[Sca-cooks] EK 12th Night Menu

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Olwen the Odd wrote:

>> - Entremets:
>>
>>     -Tourtes Parmerienne - layered pork and duck pies with cheese, eggs
>>
>
> Recipe please.  And where the recipe comes from please.
>
> Olwen


This dish shows up in the Viandier de Taillevent, a slightly more elaborate version is in Chiquart's Du Fait de Cuisine (I intend to do a synthesis of these two versions, slightly more involved than Taillevent's, but less elaborate than Chiquart's. Also known in English as Pies of Parma or Parmesan Pies, you can find Chiquart's recipe for them online at HG Cariadoc's web site, under recreational medievalism => cooking => translated cookbooks => Du Fait de Cuisine. Cariadoc's website, BTW, seems to have been moved from best.com to daviddfriedman.com.


The true beauty of the Tourte Parmerienne (and also why it is
simultaneously breath-taking and an agonizing pain in the keister) is
that it abso-floggin'-lutely can _not_ be bastardized by SCA cooks who
may wish to use frozen 9-inch pie shells, a crime all too often used to
sully the name of Great Pyes, Pyes of Paris, etc.

The plan will be to hand-raise fairly durable hot-water crusts, usually
a cylinder ten or twelve inches across and about six inches high. The
top edge can be crennelated like a castle tower, cut into a crown, or
otherwise decoratively trimmed before baking. It gets packed with the
pork/cheese/egg filling, in which dried fruit is optional, and which I
will probably omit since there is another fruit tart in the second
course. The pork layer can be covered with pastry, or, as in Chiquart's
recipe, wafers, before adding the layer of poultry, which can be just
about any bird, whole if small, quartered if larger. I'm thinking of
using pre-braised duck legs, with the drumstick bone trimmed off at the
foot end. These'll fit together pretty well in a nice, circular pattern,
   and then it gets glazed with the Usual Suspects of egg yolk, saffron,
  and sugar.

The finished tourte is supposed to be gilded or silvered (I'm cheating
big-time with edible gold dust), and planted with the banner of the
great lords to whom it is served. I think we'll get a lot of kids with
markers, paper, and bamboo skewers, to take care of that.

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98