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To Prepare a Pupkin-and-Onion Tourte
Translation:
Get the same amount of each and parboil them in water (pumpkin and onion); take them out and squeeze the water out of them so that they end up quite dry. Beat them on a table that is not of walnut and sauté them in butter or lard. When they have cooled, for every two pounds of fried pumpkin and onion, get a pound of fresh provantura, a pound of creamy cheese ground up with the provatura, half a pound of grated parmesan cheese, ten fresh eggs, a beaker or milk, a pound of sugar, three-quarters of an ounce of pepper, an ounce of cinnamon and a little saffron. With that mixture make up a torte with a lower and upper shell and the flaky-pastry twist around it. Bake it in an oven or braise it. A tourte like that always needs to be served hot. In the filling you can put a handful of beaten herbs – that will depend on the taste of the person it is intended for. (Scappi p. 484/Book VR. 107)
Ingredients:
4 C. of pumpkin skinned and sliced
½ C. butter
4 C. Ricotta
2 C. Parmesan
5 eggs
2 C. Whole milk
2 C. Sugar
½ tsp. ground pepper
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
Pinch of saffron
Pie crust:
1 C. Butter
1 tsp. salt
2 ½ C. flour
1 C. cold water
Mix together the butter, salt and flour. Add the water a Tbs. at a time until a soft smooth ball forms.
Redaction:
First thing, I had to find a “period” type of pumpkin. I went with Cinderella pumpkin as the most period I could find.
It helps that this was done during fall, right before Halloween. Get a small one. The small one will make 6 pies.
Next, I cut the pumpkin into large chunks, taking out the seeds, and took off the rind. The inner pumpkin cut into smaller pieces.
You don’t need a lot. I used 1/6 of the pumpkin to get the necessary amount of 4 cups. Boil these in water until tender. Drain then smoosh until smooth.
Add in your ingredients, blend until smooth.
Roll out your dough. Make the bottom thicker than the top. This is a wet tourte. As you can see, I did press designs into the dough.
My decorating skills need a bit of work. I should have measured the top lid before using the wooden dough stamp. Next time!
I chose not to use herbs because I wanted just the basic taste before getting fancy.
Put the lid on the tourte on and bake for about an hour (ish) until the crust is a nice golden brown.
The taste was very pumpkin, onion, eggy. I upped the cheese for next time, and I might add a cream cheese instead of just straight ricotta as this was a very damp tourte.
Scrape the domestic pumpkin, which should be tender and sweet. If it is big take out its seeds; if small, there is no need to. Cook it in good fat broth. When it is done, take it out and squeeze the broth out of it. Then beat it with knives on a table that is not of walnut. For every pound of beaten pumpkin put in six ounces of a grated creamy cheese, four ounces of fresh ricotta, three ounces of a soft creamy cheese, eight eggs, six ounces of sugar and an ounce of pepper and cinnamon together. Mix everything together and with that filling make a tourte with a rather thick lower shell and an upper one made like shutter louvres. Bake it in an oven or braise it. When it is almost done, give it a glazing with sugar and rosewater. When it is done serve it hot… You could do any sort of pumpkin in the same way. And you can put a little milk into the filling mixture. (Scappi, pp. 484./Book V R. 106.)
Ingredients:
4 C. pumpkin
2 C. broth
½ C. Goat cheese crumbled
1/3 C. ricotta
8 eggs
½ C. Sugar
½ tsp black pepper
1 tsp ground cinnamon and mace
2 Tbs sugar
1 tbs rosewater
Pie Crust:
1 C. butter
1 tsp salt
2 ½ C. flour
1 C. water
Mix butter, salt and flour together, until a crumbling texture. Slowly add water, 1 Tbs. at a time, until a smooth ball forms. You may not need all the water, use just enough to form the dough.
Redaction:
First thing, I had to find a “period” type of pumpkin. I went with Cinderella pumpkin as the most period I could find. It helps that this was done during fall, right before Halloween. Get a small one. The small one will make 6 pies.
