[Sca-cooks] Favorite Norse/Viking camping event recipes

[a5foil]

Hi, Ranvaig:

 Baked Salmon

Allow 2 ounces of fish per person as part of a buffet, or 4 ounces for a
single main course. Or more if your people really like fish.

16 ounces bread flour
3 ounces whole wheat flour
3 ounces barley flour
3 tablespoons kosher salt
2 cups water
1 package fresh dill, 2 if you're feeling extravagant
2 1/2 pound salmon fillet, rinsed and patted dry

Combine bread flour, whole wheat flour, barley flour and salt in a large
mixing bowl. Stir in 1 2/3 cup of the water. Knead the dough in the bowl,
incorporating as much flour as possible. Add a little more water if
necessary to get the last bits of flour off the sides of the bowl. Then turn
out onto a clean surface and knead until very stiff and smooth, adding flour
to the board if the dough is sticking. Roll out into a rectangle twice as
wide as the fish plus an inch or two, and about four or five inches longer.

Arrange half the dill in the center of the rectangle. Place salmon, skin
side up, on top of dill. Fold over thin areas so that the fish has a
generally even thickness throughout. Arrange remaining dill over fish.
Fold one long side of dough over fish, then fold in ends, then fold
remaining long side to make a rectangular package. (Like making a burrito.)
Pinch seam closed.

To bake in ashes, get a good fire bed going (ahead of time!!!) and then rake
the coals away from the ashes. Place fish package carefully on ashes, cover
with more ashes, then rake hot coals back over top. Bake about an hour.
Remove, place on heatproof surface, brush ashes off. Cut top crust away and
remove dill. Watch fish get inhaled.

Or you can do it in the oven, and it can even be made a day ahead. Preheat
oven to 350º. Line rimmed cookie sheet with foil, dull side up. Oil foil
lightly. Place fish package, seam side down, on oiled foil. Bake at 350º for
45 minutes. Crust should be crisp and lightly browned. Serve hot, or allow
to cool and serve at room temperature.

The crust is not edible if you do it in ashes, and not particularly edible
otherwise though the non-fishy bits taste rather like a very salty cracker.

We know so little about early period cooking that the cooking methods are
pretty much best guess. The food is all plausible -- they had fish, of
course, and dill (at least in York) and the dough isn't greatly different
from flatbread -- just saltier. It needs the salt to help flavor the fish,
and to make the crust tough enough to withstand being stuck in the fire.

Hope this helps.

Cynara

> >The best actual cooked-on-site dish I've done is salmon in crust, baked
in
> >the ashes of the cookfire.
>
> What was the recipe?  What kind of dough?   How thick was it?   Was
> the salmon whole or filleted? Any seasoning or marinade inside the
> crust? Did you send it to the table in the crust, or take it out?  I
> assume the bottom crust was inedible, but what about the top?   Is
> there any reason to think this is a Viking way to cook?  I think its
> a pretty reasonable guess, but is there any proof?
>
> Ranvaig
> (planning salmon for the Irish Living History 12th night)