Monthly Archives: May 2013

Ragout with a Cabbage

Posted on by
3

Hanging Cabbages

Hannah Glass has a receipt called “Or this Way Beans Ragoo’d with a Cabbage. “ If the 17th and 18th century mothers were lucky, they might still have a cabbage hanging in the root cellar now and a few carrots and turnips. The cabbages would be hung from their roots with the large leaves left on. The turnips and carrots would be stuck in sand to stay damp (not wet) so they think they are resting in the ground. This was the common practice of looking ahead and providing fresh produce for one’s family throughout the winter months and into early spring. So, hopefully, you still have something left in the root cellar.

I talked with Ryan Beckman at Old Sturbridge Village to see what they had in the root cellar there. Unfortunately, no cabbage, as they were hit badly with blight last year and are not growing any this year in an effort to thwart it. Ryan said they had just run out of carrots last week and are focusing on the potatoes and the multitude of eggs they are blessed with at the moment. This is the time of year that they interpret the “six weeks of want.” We have cabbage still at our Farm Markets so, here in New Hampshire, we were lucky. And I found a nice small one. The turnips fared well too and the carrots may be a bit on the wilted side yet usable.

Along with my planked fish I needed a vegetable, so this receipt seemed doable, given the coolness of the season. Having no beans yet, I omitted them and decided on fresh spring asparagus. Now this receipt has a lot of steps to it. First you must clean the cabbage and cut the stem side flat so it sits nice on a plate. Then it needs to be par-boiled so it can be pierced with a fork but not fall apart. Hannah has you put the carrots and turnips in the same pot, I did mine separately.

cab 1

When the cabbage was soft, I took it out and cut a cavity in the upper part for the ragout and saved the cone to mix with the other vegetables.  I mashed all the vegetables together with salt and pepper and added a little of the cabbage liquid I had saved.

cab2

The cabbage went back into the pot with a bit of water, wine, vinegar from the pickled mushroom, butter and the mushroom ketchup I had made I made last fall. This was covered and simmered gently. I needed to check on it often to make sure it did not run out of liquid. With the other vegetables mashed, I placed them by the fire to keep warm.

cab 3

Once the fork slid easily through the cabbage it was removed and put on a plate stem side down. The cavity was filled with the ragout’d vegetables, and the asparagus were placed around the plate. The liquid for the last cooking of the cabbage was poured over it and my side dish was complete. I added a little more vinegar, as I like mine tart, and, as a whole, it was tasty and looked very nice on the plate.

 

cab 4I’m really looking forward to using my new root cellar come fall. It is now clean of construction debris and I can start planning the shelves and boxes I’ll need. It will be a fun project.

Sandie

“The cabbage surpasses all other vegetables. If, at a banquet, you wish to dine a lot and enjoy your dinner, then eat as much cabbage as you wish, seasoned with vinegar, before dinner, and likewise after dinner eat some half-dozen leaves. It will make you feel as if you had not eaten, and you can drink as much as you like.”
Cato (234-149 B.C.)

Charles Carter – To Roast a Pike

Posted on by
4

 

This is not Charles Carter or anyone I know, yet it gives you the idea of how large a pike can get. More fish than two people can eat at one sitting. They are fished in the spring in lakes throughout New England. While going through Charles Carter’s “The Complete Practical Cook,” I found this receipt. It was interesting because he uses a spit to cook it and places planks on either side of the fish to hold all the goodies in the belly. The receipt is long and loaded with ingredients including several eels and a smaller fish. Well, right now it is hard to get eels, as they are being caught illegally here in NH and shipped to Japan for lots of money so the game wardens are out looking for anyone catching them. Also they are not my favorite.

Now I have done planked fish many times, always putting it on a single cedar plank and standing it on the side of the fireplace, near enough to get cooked from the heat while preparing other items. So Carter’s receipt piqued my interest, as he used wooden splits.

So I have the receipt and now I need a fish. Well, a pike is out of the question as I don’t fish anymore and the local grocery store does not carry them. However, I knew that I could get a pollock with its head and tail on at Seaport Fish in Rye, New Hampshire. I only needed to order it. So I did.

Along with my other hearth cooking stash in the basement I found two new cedar planks. They need to be in a water bath for at least a few hours, and best overnight. This way they won’t catch on fire and ruin my fish. I put the planks in my tin kettle and turned them every few hours of so.untitled-1-copy

Reading over Carter’s receipt I decided to omit the eels and another fish for the forcing. What I did pick were salt, nutmeg, ginger, thyme, parsley, oysters, anchovies, shallots and horseradish and butter mixed with bread crumbs and an egg and then forced them in the belly.stuffed-jpg

 

After filling the belly, Carter says, “Broach it on a spit and with some lathes or wooden splits, flatten it, tying them round with tape to keep it all together and lay it to a pretty good fire.”

planked

With the fish clapped in cedar and tied on the spit, it needed to be bathed with thick butter, white wine and a little vinegar that has some onion and sweet herbs mixed in. Bathe it often and turn it. A leer was made with grated horseradish and beaten ginger, wine and some anchovies to be added to the drippings later.untitled-3-copy

This is where things started to unravel. The string caught fire and the planks were just too wide. Time to reread the receipt!!! So I read it again, and Carter says—“then broach it on a Spit, and with some Lathes or wooden Splits, faften it, tying them round with some Tape to keep it all together.”p3-copy

Now had I not been concentrating on the ingredients so hard, and spent more time reading the how to, I would have known that Lathes and or wooden Splits should be only about two inches wide and spaced around the fish so the heat gets through to the flesh. My only excuse is that I was testing out three other receipts. So live and learn and take my own advice: read the receipt through and then reread it. So, off it came and placed on the table to be restrung without the wood and cooked the final minutes to doneness.untitled-4-copy

 

Altogether it took about forty minutes to bake in front of the fire, and then it was placed on a plate and the spit removed and the pudding in the belly draw out. The drippings were added to the leer to make a sauce to be mingled with the pudding. To garnish I skipped the eels and placed the receipt’s broiled oysters and lemon round it.untitled-5-copy

The fish was very moist and the stuffing passable. It was a big fish and there was a lot left over so it looks like fish chowder next.