Next, I cut the pumpkin into large chunks, taking out the seeds, and took off the rind. The inner pumpkin cut into smaller pieces.
You don’t need a lot. I used 1/6 of the pumpkin to get the necessary amount of 4 cups.
Boil these in water in broth of your choice until tender. Drain then smoosh until smooth.
Except for the 2 Tbs of sugar and 1 Tbs of rosewater (those come later), add in all your other ingredients until the entire mixture is smooth.
If you will notice, I added a bit of mace to the pie. I like mace and I cut down the pepper. Last time I added as much pepper as the recipe called for, I blew out the roof of my mouth. Fresh pepper is easier to find today then in period so be stingy with your pepper. Seriously. These tweaks are personal preferences. Try the recipe as called for, then modify with what you like that is in period.
Roll out your dough. Make a thicker bottom then top. Here you can see I made thin strips of crust lattice style with a climbing vine patter from a wooden dough press.
Same for the leaves. I couldn’t do a full “shutter” so I did a nice bit of lattice work with leaves to make it pretty.
Before pulling the pie from the oven, brush with a rosewater and sugar mixture to glaze the top.
Get the best part of the sweetbreads, cleaned as in the above recipe. Give them a brief boiling in salted water, and beat them but not too much, with knives, adding in small chunks of marrow and a little prosciutto, fat and diced. Mix in nutmeg, cloves, pepper, cinnamon and a little sugar and saffron, with that. In spring (add) gooseberries, in summer, verjuice grapes, in winter raisins. Have a pie casing ready of dough made of fine flour, egg yolks, a little rendered fat and salt… (Scappi p. 440. R. 10 Book V.)
Ingredients:
Package of sweet bread 1 – 1.5 lbs.
1 tsp salt
Pot with water
Prosciutto
Bone marrow
1 tsp. ground nutmeg, cloves, pepper, cinnamon
2 Tbs. Sugar
1 pinch saffron
2 C. Raisons
Redaction:
Gather your ingredients.
I found the smell to be my first warning this was going to be an interesting dish. Sweetbread has a very distinctive odor.
I added the sweetbread to salted water, giving it a quick 3-5 minute boiling bath. Just enough to scum up.
The sweet breads were then removed.
Scappi says beat them with knives. I can see why after trying to cut them. The sweetbreads are very…spongy. It takes determination to get through the suckers. I ended up cutting the sweetbreads into small bite sized pieces.
I didn’t have prosciutto on hand, or bone marrow. I had to substitute bacon and butter. Scappi wanted both mixed in with the sweetbread. What I did was for presentations. I added bacon to the sides of the pastry with butter on the bottom. What I should have done (besides get prosciutto) was diced the 6-10 slices into chunks along with bone marrow (butter).
I mixed the raisons, spices and sugar, then added the sweetbreads.
Everything went into the tart pan. A lid was added.
Please note the small decorations at the top.
They’re pretty but the function is to keep the eyes from noting the holes cut into the pastry so that it can vent the moist hot air slightly without ripping apart the crust.
Yeah… This one is a nope from me. I’m sure it was a delicacy. I’m sure it was someone’s favorite Scappi dish at one time. I just can’t. The texture is chewy. I can handle that. The spices and bacon made this a sweet and savory dish. It’s just the smell of sweetbreads, raw, cooking, cooked and biting into I can’t handle. I have done a dish with sweetbreads and eaten said dish. I am now good on ever doing sweetbreads again.
Tourte with Various Ingredients: Pizza – a Nut and Dried Fruit Pizza
Translations:
Get six ounces of shelled Milanese almonds, four ounces of shelled, soaked pinenuts, three ounces of fresh pitted dates, three ounces of dried figs and three ounces of seeded muscatel raisins; grind all that up in a mortar. Into it add eight fresh raw egg yolks, six ounces of sugar, an ounce of ground cinnamon, an ounce and a half of crumbled musk-flavored Neapolitan mostaccioli and four ounces of rosewater. When everything is mixed together, get a tourte pan that is greased and lined with a sheet of royal pastry dough; into it put the filling, mixed with four ounces of fresh butter, letting it come up to no more than a finger of depth, like. Into that pizza you can put anything that is seasoned. (Scappi p. 488, R. 121)
I did substitute pistachios for pine nuts. They aren’t in the same flavor wheelhouse, but they taste amazing with figs and dates. Plus, I’d used the last of my pine nuts on pest and forgot that when I started cooking this. Feel free to add pistachios (or walnuts) if you don’t have pine nuts on hand. Try this with pine nuts, if at all possible, once, then do as you please.
