Apple Sauce Tart or “To make a Tarte of preserued stuffe.”

I discussed this redaction with people on the Facebook SCA Cooks group because I think there is a lot of room for interpretation with this recipe:

To make a Tarte of preserued stuffe. You must take halfe a hundreth of Costardes, and pare them, and cut them, and as soone as you haue cut them, put them into a pot, and put in two or three pound of suger, and a pint of water, and a little Rosewater, and stirre, them from the time you put them in, vntill the time you take them out againe, or else you may also put it into a dishe, and when your Tart is made, put it into the Ouen, and when it is caked endore it with butter, and throw suger on the top, & then do on your sauce, & set comfets on the top, and so serue it vp. The Good Housewife’s Jewell (1596)

I was drawn to the recipe because it mentions “preserved stuff” and I had a lot of apples to use up. If you take 50 apples  you will make aproximately 12 cups of apples sauce. I felt that this would have preserves as described would be use for more than one recipe, not one really huge tart–however I can see why some people thought that this is a reasonable interpretation.

The “confits” sprinkled on top can be many different kinds of candies, in 1596 they candied a lot of things. I used candied fennel, but candied pepper or almonds would work. I was tempted to use cake sprinkles in heraldic shapes and colours but I refrained. If you do that please post pictures down below.

Ingredients

1. Sauce (1 litre of apple sauce)
   I ~15-20 apples
   1 cup of sugar
   1/2 cup of water
   1/2 tsp of rose water.
2. Tart
   1 pie shell
   1 tbsp butter
   1 tbsp raw can sugar
   1 cup of sauce
   1 tbsp of candied fennel

Directions

1. Combine sauce ingredients bring to boil on medium-high. Reduce heat, cover pot, and simmer for 30 minutes or until apples are mushy. Use potato masher to encourage the mushy. *
2. Pre-heat oven to 350. Place pie shell in oven and bake until golden (~25 minutes). Remove from oven.
3. Cover hot tart shell with butter so it is evenly coated.
4. Sprinkle a layer of sugar onto the buttered crust.
5. Pour 1 cup of “preserved stuff” into the coated tart shell.
6. Sprinkle with candy. Serve hot or cold.

*I made the apple sauce a few days in advance.

Rabbit & Grape Pie or To bake a Connie, Veale, or Mutton..

I had leftover rabbit to use up and some grapes that were no longer completely firm. So…. pie!

There are many examples of layered pies so I did the layering here. I believe it would work if you mixed all the ingredients together instead of using layers, but I’d add some more egg yolk for binder and reduce the amount of grapes or gooseberries.

A Book of Cookrye (1591) mentioned a similar dish but using verjuice and butter as a replacement for fruit, you could do that here instead of the grapes.

To bake a Connie, Veale, or Mutton.. Take a Conny and perboile it almost enough, then mince the flesh of it very fine, and take with it three yolks of hard eggs, and mince with it, then lay another Conny in your Pie being parboiled, and your minced meat with it, being seasoned with Cloues, Mace, Ginger, Saffron Pepper & Salt, with two dishes of swéete butter mixed with it, lay upon your Connie Barberries, or grapes, or the small raisins, and so bake it.

–Thomas Dawson. The Second part of the good Hus-wiues Iewell (1597)

Ingredients

• 1 cup shredded parboiled rabbit, chopped (or veal or mutton)
• 2 yolks of hardboiled eggs
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 slice of bacon, chopped small
• 1 pinch each ginger, salt, pepper, mace, cloves, saffron
• enough grapes to cover the top of the filling
• 1 small pie crust

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Mix half the shredded rabbit with the egg yolks, coating the  chopped rabbit and making a paste. Put it in the bottom of the pie crust and smash it down with a fork to cover it evenly.
3. Mix the rest of the rabbit and butter,  bacon, and spices, to make a paste and layer it over the egg-yolk mixture.
4. Take the grapes and layer them over the rabbit mixture. It might be appropriate to cut the grapes in half but I pricked a hole in each of the grapes with a sharp knife btu left them otherwise whole.
5. Bake for 45 minutes.

