[Sca-cooks] Genovese and Bolognese tortas?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Anahita mentioned:
>  - and a Torta... was asked to make a Genovese, but just realized last
>  night i got ingredients for a Bolognese... Oh, well, it will taste good.

Stefan pondered:
>  Okay, what is the difference between this (the?) Genovese and this
>  (the?) Bolognese torta?

Well, i'm back from Beltane Coronation and 
somehow managed to escape sunburn. The site is 
lovely, but it was in the 90s, which is unusual 
for Northern California this early in the year 
and most people were just dragging around during 
the day, although the temperature dropped into 
the low 50s or high 40s at night. Naturally there 
was fighting on Saturday. And on Sunday the 
fighters were out on the Eric again, this time 
playing hurley.

Sylvie La Chardonierre organized a period food 
potluck for the Provinces of The Mists (Berkeley 
and Oakland) and Cloondara (San Francisco). We 
intended to eat around 3 PM, but because of the 
heat, Sylvie was understandably unwilling to 
grill the beef and folks were sitting wanly under 
the sun shade. I brought my two tortas over, and 
gradually over the next 3 hours folks began 
adding food to the table. Most got eaten.

Here was our intended menu:
  x Beef loin (Sylvie, with Christopher cooking)
  x Beef sauce (Anahita)
  x Soup (Dianora and Sebastiano)
  x Vegetable Stew (Ryan and Amy)
  x Something made of cabbage (Rodrigo)
  x "A Sallet of all kinds of herbes and flowers" (Raquel)
  x Something Spanish with eggplant (Raquel)
  x "Genovese tart" (Anahita)
  x Meat Pie (Sylvie)
  x Pears in wine syrup (Peza)
  x "Cherry Pudding" (Dianora and Sebastiano)
  x Marzipan (Edith)
  x "White Leach" (Sylvie)
  x bread and cheese and veggie finger foods (Lorana)

Not all of this showed up - i don't recall the 
soup, the vegetable stew, or the eggplant - and 
the cabbage thing arrived uncooked and never got 
cooked. Sylvie and Christopher decided not to 
grill the beef because of the heat. Sylvie had 
made two "meat pies" actually Pyes of Parys, and 
the Leche - she used gelatin and layered both 
white and yellow with saffron - she used a lot of 
saffron - i couldn't stop eating them. 
Mmm-mmm-mmm saffron Jell-o!

I brought along a couple friends, Gianetta who 
brought some roasted lamb (which had won the 
Wooden Spoon competition) and Tangwystyl who 
brought a couple cooked game hens. I made two 
sauces (Pear Mustard from Sabina Welser and 
"Excellent Cameline" from the 14th c. Venetian 
cookbook).

I am not sure which Genovese Sylvie had in mind. 
When i went to track recipes down i found two 
sorts. One was a Spanish tart made of mixed 
fruits and nuts. The other was in Das Kuchbuch 
von Sabina Welserin, 1553, with a cheese and 
greens filling, rather like the Bolognese.

The Bolognese is in "The Medieval Kitchen" and is 
from Maestro Martino. Cooked in a top and bottom 
crust, the filling is made of rich cheeses, 
chard, parsley, and marjoram, eggs, butter, 
saffron and pepper.

---------------------

Torta Bolognese - Maestro Martino

Take as much cheese as indicated above in the 
section on torta bianca [a livre and a half] and 
grate it. Note that the richer the cheese is in 
fat, the better. Then take some Swiss chard, 
parsley, and marjoram. And when they are cleaned 
and washed, chop them very well with a knife, and 
mix them together with the cheese, combining and 
mixing with your hands so that they are well 
blended, and adding four eggs and enough pepper 
and a little saffron, as well as good lard or 
fresh butter, mixing and blending all these 
things very well, as I have said. And put this 
filling into a pan with a top crust and a bottom 
crust, and put on a moderate fire; and when it 
seem to you to be half cooked, so that it will 
look more attractive, color it yellow with an egg 
yolk beaten with a little saffron. And to know 
when it is cooked, remember that when the top 
crust comes away and rises, then it will be good, 
and you may remove it from the fire.

-----

What i did:

For 2 deep 9" pie shells

1/2 lb. raclette
1/2 lb. ripe brie
1/2 lb. cream cheese
(a real cream cheese without gums or stabilizers 
- not that nasty "Philadelphia" stuff)
2 lb. Swiss chard leaves
2 handfuls fresh flat leaf parsley
1/4 cup fresh marjoram
4 Tb. butter
4 eggs
several threads saffron
a little pepper
2 Nancy's pie crusts (made with UNbleached flour and real butter)
2 egg yolks & saffron to color top crusts

Preheat oven to 400 ° F.