The musk is affordable if you use the plant based. I did not include the mostaccioli. For this recipe, it would be musk cooked into a flaky pastry/crust. I didn’t make any as I didn’t have musk on hand, even though I’ve included it into the recipe ingredients. Grind up the musk mostaccioli like breadcrumbs.
Grind everything up. I used a small hand grinder. You can use a mortar and pestle. If you go this route, get a large mortar and pestle or you’ll be pounding all night long.
Add in your sugar, egg yolks, cinnamon, breadcrumbs, rose water.
Here is where I talk about how rosewater can overpower even the most flavor full dish. That is true, however; ½ to ¾ C. in this instance blends incredibly well. As for the Tbs. of cinnamon, that was NOT a mistype. 1 ounce is actually a bit more, then 1 Tbs. Start with 1 Tbs. and see if you want to add more. I used the really good Saigon cinnamon and felt 1 Tbs. was more than enough to balance with the other flavors present.
Grease your pan.
Then roll out your dough and put it into your greased pan.
As you can see, I didn’t use the recommended tourte pan. I used a springform pan for visuals on the website. Even with the springform pan, the “dough” did not exceed a finger length in depth, per Scappi’s instructions.
I tucked in the extra that ran over the mixture. I had a few scrapes of dough left over and added a small dough rose. Just for looks.
Fresh out of the oven. Now for the slicing.
This is amazing. Great taste and rich. A small piece is all you need. Lovely, sweet, smelling of roses and spice.
Get a peach that is not too ripe; if it hard it will do
quiet a bit better than if not. Peel if
and cut it into slices. Have a tourte pan ready, lined with its three sheets of
dough and its twisted around it, greased with butter or rendered fat, and
sprinkled with pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar and with raisins and
crumbled Neapolitan mostaccioli. On all that,
set out the peach slices and on top of them put the same ingredients as are
under them. Cover the pan over with
three thin sheets of dough, with rendered fat or butter brushed between each;
sprinkle that with sugar and cinnamon.
Bake it in an oven or braise it; it does not take to much cooking
because it would disintegrate into a broth.
Serve it hot, dressed with sugar and rosewater. (Scappi, p. 466, R. 63)
Ingredients:
Scappi Royal Crust – 6 sheets rolled thin.
1 ripe peach (if your torte pan is large add more peaches)
Roll out 6 sheet thinly that will go into your greased torte pan. I personally used a small cheesecake tin so I could display the sides easily. A small pie tin would work or a regular pie tin. Use what you have.
Next, I selected a peach that was firm and smelled of peach. I find smelling a peach helps me to find those fruits that are ripe when they give off the heavenly scent of peach. (I cheated slightly and used more than one peach.)
To skin a peach, you will need to boil the peach for 3 seconds in hot water,
then dipped into an ice bath for 10 seconds.
The skin should peel off quickly and easily. My peach skins peeled off but not very neatly.
After that, I sliced up the peach and set aside to gather the rest of the ingredients.
For the reason I used gold raisons is that I adore the
flavor. To me, it’s like wine in firm
fruit form. I could devour these daily. Dark raisins are nice, but golden raisins are
amazing.
Scappi has a recipe called “For a Flakey Pizza” that is also
a dry napoleon. I made this prior to the
peach crostata. Once cooked I sliced and
pounded roughly ¼ of it into crumbs.
I had to use the mortar and metal for the pepper. Easily done.
You maybe wondering why I say use only ¼ (or even less) on the pepper
instead of the ½ tsp like the other spices.
