SC - Ravioli, dumplings, and excoriation

[Siegfried Heydrich]

Jeff Gedney wrote:

> Try this ( I am sure it is not period, but it IS very yummy ):

<snipped recipe for fried parsnips caramelized with honey & suggestion of doing this
with carrots>

I am sure that I have seen a honeyed carrot recipe in Platina, but do not have that
source to hand.

At the end of my posting I have reprinted another's posted recipe for making 'a Tart
of Parsneps and Scyrrets'.

I have found a honeyed turnip & carrot recipe in Le Menagier de Paris Translated by
Janet Hinson.  Obtained from web site:
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Cookbooks/Menagier/Menagier.html
Under the section titled 'Other Odds & Ends', there is a recipe to make "compote".
The result seems to be a preserve, but it does not specify whether you serve it hold
or cold & it would be very nice served hot ;-)

It starts with a recipe for making walnuts essentially preserved in honey and
ultimately left "in an earthenware pot or cask, and stir once a week".  Then it goes
on to give recipes for preparing preserved turnips, carrots, choke-pears & gourds.
The way I have read the sequential  recipes is that each of the preserves are
prepared separately and are _kept_ separately.  Ie, it does not appear from the
translated text that each additional preserve is added to the one before.  It seems
merely a series of individual recipes, particularly since it later goes on to
describe a recipe where the preserves can be used, but seems more to be referring to
just the walnut preserve rather than the other recipes - I would like other's
feedback here on what they think ;-)

Anyway, included in the recipes is the following for turnips & carrots, when it
states "take honey & do the same as the walnuts", I have reprinted the appropriate
text from the walnut recipe below the other 2:
“Take, around All Saints Day (November 1), large turnips, and peel them and chop them
in quarters, and then put on to cook in water: and when they are partially cooked,
take them out and put them in cold water to make them tender, and then let them
drain; and take honey and do the same as with the walnuts, and be careful not to
over-cook your turnips.  Item, on All Saints, take carrots as many as you wish, and
when they are well cleaned and chopped in pieces, cook them like the turnips.
(Carrots are red roots which are sold at the Halles in baskets, and each basket costs
one blanc.) . . .Item, when gourds are in season, take those which are neither too
hard nor too tender, and peel them and remove the seeds and cut into quarters, and do
the same to them as to the turnips.”

Re details for preserving with honey from walnut recipe:
"and then put them [walnuts] on to boil in sweet water and let them boil just for the
length of time it takes to say a Miserere, and until you see that there are none
which are too hard or too soft. Then empty the water, and put them to drain on a
screen, and then boil a sixth of honey or as much as they need to be all covered, and
the honey should be strained and skimmed: and when it is cooled down to just warm,
add your walnuts and leave them two or three days, and then put them to drain, and
take as much of your honey as they can soak in, and put the honey on the fire and
make it come to a good boil and skim it, and take it off the fire: and put in each
hole in your walnuts a clove in one side and a little snip of ginger in the other,
and then put them in the honey when it is lukewarm. And stir it two or three times a
day, and at the end of three days take them out: and gather up the honey, and if
there is not enough, add to it and boil and skim and boil, then put your walnuts in
it; and thus each week for a month. And then leave them in an earthenware pot or a
cask, and stir once a week."

TO MAKE A TART OF PARSNEPS AND SCYRRETS
The redaction (Redacted By Lord Ragnar Keitelson, Prepared by he and his Lady Wife
Rowan of Ashebrook):
>From Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery p749, containing recipes from at least the
previous century.:  “Seeth yr roots in water& wine, then pill them & beat them in a
morter, with raw eggs & grated bread. bedew them often with rosewater & wine, then
streyne them & put suger to them * some juice of leamons, & put it into ye crust; &
when yr tart is baked cut up & butter it hot, or you may put some butter into it,
when you set it into ye oven, & eat it cold. Ye juice of leamon you may eyther put in
or leave out at yr pleasure. “
We chose carrots for flavor and color, Scyrets (a white root resembling the shape and
flavor of carrots) not being available.  Besides, that makes the tarte red and white!

 3/4 lb. carrots
 3/4 lb. parsnips
 2 c. wine
 2 tbsp. butter
 1/2 c. sugar
 1/2 c. wine and/or rosewater
 2 eggs
 1 c. breadcrumbs
 1 deep dish pie crust
 egg for glaze
Peel and chop roots. Boil in 1 qt H2O and the 2 c. wine until soft. Mash roughly with
1 c. breadcrumbs, the eggs, the butter, melted, sugar, and rest of  wine/rosewater. A
rough texture here is fine. Put into pre-glazed pie crust (brush some of the egg
across the bottom to prevent soggy crust), glaze top with remaining egg, put in
pre-heated 400 degree oven for 50 mins.

Lorix