SC - As promised, EK Crown Feast (long!)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Here goes, folks, in what I hope are managable chunks, but still long:

Feast Menu, Notes, and Receipts, Spring Crown Tourney, 
II May, A.S. XXXIII, In The Crown Province of Østgardr

- --The First Course:
Porrey Chapeleyn (White Onion Pottage with Almond Milk and Crisps)
Conynges in Papdele (Hashed Rabbit Stew Layered with Pasta)
Salat (Mixed Raw Greens, Seasoned)
Rampaunt Perre (Pear cream with Pastry)

- -- Entremets:
Blank Maunger (Rice cream with almonds and Chicken Breast)
Cuskynoles (closed rissoles of fruit)

- -- The Second Course:
Cormarye (Marinated Pork Loin in Red Wine Sauce)
Chyches (Chick Pea Puree with olive oil and garlic)
Green Porray on a Fish Day (Spinach Pottage Creamed with Butter)
Daryols (Honey Custard Tarts with saffron)

- -- Issue:
Wafers (anise cookies)
hippocras dragiees (hippocras spice candies)
Anise in Confyt (sugared anise seeds)

Porrey Chapeleyn
"88	For to make a porrey chapeleyn, tak an hundred onyons o*er an half,
& tak oyle de olyf & boyle togedere in a pot; & tak almande mylk & boyle
yt & do *ereto. Tak & mak a *ynne paast of dow, & make *ereof as it were
ryngis. Tak & fry hem in oyle de olyue or in wyte grees & boil al
togedere. "

	From Curye On Inglysch, Book II, Diversa Servicia (MS D, ff.86r-96v.)
What they did:
	To make an oniony pottage, they took 100 or 50 onions (one of the few
quantities mentioned in recipes from the Anglo-Norman corpus), peeled
and cut them up (mincing or grinding seems to produce the best results,
but slicing would work too), and cooked them in olive oil. Note that
frying isn’t specified, so they are probably cooked until soft and
golden, a lightly caramelized puree. To this is added some almond milk
until a soupy consistency is reached. The mixture is simmered until the
almond milk has taken on some of the flavor and color of the onions, and
the onions are soft and velvety. Fried faux onion rings made from dough
are added at the last minute and brought to a boil before serving.

What we’ll do differently:
	Not so much differently as more specifically. The recipe is pretty
vague as to exactly what is done to the onions. For speed and
expedience, we’ll grind the onions to a slightly grainy puree. The
procedure reminds me a bit of some modern Southeast Asian curry pastes,
made largely from caramelized onion puree thinned down with coconut
milk, so we’ll use proportions similar to what might be used to produce
a tasty curry sauce, except this will be a bit thinner. We’ll also cheat
and use pre-fab pasta rings, cut from gyoza wrappers with cookie
cutters, and we’ll garnish the soup at the last minute, so the rings
should remain fairly crispy, which in the original dish they probably
wouldn’t have been.

What you should do to make eight servings:
 2 lbs onions, peeled and finely 		minced or thinly sliced
	3 or 4 Tbs olive oil
	8 oz. blanched almonds, finely 		ground
	~1/2 tsp salt
	pepper to taste (optional, not in the 		
 original recipe)
~1/2 cup flour
1 egg
1 tsp olive oil
1/8 tsp salt
oil for frying
 	
	Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a wide 3-quart saucepan. Saute
the onions until they become soft and golden. Stir frequently. Reduce
the heat if the onions begin to brown too quickly. You may need to add
the fourth talblespoon of olive oil, and if the juices begin to
caramelize, stick to the pan and burn, add a couple of tablespoons of
water, stirring and scraping to deglaze the pan and temporarily halt the
browning process.
	
While the onions cook down to about half their original volume, make the
pasta dough for the garnish: mix the egg, the flour, the teaspoon of
olive oil, and the 1/8 teaspoon salt to make a firm, elastic dough,
kneading until smooth and glossy. You may need to add a bit of extra
flour if the dough is too sticky. Wrap the dough in a piece of plastic
wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
	Bring six cups of water to a boil, and remove from the heat. Add the
ground almonds, stirring constantly. Let steep for five or ten minutes,
and blend the resulting milk in a blender. Strain through a strainer
lined with cheesecloth, and reserve until the onions are soft and
golden. Pour the milk over the onions and stir. Bring to a low simmer
and leave to reduce while you make the faux onion rings.
	
On a floured board, roll out your dough into a thin sheet, 1/8 inch
thick or less.
Put perhaps three cups of frying oil to heat to 350° F. in a saucepan or
deep skillet (a wok is good for this, as it uses less oil and heats
pretty fast). Using two concentric round cookie cutters, or a donut
cutter, or any other tool that’ll do the job, stamp out rings two or
three inches in diameter.  Fry them three or four at a time, until
golden brown and somewhat puffy. Drain them on paper towels. You can
recycle shreds of leftover dough to make new rings.
	By this time the soup should have thickened slightly and be ready for
its final seasoning. Add salt, and, if you wish, pepper to taste. Add
the fried rings to the soup and stir them in, or use as a garnish for
each serving. 

