Terese and Adele's Peerless Kitchen Journal

High Gothic French Feast (Proposed Menu)

2009-07-20T02:49:39Z

Most of the dishes have been sourced from Du Fait de Cuisine, Le Menagier de Paris and Ouverture de Cuisine with a couple from other sources.
The first and second courses will be coming out very close together, with a long gap after the third course so that the entertainment has sufficent time to do it's thing.

First Course
Red Salad
Green Salad
Salted Olives
Fresh Fruit

Second Course
Pea Pottage
Hungarian Chicken Stew
Scallops with White Garlic Sauce
Lozyns
Mushroom Pies

Third Course
Roast Beef with Green sauce and ?? sauce
Frumenty
Carrots with honeyed walnuts
Grilled Fish with ?? sauce
Leafy Tart
Crayfish (if we can get them)

Fourth Course
Caudle
Wafers
Chirseye
Sambocade

Issue de table
Comfits
Fruit (fresh and candied)
Nuts
Marzipan
Hippocras

Savoury Muffins

2009-06-09T08:01:26Z

I will delete this if I deem them a failure:
preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius

in a big bowl:
2 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups milk
MIX

you will then need to crumble 30 gm of blue cheese
finely chop 3/4 cup celery
1/4 cup spring onion
3 slices of ham (all fat removed), chopped
200 gm grated tasty cheese

Add 4 cups of flour, 4 teaspoons of baking powder, 2 teaspoons of paprika and dump in the the other stuff. mix til just blended. Spoon into standard sized muffin cups not the silly giant ones, 20 - 25 minutes.

Beast's Mother's Baked Beans

2009-04-13T06:58:47Z

1lb haricot beans
1/4 lb salt pork (or fat bacon, speck, etc.), thinly sliced
1 large onion, sliced thinly
1-1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vinegar
1 tsp mustard powder
1/4 c treacle or blackstrap molasses
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 c Heinz ketchup

Soak beans overnight or bring to the boil and let cool 30 min. Drain. Put onions in a large baking dish, followed by beans. Lay the salt pork over the beans. Mix the remaining ingredients with a cup or two of hot water and pour over the beans. Add enough additional hot water to cover. Bake at 275F/140C with the lid on until beans are tender, stirring occasionally and adding additional water as necessary. After 5 hours, remove 1 cup of beans, mash, and stir back into the pan.

Alternately, you can do this in the slow cooker.

Serve with brown bread and salad-- yum!

Al-Andalus Cheesy Poufs

2009-03-02T20:27:11Z

Recipe for Mujabbana (Fried Cheese Pie)
Know that mujabbana isn't prepared with only one cheese, but of two; that is, of cow's and sheep's milk cheese. Because if you make it with only sheep cheese, it falls apart and the cheese leaves it and it runs. And if you make it with cow's cheese, it binds, and lets the water run and becomes one sole mass and the parts don't separate. The principle in making it is that the two cheeses bind together. Use one-fourth part cow's milk and three-quarters of sheep's. Knead all until [p. 64, recto] some binds with its parts another [Huici Miranda observes that this passage is faintly written and only a few letters can be made out] and becomes equal and holds together and doesn't run in the frying pan, but without hardening or congealing. If you need to soften it, soften it with fresh milk, recently milked from the cow. And let the cheese not be very fresh, but strong without...[words missing]...that the moisture has gone out of. Thus do the people of our land make it in the west of al-Andalus, as in Cordoba and Seville and Jerez, and elsewhere in the the land of the West [here written as al-Maghrib].

