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17th Century Every Day
Bread.
1lb2oz Bread Flour ( strong white, wholemeal or seeded)
13floz Tepid Water
Pinch Salt
2 Teaspoons sugar
2 Tablespoons of olive oil or sunflower oil
1/4oz Fast action dried yeast
Mix the flour, salt, sugar and dried yeast together in a
warm bowl. Put the olive oil in with the water. Make a
well in the flour mixture and work in the liquid. Knead
on a floured board for about 10 minutes then leave to
rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
Knock back the dough by kneading again on a floured
board and shape into a round. Allow to prove for ½ to 1
hour until doubled in size then bake at gas mark 6,200c/
400f for 30 to 40 minutes until golden brown. If
cooking on site make a Dutch oven from a cast iron pot
with a lid and cook over the open fire until brown and
sounds hollow when tapped. If served on the suttlery
serve hot with melting butter and runny honey. Nice for
soldiers at the end of a battle or cold day.
Fillets of Pork
½ fillet per person, unless very large With salt
½ lb. (240 g.) large prunes, soaked for 3 or 4 hours and
stoned fillets (liquid saved)
3 oz. (90 g.) breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon onion, finely chopped and softened in a
little butter
1 tablespoon brandy
¼ pint (1*/2 dl.) good white stock (a bouillon cube will
do)
¼ pint (1*/2 dl.) double cream 3 oz. (90 g.) butter _
dish with
1 ½ oz. (45 g.) flour salt and pepper
Chop each soaked but uncooked prune into about 8 pieces.
Mix with the breadcrumbs and the onion in its butter.
Season, using plenty of pepper. Trim the pork
fillets and cut across in halves. Split each half long
ways, and spread the center’s with the prune filling,
closing like sandwiches. Rub with seasoned flour
and place in a flat ovenproof dish. just melt remaining
butter and pour over. Bake closely covered for 20
minutes at 3 50° E., gas mark 4. Uncover and
bake for a further 10 minutes, so that the tops are
lightly browned.
At this point, pour off the butter and juices into a
small saucepan, and while thefillets brown, make the
sauce, by stirring into the butter flour, and adding the
prune juice and stock. Boil for 3 minutes, and allow to
cool slightly. Stir in the cream and the brandy, and
keep warm without further boiling, until the fillets are
ready. Pour the sauce round them in their dish and serve
immediately.
Veal Fritters
This is an adaptation of a fourteenth-century recipe.
The original is very simple and nothing is changed,
except that exact quantities are given here.
½ lb. (240 g.) cold cooked veal, minced finely,
or 6 oz. (180 g.) veal and 2 oz. (60 g.) lean cooked ham
¾ lb. (360 g.) fine white breadcrumbs
3 oz. (1 dl.) strong well-seasoned stock
pepper and salt
a little saffron in the original: may be replaced by ½
teaspoon mace or
a teaspoon grated lemon rind
a little flour
2 eggs
Mix together the meat, seasoning and two thirds of the
breadcrumbs, and stir in the stock to bind. The mixture
should be as firm as sausage meat. Flour a pastry
or chopping board. Divide the mixture into 6 or 8 small
equal heaps and place well apart on the board. Press
them flat with the hand and shape into rough ovals, and
then press another board on them to flatten. They
should be about ¼ inch (½ cm.) thick. Beat the
eggs, paint each fritter over on each side with egg
using a pastry brush. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs
and press these down a little. Lift care-fully and fry
for 2 or 3 minutes in very hot fat about ½ inch (½ cm.)
deep.
Serve with slices of lemon or orange.
Boiled Beef in Beer
This is a North Country recipe from the early nineteenth
century. The tradition in the household was that the
dish had been prepared in the past by their parsimonious
ancestors for the hay-making supper for tenants, because
part of an old ox which had been kept to work all winter
could be used, since the beer helped to tenderize the
meat. The tenants liked the taste of the beerand
considered the dish a grand one. 4 lb. beef will serve
about 8.
1 quart light ale to every 4 lb. of beef
4 lb. lean beef, well tied (ask for stewing beef)
2-4 lb. (1-2 k.) onions, peeled and sliced
large bundle of herbs, sweet
3 or more cloves
a little mace (table spoon)
a little (table Spoon) turmeric
I2 or more peppercorns, salt
¼ pint wine vinegar
4 oz. dark treacle for every 4 lb. meat
Pile the onions on top of the beef and marinate 12 hours
or overnight in all the other ingredients except the
ale. Spoon the liquid over the meat from time to time.
Then put the meat, onions and marinade in a very large
saucepan and till up with beer to cover. Simmer
very gently for 3 hours, check seasoning and serve with
red or baked cabbage, and a sweet chutney.
