recipe – Page 22 – Alice the Cook

May 15, 2009July 7, 2009

Sometimes experiments work, and sometimes they don’t

Just like many cooks, I enjoy experimenting with different recipes, techniques, and flavors. Some things have worked and other have been disastrous. Several years ago, an experiments Nicholas and I tried worked out wonderfully. We created cedar smoked pork and it was heavenly. The recipe is simple, but not easily done in the safety of one’s own kitchen.

You will need a cast iron dutch oven, a holed cast iron plate (this can be picked up at a sporting store that carries cast iron cookery), dried cedar chips (other wood chips are fine if untreated). Some may prefer oak or wood from fruit bearing trees.

In a ceramic bowl, soak the wood chips in water for 4 hours. The dried wood chips will soak up the moisture and you will be ready to use them after the 4 hours. At the four hours, start your fire pit or barbecue so that it is nice and hot.

Remove the excess water from the bowl and add the re hydrated wood chips to the bottom of the cast iron pot. This should be no higher than an inch and a half from the bottom. Place the cast iron plate on top of the chips. It’s best that you brush the top of the cast iron plate with oil to keep the meat from sticking. Add the pork (I prefer pork shoulder as it is well marbled) and sprinkle fine sea salt and fresh ground pepper and add the lid. Place the cast iron pot on the grill or fire pit to begin the cooking process.

Visit the pot every 15 minutes. The heat will quickly boil off the water and cause the wood to smoke. You do not want the wood to burn or catch fire so when you notice that the wood is beginning to emit a lot of smoke, add a cup of water to the wood. Make sure you keep the lid on the pot to keep the smoke in the pot and the heat in. After 45 minutes to an hour check the temperature of the meat; it should read about 170 degree.

The smoking of the meat will keep it moist and flavorful. Friends have enjoyed the pork with barbecue sauce, but I like it just the way it is.

* This recipe can be done with fish, chicken, and turkey as well as wild bird game.

Wild rice and wheatberry salads and side dishes best complement this dish.

May 10, 2009July 7, 2009

Vegetable Pie

Many cooks will take shortcuts to make the cooking process easier. Below was a surprisingly easy dish that is vegetarian. You can make it vegan very easily. In the recipe, I utilize a soup (courtesy of Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods) and a premade pie crust (Marie Callendars makes a nice vegeraian one, but if no worries Pillsbury makes a pie crust that uses animal shortening).

The pie makes a nice side item or a main dish and is served traditionally as a thanksgiving or harvest festival feast dish. I do have a roasted carrot soup recipe in my second cookbook. If you are interested in my cookbooks, you can visit my recommended pages section and click on MacGregor Historical Games site, they sell my cookbook online.

Ingredients
4 large carrots, julliened
4 cloved of garlic, minced
1 large sweet potato, peeled and julliened
2 leeks, diced
8 medium red potatoes, julliened
3 eggs, scrambled (or for vegans use 3 TB of corn starch or arrowroot)
1 can of garbanzo beans/chickpeas, drained and rinsed
4 TB oil
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger (optional)

Begin sauteing the vegetables (carrots, garlic, leeks, sweet potatoes, and potatoes in oil). When leeks are transparent, add chickpeas and soup and continue to simmer. When carrots are tender, add the eggs to thicken pie filling. If eggs are not desired, gradually add the corn starch to thicken.

Follow the directions on box to pre-bake the pie crust. When pre-baked, pull out and and let cool. Add pie mixture to crust and contiue to bake until pie crust is golden brown.

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do!

May 6, 2009March 5, 2012

Two Recipes for the Blog of One

At times, life will get the best of me. Like others, I become distracted with life, work, and other pursuits. I was reminded that fans come to this page for more historical cooking and recipes. To make up for this oversight, I’ve posted two pheasant recipes for the viewer. Chicken may be a lesser substitute for the pheasant, but the game bird is preferred.

Like many during the Renaissance, the rich or poachers were able the luxury of meat. Pheasant, like fish, was abundant and tasty. The first recipe is French influenced and the second recipe is from the New World with Spanish influence.

This recipe calls for 5 pheasants – a meal “borrowed” from the French and popular with the Feast of St. George. Celebratory in nature, the dish should be for special occasions.

Roast Pheasant With Sauce Bigarade
Serves 10 people

Ingredients:
5 pheasants
Add salt and pepper as needed
15 parsley stems
5 thyme sprigs
5 bay leaves
8 fl. oz. brown duck or chicken stock
1 tsp fresh orange zest, julienne, blanched
30 pieces orange meat

Rinse and trim the pheasant (removing spare fat and wing tips), removing fat from body cavity. Place the phesant, breast side up, on a rack. Season it with salt and pepper. Place 5 parsley stems, 1 thyme sprig, and 1 bay leaf into the cavity of the pheasant. Roast the birds at 425 degrees until the juices run barely pink and the thigh meat registers 170 degrees. Remove the birds from the pan and rest for at least 10 minutes before carving.

