SC - Passage East III - Part 6

[Ann & Les Shelton]

Continuing the 5th course ...

There were recipes for this torte in both sources. The CN had the option
of covering the torte with strips of buffalo cheese rather than an upper
crust.  According to Widcombe's "The Cheese Book" and Ensrud's "Pocket
Guide to Cheese," Mozzarella was originally made from water buffalo
milk, so I used it for this purpose.  I couldn't find any chard {fairly
rare here but you can occasionally get it}, so I substituted spinach.

	TORTA BULIGNESA
	{Bolognese Torte}

CN 126

Get a pound of new cheese and of old cheese, and grate it; get well
cleaned chard, parsley, and marjoram, and beat them as much as you can
with a knife and fry them in a little good butter, then take them out;
get four eggs, saffron, and a good lot of pepper, and lard or good
butter, and mix everything together; make a thin pastry crust on the
bottom of the pan and put this mixture in it; have another crust on top
or else get buffalo cheese, cut it into strips and cover the mixture
with it instead of a crust.  Note that it should have a good smell of
pepper, and cook it slowly; when the upper crust puffs up - I mean,
rises - then it is done.

P  VIII 27

Cut up as and grind as much rich cheese as I suggested for white pie
{NOTE: 1-1/2 lbs}.  When it is ground, add chard, parsley, marjoram,
washed and cut up, four well-beaten eggs, crushed pepper, a little
saffron, a lot of fat or fresh butter, and mix it with your hands until
it almost makes a single mass.  Put this on the hearth, similarly in an
earthenware pot with an undercrust.  When it is semicooked, put in an
egg beaten with saffron so that it seems more colored.  Consider it
cooked when it raises the upper crust.

Per Table			17 Tables

2 cups Mozzarella, shredded	34 cups Mozzarella
1/4 cup chard/spinach		4 cups chard
1-1/2 tsp parsley		1 bunch parsley
1/2 tsp marjoram		3 tbs marjoram
3 eggs, beaten			51 eggs
1/8 tsp pepper			2 tsp pepper
pinch saffron			5-6 threads saffron
2 tbs butter			4-1/4 sticks butter
9' pie shell, baked blind	17 pie shells

Mix 1-1/2 cups of cheese with remaining ingredients until thoroughly
combined.  Pour into pie shell.  Bake @ 325 degrees for 30 minutes or
until almost set.  Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup of cheese on top, put back
in the oven for several minutes to melt.  Can be served hot or cold.

COMMENTS:  Because of competition for oven time, this was baked earlier
in the day and put in the walk-in to chill.  Unfortunately, the kitchen
had very limited counter and staging area space, so we left the tortes
in the cooler until just before serving.  I had a couple of comments
that they were too cold to be fully enjoyed.  If there had been
someplace to put them, it would have been better to bring them out about
15 minutes earlier to knock a little of the chill off them.

John