Culinary Group

French Pastry

This one was inspired by a question on Reddit. Someone was wondering how much truth there was to pâte à choux being from the 1540s. So I looked it up, and lo and behold there it is in 1604’s Ouverture de Cuisine. Being only

Second batch

four years past the 16th century I think it’s safe to say that it’s a 16th century recipe. I looked a little further and found a Scappi recipe as well, from 1570, though it’s a bit different. But close enough to say that the rumors of it being invented in the 1540s are quite likely.

 

Now neither of the recipes are modern choux pastry but they do seem to use the same high moisture content raising method.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Mushroom Tart

This month the theme of Montengarde Culinary Night is “Italian Night”. I’ve been wanting to research mushrooms for a while and thought this was a good opportunity.

I love mushrooms, but there aren’t a lot of medieval recipes for them. In fact I’ve only found about a dozen recipes that call for mushrooms, only one English (to my sorrow), six Italian, four German, and two French.

I’ve seen what might possibly be mushrooms in period art, but on closer examination they are might just as easily be eggs:

Market Scene by Joachim Beuckelaer

Market Scene by Joachim Beuckelaer (baskets left and right)

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Marzipan

I made this for a recipe that I’ll be posting in the next two weeks, but I thought it should have it’s own post. I brought some of it for the Montengarde Culinary Group meeting yesterday.

Modern Marzipan uses a 5:3 ratio of blanched ground almonds to sugar then adding rosewater until the texture is right (between one and two parts). However An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook (13th century Spanish), Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin (16th century German), and Delights for Ladies (16th century English) use a 1:1 ratio of almonds to sugar so I’ll be using the same. You can make this in your mortar but this time I’m using my kitchen servant, aka food processor, to speed things up.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

St. Hildegard Cookies

49.

This month the theme of Montengarde Culinary Night is “Vegetables or German Food”. I’ve had this one sitting in my drafts for a bit, and since it’s a German cookie recipe it seems like a good time.

I came across references to St. Hildegard’s “Cookies of Joy” or “Happy Cookies” in a few places but no one had the original recipe. Instead it was a modern cookie with butter, sugar, egg, baking powder, and a lot of spices (nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon). I knew that was a far remove from what she must have been talking about in 12th century Rhineland so I looked into it a bit more.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Minced Meat Pie

48.

This month the Montengarde Culinary Group is hosting a winter feast themed night. Since I’ve been wanting to do a hand raised pie for a while I figured this was a good occasion.

With that in mind I thought I’d do a minced meat pie. Yep, with actual meat. Though in the 16th century they’d just call it a Pye of Beefe. So I’m looking at six recipes from England in the 1590s.

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago

Medieval Fruitcake

47.

A number of years ago I put together what I thought might be a good period fruitcake recipe. I never got around to making it, so, since we’re having a Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice theme for culinary night this week here’s an updated recipe and my finished version of it.

I originally got the idea for this from Jennifer Strobel, so again, many thanks go to her.

Medieval Fruitcake

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By Tomas de Courcy, ago