To Make a Creamapple Pie

Much of my historical cooking demonstration experience revolves around the Elizabethan period, that is, food from the reign of England's Queen Elizabeth I in the late 1500s.  It is acceptable to cook medieval recipes for this time period, but it really helps to have resources that match up with that era.  

One very good resource is Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book:  Elizabethan Country House Cooking as brought to us by Hilary Spurling.  Ms. Fettiplace was married to Sir Richard Fettiplace of Appleton Manor in Oxfordshire.  You can read more about her here.  Ms. Spurling is an author who cooked from the book for ten years before publishing it.  You can read more about her here.

Ms. Fettiplace wrote her receipt book (we use "recipe" instead of "receipt") by hand, passed it on to other family members who added to it and then passed it on.  Ms. Spurling acquired the book when it was inherited by her husband, John Spurling.

What I like about it is that the receipts are closer to what "ordinary" people would have made, keeping in mind that the Fettiplace family had more wealth than the average lower class worker.  When you read the recipes, you see many simple and tasty dishes and not the elaborate ones used by the very wealthy to impress at feasts.  

I chose a receipt on page 58, To Make a Creamapple Pie.  There are so many other receipts I want to try!

ISBN 0-670-81592-6

The way to format receipts in the Elizabethan times was in paragraph form.  This uses less space than our modern format.  It also gives few (if any) measurements and cooking times.  Measurements depend on the quantities you have available and cooking times depend on the size of the oven and the size of the fire that heats its.  Ms. Fettiplace assumes you have, or will get, experience in judging all this.  Fortunately, Ms. Spurling gives us her redaction, which I used but organized to our modern standards.

Original Receipt

Take your apples, & slice them, & put some butter & sugar to them, & so put them in the paste, & bake them, when they are baked cut open the pie, & put in a great deal of sweet cream, & stir it well togither, & then let it stand a little, till it bee somewhat cold, & so serve it to the boord.

Redaction

2 pounds tart cooking apples (see notes)

4 rounded tablespoons brown sugar

"a good-sized knob of butter" (I used nearly 1/4 cup)

1/2 pint cream (I used more)

dough for a two-crust, 9-inch pie

Two pounds apples is just four of these.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (or 350 degrees if the pie pan is glass or ceramic).

Line the pie pan with the bottom crust.

Quarter and core the apples, then slice thinly, leaving the peel on.  Spread in pie pan, piling it up higher in the middle than at the edge of the pan knowing they will settle while cooking.

Sprinkle the brown sugar over the top of the apples.  

Cut the cold butter into chips and slivers, and sprinkle them across the top of the apples.  I just held the knob over the pan and chipped away at it, letting the pieces fall onto the pie.

Cut several holes in the top crust then place on the pie.  Seal the top and bottom edges together.

Bake for 45 minutes.

As soon as the pie is out of the oven, use a funnel to help pour the cream into the holes.  Pour in as much cream as it will hold without overflowing.

Let cool to room temperature.  

Notes

I live in California, so the apples Ms. Spurling recommends, Bramley, are not available.  The internet told me that Granny Smith, Braeburn, Cortland, or Winesap are good substitutes, so I got Granny Smith.  These are green, tart cooking apples and are known to hold their shape when cooked. 

I bought 2 pints of cream and was glad because the pie took 1 1/4 pints until it was full.  Maybe because I used a 9-inch pan and piled the apples up so high?

I wanted to try Ms. Fettiplace's idea of cutting open the pie, but modified the idea to baking the top crust with parchment paper along the edges to keep it from sticking to the bottom crust.  You will see the paper in the pictures.  This idea did not work out as the top crust stuck to the apples and started to break when I attempted lifting it.  So I used Ms. Spurling's idea of using a funnel to pour the cream into the vent holes once I pulled the paper strips away.  The top sealed to the bottom anyway while cooling.

This crust experience makes me think that Ms. Fettiplace used a more robust and/or flexible pie crust than the store-bought one I used.  She felt you could cut it open and not have it break up at all.

Use this many apples

With sugar and butter

Skip the paper strips.  Just add the crust with vent holes.

Beautiful!

Now it is a creamapple pie.

The Verdict

It looked beautiful out of the oven and cooled.  

