The Thorngrove Table

A Tudor Tarte of Prunes

As requested, here is the recipe for the prune tartlets from last fortnight's afternoon tea:

To make a Tarte of Prunes. Take Prunes and wash them, then boil them with faire water, cut in halfe a peny loaf of white bread, and take them out and strain them with Claret wine, season it with sinamon, Ginger and Sugar, and a little Rosewater, make the paste as fine as you can, and dry it, and fill it, and let it drie in the oven, take it out and cast on it Biskets and Carawaies.

Modern Redaction
1x 410gm can prunes in syrup / 350 g dried prunes
100 g fresh white breadcrumbs
200 ml red wine
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
100 g sugar
1 Tb rosewater
Short Pastry

1. Preheat the oven to GM 7/425°F/220°C.GM 7/425°F/220°C.
2. Soak dried prunes for a couple of hours, or preferably overnight. This step isn't necessary for canned prunes in syrup.
3. Preheat the oven to GM 7/425°F/220°C.GM 7/425°F/220°C.
4. Line a flan or pie dish with the pastry. Small individual tartlets are also ideal as this is very rich.
5. Bake pie case or tartlets blind at GM 7/425°F/220°C for 15 minutes or so until a light golden colour.
6. Remove baking beans/beads and paper and turn the oven down.
7. Simmer the prunes for 10 - 15 minutes until tender.
8. Drain and stone the prunes. Don't forget to do this!
9. Blend the prunes and other ingredients together to form a smooth thick paste.
10. Spoon the filling into the pastry case/s. The prune mixture will puff up, so don't overfill.
11. Bake at GM4/350°F/180°C for 1 hour - 1 hour 30 minutes (tartlets will require less time than a single tart).
12. Serve either hot or cold.

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Bibliography:
BREARS, Peter Food and cooking in C16th Britain: History and Recipes English Heritage Food Series, 1985.
This contains the original recipe which comes from the Tudor cookbook "A.W.: A Book of Cookrye Very necessary for all such as delight therin".

Idiot-proof Coconut & Lime Macaroons and what not to use in Meringues

I call these macaroons 'idiot-proof' because, well, not the world's greatest baker here, but these turn out beautifully.

One of the problems with making Tart de Bry is that you have heaps and heaps of egg white left over. Meringues and macaroons seem the natural solution and this recipe has one of my favourite taste combinations - the tangy sourness of lime paired with coconut (yes, I'm a big fan of Piña Coladas too). The texture is also wonderful - a crunchy and crumbly exterior melting into a moist interior.

As well as the lime icing over the coconut macaroons, the original recipe suggested topping them with chopped pistachios. However I personally don't usually have pistachios in the pantry (plus it also struck me as being a bit of a taste overkill and somewhat twee). The original recipe was in "The Cookie Book" by Catherine Atkinson, but I've fiddled around with the amounts a little:

Coconut & Lime Macaroons
Macaroon ingredients
3 large egg whites
2 cups shredded dessicated coconut (sweet)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 Tb flour

Icing ingredients
1 cup icing sugar
1 grated lime - rind thereof
2 Tb lime juice

1. Heat the oven to 180F/350C/GM4.


2. Mix all the macaroon ingredients together.


3. Put in a pan over a low heat and cook for about 6 - 8 minutes, stirring continuously. 


4. Remove when the mixture has the consistency of thick porridge.


5. Put down baking parchment or (best still!) silicon baking sheets on an oven tray.


6. Dollop a large tablespoon of the mixture onto the sheet and mould into a little mound. I got 12 macaroons from this amount.


7. Bake the macaroons about 15 minutes or so, until they turn golden brown.


8. Leave them to cool completely while still on the baking sheets.


9. In the meantime, mix together the icing ingredients. You want the icing to be the consistency of extra thick cream.


10. Dribble a couple of teaspoons of the icing over each cool macaroon (if you do it whilst they are still warm the cookies are saturated too much with the icing).


11. Leave icing to harden (if you have the patience) then eat! Totally scrumptious.

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I also made some Almond Macaroons, from Nigella Lawson's recipe in "How to Eat" (p.20). These turned out tasting - as well as looking - pretty darn nice, which pleased me.

