Tag Archives: Oysters

Historic Deerfield Workshop

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HISTORIC DEERFIELD COOKS

After a year of going back and forth with venues and dates and who was available, Claire Carlson the Education Program Coordinator of Historic Deerfield set the day.  On Monday 28 of March, Claire and the Deerfield hearth cooks arrived at my door.  It was rainy cool and perfect for a day of hearth cooking

Claire had asked specificity for several things.  To make Lumber Pie and show everyone how to make a receipt that had many parts to it. They wanted to stretch their creative minds.  So out came the coffin forms and all the stations were set up and ready for them when they arrived.1

First to arrive were Cynitha, Richard and Beth.  They started right in.  I needed the marrow bones to be taking care of and the lumber pie and we will be needing to start on the  Naples Biscuits for our orange fool.3

Shortly after the rest of the group came in and we went right to work dividing tasks.1a copy

Laura  started in on the Forme of Crury reciept for  Flampoyntes. She browned the pork added sweet spices and graded  a soft cheeses . This would be put into Traps, know as open coffins.10

Ellen  made  Robert Smiths, Paste -Royal, this pastry would go with the Flampoynets.  Laura was done with the meat filling and made a pie crust that we used later for the coffin tops.  Claire and Melinda made the filling for a fish coffin. 

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The shrimp was boiled and the only fish that was cooked was the cod. The cod needed to be beaten in the mortar and pestle and mixed with the stuffing mix Melinda had made.7

Richard liked the nutmeg grater and added the ground nutmeg into the  forced meat.  Cynitha took the force meat and made meat balls with a small nugget of marrow in the center.  Then that was wrapped in caul and fried in sweet oil.5

Beth  put the Naples Biscuits in the bake kettle and when they were done they sat on the edge of the bake oven to dry out for her orange fool. I took them off when they were ready.

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While Claire cut the salmon Melinda peels the shrimp.  Claire is not fond of shell fish and Melinda has no problem, so they were a great team.

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With the Paste Royal made Cynitha rolled the paste and cuts it in to long diamonds.8

Many helped fry the small points and drain them for use later.

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With all the fillings made and all the ingredients ready  I talked the group thru the process of making the coffin dough. 

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Everyone measured out their flour then one by one poured in the melted lard and butter. This was stirred with a spoon and then when cool enough, made into a ball and placed on the work surface.

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We made three dough’s  and Beth prepared the egg wash for the coffins, then the kneading began.

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 Ten minutes not a second less.

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Then  the dough gets wrapped in linen and sits for ten minutes.

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Now the fun starts. The dough is flattened, both the form and dough get’s lots of flour. Then the shaping begins. 

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Clair and Melinda’s fish form is quite large so  paper was use around the edges to hold it up before it was filled with many layers of salmon, oysters, shrimp, and a force meat of cod. 17cpy

Then it was dotted with butter and slices of lemons put over it all.  Using the Laura’s pie dough a top was cut out and pinched on with the egg wash.

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Forced meat balls, grapes, eggs, figs , dates, leeks, mushrooms, shallots and spices all layered in the Lumber Pie.  A lid of pie crust and it was ready for the  bake oven.18 copy

 The third coffin dough was divided in five pieces and Beth, Cynitha and Laura each worked to make the shallow Traps.

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Melinda smiles at the well decorated fish.  Many hands helped putting scales on the top and an eye to. She waits to put it in the bake oven right in front of the Lumber Pie, The traps went into the bake kettle.

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Beth and Clair read the receipt from Hannah Glass, Orange Pudding, Another Way.  Orange pudding was so popular that she has four receipts for it. The centers needed to be taken out of the oranges and Melinda starts on it.

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They need to be boiled to remove some of the bitterness from the peel.

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Beth made a filling and remarked that it is just like a bread pudding. And yes that is what it is, only you use Naples biscuits instead of bread. Then you stuff the hollow oranges and  replace the top. They go into a linen sack and get tied very tightly. 23 copy

They were boiled in a large cauldron and when cooled taken out for the table.  Sadly I did not get a picture of one on the plate ready to eat.  But I can tell you they were delicious.24 copy

Time to take out the coffins, the fish looks ready to swim away with its scales, and the Lumber pie stood tall still. 

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The Flampoyntes were taken out of the bake kettle and the points put in by Cynthia.  The center trap one was made up of left over lumber pie filling.

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Half way through the day Richard mentions he’s a vegetarian —- most of the time. So I had him make the compound salad.  He used dandelion greens and field greed, daicon radish, carrots, a golden beet, that someone cooked, hard boiled eggs and made a dressing with the left over oranges juice and sweet oil. On the side was a bowl of anchovies left over from the fish coffin.  You don’t get better than this at a restaurant. He did a lovely presentation.

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Claire and Cynthia made leers for their coffins and some were poured in and the coffin shaken.  The rest was served on the side.

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Time to open the tops of the coffins and dig into them with their layers of distinct flavors.29 copy

The traps were cut in half and served.

