[Sca-cooks] Looking for Recipes and Documentation

[Stefan li Rous]

Dame Alys asked:

<<< Greetings!  I'm acting as the middleman between your tremendous  
combined
knowledge and one of the cooks in our barony.  I was given this message:

"... looking for any period documentation, preferably for German or  
French,
of meat-stuffed bread. We've found reasonable documentation for stuffed
cakes using a hot water crust (German, Sabina Welser) and baked or an
egg/flour paste (English, Curye on Inglysch) either fried or baked in a
couple of different formats. But the original idea was a yeast-raised  
bread
stuffed with meat and of that, I've found no hint. So that's what  
we'd want
to ask about. >>>

You might want to point your friend to this Florilegium file in the  
FOOD-BREADS section:
bread-stuffed-msg (29K) 11/16/04    Period stuffed bread. Rastons.  
Recipes.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BREADS/bread-stuffed-msg.html

I didn't find a German or French recipe, but there is this Spanish  
one using poultry:
======
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 13:44:12 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Rastons (was: dumb Bread trencher Question)

On the topic of "bowls as containers", here's a 16th century
Spanish recipe for stuffed bread.

The recipe is from a 1971 reprint of the 1599 edition of _Libro Del
Arte De Cozina_ by Diego Granado.  The translation is mine; feel
free to play with it.

To Stuff a Large Bread

Take a round bread of two pounds, cooked the day before [1], and
make a round opening in the middle of the bottom crust, and take
out all the crumb in such a manner that nothing remains but the
crust, which you must scrape on the outside before taking out the
crumb.  Have a composition made of a cooked capon breast
pounded in a mortar with the yolks of hard-cooked eggs, and
marzipan paste, and mostachones [2], mixing everything with
raisins and chopped herbs, and raw eggs, cinnamon, and saffron, a
good deal.  Stuff the bread and fasten the opening with the crust
that you took out, and put said bread in a proportionately-sized
copper stewpot, in such a manner that it is neither very big or very
small, with fatty broth, and have it cook gently for the space of an
hour and a half, and when the bread has swollen, it is cooked.
Drain the broth from the vessel and put the bread on the plate with
dexterity, for otherwise it cannot be removed intact.

You can cook it in another manner, and it is this: having stuffed the
bread, put it in a napkin or cloth [3], and being fastened put it in a
little caldron with boiling broth and let it cook held with a little  
cord
fastening the napkin, so that with the boiling it does not go hither
and thither: the bread being cooked in one of the aforesaid
manners, serve it hot with sugar and cinnamon, and a little of the
fatty broth on top.  In this bread can be cooked little birds with their
insides cleaned, and entrails, and testicles of a young goat.

[1] "de un dia" -- I interpret that as one day old.

[2] "mostachones" --  my modern dictionary compares them to
gingerbread, and my guide to Spanish cuisine says that they are
for dipping in coffee or hot chocolate.

[3] "estame~na" This is a cloth of wool or serge, used in many
other recipes as a strainer.
======

Here is another one, but it is more meat baked inside of a dough than  
a previously baked bread which is then stuffed and baked:

======
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 13:10:03 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: SC - Stuff inside bread (was: Bread Soup Bowls)

At 12:10 AM -0500 11/11/98, Stefan li Rous wrote:
 >
 >What did period folk do for food on the go? Did they always sit  
down to
 >eat? We can't seem to find proof of sandwiches or breadbowls or  
flatbreads
 >with meats in them (such as Greek Gyros or tortillas).
 >
 >Now, Elizabeth and Bear have brought up rastons recently. This was  
a bread
 >with stuff stuffed inside it, but it appears to be only buttered  
bread.
 >Is there evidence of anything else being stuffed or cooked inside  
bread
 >which would then fit into the same niche as modern sandwiches?
 >
Here is an Islamic recipe for precisely that.

Recipe for the Barmakiyya
Andalusian p. A-9

It is made with hens, pigeons, ring doves, small birds, or lamb. Take  
what
you have of it, then clean it and cut it and put it in a pot with  
salt and
onion, pepper, coriander and lavender or cinnamon, some murri naqi, and
oil. Put it over a gentle fire until it is nearly done and the sauce is
dried. Take it out and fry it with mild oil without overdoing it, and  
leave
it aside. Then take fine flour and semolina, make a well-made dough with
yeast, and if it has some oil it will be more flavorful. Then stretch  
this
out into a thin loaf and inside this put the fried and cooked meat of  
these
birds, cover it with another thin loaf, press the ends together and  
place
it in the oven, and when the bread is done, take it out. It is very good
for journeying; make it with fish and that can be used for journeying  
too.
[end of original]

Note: The Barmecides were a family of Persian viziers who served some of
the early Abbasid Caliphs, in particular Haroun al-Rashid, and were  
famed
for their generosity.

1/2 c sourdough 3 T olive oil for dough 1 1/2 t (lavender or) cinnamon
3/4 c water     1 lb boned chicken or lamb      1 t salt
1 1/2 c white flour     10 oz chopped onion     1 T murri (see the
_Miscellany_)
1 1/2 c semolina        1/2 t pepper    3 T olive oil
(1 t salt in dough)     1 t coriander   3 T more olive oil for frying

Cut the meat fairly fine (approximately 1/4" slices, then cut them up),
combine in a 3 quart pot with chopped onion, 1 t salt, spices, murri,  
and 3
T oil. Cook over a medium low to medium heat about an hour. Cover it  
at the
beginning so it all gets hot, at which point the onion and meat release
their juices; remove the cover and cook until the liquid is gone,  
about 30
minutes. Then heat 3 T oil in a large frying pan on a medium high  
burner,
add the contents of the pot, fry over medium high heat about five  
minutes.

Stir together flour, semolina, 1 t salt. Gradually stir in 3 T oil.  
Combine
3/4 c water, 1/2 c sourdough. Stir this into the flour mixture and  
knead to
a smooth dough (which should only take a few minutes). If you do not  
have
sourdough, omit it; since the recipes does not give the dough much  
time to
rise, the sourdough probably does not have a large effect on the
consistency of the dough.

Divide the dough in four equal parts. Take two parts, turn them out on a
floured board, squeeze and stretch each (or use a rolling pin) until  
it is
at least 12" by 5". Put half the filling on one, put the other on top,
squeeze the edges together to seal. Repeat with the other two parts  
of the
dough and the rest of the filling. Bake on a cookie sheet at 350° for 40
minutes.

For the fish version, start with 1 1/4 lb of fish (we used salmon).  
If it
is boneless, proceed as above, shortening the cooking time to about 35
minutes; it is not necessary to cut up the fish fine, since it will  
crumble
easily once it is cooked. If your fish has bones, put it on top of  
the oil,
onions, spices etc., in the largest pieces that will fit in the pot,  
cover
the pot, and cook for about 10-15 minutes, until the fish is almost  
ready
to fall apart; in effect, it is being steamed by the liquid produced  
from
the onions and by its own liquid. Take out the fish, bone it, return  
to the
pot, and cook uncovered about 30 minutes until the liquid is mostly  
gone.
Continue as above.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook
=======

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 ****