12th-nite-fst-art - 8/25/98 The Ansteorran 12th Night Feast, AS 32 cooked by Gunthar. NOTE: See also the files: headcooks-msg, feast-menus-msg, p-menus-msg, feast-ideas-msg, feasts-msg, 12th-nite-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 11:40:43 -0600 From: mfgunter at fnc.fujitsu.com (Michael F. Gunter) Subject: SC - 12th Night Handout (long) Here's the final menu I used at 12th Night as posted in my handout at the door. Bread with Honey FIRST COURSE - - Roast Pork with Assorted Sauces ingredients: pork, salt, pepper, rosemary - - Garlic Pepper Sauce ingredients: bread, wine vinegar, wine, meat broth, garlic, pepper, salt source: _Pleyn Delit_ - - Stawberry Sauce ingredients: almonds, meat broth, rice flour, strawberries, salt, cinnamon source: _Pleyn Delit_ - - Lombard Brewet in Bread Bowls ingredients: chicken, almonds, bread, egg yolks, parsley,pepper, butter, mace, ginger, nutmeg, vinegar, salt source: _An Ordinance of Pottage_, Constance B. Hieatt - - Tart of Parsnips and Skerrits ingredients: carrots, parsnips, wine, butter, sugar, rosewater, eggs, lemon juice, pie crust source: _Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery_ - - Saffron Rice ingredients: rice, saffron source Taillevent (14th Century) - - Apple Fritters ingredients: pancake mix, apples, confectioner's sugar source: _Pleyn Delit_ SECOND COURSE - - Beef Collops ingredients: beef, peppercorns, cloves, allspice, pepper, cinnamon, beef broth, ginger, wine vinegar source: _An Ordinance of Pottage_ - - Chicken in Orange or Lemon Sauce ingredients: chicken, chicken stock, currants, dates, oranges, bread, peppercorns, mace, sugar, rosewater, white wine source: _A Taste of History: 10,000 Years of Food In Britain_ adapted from Thomas Dawson - - Mushroom Pasties ingredients: mushrooms, olive oil, cheddar cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, mustard powder, wonton wrappers source: _The Medieval Cookbook_, Maggie Black - - Lentils ingredients: lentils, onions, olive oil, garlic, pepper, ginger, cumin, coriander, cloves, salt, bread crumbs, mint, parsley, vinegar source: _Arte de Cozina_, circa 1607 - - Peascods ingredients: peapods, butter, salt source: _Pleyn Delit_ - - Boiled Cream Custard Tart ingredients: whipping cream, butter, cream cheese, eggs, sugar, saffron, salt, ginger source: _An Ordinance of Pottage_ PLATTERS - - Sliced Apples and Pears - - Dates - - Cheese Toasts ingredients: bread, butter, cheddar cheese, cream cheese source: adapted from taditional Welsh, Sir Kenelem Digby's _A Closet Opened_ - - Cuskeynoles ingredients: apples, pears, dates, figs, raisins, almonds, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, lemon juice, wonton wrappers source: _Curye on Inglysche_ A FEW NOTES ABOUT ADAPTATIONS TO THE RECIPES: - - Saffron Rice: In period, the rice would have been steeped in milk. Water has been substituted for milk for economic reasons. As a result, this recipe would probably have been a little bland to the medieval palate. - - Apple Fritters: The original recipe calls for beer batter. A commercial batter has been substituted instead for economic reasons. It is hoped that this will at least give an example of a period sweet. - - Parsnip and Carrot Tart: This recipe is taken from _Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery_. This book is a collection of recipes handed down. This particular recipe is believed to date to 1550-1625. PLEASE NOTE: Since everyone seems to eat everything in the first course and all of that wonderful food in the second course goes ignored, no seconds will be offered until the second course has been served. THANKS: The Cooks would like to thank everyone who has helped with the pre-feast work: Lady Alys Durivaux, especially for Logistical support Lady Giuliana and HL Muireann for graciously allowing us the use of thier home Duke Lloyd and HL Thyra for being there and allowing us to do this Corwin MacEoian and Lady Giuliana for all to thier hard work TE Robin and Adelicia for jumping in and making a LOT of cuskynoles And all of those wonderful people who just drop in and help