Manner of Making it
Knead wheat or semolina flour with some yeast into a well-made dough and moisten it with water little by little until it loosens. If you moisten it with fresh milk instead of water it is better, and easy, inasmuch as you make it with your palm. Roll it out and let it not have the consistency of mushahhada, but firmer than that, and lighter than musammana dough. When the leaven begins to enter it, put the frying pan on the fire with a lot of oil, so that it is drenched with what you fry it with. Then wet your hand in water and cut off a piece of the dough. Bury inside it the same amount of rubbed cheese. Squeeze it with your hand, and whatever leaves and drains from the hand, gather it up [? the meaning of this verb eludes me] carefully. Put it in the frying pan while the oil boils. When it has browned, remove it with an iron hook prepared for it and put it in a dipper ["iron hand"] similar to a sieve held above the frying pan, until its oil drips out. Then put it on a big platter and dust it with a lot of sugar and ground cinnamon. There are those who eat it with honey or rose syrup and it is the best you can eat.

My Recipe
1Tbsp dried yeast
1tsp malt syrup (or sugar)
1/4c warm water
3c milk warmed to blood temperature
up to 10c. flour
400g mild feta or similar, cut into chunks
150g mild cow's milk cheese (edam, young provolone, asiago-- even colby will do in a pinch), grated or finely chopped
oil for frying
cinnamon
sugar

Combine the first three ingredients and let stand ten minutes *or* substitute sourdough starter. Combine the leavening with the warm milk and work in enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead until smooth and very springy, ~250-300 strokes. Put the dough in a clean, oiled bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk.

Mash the feta in a bowl and mix in the other cheese. It should all cling together, but if it seems a bit dry and crumbly, you can add a drop or two of milk to the mix.

Punch down the dough and knead a few strokes. To form the mujabbana, break off a bit of dough about the size of a ping-pong ball. Make a hollow in it with your thumb and put in a spoonful of cheese. Then seal the dough *thoroughly* around the filling. Shallow-fry in about half an inch of oil or deep fry until golden. Drain and sprinkle with plenty of cinnamon and sugar. Makes around 40. Does *not* freeze or reheat well.

Draft menu for Baronial Ann

2009-03-01T07:28:58Z

First Course
Onion sops
Chicken salad with apples
Tart of cheese
Salmon with butter sauce
Green salad with cucumbers

Second course
Lamb stew with dried fruit
Fried Mushrooms
Cauliflower in a piquant butter sauce
Orange rice
Baked ham with a prune sauce
Sausages
Pickles

Last course
Stewed pears
Grapes
Hard cheese
Wafers
Custard (Norfolk fool?)
Hyppocras or mulled cider
Candied spices

Orange Jelly

2009-02-21T09:24:53Z

soak one tablespoon gelatine in 1/4 cup cold water. Dissolve it in 1/2 cup of boiling water. Add and stir until dissolved 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Add 6 tablespoon of lemon juice and 1 1/2 cups of orange juice. Pour jelly into a wet mold. Chill.

Vanilla Icecream

2009-02-21T08:29:24Z

This icecream does not require an ice cream maker
1 1/4 cups cream
2 eggs
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence or 1 tablespoon of sherry (or cointreau ets)

separate eggs and put yolks in a double boiler with icing sugar and 1/4 cup of cream. Cook over boiling water until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Chill. Add essence
Whip until thickened, but not stiff, the remaining cup of cream.
In a new bowl whip egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold the cream and custard into the egg whites and freeze in a container with a lid.
lasts about 4 days

Jenny's Barley Kasha

2009-02-19T08:55:55Z

Mushroom Kasha (3-4) helpings

Kasha is a traditional dish in Russia and Poland. It can be made with buckwheat groats or pearl barley. This version uses barley. It is pleasant looking and tasting dish with an earthy nutty flavour, a little reminiscent of wild rice. I find it goes very well with sausages, gammon and braised pigeon. The original recipe uses dried mushrooms, which have a pungent flavour and smell of their own, but I have substituted the ordinary cultivated variety with satisfactory results. The only difference in preparation is that the dried kind need preliminary soaking in warm water.

