[Sca-cooks] Cheese Tart Recipe

[Elise Fleming]

Vitha asked:
>Can you post the recipe?

(I hope it was the tart owt of lente recipe that was asked for and not a
ricotta cheese recipe!)

For tarts owte of lente.  (#23 in Stere Htt Well; also page 7 in Richard
Fitch’s A Noble Boke of Cokery)

Original:
Take neshe chese and pare hit and grynd hit yn A mortar and breke egges and
do ther to and then put yn buttur and creme and mell all well to gethur put
not to moche butter ther yn if the chese be fatte make A coffin of dowe and
close hit a bove with dowe and color hit a bove with the yolkes of eggs and
bake hit well and serue hit forth.

Take nesh (soft) cheese and pare it thin and grind it in a mortar and break
eggs and dod thereto (put them in with the cheese) and then put in butter
and cream and mix all well together.  Put not too much butter therein if
the cheese be fat.  Make a coffin of dough (shell of dough) and close it
above with dough and color it above with the yolks of eggs and bake it well
and serve it forth.
^^^^^^^^

The recipe says to grind it in a mortar.  I can see doing that with
farmer's cheese/cottage cheese, but not mozzarella.  Hmmm... maybe that
eliminates fresh mozzarella...  But what about the "pare it thin"?  That
wouldn't fit with farmer's cheese and could lead back to Cheshire and
Wensleydale, with paring possibly meaning to slice it thin.  "If the cheese
be fat"... well, that would rule out our modern skinny-version of cottage
cheese.  Any other guesses?

Alys K.

Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/