during the day. We hope you enjoy! This is pretty much verbatum from the handout. I have posted the recipes for the Lombardy Brewet, Boiled Cream, and Chicken with Orange sauce. For the Cuskynoles I used (I believe) Aiofe's posted recipe. I also cheated in using the wontons and folding them over. I could have placed another wonton over the first and had a period version using the "ravioli" type argument. The reason we used the foldover method was so that it would be different from the mushroom pasties already used. I will print the recipes for the sauces, collops, and pasties later. The lentils were the recipe Duke Cariadoc posted as "A dish of Lentils". The peascods were a big hit. I used fresh green beans and boiled them in salted water. They were then tossed with some melted butter. They came out very light and tender, amongst all of the rich heavy dishes they were a taste of Spring. Although the thought of a lot of small dishes can be daunting, I found them useful because you can recruit more help in the pre-feast phase. People will be more willing to help cook a smaller amount of a dish. Also the fact that there were many dishes helped me stretch the feast more when it became overrun. Comments are always appreciated. Gunthar Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 11:45:46 -0600 From: mfgunter at fnc.fujitsu.com (Michael F. Gunter) Subject: SC - 12th Night Recipes - Lombardy Brewet I promised a report of the dishes I used so here goes: I used many of the dishes already familiar on this list but I will go over some of the more popular ones and my experiences anyway. One of the most popular dishes served, and the only one I really ran out of was Lombardy Brewet. This is from "An Ordinance of Pottage" and I didn't make any changes to the redaction from the book. 3 cups boiled chicken 1-2 tsp butter 2 oz (1/2 cup) ground almonds 1/4 tsp ground mace 2 slices white bread 1/4 tsp ground ginger 4 cooked egg yolks 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg 1/4 cup chopped parsley 2 tsp vinegar 1/8 tsp pepper 1 tsp salt (to taste) 2 cups boiling water or chicken broth Draw up the almond milk with 2 cups water or chicken broth. Let steep for 15 minutes then strain. When it is steeping, grind or blend together the egg yolks, bread, and parsley. Blend some of the almond milk in, then add the mixture to the rest of the almond milk with the pepper. Pour this sauce over the chicken in a pot and simmer, stirring occasionally. When the sauce has thickened slightly, add the butter, then dissolve the remaining spices in the vinegar, stir in and add salt to taste. I served this in bread bowls at the feast. It is wonderfully rich and very tasty with the hint of the aromatics. It's actually pretty easy to do. The hardest part was making all of that blasted almond milk. I used the broth from boiling the chicken for the almond milk. I ground the almonds to a fine powder in my coffee grinder (yes, it is used only for almonds). Another thing I did was separate the yolks from the whites and boiled the egg yolks alone. We used the raw whites as glazing for the tarts. -------- The next tidbit is the Boiled Cream Tart. I got this from "An Ordinance of Pottage" by Constance B. Hieatt. 2 cups whipping cream 1/4 cup sugar 1/4 cup clarified butter OR 8 oz curd or cottage cheese OR 4 oz cream cheese 6 egg yolks OR 3 whole eggs pinch of saffron 1/4 tsp salt 1 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp sugar Blend the cream with the butter or cheese, put this mixture in a large saucepan and heat it over low heat, stirring. Beat the egg yolks or eggs separately with the sugar, saffron, and salt. Gradually add the hot cream mixture, continuing to beat until smoothly blended. Return the mixture to the pan & cook very gently, stirring and without letting it come to the boil until it is really thick. Pour into a pie shell and allow to cool. Decorate with edible flowers or berries. Notes: The recipe also came with a microwave version but I couldn't get it to work right. We did batches of 3 & 4 with no problems by being careful. I found out