½ lb pearl barley, 1 oz dried or ¼ lb cultivated mushrooms, 1-2 oz butter, salt and pepper to taste, 2 Tbs grated cheese, 1 egg

First beat up the egg and stir it into the barley, so that the grains are well coated, and leave to dry. Soak the mushrooms (if you are using dried mushrooms) in one pint of warm salted water. Then simmer them, covered, in the same water for ¼ hour or until tender. With cultivated mushrooms, wipe and slice them, then simmer in one pint salted water covered for quarter of an hour. In both cases pour the mushroom liquor into a bowl, put the mushrooms aside and return the cooking liquor to pan. Put a lump of butter into the pan and simmer until melted. Then add the barley and cover and simmer very slowly for 10 mins, stirring from time to time. Now transfer the contents of the pan to a small heavy casserole with a lid. Cast iron pots were originally used for cooking Kasha but earthenware makes a good substitute. Mix in the mushrooms, cut into small strips, a pinch of salt and a sprinkling of pepper. Put on the lid and bake in a moderate oven, gas 4, 350 F, 180 C for one hour. Before serving stir in another lump of butter and the grated cheese.

Cranberry Sauce - a Guide for the Perplexed

2009-01-02T01:39:50Z

Basic tips:
Don't let anyone tell you you need to add water. You don't.
This produces a jammy sauce with seeds and skins left in-- the cranberry variety we get in NZ hardly has any skin anyway.

1 bag frozen cranberries (335g or similar)
1 smallish orange, cut into small pieces including the peel (remove the pips)
3/4c. sugar
1 cinnamon stick (optional)

Put the sugar in a heavy-bottomed pot, followed by the oranges, cinnamon and the cranberries. Don't try to stir it-- just leave it in layers. Cook over a low heat until everything starts to collapse and there's liquid in the bottom. Then stir and cook until the cranberries have all burst. Remove the cinnamon. Serve hot or cold with turkey.

Qunce paste

2008-10-19T02:39:48Z

Take two kgs quinces and cut them into chunks (don't peel or core them ). Put them in a big heavy bottomed pot with the juice of two lemons and 2 cups of water. Place on stove and simmer with lid on til quinces are soft (watch carefully, Anna and nearly scorched ours). Leave to cool. Spoend forever pushing quince much through moulee (food mill, baby food maker). This gets rid of skins, seeds etc. Now weigh you resulting mush. Put it into a large heavy bottomed pot with equal weight of sugar, heat up slowly to dissolve sugar and boil gently, stirring lots until really thick and pink. It will spit hot paste around dangerously. Pour into baking pans lined with silicone paper and place in 50 degree oven over night to dry it out. Cannot be frozen, will keep in fridge for a long time in plastic containers.

Taddea/Meredith

chocolate prune and cherry cake

2008-09-22T08:39:03Z

As featured at Tina and Dan's wedding.

for a square 9 inch cake (I doubled this recipe for a 12 inch round)
3/4 cup of butter
1 1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups raisins
2 cups prunes
1 c red glace cherries

preheat oven to 150 celsius. Grease your cake tin, line it with silicon paper, grease it again. Soak the raisins in hot water til plump, drain. place in a medium bowl with cherries and roughly chopped prunes (halved is fine). Add 1/2 Cup flour and stir. This coating will prevent the fruit from clumping. In a large bowl cream butter and sugar. Add the cocoa and mix. Stir in milk then eggs. Add flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir. Add fruit. Pour into cake pan. Will take at least one hour to ake. Test for doneness with a skewer. Cool mostly in pan.
Taddea

Taddea's steak and cheese pie quest

2008-08-13T09:10:59Z

I am trying to make a good steak and cheese pie. The important part is the filling. here is what i have done so far>
sliced 4 large onions and fried til transluscent in grapeseed oil. Cubed 3 kg shin beef and browned. chucked into slow cooker with three beef oxo cubes, 40 ML worcester sauce, 1 350 ml bottle of lager.
I intend to cook it over night.
Edited post will follow once pying has happened

