SC - liver

[Joan Nicholson]

And it came to pass on 27 Sep 00, , that Jenne Heise wrote:

> Speaking of substituions... I recently tried the recipe for Tredura
> (Hashed Leeks) from The Medieval Kitchen. The original author calls for
> grinding up almonds and moistening them with broth, but says that if you
> don't have almonds you can use yolk of egg... you mix that with dried
> 'crumb'  of bread moistened with water and 'cut up with' meat (that
> confused me: if you have wet bread crumb, you wouldn't bge cutting it,
> would you?

Now *I'm* confused.  I haven't cooked this recipe, but I own The 
Medieval Kitchen, and I see no mention of almond milk in the 
recipe for Tredura.  The original recipe (on page 71) says:

"To make tredura, take whites of leek and boil them, whole, then 
chop them well with a knife; then fry them with the fat of meat you 
have cooked; take bread and grate it, and soak it in hot water; take 
a piece of meat, and chop the bread and the meat with a knife; 
then take beaten eggs and plenty of saffron, beat together, and 
pour over the fried leeks with plenty of spices; and it will be good."

If the eggs are poured over the fried leeks while they are still in the 
hot pan, they should cook well enough.  As for the chopped meat-
and-bread, with the right spicing (and the right meat), it should be 
fairly tasty.  Note that the original does not specify the relative 
proportions of meat and bread.

As for looks... I see that the redaction directs you to mix together 
the diced pork, bread, eggs and saffron, then add all that to the 
leeks.  However, the original does not say anything about when the 
meat and bread are to be added to the other ingredients.  I would 
be inclined to put the meat on the platter, and top it with the leeks 
and eggs.  Since there is "plenty of saffron" in the eggs, and you're 
only using the whites of the leeks, it will be bright and golden -- just 
the sort of thing that medieval cooks liked to use for dramatic effect.

Just a few ideas off the top of my head...


Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)
mka Robin Carroll-Mann
harper at idt.net