This is the first early receipt I have found that calls for planking and I will try it again, with smaller lathes.

Sandie

“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”

―   Julia Child

First Period House

Posted on by
2

I went to the Newburyport Preservation Trust Mass tour this Saturday.  We saw three homes one of which I loved.  It was built around 1680-1700 and had a cavernous fireplace.  I’d love to cook on this one.

3

 Love the split staircase.

1

The house is for sale so it was empty, except for the years of wear left among it’s posts and beams and rear cat slide roof.

2

Sandie

HERBS AND SPICES AND EVERYTHING NICE

Posted on by
1

The sky was blue, and with herbs popping up everywhere, it was time to feast on a spring meal. With the fires going, our class began. Reading the instructions through is an extremely important thing to do. I give both the original narrative receipt and the modern scientific one. Getting your entire ingredients list and pans together and having a plan is the next step.

Hannah Glasse’s receipt,” To Stuff a Chine of Pork” was the first charge of the day. Bob and Vicky took sage, parsley, thyme, rosemary, spinach and cloves and chopped it into a forced meat to stuff the pork with. The collops were pounded, larded and stuffed, then tied up to roast on the fire. Dana and Barbara watched as Bob stacked the collops and tied them. There was leftover forced meat and we saved that to add to the drippings at the end.  untitled-1-copy Vicky was in charge of the applesauce. I had given two receipts, Eliza Smith’s and Elizabeth Rafald’s sauce for a goose. The first extant print citation of the word “applesauce” is in Eliza Smith’s, Compleat Housewife, 1739. However, the practice of combining pork and apples dates back to ancient times. Hannah Glasse, in the mid-18th century instructs her readers to serve roast pork with “some good apple-sauce.” The receipt, Sauce for a Goose, by Raffald, is applesauce.

Fiddleheads are just coming in and no spring meal would be complete without them. They have a nutty taste and with bacon and shallots you can’t go wrong.

untitled-4-copy

Asparagus is also on the rise in the fields and gardens. We put a large pot of water on so we could parboil the bundle of asparagus. Vicky was busy making manchets bread, and here we see it having a final rise by the fire.

untitled-5-copy

Dana decided she would try her hand at making crepes for the Banniet Tort which will be our dessert. As always with crepes, the first one went into the fire and the next eight came out wonderful.untitled-2-copy

Barbara made the puff pastry for the tort, and with the crepes made, she began to assemble it. Dana removed the asparagus from the water and cut the tops off long and the bottoms into little pieces and put them aside.

Candied lemons and oranges, a few dates and currants sprinkled with orange flower water and sack and layered with sugar. YUM! Barbara slides it into the bake oven.untitled-6-copy

The fireplace became a busy space with Bob and Allan at the reflector oven, Dana and Barbara making a sauce for the asparagus. The applesauce Vicky made keeping warm over the fire. In the bake oven the manchets and a tort cook.untitled-5-copy

The Chine of stuffed pork was ready and Bob removes the strings and adds the extra stuffing that was fried in the drippings.  I had made a Rhubarb Shrub to have with our dinner. We added ice, a luxury in the 18th century; however we were all on the warm side.untitled-8-copy

Shrub is the name of two different, but related, acidulated beverages. One type of shrub is a fruit liqueur that was popular in 17th and 18th century England, typically made with rum or brandy mixed with sugar and the juice or rinds of citrus fruit.

A second type of shrub is a cocktail or soft drink that was popular during America’s colonial era, made by mixing drinking vinegar syrup with spirits, water, or carbonated water. The name also is applied to the sweetened vinegar-based syrup, also known as drinking vinegar, from which the latter drink is made. Drinking vinegar is infused with fruit juice (and at times herbs and spices) for use in mixed drinks.

The American version of the shrub has its origins in 17th century England where vinegar was used as an alternative to citrus juices in the preservation of berries and other fruits for the off-season. Fruit preserves made in this fashion were themselves known as shrubs and the practice carried over to colonial America.

The first citation for shrub is 1747, in the OED, however the word was in use before that. In Martha Washington’s, Book of Cookery, written before 1709 there is a shrub receipt. (See Receipt’s- Drinks)

Vicky and Barbara put together Hanna Glasse’s asparagus forced in rolls.Untitled-7 copy

Allan took a picture of our spring feast, chine of stuffed pork, apple sauce, fiddlehead ferns, asparagus forced in rolls and rhubarb shrub.

Vicky gives us a lesson on 18th century eating habits.untitled-11-copy

The Banniet Tort came out of the oven and was delightful, with all the fruit and tender crêpes wrapped in a crisp pastry. A fitting ending for a dinner well made.Untitled-12copy

We had fun and experienced an array of receipts with many spring herbs and greens, and produced a wonderful meal.

HAPPY SPRING

Sandie

 “A Receipt is but a Promise of a Dish, but the Dish is the Measure of its Cook.”   John Saturnall’s Feast