Cooled and ready to eat.

It sliced wonderfully.  The cream had set during the cooling process and did not pour out of the crust once it was cut.

No runny cream!

My regular guest taster and I loved it.  It was not an apple pie as our taste buds expected as it didn't contain the spices such as cinnamon that our tastebuds expected.  But the apple flavor was there and the cream added a richness and, well, creaminess to the experience.  The crust delivered a nice crunch, too.

I felt I should have sliced the apples thinner.  Not that they were bad, but I felt that some needed a little more cooking.  So perhaps I could have left it in the oven another 10 minutes or so, but I worried I would burn the crust.

We both tried to imagine if cinnamon or cardamom or other spices would be a good addition.  Maybe.  But the pie as it was had a unique flavor, and I'm not sure I want to change that.

Two more guest tasters tried it.  One did not like it because she tasted a "tang" that reminded her of sour cream, which she dislikes.  The other enjoyed it but noticed that it was not the "usual" apple pie - she missed the spices she expected.  So she wasn't thrilled as we were but she liked it.

Ms. Spurling commented that the pie should not be served cold as the butter coagulates and is not pleasant to eat.  We warmed our refrigerated leftovers in the microwave for just long enough to remove the chill from the pie.  That worked out well.

Success!  Give it a try but be prepared for something different than what our tastebuds have been trained to expect from an apple pie.  You might use red (less tart) apples instead of the Granny Smiths.

An Update on the Medieval Lebkuchen

Previously I tried a recipe for Lebkuchen (click here to see the post) that suggested the dough and the cookies get better with time.

So I baked a batch and put them away in a dark cupboard.  I also put away two large containers of dough.

It has been three months, so time to check in on them.  How are they doing?

The cookies looked the same as when they were put away:

Three months old

The dough looked the same, too!

No mold on the surface.

My guest taster and I tried the cookies.  We could not detect anything different from what we had tried before.  Spicy, a little chewy.  (Still almost too spicy for me.)

So I took some of the dough from the top and shaped it into a short log.

I felt that the dough was drier or less tacky than it had been previously.  I could shape it easily with my hands without getting all covered in dough.  

Then, with a greased knife, I cut the log into approximately 1/4 inch-thick slices and prepared to bake them.  Forgive me; I was not trying for beautiful cookies at all, and it shows.

Don't judge!

I baked them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes.  That is when they looked like they were done.

My guest taster and I both agreed that these cookies were fluffier (less dense) than the previous batch.  We also felt that the spices were less intense, which I appreciated very much.  I liked them!

So we enjoyed a few then put the rest into the container with the first batch, marking them separately so I can track how each batch does over time.  My calendar is marked to check in on them in another 3 months.

So far, so good!

Lebkuchen or German Honey Cake, the 1553 edition

After having attempted and, finally, succeeded in making German Honey Cakes via Laura Ingalls Wilder (click on these posts to view the saga: attempt #1, attempts #2 and #3, and success at last), I decided to try a 1553 recipe for Nurnberger Lebkuchen as found in the Sabina Welserin cookbook, Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin, as translated by David Friedman.  Click here to see the translation.

What makes lebkuchen special is that the baked cookies are said to last a long time without spoiling, staying moist and flavorful.  Also, the dough does not have fat or eggs, so it can be stored unbaked for months and even years, and it supposed to develop a better flavor with time.  It was an item of wealth in medieval times, where bakers would invest money in jars and ingredients, and mature dough was given in dowries.

My goal was to make the dough with the intent to let it rest and mature for many months.  I'm not sure how long, and I might do some test baking along the way to assess any changes.  Here is the part of the recipe I was using:

163 To make Nürnberger Lebkuchen

Take one quart of honey, put it into a large pan, skim it well and let it boil a good while.  Put one and a half pounds of sugar into it and stir it continually with a wooden spatula and let it cook for a while, as long as one cooks an egg, pour it hot into a quarter pound of flour, stir it around slowly and put the described spices in the dough, stir it around slowly and not too long; take on and a half ounces of cinnamon sticks, one and a half ounces of nutmeg, three fourths of an ounce of cloves, three ounces of ginger, a pinch of mace, and chap or grind each one separately so that they are not too small, the cinnamon sticks, especially, should be coarsely ground.  And when you have put the spices in the dough, then let the dough set for as long as one needs to hard boil eggs.