Quince and Almond Tart or “To Make an Almond Tart”

To make an almond tart. Take half a pound of almonds peeled and ground, quince preserved in sugar, a dozen dates well washed therein, & chop very small with the quince, & half an ounce of cinnamon, three ounces of sugar, two yolks of eggs, & mix all with the almonds, & make the tart like the others. Master Lancelot de Casteau, Montios Ouverture de Cuisine (1604)

Ingredients

• 8 oz ground almonds
• 2 cups stewed or canned quince (~2 quinces worth) **
• 12 cooking dates, chopped small
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 3 oz raw cane sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 large tart shell

Directions

1. preheat oven to 350
2. Mix all ingredients together well, and pat into tart shell. Mixture will be paste like.
3. Bake for 45 minutes or until pie crust is golden and filling is firm but sticky.

** could probably use 2.5 cups of quince or more. Would experiment with adding in quince liquid or using quince jam if making again. I thought it would be too sweet with the sugar syrup but the pie is awfully thick. 

Meatballs in Broth or “Another Sort Of Dressed veal”

So this recipe could be a meatball soup, given the amount of broth required to cover the meatballs is more than one would use as a sauce. It is strongly flavoured though, so I would serve it with sops (bread slices) if you were doing that. Otherwise it is a wonderful lemon bite around the delicately flavoured veal (*cough* bland *cough*).

My friend Diane would love this.

Veal was on sale so tomorrow I will be making a veal pie.

Another sort of dressed veal.
Take the meat so as to have made ham all as trimmed, & make round balls or strips like little sausages, & put them to stew in good broth, & a salted lemon cut in strips, mint, marjoram therein, a little verjuice or wine, & put them to stew well, & serve as such. (France, 1604 – Daniel Myers, trans. Ouverture de Cuisine)

Ingredients

• 1lb ground veal
• salt
• 1.5 liters of bone broth
• 1 salted lemon
• 1 branch each mint, marjoram
• 1/3 cup verjuice (or wine)

Directions

1. Salt the veal to taste and then form into balls ~1 oz, you should get 15-16 balls from 1 lb of veal.
2. Pour broth into a sauce pan and add the rest of the ingredients then bring to boil on high.
3. Drop meatballs into boiling broth and then reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer balls for 7 minutes.
4. Serve balls with broth (and sops). (My family added more salt)

Almond Milk Custard Tart or Daryols

Today I am making two tarts to bring with me to family dinner. The pear and custard pie I’ve blogged about before and a “Daryole” or plain custard tart because my daughter has never ever liked pears.

Tomas De Courcy suggested I try making his daryoles recipe when I mentioned having 3 dozen eggs to play with. I could do that, but since I don’t like to reinvent the wheel every time I blog I am going to do the option he didn’t explore on his page, using almond cream instead of milk which was a suggested substitution in many of versions he references.

Since it is a almond cream or milk mentioned instead of cows milk or cream I feel safe in saying that we can use thick almond milk instead of marzipan like in the Italian quince tart I’ve made before. Google says almond cream is marzipan-like which is why I mention it.

To make almond cream instead of almond milk you use a higher ratio of blanched almonds to water. My almond milk is 1 cup almonds to 4 cups water. My almond cream is 2.5 cups almonds to 2.5 cups water (50-50).

Since almond cream has less fat in it than cows milk I am wondering if adding a few egg yolks instead of whole eggs would give you more of a custard mouth feel but the original recipe says to use whole eggs so that’s what this recipe will do.

DARYOLS. XX.IX. III. Take Creme of Cowe mylke. oþer of Almandes. do þerto ayren with sugur, safroun, and salt, medle it yfere. do it in a coffyn. of II. ynche depe. bake it wel and serue it forth. [Forme of Cury]

Ingredients:
* 2 cups of almond cream
* 4 eggs
* 4 tbsp raw cane sugar
* 1 pinch saffron
* 1 pinch salt
* 2 tart shells

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350.
2) Stir together almond cream, eggs, sugar, salt, and saffron then, while stirring, pour through a pasta strainer into a larger bowl. Divide into two parts.**
3) Pour mixture slowly into each tart shell***. Bake on 350 for 40 minutes, until custard sets.
4) Serve cold.

 

** pouring through a strainer gives a smooth product, using a electric mixer makes a fluffy product, don’t use a mixer.

*** if you set the shell on the pulled-out oven rack and then pour custard into shell you wont’ spill custard on the inside of the oven. Like I did.

