[Sca-cooks] Stefan's stuffing/dressing and rice pudding Thanksgiving experiments

[Stefan li Rous]

Andrea commented:
> My only contribution to dinner  was a red velvet cake iced in white  
> chocolate and decorated with silver dragees, and sugared walnuts,  
> and candied orange peel.
And Adamantius commented:
> I'm thinking that perhaps there is a mystery to it for many casual  
> cooks, just as there is often is some intimidation factor for some  
> people in cooking decent rice. It _seems_ simple enough, but... .
>
>
Well, both of these are connected to the rice pudding I made for  
Thanksgiving dinner(s). However, first the stuffing/dressing.

Both of the recipes I used originally appeared on this list.

The recipe I started from (Yes, started from. I often end up making  
changes for various reasons, including taking ideas from different  
recipes and recombining them) was:

 >>>
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 10:00:36 -0600
From: Helen <helen at directlink.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Thanksgiving OOP recipes

ANDOUILLE SAUSAGE DRESSING

1 lb of ANDOUILLE SAUSAGE  (I use fresh but smoked would be ok.)
1 bag of seasoned cornbread dressing (12-14 lb stuffing size)
2-3 cups of turkey stock (add more at the end, if needed to be baked  
outside the
bird)
small amount of oil or butter
large onion, minced finely
about 1/2 of a head of garlic
shot of tabasco to taste
extra rosemary and sage

Brown sausage, set aside to cool.  Add the oil/butter, onion and  
garlic to the
pan and sauté till soft. (not needed if your sausage leaves a lot of  
oil in the
pan.  Mine does not)  Add spices to taste.  In large bowl add the  
sausage and
seasoned sledge to bread crumbs and add the stock till moist enough  
for you.
Bake till a thermometer reads 170 in the center.
<<<

Well, the grocery store didn't have andouille sausage. They did have  
boudin sausage, but I wasn't sure how close that was, even if it was  
cajun. I seemed to remember that andouille sausage was mostly meat,  
while the boudin had rice (probably a bunch) and liver (okay, sort of  
a meat :-) ). While I could have sent my wife to get andouille  
sausage at Central Market the next day, since I needed to cook the  
dressing that night I thought that might be cutting it a bit close.  
So, I chose to use Mexican chorizo sausage.

Since this was for my sister-in-laws get-together at her house and  
the she was doing the turkey, I couldn't use regular drippings. It  
turned out she got a smoked turkey, so there wouldn't have been any  
anyway. So, I substituted organic chicken stock in the juice box  
rather than canned.

Well, there are a number of chili sauces I like better than Tabasco,  
so I figured I'd use one of those I had at home. Oops. Couldn't find  
the Mexican hot sauces I thought I had, so I used a bottled Asian hot  
sauce.

I did use some fresh rosemary and sage that I bought at the grocery.  
It wasn't until I got home that I remembered that I have a foot high  
by two feet wide rosemary bush that could use some trimming. I used  
the prepared seasoned cornbread dressing as called for, which already  
had some other seasonings. I ended up adding a toasted hamburger bun  
since there seemed to be an overabundance of meat compared to bread  
stuff when I got it all combined.

Also after mixing it, I thought it needed a bit more color. Many  
dressing recipes call for celery, which I didn't have. I did have a  
Poblano pepper which I had bought for the corn pudding I was going to  
make. That recipe called for a Green Pepper, but I thought the  
Poblano would be better.

As I mentioned, sometimes I change recipes around a bit...    Since  
it made a large pan of dressing, and the second family get-together  
would only have five adults, I took half there and half to that one  
and half to the get-together of my wife's family. It went over rather  
well and I brought home very little.

As I mentioned, I had also planned to make a corn pudding, but I  
forgot to buy corn or bread at the grocery... With only five adults I  
figured we'd have enough food.

