Carob Fruit in Period

I found references to Carob in the book “A King’s Confectioner in the Orient”. I found this a little odd as I know chocolate comes from South America and had always made the assumption so did Carob. I was wrong. While chocolate is period, it’s period as a drink not a solid. However Carob was used in various recipes, especially for Middle Eastern sweets.

Referencing: https://sites.redlands.edu/trees/species-accounts/carob-tree/ website, I found pictures of the actual dried Carob pods ready for harvesting. Much like olives the fruit tree is hit with a stick, hard enough to cause the ripe pods to fall but not hard enough for the tree to be damaged. Like coffee beans, also found in the Middle East, the Carob seeds need to be dried before being processed into a powder and/or block form.

Various names include: Keras (Greek), Siliqua (Latin), Kharuv (Hebrew), Kharroub (Arabic), Caroubier (French). https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/12/18/3303

“A King’s Confectioner in the Orient”, talks of a sweets made of Carob/Chocolate. I believe that this is a mis-translation into English from Kharroub to Chocolate, as many English speakers think the two flavors are inter changeable. However at this time, chocolate was available as an import from South America as the Spanish and Portuguese were importing Coco beans, vanilla and tomatoes while forming banana plantations in the new world. https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-americas/history-of-chocolate so chocolate from the Americas could actually be.

January 24, 2024 | No comments

A Soup for the Qan

I’ve been lusting for this book for over a decade. I finally found a good print at a great price! The book is everything I’d hope for on historic Chinese recipes. If you can, get this book to try out ALL the recipes. This is not a beginners book. This is for the period cook who knows how to interpret a redaction of a translation and go from there.

The translator(s) did not feel the need to edit in their opinion on how to cook, merely writing down the original translation and the measurements tables. Excellent! This allows the re-enactor to translate and work on their leveling up cooking skills for this amazing new set of recipes.

Authenticity of recipes and the ability to follow: A

January 14, 2024 | No comments

Cooking Renaissance Italian Food, 51 Redacted Recipes from 1549 Banchetti by Christoforo Messisbugo

This book proves to be an invaluable resource for individuals venturing into period cooking, presenting original recipes in both their original language and translated forms. However, a notable observation is that the author’s redactions tend to incorporate a more contemporary approach, departing from a strict adherence to period cooking methods. An illustrative example is the recommendation to use foil as a lid instead of advocating for a historically accurate practice, such as sealing the chosen modern cooking vessel with a simple flour and water dough. While the redactions align effectively with the translations, there exists an opportunity for the author to explore and suggest more authentic period cooking techniques.

Over all Period recipes: B+ for use of various recipes.

Ease for Those new to Period cooking: A+. Helpful with suggested measurements and cooking tips.

January 12, 2024 | No comments

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. 

Tasty but not something I’m going to make again.

February 11, 2022 | No comments

Basaliyya By al-Mu’tamid: Cheek Meat with Onions and Pumpkin

Translation:

Take chunks of meat from ribs and thighs and slice them into finger-like strips.  Soak the meat in cold water, as this will drain the blood and remove the dirt.  Hot water, on the other hand, will lock them in.

Take the meat out of the cold water and put it in a pot with a fresh batch of water along with a lot of pounded tallow.  You may add galangal and cassia.

Chop onion, the amount needed is to be equal to one third of the meat used. If gourd is in season, then go ahead and use it.  However, cut it like you did with the meat.  When the pot comes to a boil and the onion and gourd.

The amount of water you added first should not be much

Continue cooking the pot until the pot is dry.  Add murri (Liquid fermented sauce) and dry spices like black pepper, cassia, coriander, and cumin.  Add as well on ladleful of vinegar and a small amount of rue. (Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchen pp. 317)

Ingredients:

1 lb. meat

3 C. Pumpkin

½ lg onion

1 tsp galangal, black pepper, cinnamon, cumin, coriander

½ vinegar

Redaction:

Cut your beef into small pieces.  Rinse the beef in cold water, put into a pot with ground galangal and cinnamon.

I used half a large onion cut thin(ish).  I used a Cinderella pumpkin for the gourd, cutting the peeled chunks into small pieces. 

I cut smaller than finger length as I don’t want to chew large bits of pumpkin.  Add

When the pot boils add pumpkin and onions.  When the meat is cooked to tenderize add the cumin, coriander, and vinegar. Originally, I forgot this part and ate the thick stew/porridge without. 

It’s amazing!  Next pass through the kitchen I added the missing, cumin, coriander, and vinegar.  Even better! 

On its own, it’s very good.  I had it over riced for a touch more filling dish. 

The cheek meat is either very tender or a touch chewy from the marbling on the inside.

February 11, 2022 | No comments

To Prepare a Tourte of Domestic Pumpkin

Ingredients:

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.