I gathered my ingredients and had at it.

My Redaction

1 quart honey (about 3 pounds)

1 1/2 pounds sugar

1/4 pound flour

2 ounces ground cinnamon (see my notes, below)

1 1/2 ounces ground nutmeg

3/4 ounce ground cloves

2 1/2 ounces ground ginger (see my notes, below)

a pinch of mace

And the mace.

My Notes

It did not go well.

First, and I take responsibility for this decision, I boiled the honey and the honey-sugar mixture too long.  I made a hard-crack candy that in no way resembled a dough.  Afterwards, I read more about lebkuchen and now believe the honey should be heated to just boiling for two reasons:  to dissolve the sugar and to make it easier to mix in the flour.  But no cooking beyond that seems necessary.

Despite all my planning and shopping, I discovered I only had 2 1/2 ounces of ginger, so I used that and put in another 1/2 ounce of ground cinnamon in its place.  The entire amount of spices was a lot!  It turns out it was too much.  More on that below.

Almost 7 ounces of spices by weight

I was skeptical about the amount of flour.  It seemed like it was not enough to actually make a dough.  I was right:  what I ended up with was a vat of goo, not dough.  It was still goo even after mixing in the spices.

Mixing in the flour.

Mixing in the spices.

I put the goo into a jar to let it cool, then thought about how I would address the problem.

Note the total amount that was made.

Yes, I ended up with a solid mass in the glass jar (why did I put it in the jar???).  Clearly this was not the intended result.  

So I put the jar into a pan filled with hot water and put some more water on top of the solid mass in the jar.  After letting it heat for a while, the mass softened enough that I was able to pour it out of the jar and into a saucepan.  

A low heat allowed the mass to dissolve into the water, then I brought it to a boil and cooked it until it was nearly at the thread stage, about 220 degrees Fahrenheit.  It seemed to resist getting hotter, and I didn't want to scorch it.

Then I mixed in more flour.  I lost track of how much flour it was -- I just kept adding flour and mixing until the mass started clinging to itself more and acting like a dough.

This made a very dark dough, and I took two small balls of it and baked it on a greased pan in the toaster oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. 

The cookies smelled good and were baked just right.  However, they tasted awful:  all I got was a too-strong spice flavor that was decidedly unpleasant.  

I didn't want to throw it away and declare a failure.  It seemed that I just needed to dilute the spices to get a better cookie.

So I added about three more pounds of honey and one cup of sugar, heated to just boiling, and mixed in well.  Then I added more flour, mixing in a cup at a time until I couldn't stir it by hand any more.  At that point I put big scoops of the almost-dough onto the counter and mixed in more flour by hand (gently kneading) until I had a soft, almost sticky dough.

Huge!  I guess it weighed about 10 pounds.

I baked two more cookies.  They were lighter in color than the awful ones, and their taste was much better.  The spices were still strong but not repellant.  The cookies were moist and lightly browned on the edges.  I decided that was enough.

What a color difference.

It was a huge amount of dough.  I filled two jars with it, then baked the rest:  I rolled the dough to about 1/4 inch thick, used a cutter to get the cookies, then baked them in the toaster oven at 350 degrees for 7 minutes, which was right because they were thinner than the hand-formed balls I practiced with.  Notice that I did not follow the given directions (see the Friedman webpage) for baking them.  Maybe I will at another time.

Rolling and cutting

Baked.

Dough for storing.

The Verdict

The cookies were good.  Not mouth-wateringly spectacular, but good.  I think they would be improved with the chocolate frosting (see the Wilder post attempt #1) or a simple white frosting decoration.  They also seem to ask to be eaten with coffee or tea, or dunked in milk.  They were moist, not crisp, and I might try baking them longer to see if I like crisp.

I took four cookies and baked them at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.  This made them hard (not really crunchy or crisp) and not comfortable to eat.  Then I brushed them with rose water and let them dry.  This improved the flavor but were still to hard to eat comfortably.

I also took two baked cookies and brushed them on both sides with rose water, then let them dry.  My guest taster and I both agreed that this new flavor improved the cookie eating experienced.  I recommend it!

