[Sca-cooks] Dayboard portions, redux

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On 18 Mar 2003, at 20:27, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Brighid ni Chiarain commented:
> > At this point, to feed 400 people, I have planned:
> > 25 pounds of Danish meatballs (beef)
>
> Is this a period style/recipe? If so, recipe please.

Slightly post-period.  It's from the 1616 Danish cookbook that I mentioned recently.
http://www.forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/cooking/1616.html



The particular recipe is:

XLIX. Balls or skinless sausages.
Finely chop fillet of beef. Add egg with salt, pepper, ginger, saffron if you want. Mix
this and make them round. Then put them in clean seething water that they seeth
well in there, and serve them up with the same broth.
Translation by Maggie Forest (HL Marienna Jensdatter of Caid)

To one pound of ground beef, I added one egg,  1/2 tsp ground black pepper, 1 tsp
ground ginger, and salt to taste (about 2/3 tsp).  Mix well and roll into little balls.  I
used a one-tablespoon cookie scoop.  Cook in boiling water for 5 minutes.  I've been
using a pasta pot, so that I can quickly drain one batch of meatballs, then put
another in.

I took some of the water that had been used to cook several batches of meatballs,
strained it through a paper coffee filter, and froze it to use as broth.  I don't want to
make meatball soup -- just to have some liquid in the bottom of the pan to keep the
meatballs moist.

This redaction is rather mildly spiced.  On another occasion I might try using more
pepper and ginger.

>
> > 25 pounds of pork sausages
> > 80 pounds of roasted chicken thighs
>
> How do you plan to cook and serve these? These seem like they might be messy or
> at least greasy. Or is this not meant to be finger foods only dayboard?

I was going to pre-cook the chicken thighs, and serve them cold.  I'm going to fry the
sausages, cut them into bite-sized pieces, and put them in a steam table tray.

I think of finger foods as foods that don't require an implement to eat.  Chicken pieces
are commonly eaten as finger food.  Chunks of sausage can easily be finger-food,
though Miss Manners might disapprove, and I've seen them on more than one
dayboard in this region.  Beef stew is not finger food, and neither is macaroni and
cheese.

> > 15 doz. hard-boiled eggs
> > 15 pounds cheddar cheese
> > 15 pounds Monterey Jack cheese
> > 24 pounds savoury toasted cheese
>
> Wow. That's a lot of Savory Tosted Cheese. Are you using crock pots for this? Or
> simply bringing it out in multiple batches? It seems to cool off relatively
> quickly. Or maybe it doesn't stay around long enough to get cold. :-) Still
> seems a lot to mix up at once.

I'll do it in batches, and keep it either in a crockpot or a steam table.

> > Plus the usual bread, beverages, fruit, spreads, sauces, and veggies.
>
> I would have considered the Savory Tosted Cheese a spread. So, what are your
> other spreads going to be?

Butter, quince paste, and maybe something else.


Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net