Thursday 28 February 2008

The March Menu

A little later than planned, but here is what we should be cooking this coming weekend in the kitchen.
In no particular order
Bruet of almaynne, bruet of almayne in lente, crustade lumbarde, tarte of frute in lente, flathouns in lent, lente ffrutours, fretoure owte of lente, cruste rolle, ryschewys in lente, brewes in lentyn and brwes in lentyn.

Hopefully we'll be playing around with the lent and non lent versions of some of these recipes like the crustade; as well as trying to get some tasty Lenten dishes with the other recipes. A couple of them are there for a little bit of experimentation like:

¶Flathouns in lente.
¶Take & draw a þrifty Milke of Almandes; temper with Sugre Water; þan take hardid cofyns, & pore þin comad þer-on; blaunche Almaundis hol, & caste ther-on Pouder Gyngere, Canelle, Sugre, Salt, & Safroun; bake hem, & serue forth.


This will be interesting to see how it comes out (liquid in a tart case I think) and how much can we affect the final dish by playing with different thicknesses of almond milk?

The plan is also to take a lot of pictures that show the various processes involved in the recipes and hopefully a lot more 'step by step' pictures to be able to illustrate how we've done whatever it is that we do?!?..........who knows, perhaps there's a book in that idea somewhere?

Easters plans are coming together nicely as well, I'm pretty much sorted for the 2 non Lent days on the Sunday and Monday, just got Good Friday and the Saturday to get sorted. Some of that will depend on the results of this weekend.......who knows the guys may find something so good that they want to eat it again........somehow I doubt it though as they/we are all confirmed carnivores and these non-meat recipes just don't sit right.

Previous Lenten days have been a little hit and miss I think......'nutty wall paper paste' is one of the common phrases that you can hear emanating from the various workstations around the kitchen and with no roasting to be done, Ross is always at a loss for things to do......although it does quite often mean that the washing up is kept well under control.....something that's always appreciated by the rest of the team. Lets just hope that this year we can improve on those comments eh?

As always with the weekend, comments by text are a virtual certainty.....pictures a possibility and video.........who can tell!

3 comments:

Doc said...

Sounds good! I'm especially interested in seeing how your "cruste rolle" turn out.

And as for Ross, why should he get the day off? ;-) There are bunch of recipes for roasted fish in 15th century sources. The menus in "A Noble Boke off Cookry" (R. Napier, ed.) mentions roasts of lamprey, porpois, eel, perch, turbot, salmon, and sole, and it includes the full recipes below.

of course, roasting fish might be a smelly process - I've never tried it to know for sure - but surely it's worth the experiment.

http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/napier.txt


To make a sole in brase

To mak a sole in brasse tak and sley soiles and draw
hym and rost hym and lay hym in a dysshe and mak
the same bras ye did to the breme saue clowes and
maces and serue it.


Haddok in covy

To dight haddok in covy drawe haddok at the
belly and he be large cut of the hed and rost the body
on a gredirne till he be enoughe then stewe bred in the
brothe of samon or other good fisshe draw liere with
the brothe hew parsly put it to red wyn hole clowes
maces pouder of pepper and a gooddele of canelle then
tak the lever and the pouche of an haddok and hew it
and put it in a possuet and raissins of corans saffron
sanders and salt and boile it and sesson it with pouder
and virgus put away the skyn of the haddok and lay
it in a chargiour and put the covy aboue and serve it.


Pik in Brasy

To mak a pik in Brasye tak and rost a pik then
tak almondes and bray them in a mortair and temper
them with wyne and streyne them then tak mynced
onyons clowes and poudur and sugur canelle pepper
guinger venygar salt and let it boile and serue it.


Turbot rost in sauce

To dight turbot rost in sauce tak and cutt away the
fyn of the turbotte and cutt the fisshe in the manner
of felettes and put them on a round broche and when
it rostis springle on salt then tak vergius venyger or
wyn and pouder of guinger and canelle and cast ther
to in the rosting and set a vesselle under to kep that
fallithe and cast it on agayne and when it is rost cast
the sauce upon the fisshe in disshes and serue it.


To mail samon rost in sauce

To mak samon rost in sauce tak a samon and cutt
hym in round peces and rost hym on a gredirne and
tak wyn and pouder of canelle and draw them throughe
a stren and mynce onyans smalle and do ther to and
boile them then tak vergius pouder of peper and guin-
ger and salt and do ther to then lay the samon in a
disshe and pour on the ceripe and serue it.


Lamprey in Bruet

To mak a Lampry in bruet tak a lampry and skald
hym and rost hym on a gredirn then grind pepper
guingere clowes and saffron and sethe it well and put
pepper in the lampry and serue it.


Lamprey in galentyne

To mak lamprey in galentyne tak a lamprey and
let hym bleed at the navile and rost him and lay him
hole in a platter and serue it with galentyn sugur
canelle guinger and galingale


Haddok in cevy

To mak haddok in cevy tak and sethe your haddok
and rost hym then boile bred pepper saffron and alle
and onyons fried in oile and boile alle togedur then lay
the haddok in a plater, and pour on the cevy and
serue it furthe.

Tudor Cook said...

Unfortunately roast fish isn't possible this weekend due to limitations in the budget.....and good fish does cost.

However, Easter is another matter and as it happens that was something I was looking into today along with suppliers of eels so that we can try blanche porrey amongst others.

I doubt that it will be smelly, more likely that it will prove tricky to keep the fish on the spit. If memory serves though, later texts give a method for reducing this problem by lashing a hazel rod to the spit and using it to clamp the meat onto the bar as well.
Easter will see though eh?

Elise Fleming said...

We did a spitted, roasted fish at an Ivan Day course based on Markham. He guided the spit through the fish, used four thin laths or sticks to surround the fish and tied them on with four tapes which held the fish tightly onto the spit. (I have a photo of the fish being turned on the spit.) I found very detailed instructions for this process which appear in Izaak Walton's "The Compleat Angler", 1653.

(Edit out if you wish.) After describing the herb stuffing to be placed in the belly of a pike, the recipe continues: "...then you are to thrust the spit through his mouth out at his tail; and then with four, or five, or six split sticks or very thin laths, and a convenient quantitie of tape or filiting, those laths are to be tyed round about the Pikes body, from his head to his tail, and the tape tied somewhat thick to prevent his breaking or falling off the spit...(instructions on basting, snipped) when you have roasted him sufficiently, you are to hold under him (when you unwind or cut the tape that ties him) such a dish as you purpose to eat him out of, and let him fall into it with the sawce that is roasted in his belly..." It was absolutely delicious!