[Sca-cooks] Picnic foods...

[David Friedman]

>Greetings, cousins.  I'll be day-tripping to a 
>local event in a few weeks, and I'd like to 
>provide a picnic lunch for (probably) 4 of us to 
>enjoy that day.  I haven't had a chance, yet, to 
>check the flori-thingy, but I thought I'd also 
>fling the idea out to the lot of you, and see 
>what you'd serve for a picnic, since it'd make 
>an interesting discussion if nothing else.  4 
>people.  No refrigeration, and preferably no 
>heating/reheating.  Period food.  No allergies 
>or major food issues that I'm aware of.
>--Maire
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>Sca-cooks mailing list
>Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
>http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org

One of my standards is Barmakiya:

(from the Miscellany)

Recipe for the Barmakiyya
Andalusian p. A-9 (Good)

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.

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 p. 5-6)
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.


Gingerbrede is also good, easy to make, keeps.

Gingerbrede
Curye on Inglysch p. 154 (Goud Kokery no. 18) (GOOD)

To make gingerbrede. Take goode honey & clarifie 
it on þe fere, & take fayre paynemayn or wastel 
brede & grate it, & caste it into þe boylenge 
hony, & stere it well togyder faste with a sklyse 
þat it bren not to þe vessell. & þanne take it 
doun and put þerin ginger, longe pepper & 
saundres, & tempere it vp with þin handes; & than 
put hem to a flatt boyste & strawe þeron suger, & 
pick þerin clowes rounde aboute by þe egge and in 
þe mydes, yf it plece you, &c.

1 c honey	1/4 t long pepper	30-40 whole cloves (~ 1 t)
1 3/4  c breadcrumbs	1/4 t saunders	(or 5 t sugar, pinch powdered cloves)
1 t ginger	1 T sugar

Bring honey to a boil, simmer two or three 
minute, stir in breadcrumbs with a spatula until 
uniformly mixed. Remove from heat, stir in 
ginger, pepper, and saunders. (If you can't get 
long pepper, substitute ordinary black pepper.) 
When it is cool enough to handle, knead it to get 
spices thoroughly mixed. Put it in a box, cookie 
tin, or the like, squish it flat and thin, 
sprinkle with sugar and put cloves ornamentally 
around the edge. Leave it to let the clove flavor 
sink in; do not eat the cloves.

An alternative way of doing it is to roll into 
small balls, roll in sugar mixed with a pinch of 
cloves, then flatten them a little to avoid 
confusion with hais. This is suitable if you are 
making them today and eating them tomorrow.

-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com