Another day, another menu

2008-05-21T04:30:20Z

This one's from Lochac May Crown A.S. XLIII

Premiere Assiette
Pommeaulx - meatballs
Souppe de poulaille - chicken sops
Le cresson et le soret au vinaigre - cress and mint with vinegar
De Pois Nouveaulx - new peas
Le Pain au Beurre - bread and butter

Seconde assiette
Porc Rosti - roast pork
Hericot de Mouton - mutton haricot
Bettes blanches et bettes noires - white beets and black beets
Garroites - carrots
Ris - rice

Tiers mets
Gaufres et fromage - wafers and cheese
Pommes rotis - roast apples
Dates et Nois - dates and nuts
Pastez nourroys - Norse Pies

Notes on Canterbury Faire XLII Feast

2008-02-06T22:56:59Z

This isn't 100% complete-- I'm without my copy of Platina, so I'll have to edit this later to add the rest of the text I referred to)

First Course

Fennel Salad
(I sliced the fennel bulbs very thinly and dressed them with white balsamic vinegar and olive oil.)

Seasoned Salad
There may be likewise a seasoned salad from lettuce, borage, mint, calamint, fennel, parsley, wild thyme, marjoram, chervil, sow-thistle, which doctors call taraxicon, lancet, which they call lamb’s tongue, night-shade, flower of fennel, and several other aromatic herbs, well-washed and with the water pressed out. They need a large dish. They ought to be sprinkled with a lot of salt and moistened with oil, then after vinegar has been poured over and when they have sat for a little, their wild toughness demands eating and chewing well with the teeth. This dish requires more oil and less vinegar. It is more suitable in winter than in summer because it requires more digestion, which is strong in winter.

I didn't have access to this exact mix of greens and herbs, so we dressed mesclun mix with oil, vinegar, and salt

Tuna with Honey
Season fresh tuna with ground pepper, cinnamon, and coriander, onion cooked and cut up, vinegar, honey, and oil. X.2

This is one of the best things I ever cooked. For a dressing, I toasted coriander seeds in a pan and then crushed them coarsely. I combined roughly equal quantities of honey, olive oil, and red wine vinegar and then stirred in the coriander. I sprinkled tuna steaks well with cinnamon and pepper and seared them with oil in a fairly hot pan, leaving them somewhat pink in the centre. To serve, I sliced the steaks into strips and topped them with some sauteed white onion and poured a little of the dressing over it.

Prosciutto
Melon
Grapes

Bread
The same baker should mix as much flour with warm water as is enough to make a bun and then put into the mixture fennel seeds and chopped bits of lard, or butter, or otherwise oil, and mix again as long as necessary to bring it all into a single mass. Then he should press it into a round shape with his hands and put it in the oven with the bread, or he may bake it on the hearth under a lid covered with ashes and coals. I.15)

Owing to allergy concerns and presence of vegetarians, I skipped the fennel seeds and used olive oil where I might have chosen lard otherwise.

Candied Nuts
The nobler and rich eat [pine nuts] often in Lent at the first and last course. Sugar is melted, and pine nuts are in it with a scoop and made into the shape of a pastille. III.4

This was a little out of my depth, so what I actually served was pistachio nougat.

Stuffed Eggs
Cook fresh eggs for a long time so that they are hard, then take the egg from the shell and split it through the middle, so as not to lose any of the white. After you have taken out the yolk, grind up part of it with good cheese, aged as well as fresh, and raisins; save the other part to color the dish. Likewise add a little finely chopped parsley, marjoram and mint. There are those who also put in two or more egg whites, along with some spices. With this mixture fill the whites of the eggs and when they are stuffed, fry them over a gentle flame, in oil. When they are fried, make a sauce from the rest of the yolks and raisins ground together, and
when you have moistened them in verjuice and must, add ginger, clove, and cinnamon and pour over the eggs and let them boil a little together. IX.28

This recipe was drastically simplified. We boiled the eggs and split them. The yolks were combined with grape juice, verjuice, raisins, parsley, marjoram, and mint. Then the eggs were stuffed and sprinkled with spices.

