[Sca-cooks] Re: Help please...

[Louise Smithson]

--- "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" wrote:

> Yeah, the recipe says to make it wide and thin like lasagne. I think 
> what we're looking at is essentially a strudel. Some bread recipes 
> speak today of rolling or stretching out the dough and rolling it up 
> to form a loaf, so I don't know if this is a translator's issue in 
> using the word "knead" to describe the forming process, or what. But 
> my guess is, you make a thin sheet of dough, spread on the filling, 
> roll it up and then form the cylinder into a crown shape, a circle, a 
> knot, or leave as is, and bake. Note also that the recipe seems to 
> specify a gluten rest between the forming and the baking...
> 
> Adamantius


Perhaps the reference to "Put this(nut) paste within and knead all this together in the same way
that one makes bread" actually indicates that the original author was allowing the dough to
spontaneously ferment (i.e. wild yeast)?? The next reference seems to indicate that some kind of
leavening is taking place... "Take the dough, when it has become soft like a cake, 
and put it to cook in the oven." Adamanatius may be correct about this referring to a protien or
gluten rest, since the author does not mention anything about allowing the dough to 'sour', 'rise'
or anything else. Just another thought.

William de Grandfort

Either could be viable.  In later books there are thin pastries with layers of nuts/fruit rolled up in them.  There are also rich raised breads.  The problem is with the libro di cucina is that in many places you are left guessing what was done next.  You can play track the ingredient and sometimes they are only mentioned once, when it is what you should have on hand.  You can be told to have almonds, and the next time you see them they are being used as almond milk, with no intermediary step described.  Some recipes call for the addition of a "levito" or sour dough raising agent, some don't but do ask you to let it raise.  So again we are left with a fudge factor.  

So either a thin rolled dough with filling between the layers (ala Baklava or later pizza recipes) or a raised dough (yeast raise). Could be possible from this recipe.  That is the nature of the early period recipes, there is more than one possibility.  

Helewyse

ps I double checked the Italian it calls for you to "e miti questo batuto suso, e muolzilo tuto insembre e falo a modo de uno pane".  I.e. put this paste within and mix everything together in the way of a bread. 


 


		
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