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

Doublewars, 3 days of cooking over a fire

Ok so DW is a 10 daqy evenet and I cooked more than just the 3 days but .. 3 days of planned period meals cooking in priod pots. Nothing fancy mind you. The first day was chicken with milk and honey, rice, carrots and salad. The second was boiled meat puddings, barley and parsnips, and salad. The third day was sausages with apples and onions, bread dumpling and salad.

Salad consisted of mixed greens and spinach dressed with vinegar, oil and a few dry herbs.

All the food came out tasty!

My new pots are AWESOME!!!!! They are replicas built from a find in Bad Windsheim and are glazed on the inside only. They cooked very well and made me happy!

I did do some period recipes on a fourth day for a competition, I made cheese fritters, cameline meat bruet and elizabethan gingerbread. Of all this food I manage to only get 1 picture and that was of the gingerbread!

Weekend tid bits

ok, this is late I admit it. A few weekends ago I spent some time with my Laurel and we tested a couple of recipes. Stuffed kohlrabi from Scappi and Spinach fritters from The Good Housewifes Jewel. Both of them and notes follow.

Ok To make fritters of spinach.

We sort of just winged it as we went along so there are no ammounts or anything.
Original text:
     Take a good deal of spinach and wash it clean. Then boil it in fair water. When it is boiled take it forth and let the water run from it. Then chop it with the back of a knife, and put in some eggs and grated bread. Season it with sugar, cinnamon,ginger and pepper, dates minced fine and currants. Roll them like a ball and dip them in batter made of ale and flour.

     Take a large bag of spinach and wilt it. Press the water from it and roughly chop. Add in the dates, eggs and spices. Roll them into balls the size of ping pong balls. Dip them in a batter of ale and flour made into a batter just thicker than pancake batter. Heat oil to frying temp, fry them quickly only until they are browned.

     These were tasty!

Scappi: Book 3 recipe # 241 page 364
To cook a stuffed kohlrabi bulb

Get a bulb of kohlrabi that is not woody and, without peeling it, better than half cook under coals. Then take it out, peel it, make a hole in its middle and fill it with the above mixture. Braise it the way the stuffed  onion of recipe 232 is done. Instead of cooking it under the embers or coals you can also parboil it. Mind particularly , though, that the bulb is of a young kohlrabi.

The mixture spoken of is from recipe 240.
Mix old walnuts that are not rancid, ground with a small clove of garlic, breadcrumb soaked in hot water, mint, marjoram, burnet and parsley, those herbs beaten, raisins, pepper, cinnamon, and a little eel flesh which is ground in a mortar.

1.5 to 2 cup of bread crumbs
1 clove garlic
1 cup walnuts

@1/2 water or broth to moisten bread crumbs, more if they were dry

1 Tbsp fresh cut parsley
1/2 tsp mint (dry)
@ Tbsp cinnamon (ground fine, found to be too much)
1/2 - 2/3 raisins
1 tsp marjoram (dry)
2 1 Tbsp salt

The kohlrabi were roasten in a 350degree oven (on the bottom, no pan no oil nothing)
cooked for 1 1/2 hrs then the oven turned off
Skin is tough, do not measure doneness by skin but by internal pressure and depth the fork goes in.

peel, and "core". I used a paring knife 1st and took out a cone shape wedge, using a spoon I scraped out the walls to about a 1/4 inch thickness (in some places it was thicker for fear of taring the flesh)

stuff with stuffing

oil their outsides and place some oil in the pan

Braise until done (about another hour at 350 degree)

Lovely when cut into quarters! The stuffing really stays in place.

Time is fleet of foot and steady of course

It has been way too long since I updated my forays into cooking. My stumbling block started as an "after event review" that I just couldn't get right in my head or in words. I really had wanted to talk about the feast I had been prepping for but tripped over words. So now, I am just jumping in.

Accademia Della Danza: food review.

There was plenty as usual. The reviews, If someone had something bad to say about it they didn't tell me (and I wish they would). The person who matters most though was very pleased, and that is ME! I am extremely happy with everything from taste to execution! It was a wonderful job and I in no way did it alone! I had my share of help, Lady Petronilla of London, Lady Mechthild Quarttermart, Lord Erich Olavsson Haane, Lord Silvein Morgan, Lady Alyna Morgan and Lord Edward de Cantia who was the hall steward and arranger of servers. I could not have done this without all of them.

I have no better way to do this then just publish the "post mortem" I sent to my Laurel (Countess Judith if people don't know and wonder). So here it is for your ponderance. If you were at the event and would like to provide me feedback I would be ever so appreciative.

1.) What went well? What will you do the same next time? Consider logistics, staffing, purchasing, pre-shopping, etc.

