SC - Elizabethan buffet (long)

[david friedman]

At 11:40 AM -0500 10/21/98, Michael F. Gunter wrote:

...
>chopped small with good spice and saffron, then have in a readinesse a fine
>paste, and ...

>Our Version::
>Make a batch of your favorite shortbread cookie dough, or use refridgerated
>sugar cookie dough.

What is your reason for thinking that Epulario's "fine paste" corresponds
to shortbread or sugar cookie dough?

Have you tried frying these instead of baking them? The recipe is for
"fritters" and frying them is the first method proposed, although the
alternative of baking is also offered, so the dough ought to be one that
works as fritters. I have my doubts about frying shortbread dough, but I
haven't tired it.



>(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.

>(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

A few questions:

1. Why salt pork? It isn't much like suet, which is what the recipe specifies.

2. I would expect your 1/4 c of salt pork or suet to weigh a little over 2
ounces. So the ratio of suet to meat in your recipe is close to 1:8,
instead of the 1:1 that Digby specifies in his first recipe (the second
doesn't say). That's a pretty extreme change--why did you make it?

3. Digby uses 2 or 3 egg yolks and one egg white; your recipe has 3 eggs
and one egg white; why the change?

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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

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".

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