Cooking for a small weekend

This past weekend was a smallish event hosted by our canton and the Accedemy of Defense. It was held at Schloss Callenberg, actually the hunting lodge beneath the schloss. We had less than 30 people and a lovely time. As life is crazy right now I kept to a simple menu, I was trying to keep to recipes I had made before but shoved that aside to make a Dessert from Apicius and some herb fritters. Mind you, the herb fritters is a recipe I found on another web site but all proportions were made up on the spot!

Dinner Friday night was my staple of lentil stew.

Breakfast was mostly traditional German, brotchen, cheese, meats, jam, and butter, but I added in a treat :) Baked beans! yummy!

Saturday lunch was a Brie Pie (I used camembert) and chicken with lemons and oranges. This is the same luch I served for Crown tourney held in the same place in spring 2011.

Feast was served in a buffet style which most people seemed to like with the small crowd we had.
Breseola from Scappi, though I played with the cooking method again as I stewed these in broth, grape must (which I made last year from the directions in Scappi) and for lack of verjuice i use a bit of brantwein vinegar. I am not really sure what the englis equivelant would be, it is a part wine part apple vinegar that is mild and tart. It has also become my go to vinegar for most recipes. The meat was so tender it could be cut with a spoon! Next attempts will be over the fire!

Kohlrabi: boiled in water with oil, salt pepper and saffron

Buttered Noodles

Carrots

Fritters:
ORIGINAL RECEIPT:
156. Frytour of erbes. Take gode erbys; grynde hem and medle hem with flour and water, & a lytel zest, and salt, and frye hem in oyle. And ete hem with clere honey.
- Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

I couldn't rightly tell you what I did, I bought a 5 kg bag of flour, took what i needed to make 5 pie crusts from it and the extra to roll them out, then used the rest of the bag for the fritters. I tossed in handfulls and pinches of whatever was green (all I had was dried herbs) in my spices, added some chopped green onion and mixed it together. Added salt , and then my mistress mixed yeast with warm water I would guess about a tablespoon or 2 with 8 cups at least. Mixed that into the flour and herbs and then let it set on the counter, The consistancy was thick but not so it stuck to the spoon, It rolled off (not cleanly) and "dropped" nicely. We left the mixture on the counter bubbling away for a few hours. They were fried in Raps oil, in english rapeseed or canola. Next time olive or lard! They were a HUGE hit! even with the honey on them, It was a lovely blend of sweet and savory which seems to be becoming a thing with me.

and desert from Apicius, Elderberry Custard pg 98 in my translation.

A dish of elderberries, either hot or cold is made in this manner. Take elderberries wash them; cook them in water, skim and strain. Prepare a dish in which to cook the custard, Crush six scruples of pepper with a little broth; add this to teh elderberry pulp with another glass of broth, a glass of wine, a glass of raisin wine and as much as 4 ounces of oil. Put the dish in a hot bathand stif the contents. As soon as it is getting warm, quickly break 6 eggs and whipping them, incorperate them, in order to thicken the fluid. when thick enough sprinkle with pepper and serve up.

Substitutions and changes abound were made! lol. I didn't have raisin wine though I can get it, I had raising liquor which was made from raisin wine. We did not use the pepper as my mistress summizes that they are not talking about black pepper but without the original latin text we could not confirm so we went without. This was TART! in the begining and so some honey was added to "tone it down". We placed it in the fridge to set. It was lovely in the end! Very enjoyable and well worth working on more. The custard did weep but not terribly and it dod not keep it from setting. It could be that less liquid could have been used.

All in all