           

            All in all I think things went well again. A much bigger success this time. All courses got cooked and served. Food was warm and on time. The biggest things that went "wrong" were very minor and or out of any one person's control.

            Next time I will make my lists and do what I can to make a similar timeline that allows for a slow and steady work pace with time for breaks.

            Purchasing, there are a few things that I can do here differently but all in all I will do it about the same way. I love my lists!

            Kitchen staff was Awesome if erratic. Petronilla was there from start to finish and a Huge help! Also the surprise of Erich made life easier. Alyna and Silvein were very helpful especially at serving time. It takes 4 people to serve (which is what I thought it would) 2 to dress and load the elevator 1 for dishes and 1 to take things out of the oven and prep the next items. The erratic ones were Silvein and Alyna who both suffered from health troubles early in the day. Even without them in the kitchen as a constant we did very well and were very successful. I would use the same crew again.

2.) What were the major crises that arose? How did you handle them? How would you handle them differently next time? Consider logistics, staffing, purchasing, pre-shopping, etc.

I cannot think of a single "major" crisis . There were a few mini crisis's but nothing tragic.

The list includes:

            Discovering too late that the cream I bought didn't make it to the cooler and therefore the site.

            Discovering too late that I miss counted eggs and was 8 short (I was able to make up the difference in the dish with egg whites.

            No Turkeys, while this one was ultimately settled it was scary to be needing to re evaluate an entire course!

            My serving bowls went missing. While not a tragedy it is unsettling to have happen. Thankfully they were just out my sight and hubby found them. It would have been no big loss and we would have managed just fine without them. Petronilla had brought her supply as well and so we had plenty to go around.

            Illness, while I was not struck the same way other people were I did have a few moments on Friday where I thought I might have issues, and there was one moment on Saturday where the smell of the eggs drove me out of the kitchen. Friday I was able to take a nap and Saturday had plenty of time for us to work steadily but not hurriedly.

            The "one" person. Sigh, in my mind this is my biggest failure, especially as she came from the US. I worked hard with lists and the advanced notice of the dietary restriction. I just didn't realize how pervasive milk was in my menu and it really wasn't milk it was BUTTER that was the problem but as it is a milk allergy and not intolerance this created in my mind problems. Though she assured me everything was fine I still feel like a jerk and that I failed.

3.) Of the aspects that went wrong, which were the result of planning issues, which were the result of site issues, and which were the result of staffing issues? (i.e. what lead to the "failure")?

            The cream is a "planning failure" despite my lists It seems I am either destined or determined to leave at least 1 thing behind!

            The egg miscount, just that. A miscalculation despite counting and counting and counting. I used paper, my head and a calculator so I am just not sure here.

            Turkeys, this one did solve itself. I was able to call around and find that my area had none but Alyna was able to check and found them for me. Had they not been found I would have looked through the recipes for one that would have been an acceptable substitute. I had a small bit of panic but no major meltdown or anything about it.

            The serving bowls, this one makes me laugh, while I was upset I was not stressed as I knew that Petronilla had quite a few bowls and that if need be we could wash between removes.

            Illness, this one is out of anyone's control. It happens. Had I gone down to the dreaded yuck Petronilla knew all the dishes that were being cooked, there was a clear timeline posted and all my notes available to her to complete the job.

            The "one", planning and paying closer attention. I looked at my ingredients dozens of times but didn't look at my most base ingredients, there was butter in my pie crusts, I cook things in butter, butter is everywhere! lol. ok not so funny but a little funny. When it comes to allergies and dietary restrictions I need to pay closer attention to the little things.

           

4.) In terms of the dishes themselves, how satisfied were you with their result? What would you do differently for them?

            I was very satisfied with the results of all the dishes! They were great, I have had only one person say anything "bad" about them and that was that they weren't sure about the chickpeas but that they usually aren't their thing anyway. I am still getting comments and praise about the food and it is Wednesday!

            Though I did have 2 interesting experiences, After last year no one said anything bad to me about the food including person "A" who this year said to me they were unsure if they wanted to have feast because of last years. Sigh, this is a person I know and would have expected to say something if they thought it was "that bad" they told me this as a reference though to praise the job I have done this year. The second was again people who were there last year and had said again that the food from last year was good but I had outdone myself and they were looking forward to next year to see what I do.

5.) Did the food meet your goals? If not all of them, which ones were achieved, and which were not?

                The food more than met my goals. The only thing I was unhappy with was that the chickpeas stuck  in the beginning but I was able to get them unstuck and keep them from sticking further.

                Because of my miscount on eggs the pumpkin ended up with more white than it should have had changing it a little but not allot. I was still very happy with the results.

                The Turkeys were a HUGE hit, more so than I expected actually and even with sending them whole to the table for "presentation" and ease on us, they were well received.

