SC - Re: SC: Watermelon Rind

[Ceridwen]

sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG wrote:

> YES!! Please. Thank you. - Genevia
>

   Ok, here you are:

A text on Portuguese cooking from the Fifteenth Century (trans. Jane L.
Crowley, 1988)

Doce de Abobora (Pumpkin/squash sweets)

Find a very hard pumpkin (squash) and cut it into pieces the desired
size and thickness, peeling and cleaning out the inside.
Then fill a shallow earthenware pan or bowl with cold water and add a
handful of salt.
Before mixing the salt that is in the bottom, add an egg. When it comes
to the surface, and all you can see is a little piece the size of a
ten-centavo coin, dissolve the salt with a wooden spoon.
Strain this brine and pour into a container with the pieces of pumpkin.
After soaking for 24 hours, remove the pumpkin and put it immediately
into cold water for three days, changing the water 5 or 6 times a day.
After this period of soaking in cold water, check the pumpkin. If it is
still salty, let it soak for another three days, changing the water like
before and then boil it each day, and put the pumpkin in cold water
again. On the third day, finish cooking it completely until a pin goes
through the pieces.
Remove the pumpkin from the water and let it drain well. Then put the
pieces in a deep container, covering with a thin syrup.
For fifteen days the pumpkin pieces should stay in the syrup, and every
day just boil the syrup, leaving the pumpkin covered in a container of
hot water. Drain the water from the pumpkin pieces and then put them
into the syrup.
While preparing this sweet, the syrup should be clarified with an egg
white every other day, and strain daily before adding to the preserves.
After fifteen days the preserves will be ready. They will be prettier if
you add a new syrup on the last day.

Diacidrao Cristalizado (crystallized citron)

Pick out some nice citrons, and cut into quarters and then eighths. Then
put hot water over them twice and then towel dry and put in a strainer
to dry in the sun.
Make a syrup, not very thick, and when it is boiling, put in the sliced
citron.
Leave the kettle on a medium flame until the syrup reaches the boil
stage. Then remove from the fire and put the citron slices aside and
beat the syrup until it thickens a little. Put the citron back in this
thick syrup and then remove quickly, letting the citron cool out of the
syrup. If the fruit sticks to the hands, after it is cold, it should be
returned to the fire again, until the syrup thickens some more.
After it is done, put the slices to drain in a strainer. letting it dray
away from the sun and wind.


Compota de Diacidrao (candied citron compote )

Select some nice and perfect citron, which are ripe and cut them into
four or eight pieces, and put them into a container of cold water.
In a large kettle, have a thin syrup, and put the citron in it very
tightly, so it is all covered by the syrup. Cover well with a cloth or
lid and let it cook until you can stick a thick pin through the citron
easily. If the syrup decreases add some more that is boiling, and if it
gets dark, put the citron in another syrup, also boiling. After it is
well cokked, take the citron out tof the syrup and put it in a container
of cold water.
Repeat this operation for four days, three times a day, that is ,
morning, afternoon, and evening.
At the end of these four days, arrange the pieces of citron in a kettle
and fill fill with boiling water, covering it with a lid and leave the
citron to soak.
Then make another thin syrup, after draining the water from the citron,
and put it in this syrup, which must be boiling.
For fifteen days, leave the citron in this syrup, which must boil every
day, and every day for a longer time. At the end of that time the
preserves will be ready.

If you want the citron to be prettier, take it out of the syrup and put
it in another one, which has some drops of orange flower water and musk.

Put it on the fire again, until the syrup is glossy.
It is necessary to keep the fruit well covered with syrup, so it does
not get bitter. To prevent that from happening, bring the preserves to a
boil at the first suspicion of trouble.
If you want to finish the preserves in eight days, just boil it twice a
day. With any other fruit use the same procedure. If you want to boil it
every other day (or twice every two days) the syrup should be clarified
with an egg white, straining the syrup and pouring it over the fruit.
The appearance of some white specks shows that the fruit is starting to
get bitter. In this case, take out the fruit, and only boil the syrup,
clarifying it again with an egg white. After it is clarified, pour the
syrup on the fruit again. This syrup will always be glossy and must
cover all the fruit.


Note from Ceridwen : this method is also described for peaches (3 or 4
days of boiling the syrup and pouring it over the peaches) and for
lemons (15 days again, but hollowing out the lemons after they are
boiled) and pears (15 days) and lettuce stalks (15 days- I've seen the
candied lettuce stalks in Digbie)

Here's another goodie:

To Clarify sugar:

Put water in a kettle, not too much, and add an egg white that has been
beaten like whipped cream. Then add sugar to the kettle and out on the
fire to boil, without stirring.
When the white absorbs all the imputities, take the kettle off the fire
and remove the white with a skimmer, and strain the syrup. Put the ketle
on the fire again until the syrup reaches the sugar stage.
If the sugar is not completely clean, put the sugar on the fire again
with a little water and another whipped egg white.
The sugar will be clarified when the foam is very white.
For this process there is no specific quantity of water. Naturally, the
syrup must be thick, to reach the sugar point rapidly.
For 450 grams of sugar use two whipped egg whites.


Have fun!!!
Ceridwen



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