Connynges in Papdele
"26	Hares in papdele. Take hares; perboile hem in gode broth. Cole the
broth and
wasshe the fleysshe; cast a3ain togydre. Take obleys o*er wafrouns in
defaute of loseyns, and cowche in dysshes. Take powdour douce and lay
on; salt the broth and lay onoward & messe forth."
Curye on Inglysch, Book IV, "The Forme of Cury", c. 1390 C.E.

What they did:
	Note that the recipe calls for hares. Hares are simmered in stock
(probably chicken, capon, or white beef stock) until the meat can be
easily removed from the bones. The stock is strained off the hares,
which are cleaned of all bone, gristle, and extraneous proteins like
albumen scum, which may or may not actually involve rinsing the meat, as
washing would suggest to the modern mind. The chunks of meat are added
back to the broth, and the stew is layered between sheets of cooked
pasta or wafers. The difference between obleys and wafers seems to have
been pretty minor: both are a thin pastry cooked between irons like a
thin waffle, and after they’ve sat in hare broth for a few minutes the
difference becomes even less important. Our hare lasagna is topped with
a mixture of powdered sweet spices like cinnamon and cloves.

What we’ll do differently:
	The primary difference is that we’ll be using coneys (rabbits), since
they‘re more readily available and sufficiently adventurous for most
SCAdians I know anyway. We’ll pretty much follow the recipe as stated
above, using chicken broth for our rabbits, and interpreting the phrase
"good broth" to include a generous amout of fresh herbs, like whole
thyme, savory or marjoram, and parsley stems. But, while the rabbit meat
is being removed from the bones, we’ll reduce the broth to a saucier,
syrupy consistency, and lay the meat between our loseyns, while the
recipe is rather unclear on just how the meat and pasta are arranged.
We’ll take a line from a recognizable lasgna dish as far as the
presentation is concerned. By the way, a nearly identical dish of
braised duck sforza on papardella was, until quite recently, a big
seller at Felidia’s in New York City.

What you need to make eight small servings:
1 large rabbit, around three pounds, jointed
1 quart good chicken stock, low sodium if canned
dry white wine or water
optional: fresh herbs -- parsley, thyme, 	rosemary, etc. ; use 1/3 the 
amount if dried 
optional: packet of unflavored gelatin if 	using canned stock
1/2 lb dry lasagna noodles (at least nine 	strips)
salt to taste
1/4 tsp powdered cloves
1/4 tsp powdered cinnamon
 	
In a 3-or-4-quart saucepan, bring the rabbit to a boil in the stock with
the optional herbs and enough wine or water to cover the rabbit pieces
well. Reduce the heat to a simmer, skim, and cook for about 2  1/2 to 3
hours, or until rabbit is tender. Let the rabbit cool in the broth for
half an hour or so.
	
Meanwhile, boil your lasagna noodles in lightly salted water for around
12 minutes or until tender. Remember this doesn’t get a subsequent
baking, so it won’t absorb the tomato sauce that isn’t there anyway, and
get softer. Boil it until it’s as tender as you want it to be. Drain and
reserve the noodles, with a little oil to keep them from sticking
together.

Lift the rabbit pieces from the broth. Strain the broth and reserve the
rabbit.
	
Reduce the broth, if necessary: moisten the gelatin, if using, with a
little lukewarm water, until it puffs up and becomes clear. Heat the
broth and dissolve the gelatin (which occurs naturally in real stock,
but is more or less absent from canned) in it. Bring the broth to a boil
and reduce it to around 2 1/2 cups, by which time it will have thickened
slightly: you’ll see the bubbles that normally occur on top of boiling
liquid suddenly collapse, and the liquid will have become slightly
syrupy.
	
While the sauce is cooking, remove the meat from the rabbit bones.
Scrape rib meat from the bones with a paring knife, but the rest should
come right off using the fingers. Watch our for gristle. Give the meat a
rough chop if you want to, and add it to the broth/sauce.
	
Lay out 1/3 of your noodles in a serving bowl, and spoon half of the
rabbit hash (or stew if you’ve left it in big chunks) onto it, spreading
it evenly. Cover with another layer of pasta, followed by the other half
of the rabbit. Top with the last of the pasta. Pour any remaining broth
over the top. Cut like a tac-tac-toe board, dust lightly with the cloves
and cinnamon, mixed, and serve.

Salat
"78	Salat. Take persel, sawge, grene garlec, chibolles, oynouns, leek,
borage, myntes,
porrettes, fenel, and toun cresses, rew, rosemarye, purslarye; laue and
waische hem clene. Pike hem. Pluk hem small wi* *yn honde, and myng hem
wel with rawe oile; lay on vyneger and salt, and serue it forth."
Curye on Inglysch, Book IV, "The Forme of Cury", c. 1390 C.E.

