[Sca-cooks] Sunday's Experiment

[Marilyn Traber]

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Well, Got creative Sunday - probably due to Rob making the black hole in the
barn disgorge the French Cooking CA of Ann-Marie's. The errata page fell
out, and at a casual glimpse, I saw 'French Bread"' and thought that I would
make up some bread to go with dinner. Ok, quick scan of the next page,
something labeled 'To make another soft cake or tart without cheese, which
cake the Fleming's do call bread dipped in eggs.' Well, I have flour,
butter, eggs and modern baking yeast to sub for the beer yeast. I decided
that the montrachet yeast just wouldn't do ;-).

Hmmm, :
Put into a basin, or upon a table, 2 pints of fine flower, break and beat
two eggs into it. - OK, liquid pints aren't usually used to measure dry
ingredients, but since I often make bread and such using the same
flintstones cup to measure all of the ingredients to keep them in a
particular proportion, I dug out 2 dry liquid pint measures of flour and put
it into my huge wooden bread trough. I dug out 2 eggs and cracked them into
a well in the center of the flour and stirred them around a bit.

Added there unto half a pound of butter which you shall have caused to be
melted over the fire, with a quarter pint of milk, out also into this
mixture a spoonful of good beer yeast which is somewhat thick, and rather
more than less, as also salt at discretion. - OK, out comes the butter and
into the microwave it goes. While it is melting, out comes the milk -
whoops, out. Out comes the heavy cream instead. Well, they both come out of
the same tap on the beastie, so into the milk goes a heaping tsp of baking
yeast. I am using salted butter so decide to dispense with the added salt. I
pout the milk/yeast blend into the dough and let the butter cool for about 5
minutes and add it as well.

You must mixe and work all these things together with your hands, till you
reduce them into a well knitted paste, and in the kneading of this your
paste you must now and then powder it with a little flower. - OK, time to
knead. I flour my hands and set to. After about 10 minutes of playing about,
and about half a cup of extra flour I have a dough.

Your paste being thus well powdered will be firm, after which make it up
into the form of a loaf, and placing it upon a sheet of paper you must cover
it with a hot napkin. You must  also observe to set your said paste neer
unto the fire, but not too nigh, lest that side which should be too nigh the
fire might become hard. You shall leave this paste in the said indifferent
hot place until it be sufficiently risen and it will require at least five
quarters of an hour time to rise  in and when it shall be suffiently risen,
which you may know by its splitting and separating itself, you must make it
up into the form of a cake or tart which you must garnish over and then put
into the oven to be baked. {snipped is oven info, suffice it to say that it
is to be baked like normal bread, not in a slow or really fast oven.]

OK, well, Now I have this lump in my bowl which doesn't particularly look
like a bread dough, but I figure it called for yeast and rising time. I
start letting it rise, and after 5 quarters of an hour I wander over and
poke it a few times. Nothing happened at all. Nada, Zip, Zilch. Didn't even
split asunder. OK, well. Hmm, not bread as we know it. Well, it DOES happen
to have the texture of a nice pie crust/coffin paste. Grab the booklet and
look into it. I see that the page previous to the French bread is a toxic
pie. Well, OK, mushrooms, but to me they are toxic. Then there is a page
with the French bread commentary, and another page with French bread
commentary, a duplicate of the first. Well, the loose page did say it was an
errata page ;-) On the reverse of the French bread page #2 is a recipe for
French bread, so I make my typical form of exercise, leaping to a conclusion
and figure what I have just made is a crust for a mushroom tart.

Regroup. I don't do 'shrooms. What do I have to fill a shell with. Not
enough fruit to make a decent filling, as we now have a coffin 4 inches tall
and about 10 inches in diameter. Rummage in fridge and freezer. I do seem to
have a bunch of leftover turkey, and some leftover ham made from Phlip's
experiment of flavoring domestic piggy to taste like wild boar. Yummy but a
bit salty. I recall reading several recipes calling for cooked meat to be
chopped and brayed in a mortar and then rebaked into a pie. OK - prod rob
until he is awake and tell him to bray the flesche in a mortar. His comment
was 'kiss my what?' so I told him to put the beasts into the food processor
and pulse until it is ground. Now it looks like deviled ham without the
mayo. So now he gets directed to make a custard to mix with the
sort-of-brayed flesche and encased. He grumpily does so [did I mention he
stood overnight watch the night before on his submarine?] and puts it in a
medium oven to bake. About 45 minutes or so later, we take the coffin out of
the oven and dig in.

Not bad, but he didn't make enough custard to make it a smooth mass, but the
flavor was good. The crust itself was very structural - halfway between a
regular pastry and a sanbusak dough. Nice and sturdy, but the egg and butter
gave it a very rich taste. It would have been great endored with either
saffron/egg yolk/rosewater or with that spiff gilt sugar from 12th night.

margali

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