February 11, 2022 | No comments

Tannuriyya: Chicken Pot Pie

Translation:

Boil one chicken, pullets (2 young fowl) in salt and water. Take a frying pan and pour tallow and oil into it.  Spread bread dough in it to line bottom and sides.  Now, take the (boiled) chicken, pullets or the two plump fowls and remove the cavity (wall).  Spread the birds flat on the dough in the pan.  Mix finely chopped cilantro and onion with spikenard, cloves, cassia and black pepper.  Pour on them wine vinegar and murri (liquid fermented sauce).  If you prefer, use juice of…raisins…and pomegranate seeds, instead.  Add ½ C. clarified butter or sweet olive oil and 5 eggs. Mix thoroughly all these ingredients and pour them all over the chicken.  Roll out another piece of dough into a disc (for a crust), cover the chicken with it, (and seal together the edges of the dough). Lower the pan into the (heated) tannur until it is cooked, God willing. (Ibn Sayyar Al-Warraq, pp. 372-373)

Ingredients:

1 boiled chicken, de-boned and shredded

2 rolled out rounds of circular dough

5 eggs

½ C. Murri

¼ C. wine vinegar

½ finely chopped large onion or one small onion

1 bunch cilantro (if fresh is not available use 1 tsp dried)

1 tsp spikenard, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves

½ C. melted butter.

Redaction:

Instead of doing one full bird, I used 4 chicken thighs, well boiled in salt water.  The meat and skin were left over from making chicken stock and no one in period would throw out good meat. 

Quick side note:  Period chickens were not the size of the chickens we find in the grocery store today.  They were a lot smaller.  For an idea of true chicken size, look up the chicken type called The Sultan.  Small chickens, incredibly cute! but not a lot of meat.  Another period Middle Eastern chicken would have been the Orloff.  A little bigger than the sultan in period and breed over time to be a much bigger bird by the Russian noble Orloff.  (He liked the birds so brought a bunch home to Russia…hence the name Russian Orloff even though the birds technically started in the Middle East.)  I wrote a research paper that can be found on Roxalana’s redactions under Research paper if you want to know waaaay more than anyone really wants to know about chickens in period.

You will notice a spice called Spikenard.  Is modernly grown as an ornamental these days instead of as a common spice, found in the ginseng family.  (https://www.britannica.com/plant/spikenard-plant-Nardostachys-genus / Dalby, Andrew, “Spikenard” in Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, 2nd ed. by Tom Jaine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-19-280681-5)

I just went without.  I also used dried cilantro instead of fresh.  It’s what I had on hand.

Remember the Murri recipe awhile back?  It’s here again.  When you make Murri, make several cups worth.  This will show up again and again in Middle Eastern recipes.  If you don’t have Murri on hand, use pomegranate juice and ground up raisins.  Pomegranate juice can be bought at some stores, lots of Middle Eastern and Oriental stores carry this, or it can be ordered online.  For raisin juice.  Soak them a little bit, then grind them well (use a Cuisinart if you have one or a pestle and mortar) and strain through a fine sieve or cloth covered sieve. 

I used a simple butter crust.  1 stick of butter, mixed with 2.5 C. of flour, 1 tsp salt and 1 C. of water added a Tbs. at a time until everything comes together.  Some days your kitchen is going to be so humid you won’t need all the water, but some days you will, hence the Tbs. at a time.

Roll out the dough and cover your pan.

Here you can use a Tagine if you have one, a cast iron skillet or a small pan that’s in your cabinet you use every day.  (If you’re entering this dish into an A&S please note on your documentation why or why not you used the pan you did while noting what would have been used in period).  Your judges will want to know if you actually know what was used in period, including what a Tannur is (https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=AOaemvKOvUqMXtldMBzHAQNcMib1l3cUWQ:1632072312805&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=tannur&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwig086Tx4vzAhXSqpUCHbfeAnQQjJkEegQIBRAC&biw=1725&bih=1000&dpr=0.8) (basically a nice sized to mucking huge in ground oven you stick dough to the sides in or lower dishes into, made with various types of mud/tiles/clay etc….that’s another paper for another time).

Lay out your shredded chicken. Cover with the onion, spice, murri and egg mixture.

Cover with the second layer of dough and seal it up.  I used a simple squish the dough together then use fingers to form a semi nice looking edge found on apple pies.  You can use a fork, a spoon or even a dough crimper, as long as the edges are sealed together.

DO NOT forget to add small pricks to the dough so that pockets of hot air can escape and not rip your dough apart while drying to do so.

Bake until done.

I found this more like a chicken quiche then a chicken pot pie.  The flavors were a bit odd yet still enjoyable!

October 3, 2021 | No comments

Sweetbread Pie of a Suckling Calf

Translation:

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.

September 26, 2021 | No comments

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)

Ingredients:

1 C. Almonds

¾ C. pine nuts

½ C. dried figs, dates and golden raisins.

8 egg yolks

1 C. sugar

1 Tbs. cinnamon

1/8 tsp musk

2 Tbs. plain breadcrumbs (or musk flavored mostaccioli pastry)

¾ C. Rose water

¼ C. melted butter

1 tsp butter

1 sheet royal dough

Redaction:

I gathered up all the ingredients. 

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.

September 17, 2021 | No comments

Peach Crostata

Translation:

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)

1 C. gold raisons

1 C. melted butter

½ tsp ground cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg

¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper

½ C. Sugar

Redaction:

First, I made the crust using Scappi’s royal crust recipe from pp 488-489.  The link is here for the break down on my website https://roxalanasredactions.com/category/the-opera-of-bartolomeo-scappie-1570/scappi-royal-crust/ 

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!

August 26, 2021 | No comments

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