[Sca-cooks] My Menu for Ian and Katherine's Last Championships, May 13th

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On May 14, 2006, at 1:48 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Adamantius gave the menu for feast I assume he served this evening.  
> I;ll be interested in seeing his report about how things turned out.

They turned out splendidly, if I say so myself. One blessing in  
disguise may have been that I was forced by some rather severe back  
pain to do almost no cooking and concentrate on directing others.  
I'll give a more detailed report later, but as it began to get dark  
and the wind picked up, let's just say the importance of a good meal  
began to loom rather larger in the minds of the event attendees, and  
I believe we did them proud.

> > FIRST COURSE --
> >
> > -Cotignac (quince "cheese")

We bought this commercially, in a large loaf pan, sliced thick square  
slabs and decorated them with little silver dragees, a.k.a. sugar  
stainless-steel ball-bearings. This went out on largeish platters  
with a similarly-sized chunk of butter topped with finely-shredded  
flat parsley. We sent out large round loaves of bread with the first  
course.

> > -Cold Soused Brawn (cured pork loin), sliced, with Lombard Mustard
> > Sauce
> > -Compost (mixed, pickled fruits and vegetables)

These went out on large, flat round platters, with the thinly sliced  
pork (it was mostly gray, only slightly pink, not really "ham" pink),  
on a bed of watercress leaves, a puddle of rather thick Lombard honey  
mustard (this is redundant, BTW: Lombard mustard is honey mustard) on  
one side, and a mound of the sweet-and-sour compost on the other  
side. The salt pork was quite salty (not inedibly so, apparently,  
based on the mostly empty platters we got back), but  it was thinly  
sliced, and if you alternated bites with bread, used the mustard, and  
the compost, or made a little sandwich, it pretty much rocked.

> > -A Sallet

Shredded Romaine, watercress, shredded scallion, flat parsley sprigs,  
tufts of dill, with Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper.  
Basic, clean-tasting, and very good.

> > -Fronchemoyle (a white bread pudding boiled in a bag)

The original recipe calls for a batter of breadcrumbs and eggs, to be  
lightened up with diced suet; we used diced, cold butter, since I  
figured those avoiding meat in that course could have slices of the  
fronchemoyle. I tried to find untoasted bread crumbs, and finally we  
ended up using matzoh meal, and we cooked them in cloths like a  
clouty dumpling or a Christmas pudding (instead of using a stomach as  
the recipe recommends). We need to play with this recipe a little  
more, but the end result was pretty much like Jewish stuffed derma,  
or slices off a really big, slightly heavy, matzoh ball. As a  
substrate for duck stew with onion sauce it was pretty darned good.

>
> I would be interested in getting the recipe for and your redaction  
> for this.

As I say, this one needs a little work; I'll try to do that and get  
back to you.
>
> > -Ducks in Civey (ducks braised with onion sauce)
>
> I'd like to get the recipe for this onion sauce. I recently bought  
> a jar of cooked onions and have been putting them on hamburgers and  
> sandwiches and this onion sauce might be similar.

Basically, you boil ducks (you can also partially roast or brown them  
in a pan, but we didn't), then boil onions (and lots of them -- in  
the same broth?) until they fall into a puree when you look at them  
-- really soft. Puree the onions with some of the duck broth to get a  
slightly thick onion sauce, thicken it with toasted (i.e. brown)  
bread crusts soaked in vinegar and pureed. Season with salt and  
pepper, add more vinegar if necessary, and stir in a little duck fat  
at the end to give it a sheen.

For the onions in a bulk setting, I put 10 pounds of whole, peeled  
onions and just under a quart of water in the pressure cooker (using  
the rack in the bottom) and processed them for 45 minutes (which is  
probably akin to boiling them for about 3 1/2 hours in an ordinary  
pot). When the pot was cool enough to open, I took the onions out  
with a slotted spoon and used the same water (now bulked out with  
onion juice) for a second batch of another 10 pounds of onion. The  
second batch oxidized a little in the cooking, not burning by the  
remotest stretch, but producing very soft onions of a sort of caramel- 
cream shade. I pureed it all in a blender with enough of the brown  
syrupy stuff (there's a lot of sugar in those onions if you can get  
the fiber to break down, hence the pressure cooker). The end result  
was a pretty concentrated onion "applesauce".

