SC - Princess favors

[Karen O]

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> 
>What type of onions did you use?
> The redaction in Medieval Kitchen calls for "red or other sweet onions".
> Did those exist then? I know the real sweet ones, Valh<something> didn't.

Vidalias. Of course the draw of Vidalias are largely that they're sweet
when eaten raw; all onions, to some extent, are sweet when cooked.
Ordinary yellow onions should be fine for this; the size shouldn't
matter much since you're pre-cooking, but you end up peeling less if you
use larger ones. A caveat: experiment with this if you want to use red
oinions. Depending on how well they're cooked, how they're stored, and
the amount/type of vinegar used, they can become pretty unattractive. If
I were you I'd go with ordinary yellow or white globe onions, and apply
copious herbs and/or spices to disguise the bland color. Herbs aren't
mentioned in the original, but they do appear in other Platina roasted
vegetable salads. A little chopped flat-leaf parsley and some
freshly-ground black pepper would make this pretty impressive. If you do
use herbs, you can chop them the night before, squeeze some of the
moisture out by wringing them in a kitchen towel, then storing them
rolled up in a paper towel, in a plastic bag or other sealed container.
The idea is to keep them moist without having them sitting in their
juice, which tends to discolor over time.    

> How much olive oil did you use? I tend to be fairly heavy handed when I
> put salad dressings on my own salads, but maybe that would not be good
> for a group of folks?

A standard vinaigrette formula is three parts oil to one part vinegar; I
often use less vinegar and compensate for this by adding salt fairly
aggressively. It is a salad, after all. Also, use the best olive oil you
can get. As in, the oil itself should taste good when you dip a piece of
bread in it and taste it.

> It's yet another vinegar/pickled dish besides the compost (and the eggs, I
> think) but that is probably quite likely for a medieval winter feast.

It is, but I've also seen at least one feast in my own kingdom what is
still referred to, somewhat angrily, as the Vinegar Feast. You can go
easy on the vinegar, though, to be sure it tastes sufficiently different
from the compost and other vinegary stuff.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
============================================================================

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".

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