[Sca-cooks] Pear Mustard question

[Gretchen Beck]

--On Thursday, July 22, 2010 9:19 AM +1200 Antonia Calvo
<dama.antonia at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sharon Palmer wrote:
>> 
>> When I tried this, I used both the cooked pears and the juice, but 
>> re-reading it, I wonder if it means only to use the boiled down 
>> juice.  With the cooked pears, it didn't keep well.
> 
> We read it as pressing the *pears* through a sieve with mustard.  It made
> a sort of applesauce-like condiment.  I don't suppose it would have kept
> well, but we didn't try. 

I found this in the sca-cooks archives from Gwen-Cat (posted in September
2009):

Pear Mustard Sauce (accompaniements 10)
10. Seudt Birne in süssem Most / thu sie auß auf ein saubers Bret / und
laß kalt werden / laß den Most weiter sideden / biß er dick wirt / laß
jn darnach kalt werden / streichs mit braunem Senf durch / thu alsdenn die
gesottenen Birne darein / so wirt es gut und wohl geschmack. Wiltu aber ein
guten Senf haben / so stoß Aniß und Coriander durcheinander / streichs
durch mit braunem Senfmehl / und süssen gesottenem Wein / so wirt es gut
und wohl geschmack.

10. Cook pears in a sweet wine (syrup)/ put them on a clean board/ and let
them cool let the syrup cook again/ till it thickens/ let it then cool/
spread it with a brown mustard through (a sive)/ put then the poached pear
therein/ so it will be good and well tasting. But if you want a good
mustard/ so crush anise and coriander together/ spread through with brown
mustardflour/ and sweet cooked wine/ so it becomes good and well tasting.

This is an adaptation, the original recipe is for whole poached pears
served in a mustard sauce, I mushed it all together for a sauce to go with
meat.  Since I made a last minute switch from chicken to pork (better price
for more meat J) I used home made applesauce and store bought mustard for
the sauce.  Not quite the same, but should be good.


It notes that the recipe is for whole poached pears in a mustard sauce,
which interpretation would make the idea of using the liquid only much more
likely.  My reading of the recipe before searching also made me think that
this sounded like pears in mustard rather than pear flavored mustard --
especially as the second part sounds like it's the mustard only (and it's
pretty specific -- mix mustard and spices with sweet cooked wine)

toodles, margaret