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Just to break my winning baking streak however, the Meringues (also Nigella Lawson's recipe which I have previously made with great success) were a disaster. I wanted to make brown sugar meringues, but had no brown sugar. Oh well, thought I, I'll just powderize some Demerara sugar and use that instead. Should be prettymuch the same result.

BZZZZZZT!!! Wrong!

The sugar sunk the beaten egg whites. I ended up a spooning brown eggwhite liquid the consistency of cream into tin tartlet cases. They came out of the oven with a wonderful little hollow tent of crunchy meringue - and at the bottom of the case that soggy mass of sugar which anyone who's flunked Meringue School is familiar with. Blah.

A quick search of the web gives me a probable reason for the failure:

"...Demerara sugars [are] unrefined or raw sugar coated with molasses and processed into crystals or cubes of sugar during the first crystallization of the cane syrup. As a crystal particle its size is larger, the texture is coarser and it is stickier than refined sugar... When using the refined demerara sugar in baked goods, be aware that it has similar properties of honey, slowing down the reaction with the yeast during the early stages of the dough rising."

"This type of [soft] Brown Sugar... is basically a refined white sugar or sugar syrup with molasses added in varying amounts to produce a darker colored and stronger tasting sugar. The various colors (light to dark) of this sugar will contain from 1% to 4% cane syrup that has not been refined out of the sugar contents. The lighter the color of the Brown Sugar, the less syrup contained in the sugar. Thus, the ligher colored sugars will have a texture that is more granular and less moist. The flavor of the lighter colored sugars will not be as complex as the darker colored surgars and will be sweeter tasting. As a rule, the lighter the color, the less intense the molasses flavor in the sugar. However, lighter or darker soft Brown Sugars can be substituted for each other as long as the recipe does not require more than 1/4 cup of sugar.

Brown Sugar can be substituted for white sugar, resulting in a more moist baked good providing a flavor with a hint of butterscotch. It is not advisable to substitute liquid or granulated brown sugar for soft Brown Sugar, since the moisture content of soft brown sugar is higher, providing a different texture in the baked goods than can be achieved using other types of Brown Sugar." - Recipetips.com

We live and learn! Soft Brown Sugar only next time. Though the little tented parts were delicious, so it might be interesting to see if I could repeat the result, using a thin layer of the meringue liquid over some sort of fruit or curd tart.

Afternoon Tea & tasty discoveries

Saturday I went to a lovely afternoon tea with some friends. Johanna of The Passionate Cook organised it; she has just had a baby and as she is feeling the lack of culinary outings, her solution is for Mohammed to go to the mountain. I'm certainly not complaining - I had a great deal of fun talking cooking, cooking, and yes, more cooking! and the food (somewhat unsurprisingly) was fantastic. The other attendees were Jeanne of Cook Sister!, Jennifer who runs her own cooking school, Eat Drink Talk, and Susan who runs her own catering company, Joy of Taste.

I made Brie Tartlets and Prune Tartlets, and there was also Smoked Salmon on Ryebread with wasabi cream cheese, Beef Carpaccio Sandwiches with garlic mayonnaise & parmesan cheese, Chive Mini Scones with ham, mascapone and red onion marmalade, Myer Lemon Curd, Ham & Cheese Paprika Muffins, Fruit Scones with a variety of tasty preserves & clotted cream, Almond Pansyshell Cookies, and Fruit & Custard Tartlets. All of it tasted gorgeous.

. .

I was particularly pleased to finally get a taste of a Myer Lemon. I've heard a lot about them from American cooking friends, but I've never seen them in the UK. Jennifer says they are rather like a cross between a mandarin and a lemon (the curd was definitely an orange shade of yellow) and they have a thinner skin. The curd was delicious and definitely sweeter than a normal lemon. I'm now wondering if they can be grown in the *cough* sunny climes of Berkshire...

Jennifer also brought along a new import from Borough Market - a Finger Lime (Citrus australasica). At first glance I took it to be some sort of gherkin, but it's a cylindrical shaped lime, about an inch in diameter and three inches long. It has very large globular vesicles (the little seedlike juice-filled sacs you get in citrus fruit) and apparently is marketed as 'lime caviar'. The taste was amazing - a real punch of lime, without the bitter aftertaste.

