SC - Fish pie recipe

[Olwen the Odd]

> Hi.  It's me again, Olwen.  I suppose I should have written two different 
> missives ~ one about the guava and the other asking for the fish pie recipe 
> to be re-posted.
> 
> If anyone has that fish and fruit pie recipe, please re-post it.

    I think this is what you are talking about; I have two versions saved.

Sandra Kisner
sjk3 at cornell.edu

*******

From: <Seton1355 at aol.com>

Question: Was lenten food, that is, the recipes, ever served at 
non-Lenten times?

Could the following recipe be served cold?
Thanks, Phillipa

TART DE BRYMLENT    (A MEDIEVAL LENTEN TART)

Dough -- for 9 inch pie crust 
1 1/2 lb Salmon -- cod, haddock or a -mixture 
2 tb Lemon juice
 2 tb Butter 
2 ea Pears -- peeled, cored & thinly -sliced 
2 ea Apples -- peeled,cored & thinly -sliced 
1 c White wine 
2 tb Lemon juice 
2 tb Brown sugar 
5 ea Cubebs: , thinly crushed 
1/8 ts Cloves, ground 
1/8 ts Nutmeg 
1/4 ts Cinnamon 
1/2 c Raisins 
10 ea Prunes -- pitted & minced 
6 ea Dates -- minced 
6 ea Figs, dried -- minced 
3 tb Red currant jelly -- or Damson 

Preheat the oven to 425F and bake the pie crust for 10 minutes. Let cool. 
Cut the fish into 1 1/2" chunks, salt lightly ands sprinkle with 2 tbsp
lemon juice. 
    Set aside.  Melt the butter in a large, heavy skillet and toss the
pear and apple slices in it until they are lightly coated.  Combine the
wine, lemon juice, brown sugar, spices and dried fruits, and add to the
mixture in the skillet.  Cover and simmer about 15 minutes or until the
fruit is soft but still firm.  Check the flavoring, and drain off excess
liquid.  Paint jelly on the pie crust.  Combine fish chunks with fruit and
place the mixture in the crust.  Bake at 375F for 15-25 minutes, or until
the fish flakes easily. 

****

From: 	Kerri Canepa <kerric at pobox.alaska.net>

Phillipa,
>Could the following recipe be served cold?
>Thanks, Phillipa
>TART DE BRYMLENT    (A MEDIEVAL LENTEN TART)

The version that was worked out on our side of the planet was not as 
tasty at
room temperature as it was hot right out of the oven. We decided not to 
use it
for the 12th Night Feast since there was not enough time to educate the 
populace
to something this different tasting. Here's the original post:

For the filling:
2 Bosc pears
2 Pacific Rose apples
10 dried Mission figs (about 2/3 cup)
2/3 cup raisins
2/3 cup red wine (merlot)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp white powder (recipe from _Take a Thousand Eggs_)
1/2 tsp grains of paradise
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups finely flaked poached Coho salmon

The topping:
5 small plums cut into slices
6 dates cut into slices
6 prunes cut into slices

The coffin:
1 cup all purpose flour
water

Mixed first six ingredients together and put over medium heat. While it
was cooking, poached the salmon (we started with 1 3/4 lbs of fish) in 2
cups of water and some salt. Let it cool and flaked it. When the fruit
mixture had completely gone soft, added the flaked salmon, the white
powder, grains of paradise, and salt. Had to add about a cup of water
because the mixture was too dry to boil. Raised the temperature so that
the mixture bubbled and stirred frequently to prevent sticking. When fish
had broken up into fine bits and fruit was mushy, took it off heat and let
it cool until no longer steaming.  Made the coffin dough with flour and
enough water to hold together in a ball. Kneaded dough for about three
minutes and removed a third for the cover. Rolled dough out and placed in
a 10" greased quiche pan with some dough overlapping the edges. Spread
fruit/fish mixture into pan and placed cut fruits on top.  Covered with
rolled out dough, rolled edges together to seal, put four slashes in top,
and put in 350 degree F oven for 30 minutes. 

Notes: For a dish with a combination of foods I wasn't sure about, it was
quite good. We figured we'd cook the fruit mixture less before we added
the fish and make sure the fish was finely flaked before adding. 

We, of course, made several guesses. We could have used more wine; we
couldn't tell there had been any put into it at all. We could have used
cod (since it was available fresh) but went with salmon although it's
Pacific not Atlantic salmon. Is there much of a taste difference? The
"whole spices" could be anything and we thought about adding cloves and
cubebs but cloves can be rather overpowering if not used carefully and we
had no cubebs. We did have grains of paradise so we used that. They gave a
spicy, peppery almost taste to the mixture. We think we'd add another 1/2
tsp of both the white powder and grains of paradise.  Neither of us had
tried making a coffin and since we knew it wasn't supposed to be eaten
necessarily, we just made a flour/water dough. Kneading the dough gave us
a strong durable container that neither cracked nor leaked and we hadn't
prebaked it either. It would definitely stand on its own on a platter.
Cutting the top off could certainly be turned into a one server show since
the diners would have no idea what was inside and with the fruit laid out
decoratively on top, it was quite pretty. We had way too much sliced fruit
and used all the plums but half of the prunes and figs. We'll probably
just slice the plums in half next time. 

It tastes very much like modern "minced meat" filling but with just enough
salmon flavor to note the contrast. It's very good hot and okay but not
exciting at room temperature. The recipe above would probably make two 6"
pans worth. Lorna Sass translates "Brymlent" as "mid lent" and I suppose
that could be right. If so, given that medieval cooks often would
substitute fish into their meat dishes, if this was a lenten dish, I
wonder what meat would have been used for meat days? A ground pork would
be delectable but beef marrow would probably work just as well. 

As an aside, this dish could actually be considered healthy by today's
standards. There's no additional fats but that in the salmon, not much
sugar or salt, and there's lots of fruit of different types in it. A
diabetic coworker tried a taste and pronounced it good (she looked
surprised too). We're only planning to serve a 6" pan to about 8 people so
portions would be pretty small but probably worth at least one daily
serving of fruit. 

Cedrin