[Sca-cooks] Couple of quick questions for the list....

Susan Fox selene at earthlink.net
Fri Oct 3 09:21:26 PDT 2008


S CLEMENGER wrote:
> 1.  I'm trying to track down a particular kind of cheese I had in this astonishing salad in Santa Monica this past summer.  I suspect, but have not verified, that they may have been using a really fresh buffalo mozarella. It had a fresh taste, was fairly pale, and had a texture unlike any cheese I've ever eaten--a bit like a cow's milk mozarella, but somehow creamier? like a cross between a mozarella and a cream cheese? Definitely not chewy or crumbly....It was served as part of a caprese salad, made with heirloom tomatoes, organic evoo, and baby arugula....mmm......
>   
I would bet real money that this was fresh buffalo mozzarella.  "Pizza 
cheese" does not compare!
> 2.  A friend is experimenting with one of His Grace's recipes from the "Miscellany," and has a question about one of the ingredients.  It's the meat-based recipe called "A soup called Menjoire," and the problem ingredient is the half-cup of hippocras.  It's unclear if this is referring to hippocras *powder* (I.e., just the spices), or if it's intended to be half a cup of spiced wine.  We're both guessing that it refers to the wine, but we're not sure....
>   
His Grace is on this list and will probably answer for himself, but I'm 
pretty sure it's the wine.  Half a cup of mixed spice?  Yikes!
> Thanks for any assistance!
>
> p.s.  Thought of a third question.  The rapier community in my barony is organizing a smallish dessert sale to raise monies to buy loaner gear, and I volunteered to make a dessert for it.  Can be period or modern, but it does need to be transportable, etc., so I can get it to the site, and it needs to be not-too-fussy, as I'm also joint-head-cook that day.  Any ideas?
> Thanks,
You can get schmancy with period small cakes... or you can make 
chocolate chip cookies and have none of them to take home with you.  
Okay, this may not be in the spirit of this academic list but ruthlessly 
practical.

On the other hand, I do have the best formula for Scotch Shortbread:

1 cup butter [real, salted]
2 cups sugar [any kind: brown, white, powdered]
1 cup rice flour
3 cups all-purpose flour

Cream butter and sugar, mix in flours.   Pat into pie pan, round cake 
pan, stoneware mold;  for bake sale purposes, a muffin tin will work, 
particularly if you make them nice and thick, half an inch at the 
minimum.  Bake until JUST brown, not too dark.

These sell well, are not glaringly inappropriate for SCA milieu [like 
the chocolate chips] and also make a nice base for cheesecake if you are 
so inclined.

Selene


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