The dough jars were covered with a lid and put into a cool, dark cupboard, along with a box of the cookies.  Everything had the date written on them, and I put notes on my calendar to check on them.

When I check in on them, I will report back.

I declare this a success.  It took a lot of effort and perseverance to achieve it, but I believe I did.  Part of the effort was all the clean up:  every pan and utensil had sticky goo on it, as did the counters and stovetop.  Fortunately, it was all sugar-based goo, which cleans up completely with hot water and patience. 

Now I will apply more patience while the dough and the cookies mature.

Whew!

Bartolomeo Scappi! Crostate with Roasted Kidney

When I first started really learning about historical food, especially during the Renaissance, I heard about this book:  The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi:  The Art and Craft of a Master Cook.

What I could find was mostly pictures of the sketches he had of kitchen equipment of all sorts -- yes, I wanted it!  I could imagine myself playing with all of it.  What a dream!  It was only recently I learned of Terence Scully's translation and obtained a copy.  I think a book is a close as I will get to having the equipment, and today I decided to try one of his recipes.

ISBN 978-1-4426-1148-1

It will amuse you to know that I basically flipped through a few pages of this 780 page book and randomly stopped on one of them,  recipe #229:

To prepare crostate - that is, gourmand bread - with spit-roasted veal kidney.

     Get slices of day-old bread the thickness of the spine of a knife and toast them on a grill.  Get veal kidney, with its fat, roasted on a spit along with the loin.  Cut a little of the tenderloin away from the loin; let it cool a little, then beat it very small with knives, along with mint, sweet marjoram, burnet and fresh fennel - not having any fresh, use the little dried flowers - and add in pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, egg yolks, orange juice or verjuice, and enough salt.  When the composition is made up, spread it out over the slices of toast.  Put the covered toast into a tourte pan without the slices touching one another.  Apply heat to the top of the lid and hot coals under the tourte pan, leaving it until the bread has absorbed a little of the grease and the mixture has firmed up.  Serve it hot, dressed with orange juice, sugar, and cinnamon.  You can also put fresh butter and melted pork fat into the tourte pan so the bread will be greasier.

     You can also cook it on a grill over a low fire, heating the top with a hot shovel or else with a tourte-pan lid.

I happened to have a kidney in the freezer and a need to use it -- this seemed like a great idea. 

My Redaction

1 loaf French bread, a day or two old

1 veal kidney, about 12 ounces by weight

1 piece pork tenderloin (mine was a little over a pound)

1 tablespoon fresh mint, finely chopped

1 tablespoon fresh marjoram, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon fennel seed, crushed in a mortar

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup orange juice (slightly under ripe oranges, so sour)

olive oil

Dressing:  1/2 cup orange juice, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1/4 t cinnamon

My Notes

I sliced the bread into 1/2 to 3/4 inch wide pieces, ignoring the ends.  I had 17 and used 15.

Then they were toasted to golden brown over direct heat on the grill.  Check them often because they can get scorched easily (experience here!)  I put them on a plate and set it aside.

I had a technical failure with my rotisserie, so I could not spit-roast the meat as I had planned.  My solution was to cook it on the grill:  Coat the kidney and the tenderloin with olive oil.  Make a flat-bottomed pan with shallow sides from a piece of foil and place over direct heat on the grill.  Put the kidney on that.  The pork goes onto the grill itself, near the direct heat but not over it.  Close the lid and cook (checking it and turning occasionally) until the kidney changes from red to brown and its juices are barely red or not red at all.  The pork should be cooked to a very light pink interior so it doesn't get dry. (I had to experiment with the process and the timing before I got everything cooked right.  I didn't document all the steps here, just what ended up working.)

Once the pork was cooked, I used about 4 ounces (estimated).  Both the kidney and the pork were cut into chunks then placed in the food processor.  I pulsed it until the meat was in small pieces, but not smooth or pureed.  

Small chunks to...

... small pieces

The meat went into a bowl and I added the spices and herbs.  I did not have burnet and I had no fresh fennel, but Mr. Scully's footnote said that the dried flowers implied using the seed, which I had.  Once that was mixed well, I added two beaten egg yolks.  This seemed moist enough but not be gooey.  Then I mixed in the orange juice, which made the whole mixture moist enough to spread.

