….
6. Pour onto wine mixture and let stand for a bit.
7. Put back in the microwave for 1 minute.
8. Run through a food processor if still chunky.

43 To make a fig pudding

Put wine in a small pot, and when it begins to boil, then put in grated Lebkuchen and grated Semmel. Put saffron, almonds, raisins, figs and some fat into it.

 

More to come!

In ministerio autem Somnium! Anja, graeca doctrina servus to House Capuchin
Page Created 2/16/20  (C)M. Bartlett
Last updated 2/17/20