 

 

Cheese and Onion Tart or Tart On Ember-day

Tart on Ember-day. Parboyle onions, and sauge, and parsel, and hew hom small, then take gode .fatte chese, and bray hit, and do therto egges, and tempur hit up therwith; and do therto butter and sugur, and raisynges of corance, and pouder of ginger, and of canell; medel all this well togedur, and do hit in a coffyn, and bake hit uncovered and serve hit forthe. Richard Warner, Antiquitates culinariae(1791) Ancient Cookery 1425

Ember-day is a fast day the observant Christian medieval person would follow. It wasn’t fast that meant no-food, but fast meaning no meat. If you are looking for vegetarian recipes “ember” or “in lent” are useful terms to know.

Often you see this recipe with the typo “fauge” instead of “sauge” throwing all sorts of confusion into the mix. There is no herb ‘fauge’ (probably) but there are calligraphy ‘s’ that looks like ‘f’.

Onions being dry and hot of course respond well to being parboiled. It also takes away some of the cooking time and bitterness of the onions. When chopping the cooked onions be careful, they are very slippery*. If you chop them before parboiling you will add a lot more moisture to the pie unless you drain them really well.

Ingredients
* 4 onions, peeled
* 1 tsp sage
* 1 tsp parsley
* 300 ml soft goat cheese
* 4 eggs
* 1/4 cup butter
* 2 tbsp raw cane sugar
*  2 tbsp currants
* 1/2 tsp ginger, ground
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon, ground
* 1 deep dish pie crust

Directions:
1) Place peeled onions into a sauce pan and cover with water. Bring onions to rolling boil. Remove from heat and drain. Let cool before chopping each onion into small pieces (makes about 3 cups of chopped onion)

2) Preheat oven to 350.

3) Mix chopped onions, herbs, cheese, eggs, butter, sugar, currants and spices together. Use the herbs and currants to gauge when it is evenly mixed.

4) Pour onion mixture into pie crust and bake for 1 hour, until pie is golden brown, and middle is cooked. Serve hot or cold.

* yes I cut myself chopping the onions. 

Basil & Ginger Meringue or How to Make a White Roman Tart

This savory tart should be fluffy not dense. If a dense tart was wanted the cook would use:

1. egg yolks not whites and
2.  hard cheese not creamed

All ingredients should be room temperature (except the melted butter).

The recipe calls for adding foam and carefully not adding the liquid left after beating. This liquid is water. With the creamed cottage cheese being so wet, the pie would take longer to cook or become soggy if more liquid was added.

The rest of the redaction choices are easy–the cook gives very precise measurements.

To make a white Roman tart. Take a pound of white cheese of cream, then take the whites of six eggs, & beat then well until a foam forms on the surface like snow, & let a little stay in without beating, then take the foam from thereon, & cast it into the cheese, then beat the whites at the top until again foam forms on the surface like the first time, & cast onto the cheese, & make again two or three times as such, then take two ounces of melted butter, a little ginger, a little chopped basil, & make the tart, & cook like the others. Master Lancelot de Casteau, Ouverture de Cuisine (1604)

Ingredients:

1. 1 lb cottage cheese, creamed
2. 2 branches basil, stems removed, chopped small
3. 1 tsp ginger, grated
4. 2 oz butter, melted
5. 6 egg whiles from small eggs (1/2 cup), whipped
6. 1 deep dish pie crust

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350
2. Pour cheese into large bowl, then cover with basil, ginger, and butter but do not mix. Then cover with egg whites and gently fold ingredients together. The basil will be bright green and show if the batter has been mixed together.
3. Slowly pour batter into pie shell. Its ok if the mixture is taller than the crust, it is more or less the final height on the tart.
4. Bake for 40-50 minutes, or meringue is browned and doesn’t have a liquid-jiggle in the middle when pan is tapped.
5. Serve hot or once cooled.

Modern: make it in little ramkin dishes as souffles because OMG adorable. 

The Tale of Two Tarts – Pear tarts three ways

Sometimes you find two recipes that are fairly similar but with small differences. Like the two recipes that are back to back in A  BOOK OF COOKRYE :

To bake small meats.
Take Egges and seethe them hard, then take the yolkes out of them and braye them in the morter, and temper them with Creme, and then straine them, and put to them Pepper, Saffron, Cloves, Maced, small raisins, Almonds blanched and small shred and grated bread.
Take Peares also sodden in Ale, and bray and straine them with the same Licour, and put therto Bastard and Honny, and put it into a pan and stir it on the fire til it be wel sodden, then make little coffins and set them in the Oven til they be hard, and then take them out againe, and put the foresaid licour into them and so serve them forth.