                The Kohlrabi seems to have been viewed with some skepticism but not allot was returned to the kitchen out of 8 bowls I had 2 bowls left over and I think 1 of those was from high table where there were only 3 adults eating. This would have been a very expensive dish If I hadn't had the pine nuts left from something else.

                I heard great things about the eggs which is what I was hoping for. They were not your standard stuffed eggs and I think people liked that. I did hear some about the raisins in them nothing terribly negative, the person I overheard admitted they don't care for raisins to begin with.  I do not think the count was too off but could have been adjusted down slightly.

                The rouladen, what can I say about  meat stuffed with meat.  The flavor is very close to last years but the experience of them is different, only 1 person said they liked last year's better with the hardboiled egg yolks. Thorvaldr noted that they should be served with a sauce, then I pointed out they were in a bowl of it. lol, forgot to ask what he thought of them after that.

The broccoli had no leftovers and that says something. More than one person remarked that the texture had been perfectly preserved. I think this is the dish that made me proudest. I was so scared of over or under cooking it as both are easily done.

Portions were very under control  though the rouladen could have been cut in half. I would not have been comfortable cooking less of anything but the chickpeas maybe the kohlrabi.

This year I worked to improved communication, I sent Edward a copy of the time plan as it would apply to him in advance so he had a to look it over and see if there were any problems with it from his point of view.

I also had a plan this year to give him. I posted it outside the kitchen for anyone to look at as well as a copy of the menu.

I knew the menu very,  very well . It was easier for me to keep track this year of what was done and what needed doing by using a folder that had my recipes in it as well as the time schedule. When someone asked what to do next if I did not immediately know I had something to reference and it helps allot. I also tried to stay on one task at a time as well as keep others on one task at a time.

Going in Thursday helped, not with the cooking as much as I was able to take the time to set things up and organize, I got some foods done as well but having the time to unpack and sort things really helped. It meant more time for me to work on the food. I could get up early Friday and start immediately. Without that there would have been more of a time crunch and the nap I needed to take would not have been possible. Potentially leaving me much worse off.

I had a clock! It was one of the important things for me. Last year I had a hard time with time and knowing what time it was. With a clock I was more able to keep focused. Knowing what time it was an how much time I had helped immensely!

We had less garbage! I have no clue really how that happened. Though it was in my mind it was not my top concern.  There is only 1 thing I processed at home and that was the pumpkin.  Everything else was processed on site.

book 3 p376 rec# 273 To cook stuffed eggs

            It seems tradition at this point to serve filled eggs of some sort at every feast and who am I to buck a tradition like that. These are definitely a twist on it though. Baked in butter and dressed with a sauce made of orange juice i had my doubts but yet again Scappi did not disappoint me.

            Cook eggs as in the previous recipe [hard boil them], but they should be firmer. Shell the, split them in two lenthtwise, and dig out the yolk. Grind it in a mortar with sugar mixed with raisins, pepper, cinnamon, raw egg yolk, a little salt, orange juice, and beaten mint, marjoram, and burnet. Fill the hollow of the egg white with that mixture, then put the eggs, with their filling upwards, into a shallow, lidded tourte pan with enough butter to half cover them. Cook them with fire under and above them. When the mixture has set, serve them dressed with a sauce made of verjuice, sugar, orange juice, and cooked raisins. Alternatively, when they are slightly undercooked, pour over them a sauce made of ground almonds with a little breadcrumbs and raw egg yolks moistened with verjuice, sugar and cinnamon. Bring everything to a boil together, tasting it to see that it is both bitter and sweet. Then serve it rather hot with the sauce over it and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.

            As I am not providing you with the recipe previous to this one (at least not yet) . I have made a note that the eggs should be hard boiled.

My experiment was tasty, even with the absence of the burnet. It is just damned hard to find here and with the weather having set it I didn't get a plant in time but I have a lead on where to get one.

I started with 9 eggs (one didn't survive the boiling and for those outside of Germany, eggs come by the 10). 

I peeled them and cut them, dug out the yolk and placed it in a bowl. My mortar would not have been large enough. I added 3 Tbsp of OJ 2 raw yolks 1-1/2 Tbsp of sugar 1/8 cup of raisins (actually sultanens as I could not find raisins in the store and was out at home) I cut them with a pair of kitchen shears to make them small. I used about 1 tsp each of salt and pepper, 1/2 tsp each of cinnamon and marjoram and only a scant 1/4 tsp of mint (not wanting to overpower anything).

For the size pan we used (not sure how big) we used about 125 gm of butter melted. This was just about enough to half cover them.

Because the oven was occupied by our other experiment we placed the eggs on the middle rach at 180 for about 15 min. When checked we discovered this was not sufficient time at this level in the oven so we switched places of the experiments placing the eggs closer to the bottom. This done they were there 15 more minutes.