I tasted it before spreading it on the bread.  The first taste was mostly of the meat and I didn't feel the spicing was right at all, so I added more to get the amounts listed in the redaction.  Now I could taste the spices and they seemed balanced, with nothing dominating, not even the meat flavor.  The meat was there but it did not overwhelm.

A rubber scraper was a good tool to spread the mixture onto the bread slices.  I wanted it reasonably thick, so it looked generous.

The direction to heat the top with a hot shovel has the modern equivalent of putting it under the broiler, which I decided to do.  Before I turned on the broiler setting, I preheated the oven to 300 degrees F while I was making the mixture, so the food would go into a hot oven for broiling.

Scappi's plate 9 gives us an idea of what he meant by a tourte pan in the first two rows here:

I chose a metal baking pan that I call a cookie sheet.  The bottom was lightly oiled.

Then the cookie sheet went under the broiler for 3 minutes.  This continued to toast the bread and add a little browning to the (already brown) meat mixture.  It seemed that the mixture firmed up.  Mostly it looked like the egg had cooked, which was my main goal.

Once out of the oven, I mixed the dressing and poured some over each piece.  The dressing is thin so it poured over the meat mixture but then soaked into the toast.

The Verdict

I served them hot with a spinach salad and a nice pinot noir.

I'll admit that I was hesitant to make this recipe because I am not typically a fan of organ meats.  To me they smell weird and taste "off."  So I took a bite, expecting to get that organ meat flavor.

I was surprised.  

The crunch of the bread went well with the soft and a little chewy of the meat mixture.  

The flavor was well-balanced -- meat and spice were just right.  Sometimes I got a little "burn" from the spices, and I was not sure if it was from the pepper or the cloves or both.  That made it very interesting to eat.

Different flavors touched the tongue as I was eating it -- little blasts of mint or spice or meat.

The dressing was a stellar idea, too.  It added moisture to the toast and the brightness of the acid from the orange juice.

My guest taster and I agreed that it hit all five of the basic flavors.  Really quite enjoyable.

We had a few where we put some of the spinach leaves on top.  This was good, too!

Even the leftovers, which we warmed up the next day, were tasty.  

I'll make it again soon and really look forward to it.  Success!

String-Roasting in My Fireplace

Hooray!  It has been cold enough to have a fire!

I had hoped (and planned) for a day like this and so I had purchased two tiny Rock Cornish Game hens to cook in front of the fire.  I wanted to try string roasting again and this time get it right.  (Previously I tried it at a public cooking demonstration and it didn't turn out.  See this post here.)

What I wanted was a good fire that was putting out a lot of heat but also had some good embers.  I also needed to plan where the string would be:  The recommendation was to have it hanging from the mantel and to make it long, but my mantel wouldn't work for that.

My fireplace has a metal piece at the top of the opening, and that piece had a slotted hole in it.  Its original purpose is unknown to me but it looked promising for string roasting.  The only problem was that I knew the string would be short.

A long string is useful because you can get the meat to twirl, which twists the string first one way and then the other.  Basically, it is like having the meat turn itself on a spit, with little work from the cook.  But I knew I would make it work even with a short string.

When I started the fire, I took the birds out of the refrigerator so they could start coming to room temperature.  I knew I needed to wait 60 to 90 minutes for the fire to mature enough for cooking.

With two birds to cook at the same time, I decided to hang one below the other, using chopsticks inserted in them to act as connectors.  I know this description isn't very useful unless you already know what I'm doing; the pictures below will help.

I found an S-hook (made by my awesome blacksmith friends) and put it into the slot.  Then I estimated the total length the two birds would need, along with a little distance between them.  From there I estimated the longest distance from the top of the opening to the top of the first bird that I thought I could get away with, and cut a string four times that length.

It is important to have a pan below the birds to catch the drips and that figured into my estimation.  I chose the shortest pan I could use close to the fire and put it into the fireplace with two cups of water in it.

The chopsticks were inserted into the birds (two per bird), the long string was tied into a loop, and two more loops were tied at a length that would separate the birds but not too far apart.  I put in an effort to make those two loops the same length.  I also got all the strings wet.

I coated each bird with melted butter and many dried breadcrumbs.  No other seasoning was used.

