SC - Olaf's Carolingian Feast Results & Thanks

[Jim Revells]

Greetings to the List,
    I originaly put out a request for recomendations on the List & would
like to thank all of the people who responded.  I especaly would like to
thank Mistress Sincgiefu Warfaest/ Cindy Renfrow who sent me her latest
redactions of some of the dishes I prepaired & gave me some great advice.  I
was complmented by the Baroness on the Blancmange as it being the best she
had ever had.
    I would also like to thank Stefan for his Florilegium & Duke Caridock
for his Miscellany where other dishes were drawn from.  I need also thank
whoever it was posted the Sweet Spinich tart recipie from "The English
Hous-wife"  it was a great suprise to many people & was eaten by most at the
event (I think it was Bear but I am not sure).
    This was my most ambitious feast so far concerning the accuracy of the
menue.  I did not totaly susceed in conforming to the recipies but I did put
out a very eadible feast that was enjoyed by everyone that ate it.  I will
try this agin when I am not working so much.
    Well on to how the feast went.   It was to be served as a picnic at the
Baronial Archery Tourney.  The site did not have a kitchen & I purchased 2
Smoker grills to use as ovens at the event &  a propane double burner "fish
cooker"  for a range top.  Mundanly I work 80+ hours/week (I have had 18
days off since Dec 4th 1999) & was unable to make meetings or other events
where I could recruit assistance.  Repeated request for assistance on the
web resulted in no help on the Friday Precook at my house for the feast.  I
cooked the feast for 40 persons with no assistance.  My schedule for Friday
was from 8-10 cleaning the house (in case any of the maybes showed up to
help); 10-4 shopping; 4-8:30 AM Sat cooking to get things ready.  I did not
get any sleep on Friday night.  I got lost on the way to the site (New
Englanders being thrifty don't always post signs where the major roads
change directions & I was a little tired.) which made me 15 minutes late
ariving at the site.  The brand new Smokers had not been assembled but I was
able to get some of the people to set one of them up & set up the day board
for me.  The Baron sent me to lay down till that was accomplished because I
was looking a little wobblely.  After the grill was fired up I started to
heat the pans of food.  I was able to get  the ovens up to 400F in a
matter of a short time.  The one problem I had was I got one of the crust
Very Brown when I got it too close to the fire box  "window".  Overall I was
very happy with the Smoker as an oven.  One note though the grills did not
come with a thermometer (I have to order them later) but I had an oven
themometer that I was able to use.
     All pies were done in Lasanga pans lined
with foil to enable them to be lifted out to display them on platters as a
coffin type crust.  I used the recipie for the Flaky Pastry on page 170 of
1000 Eggs,  I also used a 3 part unbleached flour to 1 part whole wheat
flour for the pastery crust.  At the request of a local vegitarian I did the
crust for all
dishes that were vegitarian friendly with vegitable shortening, the rest I
used butter (no vegitarians showed up for the feast, nor did the one person
who asked about nuts in the food.  The only food alergy question on the day
of the event was about rasins-a question do currents count as rasins?).  For
sugar I used a brown sugar from a local Indian Store labeled Kolmapur Jagger
which is what I got when I asked for Gur.  Does any
one know what it translates out to?  I over cooked for the 40 people that
attended.  I could have fed another 40 people with the leftovers.
    The feast I served:

Mulled Cider  4 Gallons      I used a coffe urn, as was suggested, that
belonged to one
of the local stores that a member works at with comercial mulling mix.

Sakanyabian from Cariadoc's Misccellany    2 recipies    I used  a slow
cooker to simmer
this for 4 hours after I had added the fresh mint.  The taste was great!
One person thought it a little sharp untill I realised he had gotten the
straight surp without any water.

Bread, fruit & raw vegitables from the day board

various cheeses-  I had Bre as Cindy suggested for one of the cheeses &
somked Guda for another.

Blancmange from Pg 85 of 1000 Eggs-     4 recipies    Cindy sent me a new
version of this.
One vareation I did for this was I used a rice cooker to do the rice.  This
avoided the usual problem of burning the rice.  One suggestion for when
doing the recipies though- use weights on the amount of meat not volume
measures.  It would have made it easyer to purchase ingrediants for cooks
like me.

Garlic in beef broth- I did not have a recipie for this but enjoyed it at
the Heroit event so I did as described by the head cook there.  I cooked 5
pounds of  garlic in 5cups of beef broth untill extreamly tender using a
slow cooker.  Some people were using it as a spread on the bread.

Small Pies/Chawettys from Pg 123 of 1000 Eggs    4 recipies    This was the
biggest hit of
all the dishes.  People came up to me & said they normaly didn't like
anything with blue cheese in it but that this dish was outstanding.  The
only variation I had on this from the recipie was that I was out of dates
having forgotten to save some (2AM I was not going looking for some) for
this dish & substituted rasins instead.

Pies of Paris from Pg 125 of 1000 Eggs    7 recipies     This is the other
recipie that
Cindy sent me updates to.  I folowed the recipie (using the ground beef
variation) but could not get the broth to thicken when I added the egg
yokes.  Which is the more probable cause:  that I did not have enough egg
yokes for the amount of broth or that my broth still too warm when I put
them in?

Savory Spinich Tart from Cariadoc's Misccellany    4 recipies    This was a
big hit with the
crowd!  I followed te recipe exactly except I did not add the Chervil-I did
this one at 4AM.  This was visualy the most interesting/striking dish.

Sweet Spinich tart recipie from "The English Hous-wife"      4 recipies This
supprised a lot
of people & most of it was eaten.

Baked Custard Pie from Pg 195 of 1000 Eggs.    4 recipies    This was good
but I think it needed more sweetner.  I may not have added enough Honey as I
did it by eye.

YIS,.
Olaf Of Trollhiemsfjord