Originally, I used ½ tsp of ground pepper and the lingering burn of
fresh pepper overwhelmed everything else!
Go ¼ tsp or less, let my error be your guide!
Lay your first layer down in your pan, butter it up!
Next add the 2nd layer then the 3rd. I’m not sure what Scappi wanted with the twisting. I think…that there is a crimping to the edges to keep them together and at the end. My take, yours may be different.
Sprinkle out your spices under the peaches, raisins and flakey napoleon crumbs mix and sprinkle more of your spice mixture on top.
Add the remaining layers of dough, buttering (and spicing if you desire) between each. I added sugar and rose water to the final layer.
It was amazing! The crust sort of slid off when trying to palate from the fruit mix and lower layers. This is where the crimping/twisting comes into play. Twist the layers together so they stay together next time!
Make a dough of two pounds of fine flour with six
fresh egg yolks, two ounces of rose water, an ounce of leaven moistened with
warm water, four ounces of fresh butter or rendered fat that does not smell
bad, and enough salt. That dough should be kneaded well for half an hour. Make
a thin sheet of it, greasing it with either melted butter that is not too hot
or with rendered fat. With the pastry wheel cut the edges one after the other,
which are always quite a bit thicker than the rest. Sprinkle the dough with
four ounces of sugar and an ounce of cinnamon.
(Scappi, pp. 488-489)
Dough Ingredients:
7 cups pastry flour
1 stick of butter
6 egg yolks
1 oz. of sour dough yeast (use sourdough starter or 2 package of regular
yeast if sourdough is unavailable)
Melted butter to brush over pastry and pastry sheet
1 tsp salt
4 Tbsp. rose water
Dough Dusting:
4 Tbsp. of sugar
2 Tbsp. cinnamon
Redaction:
Start with making the dough. Even though the rose water sounds excessive
it isn’t. If anything,
I’d add another Tbs. and another stick of butter.
I put the flour into the bowl first, with a bit of salt, and
then add the butter mixing by hand. Once the butter was mostly incorporated, I
slowly added the egg yolks, rose water and yeast.
I had to add about a cup of water to help bring
everything together.
When Scappi says moisten the yeast,
I believe this is where he means add the yeast to a cup of water as this was
the only way the dough was going to form. This forms the dough from rough to
smooth elastic that is just amazing to work with. Here the finished
dough is shown. As smooth as a baby’s bottom.
An amazing new twist on the cinnamon roll…or really the start of the cinnamon roll with a lot more flavor!
Italian Pastry Twist
Translation:
“…get a pound of
currants that have been brought to a boil in wine, a pound of dates cooked in that
wine and cut up small, and a pound of seeded muscatel raisins that have been
brought to a boil in wine; combine all those ingredients and mix them with the
sugar, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Spread the mixture out over the sheet of
dough along with a few little gobs of butter. Beginning at the long edge of
dough, roll it up like a wafer cornet, being careful not to break the dough. A
twist like that needs only three rolls so it can cook well; it should not be
too tight. Grease its surface with melted butter that is not too hot. Begin at
one end to roll it up, not to tightly so it become like a snail shell or a bae.
Have tourte pan on hand lined with a rather thick sheet of the same dough
greased with melted butter and gently put the twist on it without pushing it
down. Bake it in an oven or braise it with a moderate heat, not forgetting to
grease it occasionally with melted butter. When it is almost done, sprinkle
sugar and rosewater over it.
Serve it hot. The tourte pan in which the twists
are baked has to be ample and with low sides.”
(Scappi, pp. 488-489)
Dough:
Make a dough of two
pounds of fine flour with six fresh egg yolks, two ounces of rose water, an ounce
of leaven moistened with warm water, four ounces of fresh butter or rendered
fat that does not smell bad, and enough salt. That dough should be kneaded well
for half an hour. Make a thin sheet of it, greasing it with either melted
butter that is not too hot or with rendered fat. With the pastry wheel cut the
edges one after the other, which are always quite a bit thicker than the rest.
