[Sca-cooks] Standing crust
Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
adamantius.magister at verizon.net
Tue Feb 17 05:35:37 PST 2004
Also sprach Alex Clark:
>At 11:34 PM 2/16/2004 -0500, Doc wrote:
>>Cut the shortening into the flour, mix in water a bit at a time,
>>roll out. . . .
>
>Does anyone know of any period documentation for cutting fat into
>dry ingredients like this? The earliest pastry recipe that I know of
>with cut fat is from Digby, and the fat is mixed into the dough, not
>into the dry ingredients.
There's a French pastry recipe in verse, I think from the late
fourteenth century, here:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/menagier/menagier11.html#English
My own English translation of it is, at best, an alpha version, but
it speaks of the dough being a bit rough ("Les croutes, un poi
rudemont"), which might argue in favor of fat being broken or cut in.
Elsewhere in the recipe there's a reference to diced fat bacon, but
it's not absolutely clear to me whether this is an ingredient in the
pastry of in the filling of the pastry.
I believe there's a recipe in Markham, which, while late, is earlier
than Digby, anyway, for making rough coffins (essentially preserving
containers) for meats, out of rye. I'll see if I can find it.
Adamantius
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