[Sca-cooks] baked cheese dishes

[Barbara Benson]

More cheesy conversation:
> Thank you. Now that you post this, I do remember this recipe and I
> did save it. But since the discussion at that time was on anise, I
> saved it as a file on anise recipes.
Ah Ha!
> However, re-examining this recipe does make me wonder about a
> few things.
> There are a number of these white, soft cheeses around here, often
> from Mexico. They can have a variety of textures. I have trouble
> knowing just what the texture will be when I buy one.
There tend to be 3 Mexican/Central American cheeses that are fairly common.
I have been told by hispanic friends and friends that study the culture that
they translate roughly into: Cheese for Melting (quesidilla), Cheese for
Crumbling (harder and more like a blue cheese texture), and Cheese for
eating (harder still, like cheddar). All are white cheeses, When I asked a
Cuban friend of mine what kind of cheese it was (I was looking for Jack,
Munster...) she said it was Queso and looked at me quizzicaly. Ah well.

> It looked like the hole in your cheese ball?, loaf? was bigger than
> a "dinar". Wouldn't a "dinar" be between say a US dime and a US
> quarter? Cariadoc? I may have been mis-estimating the scale of the
> photo though. A ruler or other standard-sized object in such pictures
> can often help with this.
I am calling it a pie (as in oven cheese pie). Olwen is gonna kill me but I
should have taken a raw picture. The hole when it was raw was about the size
of a nickle. The pastry I used just relaxed so much that the hole got
gigantic. I squinched & crimped & painted with butter but could not keep it
from opening up (my first try ended up with a puddle o'cheese all over the
cookie sheet). I worked with a friend and made the Musammana from the
original recepie and it came out pretty darn stiff and not as flaky as the
puff pastry has proven to be. I am going to try again on Monday with
crescent roll dough to see if it will hold it's shape better.

> Was anise seed always used whole? Or was it sometimes ground? It sounds
> like either might work in this recipe, but yes I suspect whole is what
> is wanted.
I hadn't mentioned this before, but the feast I am planning is called The
Feast of Three Dances. It is for the Sunday night Kingdom A&S which here in
Meridies is traditionally a fun night. I selected 3 period dances and each
course contains a dish inspired by the corresponding dance. The dances will
be performed during the feast. How is the relavent you ask? Well the three
dances are Jenny Pluck Pears, ANISEED Robin, and Oranges & Lemmons. SO, I am
using whole Aniseseeds regardless, no idea what would have been done!;) I
believe that Cariadoc used ground. (I prefer seeds cause they are easier to
pick off - Anise=blech to me)

> Except for the cost, it sounds like you might be able to make small,
> single serving versions of this that would work good as fingerfoods
> at a sideboard or for feeding fighters on the field.
My concern, more than the cost, it that is fairly labor intensive. And if
you made the dough instead of using purchased it would be even more so. I
think Caridoc's redaction is geared more towards the single serving size. If
the crescent rolls work I could see separating out the little triangles and
re-rolling them to a nice circle and making teeny ones. I could probably eat
4 or 5.

Thank you for all of your thoughts. Every question makes my wheels spin more
and more.
Glad Tidings,
Serena da Riva