SC - Elizabethan buffet (long)

[Michael F. Gunter]

Hi all,

I promised recipies and such from the Elizabethan buffet but have not been
able to get to them.

These were given to me by our dear Ann-Marie. They are wonderful.

MARJORAM COOKIES 

Marjoram cookies? This may sound very odd, but the raisens and fresh herbs
combine for a wonderfully sweet, but not cloying taste. The fish shapes are
very cute, if you can manage them. 

To make fritters like fishes: [Epilario, #232] Blanch thy almonds [here is
a transcription error about adding chopped fish. It's not in the original
Italian] and stampe together with Currans, Sugar, Parsely and Margerum
chopped small with good spice and saffron, then have in a readinesse a fine
paste, and making it in what forme you wil you may fill them with this
composition, then frie them in oile: they make likewise be baked dry in a
frying pan, and when they are baked, they will shew like fishes.

Our Version::
Make a batch of your favorite shortbread cookie dough, or use refridgerated
sugar cookie dough.
Filling:
1 c. blanched almonds
1/2 c each raisens and currants
1 c powdered  sugar
3 T dry marjoram, or 1 T fresh
1/2 c. fresh parsley
4 threads of saffron
1 tsp "good spice", ie a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, etc
Combine all the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor, and blend
until the stuff begins to stick together.Makes 2c. filling.
Roll out the pastry dough, and cut out shapes. Fish shapes are appropriate.
Place a dollop of filling on the bottom crust, cover with a top crust, and
seal the edges with a fork dipped in water. Bake at 375o for 10-15 min, or
until lightly brown.

(Note: I used commercial sugar cookie dough and it wouldn't make the "sandwich"
so I just mixed the lot together. Still came out very tasty.)

PEAR PUDDINGS
These were probably the biggest hit at our recent baronial banquet. They
have a misleading name, as they're not really puddings, and there's no
pear. But these meatballs are shaped like little pears, right down to the
cinnamon stick stems and clove blossom ends. We found that the amount of
cream and flour needed to make the meat workable depended on how well you
minced the meat, and how cooked it was when you started. We also chose to
substitute salt pork for the suet, purely on an availability basis. We have
also tried it with suet and noticed no difference in the final product.

The flavor is not unsimilar to the medieval Yrchouns, and is probably a
further development of the ubiquitous spiced meatball like unit we see
throughout the medieval corpus, from Taillevent on.

Digby obviously really liked these, as there's two recipes for them in his
book, but I haven't found them in any of the other sources yet.

Oh, and if you try and cut corners and use raw ground meat to start and/or
storebought breadcrumbs, the meatballs have a really yucky pasty texture
when they're cooked.

(Digby p155) 
To Make Pear-Puddings.Take a cold Turky, Capon, or cold Veal, shred it very
small, and put almost as much Beef-suet as your meat, and mince it very
small. Then put Salt and Nutmeg grated, half a pound of Currans, a little
grated bread, and a little Flower. Then put in three ylks of eggs, and one
of the whites, beaten very well. Then take so much Cream as will wet them
and make them up as big as a Bon-cherstein pear; and as you make them up,
take a little Flower in your hand, that they may not cling. Then put in
little sticks at the bottom like the Stems of Pears, or make them up in
balls. Butter the dish very well, and send them up in the same dish you
bake them on. They will be baked in about half an hour. I think the dish
needth not to be covered whiles it baketh. You may make Mynced Pyes thus,
and bake them with Puff-paste in a dish like a Florenden, and use Marrow
instead of Suet.

(Digby p167)
To Make Pear-Puddings. Take a cold Capon, or half roasted, which is much
better; then take Suet, shred very small, the meat and Suet together; then
half as much grated bread, two spoonsfuls of Flower, Nutmegs, Cloves and
Mace; Sugar as much as you please; half a pound of Currans; the yolk of two
eggs, and the white of one; and as much Cream as will make it up in a stiff
Paste. Then make it up in the fashion of a Pear, a stick of Cinnamon for
the stalk, and the head of a Clove.

Our version: (makes about 10 pears)
1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
1/4 cup minced salt pork or suet
1 cup home made bread crumbs, grated finely
2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mace
1/8 tsp clove
4 tsp sugar
2 handfulls currants
3 eggs 
1 egg white
up to 1/4 cup flour as needed
up to 1/4 cup cream as needed
whole cinnamon stick and 6-10 cloves for decoration

Bake the chicken thighs at 350o for about 20 minutes or so till they're
half baked.
Mince well, or run through a meat grinder on the coarse setting (too fine
makes a mealy meatball) with the salt pork or suet.
Mix all the ingredients together, except the whole spices, with floured
hands. Add cream if it's too dry, flour if its too wet.
With floured hands, shape the meat mixture into 3" high pear shapes. Stick
in the cinnamon stick for the stem and the clove for the blossom end. Bake
at 350o for 35 minutes till brown. Take care they don't burn on the bottom.

(Note: I used chicken breasts with a little dark meat thrown in for moistness.
I also used golden raisins instead of currents because the currents added dark
spots. We made them about 3" high and used the stem of a clove for the stem.
You could put the rest of the clove in the bottom for the bud but I found this
unnecessary and dangerous because people would wind up eating the clove for an
unpleasant surprise. These are wonderful tasting, cute and a major hit. Do this
recipe!!!)

These are both fairly easy recipes and very popular. I could have doubled the
Pudding recipe and probably not have any left over. 

My thanks to Ann-Marie for all the recipe assistance and to Alys D. for all the
work she put forth in making it happen.

Yers,

Gunthar
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