Licorice-flavored cabbage - was, Re: [Sca-cooks] Looking for Crab recipes

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Phlip:
>OK. Have you considered testing your theory?

Yes. Have I had the opportunity to do it? No.

>  Doing up a batch with, and
>without, almond milk, and seeing what happens? I kinda wonder about oil
>acting as a water proofing agent, simply because so many modern recipes will
>saute the rice in oil before cooking it. And you're right about the cooking
>time- at my feast, using the "boil the water, add the rice, stir, bring to
>second boil, cover and set aside off the heat " method for the Greek fried
>rice worked beautifully- maybe an hour, all told.
>
>>  Actually, I believe most blancmanger recipes do specify pre-cooking,
>>  or at least cooking in stock or water before adding the almond milk.
>>  Unfortunately, they don't say why, or warn you what will happen if
>>  you don't.
>>
>>  A.
>
>Well, more adventures in Medeval cooking- if we all knew exactly whay was
>going to happen, it would get boring ;-) And, besides, the rest of the feast
>was wonderful- even the gawdawful cabbage in fennel scribal error, which was
>as far as I could tell, perfectly cooked, if completely inedible ;-) (I hate
>licorice flavors, folks, and that one had it in abundance).

The cabbage which had exactly one bowl returned to the kitchen... the 
cabbage which caused Baron Tibor, who knows food, but is on an 
extremely limited diet, to go around swiping it from other people's 
tables. And he wasn't even onboard. We're talking shameless, 
party-crashing food-swiping here, and proud of it ;-)

Sorry, Phlip. You were just collateral damage in an otherwise 
successful venture. A mere pawn in the hands of powers more mighty 
than your comprehension... ;-)

...and besides, the recipe called for sweet spices, and there was 
this big open bag of ground fennel yelling to me, "Use me up before I 
go stale!" Actually, there were also cloves, ginger, and cinnamon, 
too, but I wanted to be absolutely sure to avoid bitterness, so the 
fennel predominated (as did saffron, which I had bought in mass 
quantities cheaply).

Adamantius