Sauce Bigarade
10 portions
Ingredients:
3/4 oz. sugar
1 tsp water
1 tsp white wine
1 fl. oz. cider vinegar
2 fl. oz. orange juice concentrate
2 oz. red current jelly
1 qt. Demi-Glace (can be purchased at a higher-end grocery)
salt and pepper as needed

To finish the sauce for service, degrease and deglaze the pheasant roasting pan with stock and strain the drippings into the bigarade sauce. Return the sauce to a simmer and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Finish the sauce with the zest and the orange meat. Carve the pheasant for service by cutting away the breast from the rib and cutting the leg away from the body.

New World Pheasant:

Ingredients:
2 pheasants
6 oz of orange juice concentrate
3 oranges
3 sprigs of rosemary
Kosher or sea salt
Black pepper

Cut the pheasants in half lengthwise (neck to tail). Marinade pheasants in orange juice for two hours with crushed rosemary*. While marinading, zest 3 oranges. Once done marinading, trim bird (remove excess fat and remove wing tips), and sprinkle orange zest in cavity and add remaining zest to top of the birds. Spring lightly with kosher or sea salt and black pepper (not too much).

Grill birds, the pheasant fat carmalizes with the orange juice for a sweet and smoky flavor. Compliments well with wildrice with hazelnuts and crandbury salad (just cooked wildrice, dried craisins, and toasted hazelnuts). this easier recipe provides a high lean protein, complex carbs, with fruit influences.

* The three sprigs of rosemary may tribute to the Christian God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, popular in Spanish culture. Many of the older Spanish and French recipes will call for three sprigs of rosemary as a way of blessing the dish. The three sprigs of rosemary were also found in floral arrangements and hat decorations in Catholic cultures during the Renaissance.

First recipe circa 1602 France
New World recipe circa 1680, (Americas with Spanish influence)

April 23, 2009July 7, 2009

Working with What You Have

After preparing the segment for Renaissance Magazine, Brandon and I had a lot of left overs – about 3/4 lb of pieces of roast pork (uncooked), carrots, leeks, and a few other ingredients. I put them together to create a lovely curry pork and vegetables.

Utilizing the ingredients above and adding a few, I created a dish that was quoted as, “tastes like it came from a ‘nice’ Asian restaurant” from a Chinese national.

Below is the recipe I came up and I have been enjoying it for my lunches.

one cup of leftover braised carrot and leek dish
3/4 lb of roast pork, cut up
one onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup of frozen peas
1 tbsp of yellow curry powder (store bought)
1 tsp ground cumin
2 pinches of sea salt
ground pepper to taste
1 tbsp of cooking oil (sesame or sunflower)

In a heated wok, add the oil and when hot enough begin adding the pork to begin cooking. Turn the pork every two minutes so that it begins to brown nicely and add the onions.

Continue to cook and add the left over braised carrots and leeks. Continue to cook and add frozen peas. Continue to stir when cooking and add the curry powder and cumin. Finish with the salt and pepper.

I did not need to use rice or noodles with this dish. It should be sweet and savory, not spicy. Sadly, I ate it all before I could photograph the plate.

April 18, 2009

Working as a Team, a Well-Oiled Machine

Brandon and I got together today to work on the next Renaissance Magazine article (July). I’ve posted in an earlier blog about the different steps we take as a team in planning, writing, cooking, and photographing for the story. It’s a long process. Tonight, it took almost 4 hours, even though the dish was rather simple to cook.

For the benefit of our readers, we thought we would co-document our efforts here. We began discussing what we wanted to cover. We knew when we went out to Siouxland, we would be shooting and packaging 4 pieces in advance to save time, but added to the authenticity to the historical aspect.

Once we decided on a path, Brandon and I went out to the market to pick up our ingredients. I had some of the ingredients at home, but we needed to pick up a few extras items. From the start, it’s a team based effort.

Next, we begin planning out what needs to happen to get to a finished product. Who needs to do what and when. One of us may be cooking while the other is chopping or gathering spices or shooting the photography. We both take turns. When one is cooking, the other is shooting photos and vice-versa.

We might hav a bit of down time or need something else prepared. Brandon is better than I at deboning and flattening meat.

Brandon (Nicholas) flattening the meat for the dish.

As you can see, when we are working together for a story, we are not in costume and because of the colder months, we are not yet ready to test recipes over the fire. I’m sure I will do a future blog on that subject. Still, more cutting and prep work go into the dish.

Until we finish cooking and then we work on the plating. The food needs to look good on camera and somethings, frankly, don’t. Brandon’s carving the meat as I prepare the plate for photographing.

Cutting the finished product and preparing to plate it for photos.

We spent a lot of time tonight documenting our work for Renaissance Magazine for prosperity sake. You will have to check out July’s issue to see what we made so that you can make it at home as well.