We dressed them at the table with plain orange juice as I realized that I left my verjuice at home and had not even remembered to pick up grape juice!

All in all tasty! Will need less time in a hotter oven and I think the burnet will do interesting things for the flavor but like mint will have to be used prudently.



All in all life is good!

Book 2 page 141 rec# 14 To make stuffed bresaola and croquettes from loin of beef

This is my recipe that I thought I had gotten then realized I made a reading error.

Original:
     Get the leanest part of the loin and cut it up into slices a hand in length, four fingers wide and a knife's spine thick. Beat them on both sides with the spine of a knife, splash them with a little vinegar, and sprinkle them with fennel flour, ground salt, pepper and cinnamon, piling them up on top of one another for two hours so that they absorb that mixture better. Cook them on a grill with a slice of fat salted bacon on each one: that is done to keep them from drying out. When they have been turned two or three times and you see them coloring, they are served soft like that with orange juice over them, or else a sauce made of  vinegar, sugar, cinnamon and cloves. If you do not want to cook those brisavoli on the grill, fry them in rendered fat or lard.
     Should you wish to make stuffed croquettes, as mentioned, with a knife pound some of the loin with the same ammount of pork fat and proscuitto, adding in two cloves of garlic, egg yolks, a little cheese, pepper, cinnamon, beaten parsley, mint and wild thyme. With that mixture stuff the bresavoli , rolling them up like waffer coronets and puttinh them on a spit with a thin slice of pork fat and sage leaves between each one. When they are almost done and taking on a little colour, put them into a pot with a little broth, must syrup, verjuice and raisins, and finish cooking them with the pot stopped up. When they are cooked they need to be served with their sauce over them. You can also serve them without stewing them, letting them finish cooking on the spit; but they can also stew in a pot or braise in the oven, and cook in all the ways that the above tenderloin is done.

The underlined passage is the one I am refering to as my "mistake". Somehow when I read it I sort of glanced over it and intrepreted it as to treat the meat the same way as above and that is to beat it with the spike of the knife. When I got to the eggs I did wonder why and how. How would raw yolks work in this recipe. I didn't need to bind anything together. The fat would bind the proscuitto and that would be fine. Then I remembered an English recipe that had called for hard boiled egg yolk and that made sense so I went with it. At that time I mixed pork fat (bacon grease) with the hard boiled egg yolk and spices to create the "stuffing", I layed the proscuitto thinly cut onto the meat and rolled it up. They wrere tasty! People loved them and I never knew anything was wrong. Until...

I re read the recipe to prepare for the upcoming feast, just to refresh my memory and there is was like huge neon letters! I was an idiot! At least in my mind. What I had missed was that you chop up someof the loin, which is lean so you add fat and use the egg yolk to bind it. It made so much sense and was so much clearer! So of course I had to try it out.

What I did was to take 500 gm of ground beef from the store this already contains fat so I did not add extra. I bought 2 packages of rouladen with 3 in each package. I mixed the beef with the spices and divided the mixture into 4 portions. To two of them I added mozzerella just cutting a fresh ball into quarters and using 1/4 of a ball in 2 of the portions. To the other 2 portions I added Parmesan cheese 1 Tbsp per portion. I set rolled 2 rouladen with the mozzarella and 2 with the parmesan (I was cooking for someone who is jewish so no proscuitto). With the other 2 portions (1 mozzerella, 1 parmesan) i added in proscuitto. we used toothpicks to mark what was what for tasing.

Results:
They all tasted pretty good. With Proscuitto was better than without and the consensus was that the parmesan was better than the mozzerella. Another note was that they did need more fat so I will try with a higher fat content ground beef.

So my next try at the recipe will look like this.

For 8 rolls
500 gm high fat ground beef (85%)
4 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
2-3 cloves of garlic crushed
1 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp parsley                                                                 All spices are to taste
1/4 - 1/2 tsp crushed mint
1/2 tsp thyme
6 thin slices of proscuitto chopped small

place 1/8 of mixture onto the roulade, patting it down even and flat.
roll.
use a toothpuck to hold it shut or place seam side down.
place in a pre heated (180 deg celcius) oven
cook for about 20 - 25 min depending on thickness of the rolls.

I am still just "winging " the sauce :)

The second recipe later...

Can't belive I missed THAT!

OK, while reviewing my recipes for the upcoming event I was re reading and transcribing and making a shopping list when a lightening bolt struck. I had read something completely wrong! lol... In my recipe for the bresaola (which I have not yet posted), I read a sentence that led me to believe that I needed to use hard boiled egg yolks in my filling. Upon re reading the passage I realized that I needed to stuff them with meat and raw yolks where the binding agent! lol... So, off to the drawing board. I hope to bust out a batch of them tomorrow night so I can see how they taste! Wish me luck.