To make small bake meats of Sirup and Peares.
Take Peares and seethe them in Ale, then bray them and straine them and put Sanders to them and Ale, with the spices aforesaide, and the Coffins in likewise ordered, and so put in the sirup. A.W. A  BOOK OF COOKRYE (1591)

The first “to bake small meats” recipe is pretty straight forward, a honey sweetened pear puree tart with a thick cream sauce that uses all the things to thicken the sauce. The second tart is less clear. Instead of simmering the pear mixture its baked, with a ‘sirup’. Its not clear what the ‘sirup’ A.W. is talking about here.

The manuscript has ‘sirip’ listed in four other places:

“…put in some sirup of vergious, and some sugar…”

” …take Claret wine, Vergious, Rosewater, Sinamon, Ginger and Sugar, boyle them togither, laye your Pig flat like a Fawne or a Kidde, and put your sirup unto it…”

“…and make your sirrop half with rosewater and half with that liquor & put double sugar to your Orenges, and when your sirup is halfe sodden…”

“To make sirup of Violets. … and put to them so much rosewater as you think good then let them boyle altogither untill the colour be forth of them, then take them of the fire and straine them through a fine cloth, then put so much Sugar to them as you thing good…”

So the ‘sirup’ in the second recipe can be three things:

1. the cream sauce from the first recipe.
2. sugar + the cooking liquid
3. sugar + rosewater and cooking liquid

It cannot be verjuice + sugar because I said so.

So a mad scientist er a medieval recipe enthusiast googles the recipes to see what other people have done, and as of today I found nothing for either recipe. The other option open to the cook is to try the variations and see which tastes better.

Makes 37 tarts

Recipe 1 Pear Puree (for both tarts):
* 3 cups of chopped pears
* 500 ml (1 can) light-coloured beer

1. Place chopped pears in small sauce pan. Cover with  beer. Simmer for 1 hour on medium.
2. Strain fruit but reserve the cooking liquid, you will need it.
3. Smash batches of fruit with mortar and pestle with a small splash of cooking liquid and then force through colander with potato masher and/or wooden spoon. This will remove most of the skins.
4. Should arrive at 2 cups of pear puree.

Pear Tart #1 (To bake small meats)

Ingredients:
Cream sauce:
* two egg yolks, cooked
* 1/2 cup cream
* 1/4 tsp each, pepper, mace, cloves
* 1 pinch saffron
* 1 tbsp raisins
* 2 tbsp almond meal
* 3 tbsp bread crumbs

tart filling:
* 1 cup of pear puree
* 2 tbsp white wine
* 2 tbsp honey

12 small tart shells

Directions

1. Make cream sauce: Take 2 egg yolks and mast in mortar and pestle, adding cream slowly. Stir the liquid in the mortar, and slowly pour through a colander into another bowl. Add spices, raisins, almond meal and bread crumbs into cream mixture. Stir well and set aside.
2. Pre-heat oven to 350.
3. Place pear puree, wine and honey into sauce pan and brig to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Place 1 tbsp of pear mixture into each tart shell.
5. Bake for 35 minutes, until tarts are brown.
6. Place 1/2 tbsp of the cream mixture on each hot tart, spreading it out with a knife or spoon. Make sure there is at least 1 raisin on each tart.
7. Serve once cooled.

Tart #2 (To make small baked meats of sirup and pears)

Ingredients:
* 1 cup of pear puree
* 1/4 tsp each, pepper, mace, cloves
* 1 tsp saunders
* 1/4 cup + 1/2 cup of cooking liquid
* 1/2 cup raw sugar
* 1 tsp rosewater
* 25 tart shells

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Mix pear puree, spices, saunders and 1/4 cup cooking liquid.
3. Put 1/2 tbsp of pear mixture into each tart shell.
4. Mix 1/2 cup cooking liquid and raw sugar together in sauce pan, heating gently to dissolve sugar.
5. Put 1/2 tbsp of syrup onto 12 of the filled tart shells.
6. Mix rosewater into rest of syrup. Put 1/2 tbsp of the adulterated syrup onto the rest of the filled tart shells.
7. Baked for 35 minutes until tarts are brown.

Authors notes:

1. The rose water ones taste better than the ones without. Who knew?
2. The option of putting the “cream sauce” on the second kind of tart and baking it was gross. I’m not including a recipe here. 
3. None of the above recipes tasted of pear. 

