[Sca-cooks] a little dinner party

[Kirrily Robert]

> Kirrily, this meal sounds wonderful.  Wish I had been there!  I do have a
> question about this rice dish though.  Why did you put the rice in a pie
> crust?  The recipe does not mention doing this.  It says put it into a dish,
> I imagine more like a casserole.

Well, if it's not in a crust then it's not a tart, to my mind.

Here's the other rice tart recipe, for comparison:

A Rice tart

Take Rice that is clean picked, and boyl it in sweet Cream, till it be
very soft; then let it stand and cool, and put into it good store of
Cinamon and Sugar, and the yelks of a couple of Eggs, and some Currants,
stir and beat all well together, then having made the coffin in the
manner before said for other Tarts, put the Rice therein, and spred it
all over the Coffin: then braek many little bits of sweet butter upon it
all over, and scrape some Sugar over it also; then cover then Tart and
bake it, and trim it in all points as hath been before shewed, and so
serve it up.

That's from Markham's English Housewife.  And here's another from the
same source, for one that's definitely *not* baked in a pie crust:

A white-pot.

Take the best and sweetest Cream and boyl it with good store of Sugar
and Cinnamon, & a little Rose water, then take it from the fire, and put
it into clean pick'd Rice , but not so much as to make it thick, and let
it steep therein till it be cold, then put in the yelks of six Eggs, and
two Whites, Currants, Cinnamon Sugar, and Rose-wate, and Salt, then put
it into a pan or pot as thin as it were a Custard, and so bake it, and
serve it in the pot it is baked in, triming the top with Sugar or
Comfeits.

And, to come at the discussion from another direction, several other
tart recipes from around the same part of the Good Huswife's Jewell
don't mention the crust, and say to put the filling "in a dish" or "in a
bowle" but I think they're talking about just for mixing it.

Examples:

To make all maner of fruit Tartes

You must boyle your fruite, whether it be apple, cherrie, peach, damson,
peare, Mulberie, or codling, in faire water, and when they be boyled
inough, put them into a bowle, and bruse them with a ladle, and when
they be colde, straine them, and put in red wine or Claret wine, and so
season it with suger, sinamon and ginger.

To make a Tarte of Prunes

Put your Prunes into a pot, and put in red wine or claret wine, and a
little faire water, and stirre them now and then, and when they be
boyled enough, put them into a bowle, and straine them with sugar,
synamon and ginger.


Not sure if that's a coherent argument, but it's roughly how my mental
processes worked.

Yours,

Katherine
--
Lady Katherine Rowberd (mka Kirrily "Skud" Robert)
katherine at infotrope.net  http://infotrope.net/sca/
Caldrithig, Skraeling Althing, Ealdormere
"The rose is red, the leaves are grene, God save Elizabeth our Queene"