[Sca-cooks] Digby's Pear-Puddings (long - w/pix)

[Bethra Spicewell]

Greetings, all

  Our Barony is holding a small event in early April, with
the theme of "April's Foole"  The feast will be loosely
based around illusion food.
 The Head Cook asked me to be on her team, and what could I
suggest.  I chose Digby's Pear-Puddings.  I'm looking into
a reddish sauce to serve them with, as an illusion of pears
in red wine.   There will also be cold meatloaf "boar's
heads" and a viking ship made of dough.

  Since the Madrone Culinary guild has already worked with
this instruction set, I took that as a starting point to
experiment with.

Their recipe  (from "Dining on the Edge, Vol 1), is:
==================
(Digby: p167)

 To Make Pear-Puddings. Take a cold Capon, or half roasted,
which is much better; then take Suet, shred very small, the
meat and Suet together; then half as much grated bread, two
spoonsfuls of Flower, Nutmegs, Cloves and Mace; Sugar as
much as you please; half a pound of Currans; the yolk of
two eggs, and the white of one; and as much Cream as will
make it up in a stiff Paste. Then make it up in the fashion
of a Pear, a stick of Cinnamon for the stalk, and the head
of a Clove.

 Our version: (makes about 10 pears)
 1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
 1/4 cup minced salt pork or suet
 1 cup home made bread crumbs, grated finely
 2 tsp nutmeg
 1/2 tsp mace
 1/8 tsp clove
 4 tsp sugar
 2 handfulls currants
 3 eggs
 1 egg white
 up to 1/4 cup flour as needed
 up to 1/4 cup cream as needed
 whole cinnamon sticks and 6-10 cloves for decoration

 Bake the chicken thighs at 350o for about 20 minutes or so
till they're half baked.
 Mince well, or run through a meat grinder on the coarse
setting (too fine makes a mealy meatball) with the salt
pork or suet.         Mix all the ingredients together,
except the whole spices, with floured hands. Add cream if
it's too dry, flour if its too wet.         With floured
hands, shape the meat mixture into 3" high pear shapes.
Stick in the cinnamon stick for the stem and the clove for
the blossom end.       Bake  at 350 ° for 35 minutes till
brown. Take care they don't burn on the bottom.
==================
What I did:
  Since I refuse to pay $.70 more a pound  for boneless
chicken,  I bought a pack of 4 regular thighs - 26 oz.
  I trimmed off the excess skin & fat, then baked them at
350F for about 25 minutes (my oven has been running hot, so
I set it at 330F and the thermo said it was 350).
  After first bake, and a 20 minute cooldown, I pulled the
meat off and it weighed in at just over 12 oz. I chopped it
up small with a chopping tool I've had for years.
  Then I took a chunk of suet the size of a small egg from
the freezer and grated it on the big hole side of the box
grater - it was about 1 oz, 1/3 of a cup. Chopping more, I
mixed it in and added 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour.
  For the breadcrumbs, I took 2 slices, 1.5 oz each,  of
"country white" (hearty cheap white bread - think
WonderBread with better texture), sliced off the crusts and
whizzed them in the blender.  This gave me about 1.5 cups
of loose fluffy crumbs.  Dumped them on top, and grated
about 1/4 nutmeg over it and tossed in some salt and one
shake of ground cloves, maybe 1/16 teaspoon.  Mixed this up
well with a fork, mashing up bigger chunks of chicken as I
went.
  Added 1 whole egg and 1 yolk, and just over 1 oz of half
& half (very light cream; 8-10%?). This seemed to be too
much liquid, so I spooned in another 1.5 tbsp flour and
squooshed it all together well with my hand.
  At this point, of course, the phone rang. This resulted
in the mixture sitting for about half an hour. It seemed a
lot more moldable, so I let it sit another 20 min.
  I ended up with a nice stiff paste, which made up 9 2oz
little pears, about 2.5-3 inches high.  I didn't bother
with the clove end, but I did take skinny cinnamon stick
pieces for the stems.
  I baked 5 of them on a foil lined pizza pan coated with
cooking spray, and 4 on the pan in paper muffin cup liners.
 They baked about 30 minutes at 350F, and were just
starting to brown around the top - the bottoms were dark,
but not burnt. The ones in the paper cups were done the
same color, but stuck to the paper. I might try the foil
liners next time.
  We ate half (5) of them for supper.  They came out a lot
like croquettes, baked instead of fried.  DH pronounced
them very good, and wanted more - I said, no, I want to see
how they reheat.
  Just about that time, I realized I'd forgotton the
currants and the sugar.  He said it didn't need them, they
were good the way they were.  I'll try some in the next
batch; the sugar might help the outside to brown better.
  From start to finish, it took about 3 hours - faster next
time, since I won't be adding and testing as much, just
making.

Yes, there are pictures ;-)

<
http://www.geocities.com/christina_elisabeth/SCA/Pear_Puddings.html
>

Bethra Spicewell


=====
Christina Elisabeth de la Griffon Riant
   Barony of Stonemarche        EK

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