 

 

Fancy Pear Tart for the Holiday Party or A Baked Mete

I was flipping through the bible “Take a Thousand Eggs or More” by the goddess, Cindy Renfrow, and needed to find a recipe worthy of the precious beef marrow I’d saved from making something else. Her recipe on page 191 called “A Baked Meat” seemed like a great place to start.

Pears set in a yellow custard. You also make use of the strainer technique to smooth out the custard.

My recipe deviates from the one by Renfrow but it does so with respect.

A bake Mete. Take an make fayre lytel cofyns; than take Perys, and 3if they ben lytelle, put .iij. in a cofynne, and pare clene, and be-twyn euery pere, ley a gobet of Marow; and yf thou haue no lytel Perys, take grete, and gobet ham, and so put hem in the ovyn a whyle; than take thin commade lyke as thou takyst to Dowcetys, and pore ther-on; but lat the Marow and the Pecy3 ben sene; and whan it is y-now, serue forth…

Doucete3. Take Creme a gode cupfulle, and put it on a straynoure; thanne take 3olkys of Eyroun and put ther-to, and a lytel mylke; then strayne it thorw a straynoure in-to a bolle; then take Sugre y-now, and put ther-to, or ellys hony forde faute of Sugre, than coloure it with Safroun; than take thin cofyns, and put in the ovynne lere, and lat hem ben hardyd; than take a dysshe y-fastenyd on the pelys ende; and pore thin comade in-to the dyssche, and fro the dyssche in-to the cofyns; and when they don a-ryse wel, take hem out, and serue hem forth. (England, 1430)

Ingredients:
* 2 9″ pie shells
* 5-6 small bosc pears, washed, halved, cored
* 4 tbsp beef marrow
* 1.5 cups whipping cream
* 4 egg yolks
* 3 tbsp honey
* 2 pinches of saffron

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350.
2) Place pear halves cut-face down, stem side in the middle with the round bottoms around the edge like a flower in both tart shells. Distribute the marrow around the pears in each pie. Bake for 25 minutes, until tart is browning, and marrow is sizzling.
3) Stir together cream, yolks, honey and saffron then, while stirring, pour through a pasta strainer into a larger bowl. Divide into two parts.
4) Pour cream mixture slowly into each pear tart, careful not to fully submerge the pear bottoms completely. Bake on 350 for 30 minutes, until custard sets and pears are cooked through.
5) Serve cold.

Quince Tart without a cover

This is a slightly different tart from the Quince Tart from last week. I still had quinces left over from Sauce Madame to use up. Really I still have sauce madame to use up too, the recipe makes a lot of sauce.

This recipe calls to mix quince and apple (or pears) . Quince are pretty high in pectin so I am not sure if it is a flavour suggestion or a pectin suggestion, although it would help a tart without eggs slice more easily.

According to Know Your Humours web site by Agnes de Lanvallei quince are cold and dry, apples are moist, wine is hot and dry, sugar is hot and moist. If you were cooking to balance humours this combination makes sense as well. Wardens are also moist.

If you are exploring quince, A Book of Cookrye by A. W has several different variations on quince tarts and pies to try.

Tartes of quinces without covers. Straine your quinces with some wine, when they be boiled tender, and an apple with them, or two or three wardens, straine them and season them with Sugar, sinamon and Ginger, and so make tarte without a cover. A Book of Cookrye by A. W. (1591)

Ingredients
* 3 large quince, roughly chopped
* 1 large apple
* 1 cup white wine
* 1/2 cup raw cane sugar
* 1 tsp cinnamon, ground
* 1 tsp ginger, ground
* 1 tart shell

Directions
1) Place quince, apple, and wine in a sauce pan and then add enough water to cover. Place pot on medium low and simmer contents for 1 hour, or until quince are soft enough to break apart.
2) Strain off the water, then set fruit and strainer aside to cool enough to handle.
3) Force cooled fruit through the strainer into a clean bowl, leaving behind the skins and cores in the strainer. I use a potato masher to help force the fruit through. This will create a smooth fruit slurry with the fruit expelled from the bottom of the strainer.
4) Preheat oven to 350.
5) Mix sugar and spices in the quince-apple paste. Pour mixture into tart shell and bake for 1 hour or until tart is brown and mixture is thickened . Serve once cooled.