SC - Egg Yolks

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

The recipe, as promised.  Lots of footnotes and comments afterwards.  
This one was easy to understand, but hard to translate.  There are a lot 
of terms that don't have easy English equivalents.  (Hence, the 
footnotes.)

Source: Diego Granado, _Libro del arte de cozina_, 1599
Translation: Lady Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann)

PARA HAZER TORTILLON RELLENO -- To make a stuffed tortillon[1]

Knead two pounds of the flower of the flour[2] with six yolks of fresh 
eggs, and two ounces of rosewater, and one ounce of leaven diluted 
with tepid water, and four ounces of fresh cow’s butter[3], or pork lard[3] 
which has no bad odor, and salt, and be stirring said dough for the 
space of half an hour, and make a thin leaf[4] or pastry[5] and anoint it 
with melted fat which should not be very hot, and cut the edges around, 
sprinkle the pastry with four ounces of sugar, and one ounce of 
cinnamon, and then have a pound of small raisins of Corinth, which have 
been given a boil in wine, and a pound of dates cooked in the same 
wine, and cut small, and all of the said things should be mixed together 
with sugar, cinnamon, and cloves, and nutmeg, and put the said mixture 
spread over the pastry with some morsels of cow’s butter, and 
beginning with the long end of the pastry, roll it upwards, taking care not 
to break the dough, and this tortillon or roll must not be rolled more than 
three turns, so that it will cook better, and it does not have to go very 
tight.  Anoint it on top with fat, not very hot.  It will begin to twist by itself 
at one end which is not very closed[6], in such a manner that it 
becomes like a snail.  Have the pie pan ready with a pastry of the same 
dough[7], somewhat fatty, anointed with melted fat, and put the tortillon 
lightly upon it without pressing it, and make it cook in the oven, or under 
a large earthen pot with temperate fire, tending it from time to time by 
anointing it with melted cow’s butter, and being almost cooked, put 
sugar on top, and rosewater, and serve it hot.  The pie pan in which you 
cook the tortillones must be wide, and must have very low edges.

A bunch of notes:
[1] I cannot find a Spanish culinary definition for “tortillon”.  It is an 18th 
century French term for a kind of hairstyle, and a modern French term 
for an art tool -- a tightly rolled piece of paper, used to blur and soften 
pencil lines.  The French words apparently come from the verb “tordre” -- 
to twist.   All of the recipes which bear this name have a rolled-up pastry 
with some kind of filling.  If I had to translate the Spanish, I would render 
it as something like “roll-pastry”.
[2] Remember when we were having the discussion about “flower” 
meaning the best of something?  I was tempted to comment that some 
Spanish recipes have a phrase that I would be obliged to translate as 
“the flower of the flour”.  Well, here it is: “flor de la harina”.
[3] Both of these phrases use the same noun: “manteca”.  This can 
mean either butter or lard.  I have translated “manteca de vaca” as cow’s 
butter, “manteca de puerco” as pork lard, and undifferentiated “manteca” 
as fat.
[4] “Ojuela” -- literally, small leaf
[5] “ojaldre” (sometimes spelt hojaldre).  Its etymology is also from 
“hoja” (leaf).  The modern definition is puff-pastry.  The recipes I have 
seen for pies made with ojaldre call for a rich unleavened dough with 
eggs and fat, about half a finger thick .  It’s coated with melted fat, rolled 
into a cylinder the thickness of an arm, then sliced into pieces two 
fingers thick.  (Presumably these slices are then rolled out, though the 
recipe doesn’t specify.)  It’s basted with melted fat during baking, the 
better to separate into leaves.  (“Ojaldrar”, one of those verbs which 
require a sentence to translate properly.)  Some recipes call for the 
base or top pastry of a pie to contain a certain number of ojaldres.  This 
tortillon recipe seems to say that the dough can either be just rolled out 
thinly, or it can be turned into a sort of ojaldre (though they are not 
normally leavened, AFAIK).  If the former, I don’t think it is intended to 
be too thin, since the roll is only supposed to make three turns.
[6] I gather from this that one end *should* be tightly closed, leaving the 
other to expand into a snail-like trumpet.
[7] This pastry underneath seems to function as part of the pan, not part 
of the tortillon.  It appears in other recipes as well.  A non-stick cookie 
sheet might render it unnecessary.

Other assorted comments on redacting this:
Two pounds of flour is more than eight cups.  I’d be inclined to halve the 
recipe, unless you were making a huge pastry to serve high table.
I don’t know how much one ounce of leaven is in modern terms.  For a 
half recipe (four cups of flour), a package of dried yeast (2-1/4 
teaspoons) would suffice.

I look forward to redacting this one, since yeasted baked goods are 
something I enjoy making.  I also loo forward to seeing what other folks 
make of this one.


Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
mka Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net
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