Sprinkle the dough with four ounces of sugar and an ounce of cinnamon.
(Scappi, pp. 488-489)
Dough
Ingredients:
7 cups pastry flour
1 stick of butter
6 egg yolks
1 oz. of sour dough yeast (use sourdough starter
or 2 package of regular yeast if sourdough is unavailable)
Melted butter to brush over pastry and pastry
sheet
1 tsp salt
4 Tbsp. rose water
Dough Dusting:
4 Tbsp. of sugar
2 Tbsp. cinnamon
Filling:
3 C currants
3 C chopped dates
3 C raisons
1 bottle good wine
1 tsp each of ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg
1 tsp rosewater
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 stick of butter, sliced thinly as needed for
dotting
Optional:
2 sticks of butter (instead of 1)
1/3 C. rose water
Redaction:
Start with making the dough. Even though the rose water sounds excessive it isn’t. If anything I’d add another Tbs. and another stick of butter.
I put the flour into the bowl first, with a bit of
salt, and then add the butter mixing by hand. Once the butter was mostly incorporated,
I slowly added the egg yolks, rose water and yeast. I had to add about a cup of
water to help bring everything together.
When Scappi says moisten the yeast, I believe this
is where he means add the yeast to a cup of water as this was the only way the
dough was going to form. This forms the dough from rough to smooth elastic that
is just amazing to work with. Here the
finished dough is shown. As smooth as a
baby’s bottom.
Note on Butter and Rose Water:
After
making this recipe a multiple times, I added more rose water as I was unable to
actually smell or taste with just 1 tsp as per Scappi. 1/3 C sounds like a lot and it is; however
for this recipe I think a little excess is called for. The taste and smell is just divine!
As
for the extra butter, this made the dough an even greater joy to work
with. The taste was out of this
world. If you want to make two versions,
the original and then with the added butter and rose water, you won’t be disappointed!
After
the dough was finished, I let it sit while I chopped the dates, and measured
out the currants and raisins. Next the spices were measured out and a good red
wine found.
A quick note on Corinthian raisins: He called for currents and Corinthian raisins. It is possible that the Corinthian raisins called for were currents however, my believe this is a mistranslation. If Scappi had wanted currants, currants and dates, he would have said Double the amount of currants to the amount of dates used. Hence the use of raisins instead of double the amount of currants.
I
used a nice Italian red.
I
went with a good red as cooking will leach a bit of flavor out. This red was
amazing. Make sure you use one you’re
willing to drink and serve to friends.
It really makes a difference! Once
plump, roughly 30 minutes, pour the fruit into a sieve and let the excess wine
drain out. When the fruit mixture is cool enough to handle we get the dough
ready for stuffing.
Note: Scappi’s recipe
could read to incorporate the spices with the fruit in the wine mixture, or wait
till the re-hydrated fruit is finished cooking then mix once you are ready to
spread over the dough. My first try at this recipe, I added the spices to the
fruit and wine.
I thought about doubling
the above recipe to start. That is unnecessary. This recipe will take care of filling
all the dough you need.
Roll the other half out
and cut into a circle that fits into a pie pan, brush with melted butter the
bottom of the pan before putting on the bottom layer of dough. Then brush the
dough in the pan with butter. Do not skip the bottom dough layer! This keeps the
twist from burning on the bottom.
Roll out the first half
of the dough into a thin sheet, trimming the edges to form a nice rectangle. Then
lay the mixture on top of the dough leaving ½ inch at the edges. Sprinkle with
cinnamon and sugar mixture. Dot with butter.
Starting from the long
edge, roll three times.
Then coil the pastry.
Place on top of the 2nd
sheet of dough that is at the bottom of round metal pie tin. Brush with melted butter.
Heat the oven to 350
until done, roughly 30 minutes. When it comes out of the oven dust with sugar
and rose water.
As spring has rolled around, the chickens have started to lay. Not really a surprise, I just have more eggs on hand than I know what to normally do with them! So off to the books for a bit of eggy indulgences. This one is, obviously, new to me. I’ve had hard fried eggs but never fried hard boiled eggs with sugar. So I gave it a try!