Once the fire was ready, I put the loops on the chopsticks and hung the birds on the hook.  Here is the set up:

The long loop had each end over a stick and went over the S-hook.  The small loops connected the lower stick of the first bird with the upper stick of the second bird.  In this picture one of the loops is too close to the end of the stick.  Push the loops so they are snug up against the bird:  This keeps the birds balanced and stops the risk of the whole thing coming apart while cooking.

It was easy to get them spinning but with the short string, they didn't stay spinning very long.  The fire was hot and I didn't want to sit in front of it.  So I sat off to the side and used a long handled fork to keep the birds spinning.  Every few minutes I used the fork to push on a stick to twist the string.  Then I let it go and watched it spin until it slowed down again.  I thought this worked well.

It took about 45 minutes until my thermometer showed the meat was over 140 degrees F on both birds.  They were a lovely golden brown so I decided to take them down.  Unfortunately I lost control of them when unhooking the long loop and they fell down into the drip bowl.  This didn't harm the birds but it did dump the liquid all over the floor of the fireplace.  No drippings to try!

The birds rested on the kitchen counter while I quickly tidied the hearth.  (The cats were very interested in what I had left there!)

The red juices concerned me.

The Verdict

The birds were attractive to serve; it was fun to tell my guest taster about the cooking process while we ate dinner.  I served stuffing and a salad as side dishes.

The meat was tender, the breast was still moist, and the skin had some crisp and crackle to it.  

The flavor was good!  My guest taster wanted more salt but I didn't need it.  We enjoyed it.  I call it a success!

The only part that wasn't cooked enough -- there was still a lot of pink -- was where the thigh was pressed up against the rest of the body.  It was easy to fix with a minute in the microwave oven.  From this, I think I could have roasted the birds another 10 to 15 minutes without worrying about overcooking them.

I had thought about turning the birds while they were cooking to make sure the tops got as cooked as the bottoms, but with two tied together, I decided it was too risky.  I didn't want to drop them.  This was a good decision considering what happened when I took them off at the end.  Fortunately, the birds were cooked well top to bottom.  I think this worked because the fire was so big.

Lumbardy Tartes -- The Sequel

Yesterday I wrote about my first attempt at making a Lumbardy Tart -- a savory beet-filled pie from the Dining with William Shakespeare book.

I kept thinking about it and realized I really needed to make it again, and make it thicker and more flavorful, if I could.

So here we go, Attempt Number Two!  My redaction for a 9-inch pie pan.

My Redaction (see the previous post for more details)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F or 425 degrees F if using a glass or ceramic pie pan.

I made the same pie crust as Ms. Lorwin did and loved it even more.  It came out drier than the first attempt, which made it easier to work with.  It rested in the refrigerator while I made the filling.

Filling:

1 1/2 lb beets
2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon dried bread crumbs
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup currants, soaked in boiling water for 3 minutes then drained
4 tablespoons butter, melted

Following Ms. Lorwin's directions but using the above quantities yielded a 9 inch pie pan that was adequately filled.

Stuffed to the brim!

I used the same little cutters to make a design on the top crust.  This time the dough didn't stretch as much, plus the holes were cut further apart.  I like the way the design turned out.



I was using a ceramic pan so I baked it at 425 degrees F for 20 minutes, then at 325 degrees F for 25 minutes.  This seemed about right.

Not even a tad overbaked.

The Verdict

The crust was crispy, flaky, and tasty, just as before!  I liked that it didn't come across as overbaked, not even a little.

The thicker filling was more impressive visually.  One piece was quite filling.

Look at that flaky crust!!!

But the flavor was so much better!

The beet flavor was still dominant but having more currants made it more balanced.  Their bit of chewy sweetness added an interesting twist as you ate it.

I used four times the amount of spice as Ms. Lorwin called for.  This meant that you could actually taste the cinnamon and ginger, but their flavors were not too much.  They were supporting characters and I really only knew they were there when I focused on them; otherwise they added a wonderful depth.

I used the same amount of melted butter as for an 8 inch pie and think this was just right for the 9 inch pie.  Not greasy on my lips but nicely rich.

Now I would say this wasn't a pie that was made of beets (as I would consider saying for yesterday's post) but a pie that started with beets and became so much more.  The other flavors made it intriguing.

