SC - pasties in period

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Hello! from Anne-Marie

Here's my rendition of a pastellum. This is a very popular dish in our
barony. And yes, you leave the whole sage leaves in. If you use the smaller
ones, and/or remove the woody stems, its not QUITE so much like eating a
whole mouse :)...


> > The source is the Early 13th century Northern european cookbook in
> > Cariadocs collection.
> > The original text:
> > Recipe 30: How one preapres a chicken in a pie (pastellum)
> > One should cut in two a young chicken and wrap it in whole leaves of
> sage,
> > add cut bacon and salt. And wrap the chicken in dough and bake in
> the oven
> > like bread. In the same manner one can make all kinds of fish pies
> and pies
> > of fowl and other means.
> > 
> > There is a similar recipe in le Menagier (14th century French) that
> says:
> > Chicks may be placed in pastry, back side down and breast up, and
> broad
> > slices on the breast and cover.

There's a similar one in the German corpus as well (Das Buch von Guter
Spise), using "breasts of hens or other good meat".

> > 
> > My reconstruction:
> > four chicken thighs, or two chicken breasts, cut in half.
> > 8 slices of canadian style bacon
> > 12 whole fresh sage leaves, stripped of stem
> > 1 box Pillsbury ready crust pie crusts
> > 
> > Cut the pie crusts into eight pieces (four per crust). Lay a chicken
>  thigh
> > on a piece of crust. lay on three sage leaves, two pieces of bacon
> and seal
> > in the dough. Lay in a deep baking dish, sealed side down. repeat
> for the
> > rest of the thighs. Bake at 350o for 1 hour, until the crust is golden
> > brown, and a meat thermometer inserted in the meat says that its done.
> > Serve hot or room temperature.
> > 
> > RECONSTRUCTION NOTES:
> > --modern chickens are much fattier than their medieval counterparts.
> Use
> > free range chickens if you can, and I remove the skin for the same
> reason.
> > Ditto the bacon...canadian bacon is less fatty, and so closer to
> what I
> > imagine the medieval piggies made.
> > --The original recipe calls for young chickens or chicks, cut in
> two, and
> > wrapped in dough, bones and all. I have chosen to use boneless
> skinless
> > thighs for ease of serving and eating, but a half chicken (ask your
> butcher
> > to saw it in half for you) wrapped in bread dough is lovely as well.
> Use
> > more bacon and sage, of course.
> > 
> > Feel free to use this recipe. All I ask is that if you publish or
> use it
> > somewhere, you give me credit.
> > Thanks!
> > 
> > --Maitresse Anne-Marie, in Madrone
> > 

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