As Jennifer said, it would be perfect as a garnish or in cocktails. It seems that they grow in shades of green and red (although the taste is the same) and I can just imagine how lovely it would be to have little lime and ruby droplets glowing on a dish. They would be just as pretty as pomegranate seeds, and without the pip too! I'd never even heard of this fruit before (apparently it only grows in lowland rainforests in Eastern Australia) and have to say - as an ardent lime fan - that I was completely enthralled with it. Jeanne and I are planning to visit Borough Market on Easter Saturday, so I will try to find some.

~

P.S. For those of you in London, both the Myer Lemons and the Finger Limes can occasionally be found at Borough Market at Booths Mushrooms, the large fruit & veggie stall opposite the Brindisa stall on Rochester Walk.

Waiter, There's Something In My... Easter Basket: C.14th Tart de Bry

Easter was an occasion of great celebration in medieval times in the Western Christian world - not just for religious reasons, but for culinary reasons also. It was the termination of Lent, the seemingly endless 'tithe days of the year', meaning no more preserved dried fish! Meat, eggs, cheese, milk and butter were back on the menu; fasting was finished and the single daily Lenten meal reverted back to two official daily meals (and any number of smaller unofficial ones).

There was a practical reason for Lent in addition to its purpose of religious penance - it was the end of winter. Food was scarce, with medieval households relying on the provisions stored and preserved during autumn. By early spring, the chickens would not be laying many eggs, the majority of the cheese and salt meat will have been eaten, the only surviving animals were being kept to breed and the cows wouldn't be giving milk yet.

By the end of Lent, all the new shoots and vegetables would be coming into season, the chickens would be laying again and the animals breeding and producing milk, making for a magnificent feast at the end of the fasting.

One of the dishes that would have been a sure fire hit at Eastertide is my offering to this month's "Waiter, There's Something In My... Easter basket" challenge - an egg & cheese tart from the fourteenth century. This is an English recipe (once again, taken from "The Forme of Cury", cookbook of Richard II's chefs), which specifies 'chese ruayn'. This means cheese from Ruayn or rather, modern day Rouen. This was apparently being a soft fresh cheese rather like a modern-day rindless Brie. I actually made these for an afternoon tea as individual tartlets (and must admit to overcooking them a little!). They puff up into beautiful golden mounds and work very well like this because as well as being pretty and delicious, they're also rather rich.

Tart de Bry. Take a crust ynche depe in a trap. Take 3olkes of ayren rawe & chese ruayn & medle it & Þe 3olkes togyder. Do Þerto powdour ginger, sugur, safroun, and salt. Do it in a trap; bake it & serue it forth.

Brie Tart
1 wedge of Brie, de-crusted
8 egg yolks
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp normal sugar*
4 threads saffron
¼ tsp salt
Short Pastry **

1. Soak the saffron in a tablespoon or so of lukewarm milk or water for at least 10 minutes. This softens it and releases the flavour.
2. Chop the Brie into ½ inch cubes.
3. Mix the eggs together but don't beat them.
4. Mix together the eggs and cheese.
5. Add the ginger, sugar, saffron and salt.
6. Line a flan or pie dish or small individual tartlets with the pastry.
7. Bake the tart for 30 - 40 minutes at GM5/375°F/190°C.
8. After 25 minutes, check the tarts every 5 minutes or so. They are baked when the top goes golden and pastry browned.
9. Serve either hot or cold.

* The sugar here is used mainly to bring out the flavour, like salt or MSG, rather than as a sweetener.
** I got 14 tartlets from half a block of Saxby's Shortcrust Pastry i.e. aprx. 250 gm. I also used the small tin disposable tartlet cases.

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Bibliography:
HIEATT, Constance B. & BUTLER, Sharon. (transcription) ANONYMOUS Curye on Inglysch (includes 'The Forme of Cury') London, Oxford Early English Text Society, 1985.
WILSON, C.Anne Food and Drink in Britain Penguin Books, 1973, reprint 1984 ISBN 0-14-046.546-4