Success again!  I am so glad I tried it again.  I recommend it as a surprising main course for a light dinner, and the leftovers are just as good.

Lumbardy Tartes, and a Happy New Year to You!

The New Year is upon us: 2020!  I wish us all a good year -- to everyone in the world and to the world, too.

This is the beginning of my ninth year of blogging.  I continue to be astonished that I am able to do it regularly and successfully.  My regular guest tasters have commented that my historical cooking "never disappoints", to which I respond with "Whew!"  because I know that I don't know how the recipe will turn out but I try it out on them anyway.  (But usually I have a back-up plan just in case the meal is a flop.)

For the record, this is my 190th post (!!!!) and at the time of this writing I have over 80,000 page views.  I typically see about 1000 page views in a month; compare that to the 1000 page views I had in my first year of blogging.  Again, astonishing!

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I was wandering through my local farmers market recently, enjoying my first arepas (the sauce was particularly amazing) and wondering which vegetables should come home with me, when a table full of beets caught my attention.  They were a good size -- not too big -- and they had their greens still attached, unlike what I find at the grocery store.  There were red beets and golden beets.  The price was right, too.

Once I had them home, I perused my cookbooks for ideas.  What was really appealing was Lumbardy Tartes, from Dining with William Shakespeare, by Madge Lorwin.

ISBN 0-689-10731-5

I've tried two other recipes from this book:  My Salmon is Soused and How to Pickle Mushrooms.

Today's recipe is on page 238, and is titled

"To Make Lumbardy Tartes"

Take Beets, chop them small, and put to them grated bread and cheese, and mingle them wel in the chopping, take a few Corrans, and a dish of sweet Butter, & melt it then stir al these in the Butter, together with three yolks of Eggs, Synamon, ginger, and sugar, and make your Tart as large as you will, and fill it with the stuff, bake it and serve it in.

John Partidge, The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin

Ms. Lorwin provides the original recipe and its source and then gives us her "working version", i.e. her redaction.  That is the one I decided to try.

The Working Version

1 pound fresh young beets
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon grated bread crumbs
3/4 cup grated mild Cheddar cheese
1/4 currants, parboiled
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
3 egg yolks
4 tablespoons butter, melted.

The pastry
2 cups sifted unbleached flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cold butter
1/2 cup cold water
1 egg, separated

I used all of the red and most of the golden beets.

Actually used 1 1/2 sticks of butter.  And water, of course!

Peel the beets -- this is best done with a potato peeler -- and grate them into a mixing bowl.  Add the sugar and stir until it melts.  Mix in the bread crumbs, grated cheese, currants, spices, and egg yolks.  Then stir in the melted butter.  Cover and set aside while you are making the pastry.  The instructions for making the pastry are on page 31.*

Divide the dough into two parts, the part for the bottom crust a bit larger than the piece for the top crust.  On a floured work surface, roll out the piece for the bottom crust to fit an eight-inch pie dish and fit it into the dish.  Then roll out the piece for the top crust.

Spread the filling evenly in the dish and cover it with the top crust.  Seal the edges with the tines of a wet fork and trim off the surplus pastry.  Punch fork holes in the crust and brush it with egg white.  Bake at 450 degrees for twenty minutes, then lower the heat to 350 degrees and bake twenty-five minutes longer.  Serve slightly warm.

*Pastry instructions from page 31:  To make the pastry, sift the flour and salt together into a large mixing bowl.  Add 1/2 cup of the butter and crumble it into the flour until it is like fine meal.  Dice the rest of the butter into 1/4-inch cubes and stir them into the flour mixture.

Add [the cold water] to the egg yolk ..., and stir until well blended.  Pour the mixture over the flour-butter mix and stir quickly until a ball of dough can be formed with the hands -- if more liquid is needed, add additional [water], one tablespoonful at a time.  

My Notes

Preheat the oven before you start!  I forgot that and had to wait after the pie was made before it could bake.

I decided to make the crust first so it could rest before I rolled it out, which I have found to be a good idea any time I make a pie crust.

