[Sca-cooks] College Group foods

[Terry Decker]

While they are fun, bread bowls aren't period, save yourself the cost by 
using plain bowls.

Here are a few recipes I've used successfully.  They've appeared here before 
and you can probably find them in the Florilegium.

You might also look up and consider the recipe for a Brodo of Chickpeas in 
the Florilegium.  A little odd, but tasty.



Bear





Sweet Spinach Tart

A Spinnage Tart. Take a good store of Spinage, and boyl it in

a Pipkin, with White Wine, till it be soft as pap; then take it

and strain it well into a pewter dish, not leaving any part

unstrained; then put to it Rose-water, great store of Sugar and

cinamon, and boyle it till it be thick as Marmalade. Then let it

coole, and after fill your Coffin and adorn it...

Gervase Markham

The English Hous-wife, 1615

1 pound spinach (fresh or frozen) cleaned and chopped

1/2 cup white wine

1 cup water

1/3 cup sugar (or more)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Boil spinach in wine and 1/2 cup water until very soft.

Press through a colander or run through a food processor to

mince large pieces of spinach.

Combine sugar and 1/2 cup water in a pan and bring to a boil.

Stir in spinach and cinnamon.

Reduce heat to medium and cook until almost dry.

Put spinach into pie shell. Cool.

After cooling the tart can be adorned with fruit, powdered

sugar, crystal sugar, etc. One tester suggested sliced

hardboiled eggs.

Notes: One third cup of sugar sweetens the spinach without

being cloying. A cup of sugar would make a thicker syrup and

make the spinach closer to the marmalade of the original recipe.

One teaspoon of fresh cinnamon provides a nice bite without

being overpowering.

Fresh spinach may require additional water or wine in the first

boil. I used frozen spinach for availability and speed. I used

Malavasia wine, which is fairly strong, and cut it with water for

expedience. The spinach absorbed much of the liquid.



Sweet Potatoes

To butter Potato roots. Take the roots & bole them in water

till they bee verie soft, then peele them and slice them, then

put some rosewater to them & sugar & the pill of an orenge, &

some of the iuice of the orenge, so let them boile a good

while, then put some butter to them, & when the butter is

melted serve them. This way you may bake them, but put

them unboiled into the paste.

Elynor Fettiplace

The Receipt Book of Ladie Elynor Fettiplace, 1647

Note: Elynor Fettiplace was an Elizabethan lady who began

compiling her recipes in 1604 after many years in the kitchen.

The book was passed to her niece in 1647.

2 lbs sweet potatoes

1/2 cup water

juice of 1 orange (4-5 Tablespoons)

1 Tablespoon of sugar

1 teaspoon ground orange peel

1/2 cup butter

In a pan, cover the sweet potatoes with water and boil

them until very soft, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Remove the sweet potatoes from the pan. Cool slightly.

Peel and slice.

Mix the water, orange juice, sugar and orange peel in a pan

and heat stirring.

After the sugar dissolves, add the sweet potato to the

syrup, seperating the slices.

Stir the mixture gently to prevent burning, turning the

sweet potato to coat the slices with the syrup. Add water

if necessary.

When the syrup has cooked down, remove the pan from

the heat and add the butter. Stir gently until the butter is

melted and blended into the sweet potatoes.

Put the sweet potatoes into a serving dish and present to

the table.

Note: Two pounds of sweet potato will fill an 8" or 9" pie

pan.



Roast Beef

The best bastings for meats. Then to know the best

bastings for meat, which is sweet butter, sweet oil,

barrelled butter, or fine rendered up seam, with cinnamon,

cloves and mace. There be some that will baste only with

water, and salt, and with nothing else; yet it is but opinion,

and that must be the world's master always.

To know when meat is enough. Lastly to know when meat

is roasted enough; for as too much rareness is

unwholesome, so too much dryness is not nourishing.

Therefore to know when it is the perfect height, and is

neither too moist nor too dry, you shall observe these

signs first in your large joints of meat; when the steam or

smoke of the meat ascendeth, either upright or else goeth

from the fire, when it beginneth a little to shrink from the

spit, or when the gravy which drppeth from it is clear

without bloodiness, then is the meat enough . . .

Gervase Markham

The English Hous-wife, 1615

Take a beef roast.

Baste with melted butter. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and

crushed rosemary.

Place in a roasting pan fat-side up. Roast 30-35 minutes

per pound at 325 degree F. Baste every half hour with

melted butter.



Roasted Onion Salad

Of onion salad. Take onions; cook them in the embers, then peel them and cut 
them across into longish, thin

slices; add a little vinegar, salt, oil, and spices, and serve.

Libro della cucina del secolo XIV

2 lbs of sweet onions

olive oil

wine vinegar

salt

pepper

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1/8 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

For ease of preparation and clean up, wrap the onions individually in 
aluminum foil.

