[Sca-cooks] recipe from the Libro Novo

[nickiandme at att.net]

Well I tried out the puff pastries Sunday.  

Libro Novo (Banchetti) by Cristoforo Messisbugo from the 1557 edition of the Libro Novo printed in Venice as translated by Master Basilius Phocas (MKA Charles A. Potter)

47 B	TO MAKE TEN PLATTERS OF CHEESE PASTRIES

Take two pounds of rich grated hard cheese, and a pound of grated hard cheese, 
and ten eggs, and a half pound of raisins, and four ounces of sugar, and a ounce 
of rose water, one sixth ounce of pepper, and three ounces of butter, and mix 
everything well together.
Then take four pounds of white flour, and six egg yolks, and rose water, three 
ounces of butter, and make your pastry dough, and make the pastry sheet somewhat 
big.  Then you shall load with butter that is a little hard, and you shall wrap 
another turn and you shall load in the same manner with butter, and you shall do 
this for three or four turns, enough till that you shall have distributed a 
pound of butter, and you shall make your pastry.

My first effort:
Filling:
1 cup grated asiago
1 cup grated parmesan
2 eggs
1 cup raisins, 
1 tablespoon rosewater
1/2 teaspoon grated pepper
2 pats of butter - melted

I mixed these together and then covered and stored in the refrigertor while I 
worked with the pastry.

Pastry:
2 cups flour,
2 eggs,
2 tablespoons rosewater
1 pat of melted butter
1/2 cup cold water

I mixed these ingredients together.  Then floured my rolling surface generously 
with flour.  I rolled out half the dough into a large rectangular shape.  It was 
still a fairly thick dough - less than a quarter inch - more than an eighth thick.  Then I took a stick of butter and shaved the butter off of it unto one side (half) the rolled out dough.  I folded it over, and then folded the ends in again.  So that there were three folds.  Then I rolled it out again.  And added the shaved butter into the center half of the dough. Folded the sides over until they met in the middle and then folded the whole thing over once more.  And repeated this once more.  

Then, I rolled it out once last time and cut it into three roughly equal 
rectangles.  I place one of the pieces of dough on my baking stone and as evenly 
as possible I spread half of the cheese mixture over the dough.  I placed the 
next layer of dough on top and spread the last of the cheese mixture onto in. 
And I topped this layer with the last piece of dough. 

I trimmed up the sides to make it more even looking.

Then I baked it in a 350 degree oven for about half an hour.  The top didn't 
look browned as it came out.  I may need to think about added a butter coating 
on it as it bakes. 

It tasted alright warm.  A bit bland.  The dough was very flaky. You could see the layers and even peel some of them off. Not really what I thought it would be for 
puffed though. I was thinking croissant layers - but maybe my expectations are just a tad to high?  I didn't do the modern method of refrigerating the dough and the butter until both were hard - because the recipe didn't call for it.  Although in reading my Joy of Cooking on puff pastries - they explain to use the same method of folding and turning as I ended up using to make the pastry.  

So, next renditions:  I will try unsalted butter to roll into the dough. And I 
think I will switch to a pecorino Romano or pecorino Parmesan because they are a 
saltier more flavorful cheese than what I used.  The supermarket wedge of 
parmesan was not very good - it was perhaps aged too long as it has a large 
discolored edge that wasn't even grateable and had no flavor.  So, back to the 
gourmet cheese store for really good stuff.  

I also forgot to grind my raw sugar crystals down again.  So, I need to do that.  And perhaps plump up the raisins in a rosewater and water mixture for an hour before use.  

I will slice the baked rectanglular pastry into small diamond shapes for 
serving.

On reheating or eating cold the next two days - they were wonderful.  So, the flavors tended to improve as the finished product aged.  But, I didn't see where they might have served them cold.  So, I want to go for a more flavorful just out of the oven end-product.  Although it is good to see that the leftovers are mighty tasty - so there won't be any waste there.

On a side note:  on the ravoli - I got a line on some durum wheat flour - so that will be going through one more tweek/compare run.

Kateryn de Develyn
writing this day from the Barony of Coeur d'Ennui
in the Kingdom of Calontir

--Jesus said that if you cast out a demon, and don't 'clean house', the demon will go out and find seven friends and all of them will move back in.  This piece of wisdom also applies to fat.--