SC - Pie Reprise

[Decker, Terry D.]

Stealing from a previous post:

Looking at the egg and flour dough recipe, I wonder if this may not have
been a common, utilitarian dough in the 14th and 15th Centuries.  In Maggie
Black's The Medieval Cookbook, she quotes Harleian 279 for a recipe for
Cruste Rolle, which is a griddle cake:

"Cruste Rolle.  Take fayre Flowre of whete; nym Eyroun & breke ther-to &
coloure the past with Safroun; rolle it on a borde also thinne as
parchement, rounde a-bowte as an obyle; frye hem and serue forth; and thus
may do in lente but do away with the eyroun, & nym mylke of Almaundys, and
frye hem in Oyle, & then serue forth."

The test I made was a dough made from 1 cup of soft cake flour and two eggs
with a scant tablespoon of water.  Make a crumb of the flour and eggs.  If
necessary, add the water slowly and work the dough just enough to get it to
ball.  I didn't have any saffron at the time I made this, so it was left
out.

I rolled out the dough to make a pie crust.  Then rolled out the trimmings
from the pie crust and cut out my rounds like I would a biscuit.  The rounds
were fried in a small amount of olive oil just below smoking until they were
browned.  Golden brown gives the best texture.  Taste and texture are
similar to a water cracker.

Working the dough longer might improve the texture.  That requires
experimentation.  Frying in lard or (better) bacon drippings would probably
improve the flavor, but I think the goal was to make a bland, cracker-like
bread which could be used to serve small portions of sweets or savories.

Bear

> << A similar dough is also used as a form of
>  medieval fry-bread.
>  
>  Bear >>
> 
> Would you have such a recipe redacted and be willing to share it?
> 
> Ras
> 
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================