Iron Age Stuffed Eggs

Over on Facebook, Pario Gallico created a recipe for stuffed eggs that completely satisfies my love of sour/bitter and garlic. I modified her recipe a bit to accommodate what was available to me. There isn’t a lot of direct evidence for stuffed eggs in the early Medieval period, but there are plenty of recipes from across Europe and the Middle East in the later Middle Ages. I have posted about some of them here: (https://siglindesarts.wordpress.com/2021/01/02/medieval-recipes-for-stuffed-eggs/) and here: (https://siglindesarts.wordpress.com/2021/02/12/another-stuffed-egg-recipe-courtesy-of-volker-bach/)

First, I made a grainy mustard using commercial powdered mustard, a handful of mustard seed from last year’s garden, white vinegar, water and salt. A wine vinegar would have been delicious too. I mixed it all up and then boiled it for a bit until it had the consistency that pleased me. It is quite strong now, but it will mellow over the next few days. A bit of honey in the mustard would also be delicious.

Next I peeled a hard-boiled egg; Pario Gallico used a goose egg because is the season for them, but duck or chicken eggs work well too. I put the yolk into a bowl with a chopped up wild garlic bulb (also known as ramps or ramsons – Pario Gallico used the leaves), some chopped rocket (arugula) leaves from my garden, a bit of salt and a dollop of milk. For a different taste, I may try sorrel leaves next – they would give a bright lemony flavour. I mashed everything together until it was creamy, then filled the egg whites with the mixture. It made for a very satisfying little snack.

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Plausibly Medieval Pastry from Algeria

Someone from my work shared a recipe for Tcharek El Ariane (gazelle horns with almonds) to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Aside from the baking powder, every ingredient was used in the medieval period in the Islamic world. You could easily use yeast instead; I will try that on my next test of this recipe.

The original recipe was confusing so I have reorganized it and added more detailed instructions. I completely missed where to put the oil, so I didn’t have enough dough. As a result, I didn’t give an amount of flour. That’s a problem for next time.

Ingredients

• 125 g softened butter
• 80 ml oil
• 160 ml of orange blossom water (available at Middle Eastern groceries)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract plus 1/tsp for the egg glaze
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 c powdered sugar (plus more to sprinkle, if desired)
• flour
• 1 tsp baking flour
• 3 cups ground almonds
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 c sugar
• sliced almonds, or more ground almonds (for sprinkling on top of the gazelle horns)

Dough

Put the butter, oil, half the orange blossom water, 1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla and powdered sugar into a bowl and beat with a mixer. Add flour little by little until you get a soft dough without being sticky. Add the baking powder and mix. If you are using yeast, use a packet of dry prepared yeast to a bit of water and let it start bubbling before adding it to the flour. Form small round balls of dough and let rest. You should be able to make about 16-20 small balls.

Filling

Mix together the ground almonds, sugar, cinnamon in a bowl. Add the remaining orange blossom water and knead well to make a dough that has a honey-like texture and can be formed into a ball. Divide the filling into enough pieces for each ball of dough, and form into little oval balls.

Preparation of the Pastries

Sprinkle flour on your work surface and rolling pin. Roll out a ball of dough, then put the almond filling in the centre. close the dough, forming a small sausage and bend it into a half moon shape, pressing the ends to close them tightly and place on a baking pan. Mix together the remaining egg and vanilla, then brush it on the half moon pastries. Sprinkle on sliced or ground almonds (if desired) and brush with more egg. Repeat with the remaining balls of dough. Bake in a 180C (350F) oven for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired.

These were way too big and the filling came out a bit because there wasn’t enough dough. But the are yummy!

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#pilgrimage21

The Company of Saynte George, a group that recreates the life in Burgundy in 1460-1480, organized a virtual pilgrimage for the weekend of 14-16 May for re-enactors everywhere. I heard about it very late, and had a busy weekend planned, so I resigned myself to admiring all the gorgeous pictures of people in garb walking, eating, riding their horses, or visiting pilgrimage sites all over Europe. I sent a message to the group telling them how much fun it had been and was encouraged to go out anyway, as others were doing the same.