Roast the onions for about 1 hour in coals or a 500 degree F oven. Remove 
and cool.

The onion skins should be blackened and carmelized

Trim the top from the onion and pull the outer layer to the root end to 
provide a hand grip.

Cut the onion longitudinally from near the root to the top.

Sever the onion strips near the root end and place in a bowl.

Sprinkle with salt, pepper and spices.

Add a small amount of oil and vinegar to taste.

Toss and serve. Serves eight.

For large scale serving, make a vinegarette to taste of the oil, vinegar, 
salt, pepper and spices.



Zanzarelli

To make zanzarelli. To make ten platefuls, take eight eggs, half a libra of 
grated cheese, and breadcrumbs, and mix these things together. Then take a 
pot of meat broth colored yellow with saffron and put it on the fire; and 
when it begins to boil put in this mixture and stir with a spoon. And when 
it seems to have thickened, then remove the pot from the fire and serve up, 
then sprinkle with spices.

Martino, Maestro, Libro de arte coquinaria

20 ounces of broth or stock

2 eggs

1 Tablespoon of grated or shredded romano or parmesan cheese

1 Tablespoon fine breadcrumbs

1/4 teaspoon each of black pepper, cinnamon and ginger, blended

2 threads of saffron (if desired)

Whisk the eggs in a bowl

Add the cheese and the breadcrumbs and whisk until evenly dispersed and the 
mixture thickens.

Put the broth in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

Add the saffron, remove from the heat and let stand for a few minutes to 
permit the saffron to color the broth.

Return the broth to the heat and bring to a second boil.

Add the egg mixture and whisk until the ingredients are blended into the 
broth. Remove from heat.

Add the spice blend 1/4 teaspoon at a time, whisking them into the broth, 
until the desired taste is reached.

Makes 3 cups of soup.



Limonia

Limonia. To make limonia, fry chickens with fat and onions. And crush some 
skinned almonds moistened with meat broth, and strain. Cook with the 
chickens and spices. If you have no almonds, thicken the broth with egg 
yolks. When the time to serve nears, add the juice of lemons, limes or 
bitter oranges.

Liber de coquina

1 chicken cut into pieces or pieces of chicken for all at the table

1 cup almonds or two egg yolks

2 cups chicken broth

2 small onions sliced thin

3 Tablespoons olive oil or 2 ounces of salt pork

salt to taste

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon of cloves

1/4 teaspoon of ginger

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

juice of 1 lemon

Crush the almonds to a mealy consistence, adding hot broth to form a thick 
liquid.

Strain the almond liquor through a fine cloth (muslin kitchen towel, three 
or four layers of fine cheesecloth, etc.

Squeeze out as much of the almond milk as possible.

To thicken with egg yolks, ignore the process for almond milk and whisk the 
yolks into the cold broth before heating.

Heat a skillet and render the salt pork or use olive oil.

Remove the rendered fat.

Brown the onions and the chicken together.

Salt to taste and sprinkle with spices.

Add the almond milk and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 
to 40 minutes.

Add the lemon juice.

Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and serve.

Serves four to eight.



Kidney beans

Cook the kidney beans in pure water or good broth, when they are cooked, get 
finely sliced onions and fry them in a pan with good oil and put these fried 
onions on top along with pepper, cinnamon and saffron; then let this sit a 
while on the hot coals; dish it up with good spices on top.

Cuoco Napoletano

10 oz dried blackeyed peas

olive oil

1 small onion thinly sliced

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2 or 3 threads of saffron (if desired)

Wash the blackeyed peas thorougly and let soak for several hours or 
overnight.

Drain.

Place the beans in a pot and cover with water. Add the salt.

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 1/2 hours or until tender.

Add the pepper, cinnamon and saffron.

In a skillet brown the onion.

Garnish the top of the blackeyed peas with the onion. Let simmer for 10 to 
15 minutes longer.

Spice to taste and serve.

Serves eight.



In the context of a 15th Century Italian recipe, the legume in question is 
the black-eyed pea rather than a modern kidney bean.



Baked Cheese Bread

Get bread, remove the crust, slice it thin and toast it on the fire to color 
it, then coat the slices with fresh butter and put sugar and cinnamon on 
top, then get slices of creamy cheese and put them on the toast with sugar 
and cinnamon on top; then put the slices into a torte pan and put this on 
the coals with the lid on and coals on top; when the cheese has melted, 
serve it quickly.

8 slices of white sandwich bread

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 Tablespoon cinnamon

Whipped butter or margarine

Slices of cheese to cover the bread

Mix cinnamon and sugar in a clean salt or pepper shaker.

Toast the slices of bread and trim the crust.

Butter and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Place the slices of bread on a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan.

Top the buttered bread with the slices of cheese.

Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar mixture.

Place the pan in a 300 degree F oven until the cheese begins to melt.

Remove and serve.

Serves eight.