Second Course

Meat Roll from Tame Animals
...take as much lean meat as you want and cut it up fine with small knives. Mix veal fat into this meat as well as spices. When it has been wrapped in thin crusts, bake in an oven. When they are almost cooked, put on the roll two egg yolks separated from the white and beaten with a paddle with a little verjuice and very rich juice. Some add a bit of saffron for looks. This roll can even be made in a well-greased pan without a crust. VI.9

We made this as small meat loaves without crusts. Minced veal and lamb were combined in equal quantities, and the whole thing was seasoned with pepper, cinnamon, cloves and coriander.

Persian Relish
Thoroughly crush cleaned almonds with crumbed and softened bread. When they are crushed, add a little ginger and cinamon, then soak in verjuice, red wine, and juice of pomegranite and pass through a seive into a bowl or serving dishes. VIII.7

Roast Onions
Onion is also cooked under ash and cinders until it has breathed out all rawness. When it has cooled, it is cut up in bits, put on a plate and rolled in salt, oil, and condensed must, or must. Some even sprinkle pepper or cinnamon on onion. IV.17

Roast Beef with Fennel

Carrot Salad
The parsnip should be boiled twice, the first liquid thrown away and cooked the second time with lettuce. Then it is put on a plate and dressed with salt, vinegar, coriander, and pepper, and is very fit to serve... The carrot is prepared in the same way as the parsnip, but is considered more pleasant when cooked under warm ashes and coals...

We roasted whole carrots and then sliced them up. We dressed them with fresh coriander, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

Cucumbers
The two previous varieties are eaten cut up in pieces with salt, oil, and vinegar once the rind has been removed and the seeds dug out. Some sprinkle spices on them after they have been cut up in pieces to repress their chill. I.21

We added a little saffron for repression of chill

Lettuce
You season raw lettuce this way if it does not need washing, for that is more healthful than what has been washed in water; put it in a dish, sprinkle with ground salt, pour in a little oil and more vinegar and eat at once. Some add a little mint and parsley to it for seasoning so that it foes not seem entirely bland and the excessive chill of the lettuce does not harm the stomach. (IV.2)

The mint and parsley were good additions.

Roman Noodles
It ought to be cooked in rich and continually boiling broth, but if, at the time, it must be water, put in butter and salt. When it is cooked, it ought to be put in a pan with cheese, butter, sugar, and sweet spices. VII.43

We skipped the spices, since this was being served with well-spiced dishes. The cheese was mostly tangy young feta with a little provolone picante and some butter.

Catalan Mirrauste
The Catalans are a refined people who in character and customs are hardly unlike the Italians and skillful with food; they have a dish which they call mirause and prepare it thus: capons or pullets or pigeons well cleaned and washed they put together on a spit and turn over the hearth until they are half cooked. Then they remove them and cut them in pieces and put them in a pot. Then they chop almonds that have been toasted under warm ashes and cleaned with some cloth. To this they add some bread crumbs lightly toasted with vinegar and juice and pass all this through a strainer. This is all put in the same pot with cinnamon and ginger and a good amount of sugar and left to boil on the coals with a slow fire until it is done, all the time being stirred with a spoon so that it does not stick to the pot.VI.13

Because of the large quantity, we simmered this in the oven rather than in a pot.

Third course

Old Cheese
Wafers
Peaches
Cherries

Custard Pie
Make a little crust, as I described for rolls. Put in two well-beaten egg yolks, milk, cinnamon, sugar. Stir for a long time on the fire until it becomes thick. VIII.58

Candied Nuts
Figs

First Draft of Canterbury Faire Feast Menu

2007-11-05T02:40:01Z

All recipes are gleaned from Platina's On Right Pleasure and Good Health

First Course
a poached vegetable salad
fennel salad
tuna with honey
prosciutto with melon
fruit
bread
a pine nut pastry
stuffed eggs or egg ravioli