Cut back rind off cheeses and cut into cubes (i left the rest of the rinds on).

Wash greens and herbs.
Take chard leaves off tough white stalks, 
discarding stalks (if you have the kind with red 
stalks do the same :-).
Tear coarse stalks off parsley (i left parts of 
the stalks), and slip marjoram leaves off their 
stalks (tend to be woody).

Bring water to boil, reduce to simmer, and 
blanche chard leaves, i.e., immerse leaves in 
water for a minute or so, then remove and drain. 
I did this in batches, as there was a lot of 
chard.
Then i blanched the parsley...

Chop greens finely in a a food processor.
Add the cheeses and process until it's a smooth, 
evenly colored mixture, scraping down the sides 
of the bowl as needed.
Add eggs and blend them into the mixture.
Add butter and blend well.
Add ground pepper and about 10 threads of saffron 
and process until thoroughly blended.

Pour filling into two deep 9 inch pie crusts.
Cover with top crust, pressing seams tightly shut.

Set tart pans on a baking sheet to catch drips, and put in the oven.

Beat two egg yolks. Crush a few threads of 
saffron and add to yolks along with a tablespoon 
of warm water. Beat well to blend and leave to 
infuse. When pie has baked for 15 minutes, remove 
from oven, paint top crusts with egg yolk and 
saffron mixture. (i skipped this step this time - 
but i did it the last time i made this)

Return to the oven and bake for another 45 
minutes. As it bakes, the filling will begin to 
puff up, raising up the top crust. Test by 
inserting a clean knife - if filling sticks, it 
isn't done. If knife comes out clean but a little 
damp, remove pies from oven immediately.

NOTE:
I realized when i got home that i didn't have top 
crusts - note that i generally do not bake, 
although i can. I found a little baggie of 
something that looked like flour in my cupboard. 
I tasted it, and it tasted kinda like wheat 
flour, so i cut butter into it, added a little 
water and rolled out two top crusts. It was 
flour, but i'm not sure what kind. It baked into 
a flakey top crust, a bit flakier than usual, and 
tasted a little bitter... it might have been a 
blend of wheat and soy flours... i really need to 
label those bags of stuff i buy in bulk...

-----

Here is the version of the Genovese with Cheese and Greens that i didn't make:

30 To make Genovese tart - Sabina Welser

Take eighteen ounces of chard or spinach, three 
ounces of grated cheese, two and one half ounces 
of olive oil and the fresh cheese from six ounces 
of curdled milk. And blanch the herbs and chop 
them small and stir it all together and make a 
good covered tart with it.

Valoise Armstrong, the translator, noted that the 
curdled milk cheese "is known today as Quark in 
Germany and Topfen in Austria."

-----

Here is the version of the Genovese with Fruits and Nuts that i didn't make:

1) From Brighid ni Chiarain's translation of Libro de Guisados

TORTA A LA GENOVESA

A pound of almonds well-peeled, and another of 
pine nuts, and another of toasted hazelnuts, and 
grind them all together in a mortar and after 
grinding, set them aside.  And take a pot with 
water, and salt, and oil.  And this shall be on a 
flesh day, and taste [to see] if it is 
well-salted; and take a half pound of raisins 
without seeds, and three ounces of peeled dates 
cut into quarters, and three or four apples which 
are sweet-sour or sweet, and quarter them and 
remove the core and seeds, and cast them in the 
pot to cook.  And when it is well-boiled, the 
apples will be cooked.   And then remove them 
from the water, and grind them with the dates, 
and raisins, and almonds, and with the hazelnuts, 
and pine nuts.  And after they are well-ground, 
blend it all with the said broth; and if it is a 
flesh day, you may cast into the mortar a dozen 
eggs ground up with the aforementioned things. 
And then strain it through a sieve, and having 
done this take good dough which is well-kneaded, 
and make a trencher as large as if it were the 
bottom of the frying pan which you have, and make 
its edges like a empanada without a top; however, 
let it be the size of the frying pan neither more 
no less, and put it in the frying pan; and when 
it is inside, cast in a little oil underneath so 
that the dough does not stick to the frying pan; 
and then cast all that sauce or foodstuff in the 
pie, and put it upon good hot cinders; and then 
take a lid which is as large as the frying pan, 
that will cover it well, and put a good fire of 
charcoal above and below and around it.  And when 
it has been like this for a little while, 
carefully remove the lid from the top, and cast 
into the tart two ounces of sugar, and one of 
ground cinnamon, and then cover it again with its 
lid; and cook two hours until the dough comes 
away from the frying-pan; and then it is cooked, 
and remove it to a plate as if it were an omelet; 
and put it on the table like a pie.