Spiced Beef
In Yorkshire this dish was often preferred to a ham on
occasions when a cold collation was required. If there
is cause to prepare a large cold buffet today the three
great traditional English cold meats given here, Spiced
Beef, Boiled Tongue, and Fillets of Pork in jelly, make
an excellent combination and are much less usual than
chicken or turkey, a ham and a cold roast. They
do, of course, require three very large saucepans or
kettles and a fairly large cooker-top to themselves for
two or three hours. (Serves 16)
skirt of beef, about 8 lb.
1 lb. salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon powdered cloves
1 teaspoon mace
1 teaspoon powdered thyme
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon paprika
3 carrots
3 onions
2 leeks if available
3 sticks celery if available
a few gherkins to decorate
Get the butcher to bone and trim the beef but not to
roll it. Two or three days before the finished dish is
required, lay the beef out flat, skin downwards.
Rub in most of the salt and sprinkle a snow of remaining
salt all over it. Leave overnight and next day drain off
all liquid and wipe well, removing all the salt which
has not penetrated. Mix together all the herbs and
spices and rub into the beef, particularly into the
slashes where the bones were removed. Roll up very
tightly and tie like a long parcel, the string going
round in three or four places. Put in boiling water and
boil very gently for 3 ½
hours, together with the carrots, onions, leeks and
celery, and the bones and trimmings. When cooked,
remove and drain well, and lay it under a pastry board
with one or two weights on top. Leave to get cold.
Put the stock to boil briskly so that it reduces to a
strong glaze; from the original 3-4 pints of stock only
about 1 pint should remain. When the beef is quite cold,
pour the glaze over it, decorating the top with a row of
slices of gherkins if liked. It will keep perfectly in
the refrigerator for a week, or will deep-freeze
perfectly and keeps for months.
Ragoût
of` Beef
‘Ragoos’ or ‘ragouts’ appeared on the tables of all
great houses from the sixteenth century and probably
earlier. A ragout was a thick stew of beef or other
meat, poultry or game or vegetables which was enriched
either with a ‘cullis’ (see Sauces) or with a very
strong reduced stock and which usually contained
mushrooms, artichoke hearts, olives, sweetbreads,
cockscombs, etc. (Serves 4-6)
2 lb. Rump of beef, in one piece, trimmed of all fat
½ lb. ox
kidney, skinned, cored, and cut up finely
1 pint well-flavoured reduced brown stock
¼ lb. mushrooms
2 onions, peeled and cut fine
I2 forcemeat balls
2 oz. (60 g.) butter
a little flour
salt and pepper
bay leaves and bouquet garni
Flour the beef and fry it on all sides in the butter in
the pan in which it will be stewed. Add the onions and
the floured kidney and fry lightly. Add the herbs and
seasoning, put in water just to cover and stew very
gently for 2 ½
hours. There should be about 1-
½ pints of liquid at
this point. If there is more, pour some off (keep for
another dish) before adding your brown stock. Add
the stock and the mushrooms. Cover and stew for a
further half—hour. Warm the forcemeat balls in a
covered dish in the oven. Remove the herbs and bay
leaves and season highly. Put the beef on a flat dish.
The stock should be as thick as thin cream. If it
is too thin, keep the beef hot while you thicken
it with 2 teaspoons of corn flour stirred into a little
cold water and added to the boiling stock. Pour
over the beef and put the forcemeat balls around
the edge of the dish.
Lamb in Claret
21/2 lb (1'/4 k.) fillet end of leg of lamb
2 onions
2 carrots
2 large glasses red wine
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper
2 rashers streaky bacon
a little parsley 4
some mixed herbs
piece of lemon peel
a little fat to fry
First cut the lamb into large oblong pieces, ten or
twelve. Trim them well, removing all skin and fat.
Cut the bacon into the same number of pieces, chop
parsley and garlic together finely, roll the pieces of
bacon in this, make a slit in each piece of mutton and
push a piece of parsleyed bacon into it. Put the
prepared meat, sprinkled with salt and pepper, in a
casserole and pour the wine over it, add a piece of
lemon peel and a bouquet of mixed herbs if possible. Fry
the chopped carrots and onions lightly and put in the
casserole on top of the meat. Fill up with water just to
cover and put in pre-heated oven, 275° F., gas mark 2;
cook for 4 hours. Serve just as it comes from the oven.
About half an hour before serving, mushrooms or dried
cepes may be added, or stoned olives, black or green, or
a large green pepper, seeded and cut in strips, or
½lb. skinned
tomatoes or 2 or 3 courgettes, cut in halves long-ways.
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