Second Course
Meat roll from tame animals with a Persian sauce and roast onions
veal birds with a sour sauce
carrot salad
cucumber salad
mixed greens salad
cheese noodles
a chicken dish (possibly a mig-raust)

Third course
old cheese
wafers
peaches or similar
cherries or similar
a custard tart
roasted nuts or candied nuts
figs
a biscuit or pastry

cocktail

2007-09-10T05:54:45Z

I have invented the oh my god
Adele and I needed a stiff drink after fininding phil's job is disappearing

60 ml cointreau
30 ml strained freshly squeezed lemon juice
30 ml monin coconut syrup
divide between two wine glasses and top off with soda water

Happy Winter Stew (mundane)

2007-07-21T03:27:13Z

1.5kg Stewing Grade Meat (Blade)
6 Carrots, topped and tailed, cut into chunks (unpeeled)
3 Large Onions
450mL Red Wine
3 Tablespoons Worestershire Sauce
300 gm quarted button mushrooms

Sautee Onions in a little oil until lightly browned. Put Carrots, Onions, Cubed Steak, Wine, mushrooms and Worestershire Sauce in a large casserole with a lid. Add 2 teaspoons of salt, stir, put the lid on and place in a 140 degree oven. cook for at least 3 hours. Popular with girls called Anna.
Good with mashed potato and vegies mmmm
Terese

Viking Feast @ Kessog last weekend

2007-06-04T11:15:08Z

Firstly the Dunedin Farmers Market is amazing alhough rather crowded even at 8.30 am. Our cheese, sausages and fruit and vegies all came from there

First course
Bread - Adele made this using ricebran oil so it was vegan friendly. She didn't want to do full on rye as she was teaching a class so she did like brown, mmmmmmmmmmm
pork sausages braised with beer, dried apples, and onions - Havoc sausags and organic green man beer
roast beef - rubbed with salt and mustard before cooking, nothing so yum as a whole rump
wilted greens with mustard seeds and a splash of wine vinegar
scrambled eggs
oyster mushrooms sauteed in butter with flat leaf parsley and pepper and a splash of vinegar (it just needed it) for the vegetarians

Second course
chicken stewed with coriander, mint, wine, broad beans
broad beans with mint, coriander, stewed in wine (vegie option)
roast carrots and parsnips
frumenty
fresh curds
pears and dried cherries stewed in mead and honey

Terese

Havoc Andouille Sausage Risotto

2007-04-11T10:53:49Z

Risotto Robusta

5 andouille sausages
olive oil
300 gm button mushrooms (chopped)
1 medium onion (chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (chopped finely)
2 cups of arborio rice
1/2 cup robust red wine (I used shiraz)
2 vegetable or other stock cubes
1 cup tomato puree
50 gm finely grated parmasen cheese
water
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

heat a little olive oil and cook the sausages in a large fryingpan. Remove and set aside. Saute the mushrooms and then set aside. Give the pan a quick clean and then add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and gently saute the onions and garlic. When they are clear add the rice and stir until all coated in oil. Add the wine and stir until absorbed. Put the tomato puree, 4 cups of hot water and stock into a jug and add about 1 cup at a time. Stir until absorbed. Keep adding more liquid this way until the rice becomes creamy and cooked. If you run out of stock mixture before this happens just add more water. Chop your andouille roughly and when rice is done stir it and mushrooms in. Add the parmasen and stir til melted. stir in the parsley. Serve. We had ours with a crisp cucumber vinegar salad and it was very nice. I have chicken risotto before but this was in a league of its own with intense flavours and a lovely rust colour. Also people are always impressed by risotto and it is not hard to make, just requires patience.