using a mixture of half & half and whipping cream made the best texture. I used Neufshatel cheese instead of cream cheese. Mainly because it was half the price of cream cheese. The tarts came out a lovely color varying from cream colored to light yellow depending on the amount of saffron used. They were very tasty although a bit bland. We were going to decorate with blueberries and raspberries but in the crush we forgot to do it. The berries would have added a nice flavor and made it a much better dish. ------ Capon w/Orange or Lemon Sauce From "A Taste of History: 10,000 Years of Food in Britan" This recipe is adapted from Thomas Dawson: "The Good Housewife's Jewell" and dates from the Tudor period. 1 Capon or chicken 1/2 tsp black peppercorns 1 pint chicken stock 1 tsp mace 2 oz currants 3 T. sugar 4 dates 1 T. rosewater about 8 oz oranges, mandarins, lemons 1/2 pint white wine 8 oz white bread, cut into large crustless cubes Put the chicken in a pan, cover with water and boil until tender (45 minutes is sufficient). Drain 1 pint stock from the bird and simmer for 5 minutes with the currants, dates, and fruit (peeled & divided into segments). Then add the remaining ingredients (white wine being preferable when using lemons). Simmer for a further 5-10 minutes and pour over the bird arranged on a bed of bread cubes in a large dish. NOTES: I couldn't find currants, so I just used raisins. We used nice navel oranges. Not period but simpler. We poached boneless/skinless chicken thighs and used the poaching liquid for the sauce. We made the sauce and then threw in the thighs to absorb the liquid and warm on the feast day. This was not served over the bread cubes since I already had so many "bread" dishes planned. This was simply served plain as just the chicken pieces and a couple slices of the orange. Very nice dish. --------- Stewed Collops of Meat (Stewyd Colops) From "An Ordinance of Pottage" 6-12 fairly thick slices of beef (1/8 lb ea.) 1/8 tsp. ground pepper 4-5 peppercorns 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 4-5 whole cloves 1 cup beef broth 4-5 allspice berries 1/4 tsp ginger 4 tsp wine vinegar Arrange the slices in a casserole, preferably an oval one in which they can be arranged in an overlapping pattern. Tie the whole spices in cheesecloth and tuck them under the meat. Sprinkle with teh pepper & cinnamon and add the broth. Simmer, or bake in a medium oven, for about an hour. Before serving, stir in the ginger dissolved in the vinegar and remove the whole spices. There are some non-period/late period spices involved in this redaction. Some experimentation could be done to make it more period. Be sure to keep the broth at a simmer. If the broth isn't hot enough the meat will become tough which is what happened in the warmers at the feast. --------- Mushroom Pasties "The Goodman of Paris" adapted in "The Medieval Cookbook" by Maggie Black. 1 lb mushrooms 1/2 tsp salt 2 T. olive oil 1/8 tsp ground black pepper 2 oz grated cheese (cheddar) 1/4 tsp dry mustard powder 1 egg, beaten salt tart shells & pastry to top Preheat oven to 400 degrees Finely chop mushrooms. Put in a bowl and mix in oil, cheese, and seasonings. Place in the tart shells and cover with the top crust. Seal with beaten egg. Make a small cross cut in the center of the lid to let steam escape. Bake for 15-18 minutes. Serve warm. I first made these using a pie pastry and lining muffin cups. These were very cute but making 400 of these in less than a week forced me to other measures. I wound up putting a spoonful in the center of a round wonton and topping with another wonton wrapper. Baked, these came out crunchy/chewy with the rich mushroom/cheese filling. I really liked these and if you are making them for less than 400 fully recommend the muffin sized pies. The mushrooms will become watery so you may want to press out some of the water after they have been chopped. Don't wait too long to either freeze or cook the mushrooms as they will turn bitter if left for too long. The mushrooms freeze well. Gunthar Edited by Mark S. Harris 12th-nite-fst-art Page 7 of 7