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What a wonderful group of hearth cooks I had a great time working with them.  Cynthia said she was going home with three new ideas and Richard was very interested in the way Allan did the wood. I do hope the others took something home also. 

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Sandie

“Secrets, especially with cooking, are best shared so that the cuisine lives on.”

         Bo Songvisava

 Dear Sandie:

We had a fabulous time at the coffin workshop. You are a skilled teacher, gracious host, and diligent task master! Some of our hearth cooks still see themselves as novices, even with almost five years hearth cooking experience. This workshop was JUST what they needed — to experience the multi-step process of preparing a receipt with a lot of steps, ingredients, and techniques to think about. I think their minds were blown (in a good way!)

Clair

Charles Carter – To Roast a Pike

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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.”

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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

ROAST LAMB

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I have never cooked a lamb roast before. For most of my life a disliked the smell of lamb, and could not be in a house that was cooking it. I just recently, for some unknown reasons have fallen in love with lamb chops, which my husband roasts in the oven. For several months I’ve been thinking of other ways to use lamb. Greek shish kabobs came to mind, however, I haven’t found a receipt I like yet. While shopping at the store, I saw they had a lamb roast on sale, and into the basket it went.

Off to the office and to the bookshelf with my early Cookery Booke’s. I spent several days hemming and hawing over the different receipts in my books. I went online to Project Gutenberg’s and found what I wanted, “Leg of Mutton with Oysters.” This receipt is from the The English Art of Cookery, by Richard Briggs, 1788. I liked it because it would give me the opportunity to try wrapping a roast with paper and then frothing it. Also it had oyster stuffed inside and, in this household, we all love oysters.

While looking for the receipt, I received a call from the blacksmith, he had my antique andirons fixed and ready to be picked up. I found these andirons in Connecticut, thanks to good friends, and they had hooks in the front for a spit so one could roast in front of the fire. They needed to be repaired and the hooks were in bad shape.

 

Russell Pope did a great job of fixing them and I cannot wait to use them. You see them here, on the right, in front of the beams and wood floor that will go into the new kitchen. I bought the andirons for the new cooking fireplace. However, it won’t be done for a month (OH, PLEASE!) so why not use them in the small fireplace? Well, it turned out that there was a very good reason to not use them. My daughter was coming for dinner and she was bringing her black lab. Visions of a dog with a burnt tongue and half a roast missing ran through my head. The tin kitchen will have to do.

In many of the cookbooks, they have receipts of sauces, so I quickly looked for something to use for the lamb. I came up with To make Roasted Gravy from The Complete Practical Cook by Charles Carter, 1730. Now when it comes to gravy, Allan is the gravy master. I handed him the job. First he had to shuck the oysters for the roast, and to halve them, while we were preparing. The freezer and shelf are well-stocked with stock and anything else he might need. While I was at it, I let my daughter be in charge of the roasted asparagus.

With everyone busy, I began working on the roast. It came tied up and had fat on one side, so I larded the other side with bacon lard. I love it when I can use my larding pin; it is such a nifty kitchen tool.

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With the larding complete, I cut holes into the roast to stuff the oysters in. Holey moley, oysters are slippery. Trying to push them in was a struggle. I ended up using a small melon baller to scoop them up and in then quickly wrapped the roast in paper before they slid out. I had given much thought to the paper I would use to wrap the roast. Back in the 17th and 18th Centuries, they would use something like our watercolor paper. Well, I don’t have a piece of paper that large, so I could use a brown paper bag or parchment paper. Again I had a vision; this time of a paper page in flames. Okay, parchment paper. I know that will work, and I’ll have no worries with it going up in flames. One of the reasons you use paper on a roast is to have it act like a pressure cooker to speed up cooking. Now most receipts are feeding a large amount of people, not so in my house. However, I wanted to try the technique.

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Once again I enlisted Allan, as he is very good at tying a roast together. And I wanted to make sure the oysters stayed in. After it was tied we put it on the skewer in the tin oven. The fire was ready and throwing plenty of heat.

 

 

The roast was just over 2 ½ pounds and I knew it would cook quickly, I turned it every five minutes, and each time the juice poured into the bottom of the tin oven. I had a container underneath to save all the juices for adding to the sauce Allan made. After 20 minutes, we took off the paper and I began basting every few minutes as I turned the roast. By now the oysters were baked inside and not falling out. Then came the fun part, frothing. Would it work? I filled a shaker with flour and spices and put it on as I once more turned the roast. (Oh, for a spit jack.)

 

Yes, it did work. If I had a bigger roast I would have had more frothing. However, I was really afraid I’d ruin the roast by overcooking. Everyone here wants rare meat. You can see just a hint of froth starting on the left.

I will try this again when I have cooking classes and many more mouths to feed.

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With Allan’s sauce mixed with the drippings, he carved the roast. It was done to perfection. Now, how would it taste? Well, it was spectacular; the oysters added a wonderful depth of flavor, and the basting gave crispness to the edges.

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My family was delighted with the meal, and I could not have been happier with the experience of frothing.

I wonder if I can find an 18th Century receipt for shish kabobs?

Sandie