[Sca-cooks] help, comments, reassurance, constructive criticism

[Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise]

Help.
I'm putting in the bid for the June Landsknecht feast tonight.
I know I should be confident but as it's a competitive bid and this will 
be my second time bidding for a feast in my home shire (the first time, 
I lost out to The Gratuitous Tomato Feast cooked by a friend of the 
Autocrat...) and I'm bidding against the Hereditary Uber-Feastcrat.
I'm trying to make this a feast that is 'good plain food' but plays to 
my strengths. Comments and suggestions are welcome, I've already heard 
'too much food' but since I'm going for the abs. minimum amounts of each 
(say 4oz of the meats at most, and less of the beef) I don't think 
people will explode. (My budget is $600 for 128 people...) The event is 
in June. The Dessert board items will be in smaller quantities.

Starters:

-Soft Cheese
-Bread
-Pear Chutney (Pear compost)
- Boiled Garlic (Aquapatys)

First Course:
-Cumin Chicken (chicken thighs in a cumin sauce)
-Rice
-Carrot Pie
-Sallet of Herbs
-leek or onion sops

Second Course:
-Roast Pork (Bourbelier de Sangeler, Le Menagier de Paris)
-Barley Groats (in broth)
-Cebollada of Onions de Nola (parboiled, sauteed, in an almond 
milk/cheese sauce)
-Tart of Green vegetables (from Le Menagier de Paris)
-Plum Mousse
-Mustard Sauce

Third Course:
-Beef Rolls (from the Libro Novo)
-Roasted Mushrooms
-Asparagus or Snap peas
-Baked white fish in Rosemary Sauce
-Sauce Aliper (garlic pepper sauce)

Dessert Board
-Candied Citrus Peels
-Candied Ginger
-Candied seeds
-Gingerbrede
-Quince paste if I can buy it cheap
-Anise cookies
-Leche Lombard (date rolls)
-Assorted berries


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

Compost


"Take rote of persel, of pasternak, of rafens, scape hem and waische hem 
clene. Take rapes & caboches, ypared and icorue. Take an erthen  panne 
with clene water & set it on the fire; cast alle thise therinne.
Whan they buth boiled cast therto peeres, & parboile hem wel. Take alle
thise thynges vp & lat it kele on a faire cloth. Do therto salt; whan it
is colde, do hit in a vessel; take vyneger & powdour & safroun & do
therto, & lat alle thise thynges lye therin al nyyt, other al day. Take
wyne greke & hony, clarified togider; take lumbarde mustard & raisons
coraunce, al hoole, & grynde powdour of canel, powdour douce & aneys
hole, & fenell seed. Take alle thise thynges & cast togyder in a pot of
erthe, & take therof whan thou wilt & serue forth."
- -Curye on Inglish, p. 120-121

1 lbs. carrots, sliced thin
1/2 lb turnips in small pieces
1-2 parsley roots
1-2 parsnips
1/2 head cabbage, in small pieces
2-3 lbs pears, in chunks
1 tsp. salt
6 tblsp. vinegar
2 tsp. ginger
10-15 threads saffron
sweet wine
1 cup honey
2-3 tbsp. lombard mustard sauce
1 c. currants
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tblsp. each anise seed & fennel seed

Put the root vegetables and cabbage in a pot of water and bring to a 
boil. Add the pears. Parboil and drain. Lay on a cloth to cool. Sprinkle 
on salt.  Mix vinegar, ginger and saffron, and sprinkle this on the 
vegetables. Leave overnight, covered. In a large jar, mix the 
vegetables and currants. Heat the honey with the wine, then pour it, 
with the mustard, spices and other seeds, over the mixture. Seal the jar 
and refrigerate.


Curye in Inglysch, ed. Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler, Oxford 
University Press, 1985.
Book IV, Forme of Cury, No. 82, Slyt soppes., p. 116

82. Slyt soppes. Take white of lekes and slyt hem, and do hem to seeþ in 
wyne, oile, and salt. Tost brede and lat in disshes, and cast the sewe 
aboue, and serue it forth.

    * Leeks 9 large
    * Wine 2 C
    * Olive oil 5 Tbsp
    * Salt 1 ½ tsp

Slit and wash leeks to remove sand. Cut off tough green section; then 
cut remainder into pieces ca 1. long. Saute in olive oil. Add wine and 
cook 15 minutes until done. Serve with toasted bread. 

CHICKEN COMINY. 
(Le Menagier de paris)
Put pieces in water and a little wine to cook then fry 
in fat, then take a little bread, moisten in your stock, and first take 
ginger and cumin, mixed with verjuice, grind and sift and put all 
together with meat or chicken stock, and then add color with saffron or 
eggs or egg-yolks strained and poured from above into the soup after it 
has been removed from the fire.
Chicken
Wine
Bread
ginger
cumin
verjuice
chicken broth
saffon
eggs

-- 
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 
"The toad beneath the harrow knows/exactly where each tooth-point goes,
The butterfly upon the road/Preaches contentment to that toad." 
			- Rudyard Kipling