What they did:
	This is a mixed green salad, notable by modern standards by the absence
of lettuce. More than a third of the ingredients mentioned are some
member of the onion family, and this is generally much spicier and more
flavorful than a lettuce or spinach-based salad.  Listed in order are
parsley, sage, garlic chives, scallions, onions, leeks, borage, mint,
wild baby leeks (known as "ramps" in the U.S.A.) fennel, town cress,
rue, rosemary, and purselaine. The herbs are washed and picked over for
nasty bits, then torn up by hand, topped with raw oil (meaning either
virgin olive oil, not extracted by heat, or else oil that has never been
used for prior cooking -- yecch!), vinegar, and salt.

What we’ll do differently: 
	Mostly, we’ll probably have trouble finding the exact herbs specified,
but I suspect this is a rough guideline rather than what’s mandatory for
a salad recognizable to the 14th-century English eye. What we use will
largely depend on what looks good in the market when we shop for this.
We may get uppity and use commercial mesclun (mixed field greens). We’ll
make a simple vinaigrette of vinegar, oil, and salt. We may splurge and
include some pepper. There are a couple of problems with the separate
toppings of oil and vinegar, as they tend to separate on the plate, and
most people have a sensitive spot in the back of the throat that
absolutely hates undiluted vinegar, which results in (hopefully) dry
heaves. If the salad isn’t overdressed, though, that usually isn’t too
much of a problem.

What you need for eight servings:
 	2 bunches flat parsley
	2 bunches watercress
	1 bunch mint
	1 bunch scallions
	1 head fennel with some of the green leaves
	Small amounts of the herbs suggested above (5 or 6 sage leaves, or a
handful of 	
		rue, a couple of chives, etc.) finely shredded or chopped
	4 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
	1 1/2 Tbs. vinegar of your choice, malt or a good red wine version is
best 
	1/4-1/2 tsp salt, to taste
	optional 1/4 tsp black pepper 
 
	Remove the whole leaves of the parsley, watercress, and mint from the
bunches. You can simply grasp the bunches by the stems and cut off the
leaves all at once in the case of the parsley and cress, but you may
need to do the mint by hand if the stems are tough. Wash and dry the
above greens, either in a salad spinner or by wrapping in a towel, tying
it (we usually use a pillowcase for events), and shaking and swinging it
until most of the surface moisture is off the leaves. Shred the
scallions. Shred or chop the opther herbs. Wash the fennel carefully (it
is often sandy), and dry it. Chop the stalks and leaves, shred the
bulbous part.
	Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, quickly toss to mix
evenly, and serve. 

Rampaunt Perre
"24	Rampaunt perre. Peopren ysoden in water, y*ikked wi* ayren and wi* 
amidon, ystreyed abouen of *e leues; mak of dowe *e colour 3oelu of *ree
lyouns raumpauns in *e dysches."
	Curye on Inglysch, Book I, "Diuersa Cibaria", c. ~ 1325 C.E.

What they did:
	Pears, probably a hard cooking variety like Bosc, Seckle, or Comice,
are boiled in water (presumably after peeling and removing the core)
until soft enough to mash or sieve. They are then thickened by cooking
with eggs (either yolks only or a combination of yolks and whites) and
wheat starch. The result is a thick puree with a consistency something
like pastry cream or pumpkin pie filling, which, when cool, is garnished
with shaped and decorated cutouts of dough, baked and stuck upright in
the thick pear cream. 

What we’ll do differently:
	The garnish is probably a simple flour-and-water dough, or possibly an
egg pasta dough, baked lightly until hard and dry, but since I don’t
generally believe in inedible garnishes, we’ll be using decorated sugar
cookies instead.

What you need to make eight servings:
2 1/2 pounds cooking pears (Boscs work well)
optional sugar to taste
4 egg yolks
2 whole eggs
2 1/2 ounces (10 Tbs.) wheat or corn starch
1/4 tsp salt
optional unsalted butter
 	
Peel, quarter, and core the pears, and cook them in a covered pot with
just enough water to keep them from sticking, say, a cup or so. This may
take an hour for a small batch, but they need to be almost falling
apart. Drain off most of the water and mash the pears with a potato
masher, food mill, or food processor, until you have the pear version of
applesauce. Sweeten to taste if you want to.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the wheat starch, salt, and the eggs until
completely smooth. Spoon in the hot pear puree, beating to completely
mix after each spoonful. When the pears and the egg/starch mixture are
fully incorporated, return them to the pot and bring to a boil, stirring
frequently, until a thick, custardy sauce is formed. Pour the sauce into
a somewhat deep serving dish, and if you’re concerned about a skin
forming, paint the surface of the hot perre with a stick of unsalted
butter. Unwrap one end and just draw on the hot surface as with a large
marker or crayon.
	
When cool, garnish by sticking in your favorite lion-shaped pastry, and
serve immediately.


Part two follows...

Adamantius

- -- 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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