[Sca-cooks] adventures in doing things with Spanish food preparation sources

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

So, tonight I tried 2 dishes that I want on my feast: stuffed eggs and the
dish of chard and onions


_______________________________

The Making of Stuffed Eggs (al-Andalus)

Take as many eggs as you like, and boil them whole in hot water; put them
in cold water and split them in half with a thread. Take the yolks aside
and pound cilantro and put in onion juice, pepper and coriander, and beat
all this together with murri, oil and salt and knead the yolks with this
until it forms a dough. Then stuff the whites with this and fasten it
together, insert a small stick into each egg, and sprinkle them with
pepper, God willing.

What I did:
Hardboiled 5 eggs
Peeled and split them in half
Removed the yolks
Took a small handful of cilantro and half a small onion, and ran it
through the food processor. Also added some oil.
Added the egg yolks and processed until thick.
Added coriander, pepper, oil, salt and soy sauce (as a substitute for
murri) and kneaded together.
took the resulting greeny-yellowy stuff and stuffed the egg whites, then
stuck them back together.

(Quantities: dash coriander, dash soy sauce, sprinkle pepper, 1/4 tsp
salt, about a teaspoon olive oil)

So, what did they taste like? Stuffed eggs. Ok, stuffed eggs with
cilantro.

They were good.

However, I would use more pepper next time, and less oil, and grind the
cilantro in a mortar and pestle, and grind up more onion so I could just
use the juice.

This is a good recipe and will make the feast.


________________________________________
The other was the Jewish dish of chard and onions cited in _A Drizzle of
Honey_

Brighid ni Chiaran translated the original from the inquisition records
thus:
 "On Fridays, her mistress made chard parboiled in water and then drowned
in oil and with onions, and there, in the oil, boiled again; and then
casting there her water and grated bread and spices and yolks of eggs, and
cooked it until it became very thick."

She says:
"I think the steps would be as follows:
1. parboil chard in water
2. remove chard from water
3. put chard in oil ("drowned" may mean a lot of oil) with onions
4. Bring the oil and vegetable mix to a "boil"
5. add remaining ingredients
6. cook until thick"

So, I took a little under half a pound of swiss chard and cut off the very
ends.
Then I parboiled it until the green bits were dark green.
Drained the chard, and chopped it up.
Minced one small onion into small bits.
put about 1/4 inch olive oil in an 8-inch cast iron skillet
Added the onion and the chard.
Brought to temp (on medium high electric setting) and cooked until onion
softened, stirring.
Added about 1/2 c. water, 1/2 c. breadcrumbs, 1/2 tsp poudre forte, and 3
egg yolks, and mixed.
Decided it needed more breadcrumbs-- added another half cup.
Then needed more water (about 1/2 c.)
Stirred over low heat until thickened.
Let sit on low for about 15 minutes, then turned off heat and let it sit
for a while.

Ok, so I put too much breadcrumbs in. And maybe too much oil, and I didnt'
cook it long enough. It's a sort of oily, oniony, crumby thing that isn't
quite a stuffing but is quite good and reminds me of some holiday dish I
just CANNOT recall (which isn't stuffing...)

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
 "in verbis et in herbis, et in lapidibus sunt virtutes"
(In words, and in plants, and in stones, there is power.)