To Cook Hard-Boiled Eggs in Butter or Oil
Translation:
Book III. 272. Cooks eggs in their shells in water such that they are not to hard. Then take them out of the hot water and put them into cold water, shell them and immediately flour them. Fry them in melted butter or oil. When they are done, serve them garnished with sugar and orange juice, or else cover them with garlic sauce or some other sauce. (Scappie, pp. 376)
Ingredients:
Hard boiled eggs
Oil
Flour
Sugar/orange juice or garlic sauce
Redaction:
Pretty simple recipe. Boil as many eggs as you think you will need.
Try for soft boiled if possible. I think this is for a more melt in the mouth textural than a firm feel. (My opinion only though).
Shell the eggs,
then roll them in flour.
Here I used white. If you want try it in wheat flour or smelt flour and see which texture/taste you prefer!
Nope, still haven’t finished the pig kicking. I have one, maybe 4 more recipes to share. Another awesome one from Scappi. Definitely not for anyone who doesn’t like liver and isn’t slightly adventurous!
Pig Liver #1
Translation:
If you want to spit-roast a pork liver in a large pieces, when the membrane that is around it is removed, along with the gall bladder. Stick the pieces with lardoons of pork fat that have been dredged in pepper, cloves, cinnamon and sweet fennel, dry and ground. Put them onto a spit and cook them over a low fire. (Scappi, pp. 188)
Ingredients:
Pork liver
Strips of pork fat (or uncooked thick cut bacon)
1 tsp each ground pepper, cloves, cinnamon and sweet fennel (seeds)
Redaction:
So here I had to slightly improvise. I didn’t have enough sliced pork fat to make a nice tight the way I wanted the first time I did this recipe. I really like to get a nice tight crisscross of bacon going. So I went with the flow.
All the spices first with the sliced bacon in the bacon ground.
The liver chunk was laid out while the bacon/pork fat (either will do nicely but make sure that the bacon is thick cut NOT thin) is dragged in the spice mixture.
I usually like to do a nice basket weave on my bacon wrapped anything, but was low on bacon (my bad). I pinned the strips down trying to go for maximum coverage.
NO, I didn’t have a spit….why do you ask? Yes, yes it is period and mentioned in the book…so is polio and piss in the water. MOST people don’t have spits. They’re a bitch to install in modern day houses. The liver was then laid on the grill (wood charcoal for the fire), until the liver was cooked all the way through.
There were scraps left after the first bite and nothing let to photograph!! It’s not the usual way you try liver, but it is period. Again, sometimes you gotta eat the different to say you ate period!
So I did a bit of research on pig. Pig is a tasty tasty animal, with a few very bad traits. Yeah…but it’s still damn tasty. Some of the recipes I did were amazing, some…not so much. This is one of those recipes you just gotta try!!
Rack of ribs of a domestic pig #1
Translation:
If the pig is young, the ribs can be spit-roasted with or without their skin….You can also set the ribs to steep for a day in a seasoning composed of vinegar, must syrup, cloves of garlic and coriander. (Scappi, pp. 185)
Ingredients:
Pork Ribs
1 C. Vinegar
1 C. Sweet wine (or the dregs from the bottom of a sweet wine barrel)
8 cloves of garlic
2-3 tsp ground coriander
Redaction:
So here I wanted to do something a little bit different. I bought pork ribs but couldn’t find any with a good layer of fat or skin, so I wanted to take the trimmings from another dish where the skin wasn’t needed yet still had a good bit of a fat layer and tie it on over the ribs soaking overnight in the brine. What actually happened? I ran out of time so had to do the ribs without the fat/skin layer.
I gathered everything up, made the brine and let the ribs soak overnight.
The next day, I laid the ribs on a nice hot grill (no spit being available) using wood charcoal.
Oh mai! These are some of the best ribs I’ve eaten in a long time…and Ansteorra has some damn good rib joints, so that’s saying something!
Give this one a try next time you fine the ribs of your dreams calling out to you.
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