[Sca-cooks] fish sausages recipe please

Sat Jun 21 10:14:22 PDT 2003

Phil (and the world), I have it - and here it is!
Regards,
Brekke

White Pudding of Fish

Master Gideanus Tacitus Adamantius 

This recipe was, essentially, developed by committee consisting of Gideanus Tacitus , Countess Brekke Franksdottir, Lord Audric Eisenherz, and lady Morgaine of Lynne.  It is a synthesis combining aspects of various 17th century English white pudding recipes (from sources like Dawson, Markham, and Digby) with a Norman recipe, probably 18th-19th century.  Unlike most sausages, they are not designed for long shelf life.  However, they can be frozen after their preliminary poaching.  The same mixture can also be cooked as a loaf, in the oven.

Serves 8 or more
5 slices firm white bread, crusts removed
1.5 Cups heavy cream
0.75 pound skinless, boneless Cod fillet
0.75 lb sea scallops
6 egg whites or 3 whole eggs
Salt
White pepper
Fresh grated nutmeg
Approx. 6 feet pork sausage casing, soaked ½ hour.

Start a large pot of salted poaching water going.  It should taste of the salt.

Meanwhile, in a food processor, whiz the bread slices into crumbs.  You should have about 2 cups or so.  In a bowl, stir ½ - ¾ C cream into the bread crumbs, until they are moist and beginning to soften.  Let them sit while you grind the cod and scallops.  Rough chop them in the food processor set on pulse.  Use a reubber spatula every so often to scrape down the sides of the food processor bowl, making sure there are no large chunks left.  Add the soaked bread crumbs and process, adding  the eggs or whites in increments, until the mixture is a puree.  Add the remaining cream while continuing to puree.  Add about 1 rounded teaspoon of salt, 1 rounded ¼ tsp white pepper, and 1 level ¼ teaspoon of salt.  Try grinding/grating the spices onto a sheet of foil or paper to measure.  Make sure the mixture is smooth.

Stuff the mixture into casings (We recommend this not be the first sausage recipe you try; a little experience goes a long way on this one).  Use either a piston-driven sausage stuffing machine, which pumps the mixture into the casing, or a large-bore funnel, using gravity and the handle of a wooden spoon to push the fish through.  Tie sausages off in 4 - 6 inch lengths, or make loops like kielbasa.  When picking them up, support them evenly, like a baby.  Unlike most sausages, they are heavy but not stiff enough to support any of their own weight, and it is easy to tear the casings if you overstress them.

Making sure the pot of water is at no more than poaching heat (160° F., with small bubbles on the sides and bottom of the pot, steam but no bubbles rising, for those without thermometers)  GENTLY place the sausages in the water.  Don't let the water reach anything but a low simmer.  Boiling is RIGHT OUT!  They will explode and you'll have cream of fish soup, and a not very good example of it, either!  Poach the sausages for about 20 minutes. Eat immediately or reheat in the water, the oven, or with butter in a saute pan over medium heat.

A more Scandinavian, but also more modern, method is to cook the mixture as a loaf or as dumplings, forming little balls with two wet spoons and lowering them gently into the poaching water.  Cook as loaf in a 350° oven, with the pan inside another pan, with boiling water coming ¾ up the side of the loaf pan, for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out clean.  For dumplings, poach the balls till they float, and leave them to simmer gently for two or three minutes after they are floating.  Remove with a slotted spoon.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius 
  To: Cooks within the SCA 
  Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 1:19 PM
  Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] fish sausages recipe please

  On Friday, June 20, 2003, at 10:07  AM, Olwen the Odd wrote:

  > Hi all.
  > I was reading thorugh the illusions food section in the Florilethingy 
  > and saw a post from Adamantius about fish sausages.  If you are here, 
  > could you please post the recipe and any special notes on technique?

  I'm having a little trouble finding my recipe, but I'm in the process 
  of editing and compressing an hour of video footage which is very 
  processor-intensive, and eeeeevvvverryythhhiiiinnnggggg iiissssss 
  gooooiiiiiinnnnnnggggg verrrrrrrrrryyyyyyy slooooooooooooowwwwlllyyyy. 
  I may have better luck later. Will post if I do.

  This is a staple of modern Normandy, although I can think of at least 
  one white pudding recipe that involves a meatless filling stuffed into 
  a sturgeon gut (Ising Puddings, in, I think, John Murrell) from 
  in-or-near-period, so I imagine dishes like this did exist in regional 
  cuisines if not in Ye Olde Offysshyll Periode Courte Cookery. Of 
  course, this is speculation on my part.

  As I recall the last time we did this, we used cod, scallops, a small 
  amount of white bread (fresh crumb, no crust) soaked in heavy cream, 
  and egg whites. A little chervil, I think. Pork casings, although there 
  are other options for those wishing to avoid the meat aspect. They come 
  out a beautiful ivory white if you don't use any shellfish that turn 
  pink when you cook them. I would advise against using frozen seafood 
  for this; it releases a lot of water in the cooking process, which 
  affects the texture.

  Countess Brekke may have the recipe closer to hand at the moment; 
  perhaps she can post if she gets this message before I find my copy.

  Back to 4 frames per second, ~50,000 frames to go...

  Adamantius

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