Meredith

fish curry

2007-03-05T03:46:09Z

not at all medieval, as enjoyed by Anna and Kathleen
to make 4 small or 3 big sevings

500 gm firm fish (I used monkfish)
1 large onion
1 large capsicum (or half of 2 different coloured ones, looks more interesting)
2 cloves glarlic
1/2 teaspoon crushed ginger
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon groung tumeric
pinch of cayenne or ground chili
vege oil
1/2 cup coconut milk
fresh coriander, chopped

finely slice the onion and slice the capsicum, sautee in vege oil. cut the the fish into cubes. Add fish and garlic and ginger when vegies have softened. Turn the heat down or the garlic will scorch. Sautee about ten minutes and then add the tumeric, ground coriander, chili or cayenne, sugar, salt, fresh coriander. When the fish has all gone white and opaque on the outside add the coconut milk and cook gently for about 15 minutes

Some Canterbury Faire Redactions

2007-02-20T20:38:31Z

Claret Jelly

To fill a six-cup jelly mold:

2-3/4 c. water
2-1/2T. unflavoured gelatine
1 bottle red wine (a light-bodied wine, preferably)
1c. sugar
pinch of salt
one cinnamon stick
one nutmeg, broken

Optional: clarify the wine by pouring it through a coffee filter.

Soften the gelatin in one cup of cold water. Combine all ingredients and cook gently over low heat for 10 minutes or until all gelatin has dissolved. Remove spices, pour into a mold and chill until set.

Canterbury Faire Feast Menu

2007-02-06T07:46:33Z

This is the menu outline for the feast cooked by Terese and Adele at Canterbury Faire A.S. XLI. (Very partial, but I'll add more information as I locate it - Adele)

First Course

mince pies Adele's redaction
To make Pyes.
Pyes of mutton or beif must be fyne mynced & seasoned with pepper and salte and a lytel saffron to colour it / suet or marrow a good quantitie / a lytell vynegre / pruynes / great reasons / and dates / take the fattest of the broath of powdred beefe. And if you will have paest royall / take butter and yolkes of egges & so to temper the floure to make the paest. (A Propre new booke of Cokery, 1545)

cold roast pork and cold roast venison with prune sauce Terese's redaction
To make a Sauce of dry Proins.
Take proines and steep them in claret wine. Then take out the stones, and stamp them with a few blanched almonds, and a toste of bread soaked in the wine wherein the proines were steeped. Stampe all this together, tempering them with a little verjuice and other bastard wine, or sugar which is better. Then straine them, and put spice unto them, specially sinamon. (Epulario, or, the Italian Banquet, Giovanne de Rosselli, 1545)

shrimp salad Terese's redaction
Sallets for fish daies. Another. Carret rootes being minced, and then made in the dish after the proportion of a Flowerdeluce. Then picke Shrimps and lay upon it with oyle and vinegar. (The Good Huswifes Jewell, Thomas Dawson, 1596)

custard Terese's redaction
To make a Custard
Breake your Egges into a bowle, and put your Creame into another bowle, and straine your egges ino the creame, and put in saffron, Cloves and mace, and a little synamon and ginger, and if you will some Suger and butter, and season it with salte, and melte your butter, and stirre it with the Ladle a good while, and dubbe your custard with dates and currans. (The Good Huswifes Jewell, Thomas Dawson, 1596)

green salad Terese's redaction
To make a Sallet of all kinde of hearbes
Take your hearbes and picke them very fine into faire water, and picke your flowers by themselves, and washe them al cleane, and swing them in a strainer, and when you put them into the dish, mingle them with Cowcumbers or Lemmons payred and sliced, and scrape Suger, and put in
vineger and Oyle, nad throwe the flowers on the toppe of the sallet, and of every sorte of the aforesaide things and garnish the dish about with the foresaide thinges, and harde Egges boyled and laide about the dish and upon the sallet. (The Good Huswifes Jewell, Thomas Dawson, 1596)

bread (Adele's recipe)

spermyse (Adele's recipe)
There is iiii. sortes of chese ... grene chese, softe chese, harde chese or spermyse. Grene chese is not called grene by the reason of colour, but for the newnes of it, for the whay is not half pressed out of it, and in operacion it is colde and moyste ... Spermyse is a chese the which is made with curdes and with the iuce of herbes. (Andrew Boorde, Compendyous Regyment, 1542)

poached fruit (Terese's recipe)

