SC - Precooking

[E. Rain]

Good morning all,
Niccolo says he doesn't usually precook for feasts, just trusts his good
judgment as a cook to make the recipes come out well.  (with the wise
exception of recipes he's unsure of) Obviously this technique works for him
& as long as he & his feasters are happy that's what matters...

I don't do it this way myself, and it's not because I'm not a
good/experienced cook :-> Rather, when I first reconstruct a recipe it
usually comes out a good and happy dish* but then having made & tasted it, I
can find out the exact places where a little tweaking could make it even
better. I also learn if there will be any issues with the manner of cooking
it that could be simplified for mass production or the like.  This way when
I serve a dish at a feast I know it will be a "wow" and I get fewer
surprises in the kitchen.

For example I'm working on Spanish food right now, and made the Apricot Pie
from the 1607 Arte de Cozina at our guild mtg a week and a half ago.  this
is basically dried apricots boiled in a sugar syrup & then baked in a crust.
It was might mighty tasty, but a very intense sweet so people, even though
we warned them, would take too big a piece & then could only eat a little of
it.  Also the piecrust I used, a Pillsbury crust from my fridge, had some
cracks in the bottom (too dry) so the filling seeped through them & made it
difficult to serve.  Yes I knew this as it was happening, but let it go in
part to see how bad it would be.  Armed with this knowledge from my first
try (and wanting more of it cause it was really yummy) yesterday morning I
remade the dish into little individual tarts for portion control & to
increase the balance of pastry to sweet filling.  This time they were
perfect, I took them to an event in the afternoon & all the recipients
raved.  Plus I had no solidified sugar on the bottom of a pan to try & clean
up later :->  Now I know exactly how they'll taste & behave when I serve
them to 150 people, and by taking them & handing them out to folks at the
tourney yesterday I started a little bit of proselytizing for the feast
they'll eventually be part of and for helping me with reconstructions.  Can
you tell I worked in marketing? ;->

Obviously it's not how everyone chooses to cook, but it makes me happy &
it's what I teach others since I know it works well.

Eden - who has one little apricot tart left upstairs to eat for breakfast.


*except with recipes I'm unsure of as with Niccolo
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WARNING: Dates on the calendar are closer than they appear!

Eden Rain
raghead at liripipe.com