This dish was a big hit...

> > SECOND COURSE --
> >
> > -Rabbits (braised and cut up, ginger sauce on the side)
> > -Grill-roasted beef (sirloins are on sale) with sweet black pepper
> > sauce
>
> And again, this sweet black pepper sauce sounds like it would be good.

White bread crumb (brown crusts trimmed off and used for the duck  
sauce), grapes pureed and strained, powdered ginger, lots of fresh- 
ground pepper and a little salt. This is from one of those early 14th- 
century Anglo-Norman cooker texts published by Constance Hieatt in  
"Speculum" in the '80's. Given the season, we cheated and used  a  
preserved grape-must product. What was the brand... Whelk's?  
Welserin's? Welsher's? I forget...

By the time we went to pick up the beef, we found that whole,  
boneless, short-loin shells were on sale for $2.99 a pound, which was  
still much cheaper then the lamb I had intended to buy. These were  
trimmed and cut into roast-sized chunks and left in the care of Phlip  
the Fire Maid with no seasonings but salt (if she used even that; I  
didn't watch) and all the discarded herb stems (mostly thyme,  
rosemary, and scallion tops and roots) which were placed right on the  
coals to provide aromatic smoke. I left it all with PTFM with tongs,  
an instant-read thermometer, and instructions to let nothing get over  
140 degrees F (actually we agreed on 130 or so, but we were expecting  
carry-over heat). All the beef I saw was perfect, and there was just  
enough: we had about three ounces left in the kitchen when we were done.

> > -Frumenty

In our relatively primitive kitchen setting, we opted for wheat  
products pre-ground (a mixture of durum farina and cracked wheat for  
color and texture), and cooked it all in about 15 minutes, including  
heating the water. We essentially treated it as polenta, with minimal  
dressing-up. My plan was to provide a sort of blank canvas to soak up  
rare beef juice and sweet-and-hot pepper sauce. I thought it was  
perfect, but I suspect some felt it would be silly to allocate  
limited stomach space to wheat when there was rare meat to be eaten.  
I think that, in a setting where the food was sliced, portioned, and  
plated for the diners, everybody would have gotten the clue that it  
was actually pretty good, but there was this sort of steak frenzy  
going on. The wheat was inexpensive ;-).

> > -Mosserouns Flourys (roasted, glazed mushroom caps -- if I can find
> > good ones)
>
> Were you doing these on a grill? I'd like to try these as well.

That had been the plan, but it turned out that we weren't able to get  
large mushroom caps in sufficient quantity on the morning of the event.
>
> > -Wortys Boiled (whatever green veg looks nice, blanched and
> > buttered, hopefully asparagus)

This became mixed joutes/worts: blanched, chopped and reheated in  
their own juice with salt and olive oil. We were going to use butter,  
but the consensus was that the olive oil tasted better.

> > -Tardpolene (mixed fruit, nut and cheese tart)

Yum. These were pre-baked at home by Countess Brekke, and were  
lahverly. Think of a hybrid between mince pie and cheesecake.

> >
> > Beverages to include, but are not limited to, Ye Olde Ikea
> > Lingonberry Drinke
>
> > (This was requested...)
>
> What is this? Is this a commercial product? Does it really have  
> lingon berries in it? Or is this a disguised name for something else?

It's some other brand, but you can indeed get it at Ikea, and a few  
other places (Ikea sells the stuff from vending machines for about $1  
a glass). It is basically the equivalent of Ocean Spray Lingonberry  
Juice Cocktail (assuming for the moment there is such a thing) in  
concentrated form, which you dilute with water (I think four parts  
water to one of syrup). It does contain a high proportion of actual  
lingonberry juice.

More later...

Adamantius





"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
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Holt, 07/29/04