Second Course

stewed mutton on sops Terese's redaction
To boyl mutton with Carrets.
Take a breast or necke of Mutton, cut it of the bignes of your thombe, and put it into an earthen pot with faire water, and make it seeth: Then take Carret rootes, and scrape them cleane, and cut them of the bignesse of your Mutton, and let them seeth, then put in halfe a handfull of stripped Tyme, asmuch of Sauorie and Jsope, and a litle salte and Pepper: Let them seeth till your Mutton and roots be verie tender, then serue them vpon sops. (The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin, John Partridge, 1594)

roast chicken with veal stuffing Adele's redaction

orange rice Adele's redaction
To make a Tart of Ryce
Boyle your Rice, and put in the yolkes of two or three Egges into the Rice, and when it is boyled, put it into a dish, and season it with Suger, Sinamon and Ginger, and butter, and the juyce of two or three Orenges, and set it on the fire againe. (The Good Huswifes Jewell, Thomas Dawson, 1596)

claret jelly Adele's redaction
salmon with greens and butter sauce Terese's redaction

cucumber pickles Terese & Adele
To Preserve Cowcumbers all the Yeere.
You may take a gallon of faire water, and a pottle of veriuyce, and a pinte of bay salt, and a handfull of greene Fennell or Dill: boile it a little, and when it is cold put it into a barrell, and then put your Cowcumbers into that pickle, and you shall keepe them all the yeere. (Delightes For Ladies, Sir Hugh Plat, 1609)

Third Course

old cheese (sheep's milk cheese from On Tray, Wellington)
fruit (bought - Stonehouse cherries in syrup)
comfits (Adele's Recipe)
wafers (bought)
marzipan (Terese's recipe)

superior custard

2007-01-28T08:30:06Z

3 cups milk
1 cup cream
1 cup sugar
2 pinches salt
4 whole eggs
4 egg yolks

combine, double boiler, make with much stirry stirry, 10 minutes ish

Delicious Eggnog

2006-12-24T08:44:32Z

12 eggs, seperated
2-1/4c. sugar
500ml cream
1l milk
2c. Irish whiskey, Canadian whiskey, light rum, or brandy
nutmeg

Combine egg whites with 3/4c. of sugar nd beat 'til soft peaks form. In a second bowl, beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar until thick and pale. Fold into egg whites. Whip the cream until reasonably stiff. Fold into the eggs. Add the milk and whiskey, and a good sprinkle of nutmeg. Stir well, chill, and serve.

On Xmas Cake

2006-12-17T09:15:33Z

My thoughts on Xmas Cake (given I have my third one of the season on the oven right now). Whole spices freshly ground taste yummiest and prunes are an excellent fruit to use. Here is a very fine recipe

125 gm butter
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar (the dark stuff is beast, not the regular brown)
2 eggs
1/2 Cup treacle
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teasoon ground mace
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 1/2 cups dried fruit and nuts (I use sultanas, raisins, (sultanas, raisins and currants are all best soaked in boiling water and then drained) prunes, apricots, candied peel, citron if available, candied cherried, and almonds)
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 150 degrees celsius. Using extra butter, butter a 9 inch square cake pan, line with baking paper, butter the baking paper on the inside as well. Cream butter and sugar, stir in eggs, then treacle. Add the dry ingredients and the milk. Stir. Tip in dried fruit. Mix. Pour into cake tin, Start checking after 1 1/4 hours. This cake usually takes 1 hour 40 minutes in our oven. Cool throughly and remove from tin. You can ice it but I like to decorate my cake my warming apricot jam and glazing the top. I arrange rows or patterns of fruit and nuts on top and glaze over this again with more jam.

SPECIAL TREACLE WARNING - treacle is wiley, I somehow mangaed to smear it on forehead and all through my right eyebrow. Cautions should be applied when dealing with this sticky menance