This morning I headed out to two local sites. Ottawa Ontario doesn’t have a lot of traditional pilgrimage options, so I settled on a walk to the former Canadian house for training priests of the Pères Blancs, a Catholic society of apostolic life devoted to missionary work in Africa. The site has been a city-owned community centre and library since 1976, but a large statue of Notre Dame de l’Afrique remains.

My next stop had even more tenuous religious connotations, but it seemed appropriate. The unceded territory where Ottawa now stands was an important place for the Anishnabe people to gather for ceremony and trade. The word Ottawa means “to trade” in their language, and there are sacred ceremonial sites throughout the city. The Anishnabe reached the area via three rivers: the Ottawa, Gatineau and Rideau. I chose to walk along a recently-rediscovered portage site that had been used until the late 19th C, in order to get around the Rideau Falls from the Rideau River to the Ottawa River.

Rideau Falls, where the Rideau River pours into the Ottawa River

Here are some of the things I saw along the way:

Rideau River at the start of the portage

Looking down toward Governor’s Bay, the end of the portage

A surprise visitor on the path. She stuck around for quite a while.

Eventually she hopped into the woods, but was very relaxed at my presence.

Governor’s Bay on the Ottawa River, looking upstream. The falls are beyond the headland on the left.

Looking downstream along the Ottawa River towards where the Gatineau River joins it, just to the left of the church

All told, I walked a little over 5 km on a hot morning. My linen Flemish kirtle and chemise were comfortably cool, especially since I had left the silk sleeves at home. My feet were less happy. Unstructured flat shoes with minimal padding were not meant for sidewalks.

The downside of walking alone is there is no-one to take pictures to show off your whole outfit.

Heading back up the hill from the Ottawa River

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Manchets, Symnels, and Cracknels (and a Pretzel)

A couple of weeks ago I participated in an on-line presentation by William Rubel, a US-based bread researcher, on some bread recipes from an unpublished ca. 1550 English manuscript. One of them uses sourdough starter, which is rarely documented in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. I needed some bread for another project this week, so decided to try the recipes.

All the breads call for the finest flour possible. I had just purchased whole wheat flour for the first time in ages, so that is what I used. I used sourdough starter for all the recipes, rather than ale barm, because that is what I am used to working with. Rubel suggests using commercial yeast instead of ale barm for the symnels and cracknels, but it didn’t seem worth the effort for the small amount I was making; after all, yeast is yeast if you don’t let your sourdough get too sour. I did follow the salt guidelines though. Rubel pointed out that the original recipes don’t always include a mention of salt, but he noted that in other bread recipes from the 16th and 17th centuries, salt quantities were lower than in modern breads (in the range of 0.5%, compared to the modern 2% proportion), so I used less. In the manchet recipe, I used none at all for consistency with a 1640 recipe that is very similar and explicitly leaves out salt.

Manchets can be either a fairly large bread or bun sized. I went for a round bun, and tried to put a cut all around the middle, a common 16th C manchet form, it didn’t work very well. I think I needed to score it more deeply. I wish I had thought to put a deep cut in the middle of one, or cut a cross shape, as both are commonly depicted in contemporary art. But I have done both before, so there was no big loss of learning.

Symnels and cracknels are smaller buns that get boiled before baking, just like pretzels. After boiling, the symnels were brushed with water in which ground saffron had been steeped. The cracknels went directly into the oven. Since I was boiling breads before baking anyway, of course I needed to make a pretzel. I brushed it with saffron water too, just for fun.

All the breads needed to be baked in a 375F oven. The other manchet recipe in the manuscript (that I didn’t try) used a “half hot” oven, which Rubel suggested was more like 350F. The symnels went in for 30 minutes, the manchets and pretzel for 35, and the cracknels for 40. I think the cracknels could have stayed in for even longer in order to get a good crispy crust for the “crack”.

Manchets on the top, pretzel in the centre, symnels on the lower left and cracknels on the lower right

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