For my wife's family's lunch get-together, I decided to try rice  
pudding. Perhaps I should have looked through the period rice-pudding  
recipes in the Florilegium, but I didn't think of that until too  
late. So, I went with this one posted on this list a while ago:

 >>>
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 13:15:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] More fun with Turkish food
To Elaine Koogler <ekoogler1 at comcast.net>,      Cooks within the SCA
       <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

 > I will be trying my hand soon at traditional Turkish rice pudding,
 > allegedly a recipe that came from the Ottoman palace kitchens. It's
 > very creamy and flavored with rosewater, and I'll be adding a few  
dabs
 > of rose petal preserves at the top.
 >
 > Gianotta

Because my lady Kiri requests it and I don't want to be called a "spoon
tease" <g> ...

ROSEWATER FLAVORED RICE PUDDING in Turkish "Muhallebi"

Ingredients
   5 cups milk,
   1/2 cup rice,
   1 Tbs cornstarch,
   6 Tbs sugar,
   1 Tbs rosewater.

Boil the rice in a pot until it has cooked very well and started to
separate.
   With a little milk, mix the cornstarch to a smooth paste.
   Drain the excess water of rice, add the  sugar, milk and the starch
paste stirring continuously with a wooden spoon.
   Simmer the mixture until just below boiling point and take care  
not to
let it burn on the bottom.
   The mixture should thicken in about 15 minutes. Add the rose water
continue stirring in one direction over low heat.
   Simmer for 5 minutes longer, then remove the pan from the heat and
cool slightly before pouring it into individual glass dishes.
   Garnish with almonds or pistachio nuts, and sprinkle with nutmeg.
Leave to chill for 3 to 4 hours before serving.
<<<

I had most of the ingredients at home already. However, I decided I  
wanted a short grain, softer rice. At the store almost all the rices  
were long-grained or hard rices. It came down to a Japanese sushi  
rice or risotto rice. "Italian-Style Rice, Creamy, Al Dente Grains".  
Does that make a difference? I didn't know but I thought it might.

So how much water for 1/2 cup rice? I seemed to remember 1:3 or 1:4  
ratios being mentioned last week. So I used 2 cups of water.

But what does it mean by "has cooked very well and started to  
separate"? Separate? Well I looked at another rice box which had  
regular instead of microwave directions and used those. There really  
wasn't enough water left to pour out. I started adding the milk. Five  
cups??? Is that really supposed to be five cups? With three cups the  
sauce pan was pretty full and the rice, even though cooked, didn't  
seem to take up much room compared to the milk. I'm still not sure  
that if I'd added two more cups of milk whether I would have ended up  
with pudding or soup.

It did start to thicken up (surprisingly) at a bit over 15 minutes. I  
cooked it a bit more to thicken it some more. I never came close to  
having it burn on the bottom.

"continue stirring in one direction"? Why? What's the difference  
between stirring in only one direction or doing it one way and then  
the opposite direction? Or cris=crossing the pan bottom to make sure  
nothing is sticking?

Oh, about that "cool slightly before pouring it into". Well that I  
did. The individual glass dishes were pyrex so it probably didn't  
matter. HOWEVER, tasting a spoon of the pudding after letting it cool  
for just a few minutes, was *not* a good idea and I burned my mouth  
and tongue pretty good.

I know I didn't want any hard grains.  Some grains retained their  
"grain" shape but were soft. Others had totally dissolved into starch/ 
pudding stuff. Is this the texture which it should have?

I'd forgotten to buy almonds or pistachio nuts at the store, but I  
did find a package of slivered almonds at home and decorated the top  
of the pudding dishes with a sprinkling of those. Then I used one of  
the whole nutmegs bought at Pennsic and my micro-grater to sprinkle  
the top of the puddings with shaved nutmeg.

Oh yes, I couldn't find enough granulated sugar when I needed it, so  
the pudding got three Tbs of granulated sugar, two of light brown  
sugar and one of superfine sugar. :-)

The rice pudding went over well, but because of the multiple pumpkin  
pies, cherry pie, apple crunch pie and some other stuff, it didn't  
all get eaten. Having only six glass dessert bowls, I had been  
getting concerned and held one back for tasting at the evenings get- 
together.

So ends Stefan's dressing and rice pudding experiments for  
Thanksgiving. Except I still have several serving spoons of dressing  
and one full and two partial bowls of rice pudding to finish off on  
Saturday.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****