I could have used my food processor to mix the butter with the flour-salt mixture but decided to mix it all by hand.  I thought the instructions to mix in some of the butter and then the rest was interesting.  I didn't just stir in the small cubes but mixed them in more thoroughly, just not as much as the 1/2 cup.

Once the water/egg yolk mixture was poured over the flour mixture, I stirred it with a wooden spoon.  The whole thing came together quickly and I didn't need my hands to form the ball.  The dough then was wrapped in plastic and placed in the refrigerator until I was ready to roll it out.

Freshly mixed.  Almost untouched by human hands.

Then I turned my attention to the beets.  After removing the tops, I weighed out 1 pound, which used all of the red beets and most of the golden beets.  The food processor made short work of grating them and, thankfully, kept the juice inside the container instead of on my clothes.

I think the red and gold are pretty!

Ms. Lorwin called for 3/4 cup of mild Cheddar cheese; I decided to use extra sharp Cheddar cheese and put in a full 1 cup.

As for parboiling the currants, I decided that what really needed to happen was to get them softened.  The currants went into a bowl, had boiling water poured over them, and then they sat for 2 minutes, after which I drained them.

When the filling was mixed, I prepared to roll the dough for the crust.

But once mixed, everything was beet red.

At first I rolled the dough on a floured countertop.  But it was pretty moist and wanted to stick to the counter despite the flour dusting, so after I did the bottom crust, I changed to using the silicone rolling mat, which made it easier to move the crust.



I used a 9 inch pie pan so the beet mixture did not fill the pan.



Instead of pricking the top crust with a fork, I used some small cutters and cut out a design.

The challenge was getting the design centered on the tart.

I really liked the advice to seal the edges with the fork.  Then I brushed the top with egg white beaten with a little water.



I watched the baking times carefully as my oven tends to cook things faster than what I expect.  Sure enough, I started worrying that the top would over-bake after 15 minutes at 450 degrees F.  It was getting brown and threatening to burn.  So I pulled the pie out for the last 3 minutes, let the oven cool to below 350 degrees F, then put the pie back in the oven while it heated up to 350.  Even then, I only let it cook another 20 minutes.

The crust was just a tad overcooked.

The Verdict

I served it as a main course, with a tossed green salad as a side dish.  The tart was pretty to see and smelled good!  The crust looked puffy, which was a good sign.

I also liked that the filling was firm enough to stay in the crust when a piece was cut -- no sliding filling at all.

Pretty!

The crust was wonderful, despite being a little overbaked.  Crispy and flaky yet with enough structure to keep its shape when served.  Buttery in flavor, too.  It didn't stick to the pan, and it was flexible, easy to roll out, and very forgiving as I tried to center it on the pan.  I think it is one of the best pie crusts I have ever made.

The filling had a dominant flavor of beets, and was just a bit sweet to enhance the savory aspect of it.  The currants added a nice chewy, sweet blast.  The spices were really subtle, and I think I would add more if I made this again.  I wanted to taste them and it was hard to tell they were there.  The butter in the filling was there but I think I would put in less just because I kept getting a buttery film on my lips when I ate it that I didn't like.

I couldn't taste the cheese at all, which makes me want to put in more.  I had room in the 9-inch pan to put in more beets and more cheese, so I think that would be a good idea.

In total, it was so good!  Flavorful, tasty, filling.  We had two pieces each as the main course.

It almost felt sinful having "pie" for dinner, especially because it was so pretty and looked like it could be a fruit-filled dessert pie.

One guest taster remarked that she liked how the texture of the shredded beets was there in the filling.  She found that very appealing and I agreed with her.

I had the leftovers reheated for lunch and was pleased to see how well the crust held up in the refrigerator and then heated in the microwave oven.  No soggy crust at all.

Success!

Since I had extra room in the pan, if I make this again I would use more beets, more cheese, and more spices. I want a crust that is stuffed full.

I thought Ms. Lorwin's direction to use 1 teaspoon grated bread crumbs was silly at first.  One teaspoon?  It seemed like it would not be enough.  But she was right:  the filling was firm enough and didn't need to have more crumbs to hold it together.  Also, the filling was not juicy, so no extra crumbs were needed to help that.  Forgive me for doubting, Ms. Lorwin!

HEADS UP!  I redid the recipe the way I wanted to try.  Tune in tomorrow for the sequel!