Renaissance Magazine – Page 3

November 1, 2011May 2, 2012

Roast Quail with Dandelion Pesto with Field Mushrooms and Hazelnuts

Foraging Your Meal

Populations in urban areas have lost touch with their roots. Not necessarily ethnic or cultural, but the understanding of where food comes from and how it arrives at the market. The locavore movement encourages individuals to use locally raised and produced ingredients and this movement has been gaining momentum while aligning itself with the modern day “green” practices while supporting local farms, businesses, and industries. If you know what you are looking for, foraging can produce tasty snacks, salads, side dishes, and main courses for any cook.

Before going out on your foraging adventure, it is important to study what items are edible and which are not. Many cities offer community education courses regarding foraging and there are several books and websites available on the topic; I recommend ecosalon.com/foraging-for-food and foraging.com. Beginners should stick to easily identified items and avoid mushrooms altogether and all foraged items should be washed before eating raw or cooking.

Continue reading “Roast Quail with Dandelion Pesto with Field Mushrooms and Hazelnuts”

June 18, 2011March 5, 2012

Renaissance Magazine Article – Fish Stew

Bouillabaisse

Bouillabaisse, a traditional fish stew that originated from the port city of Marseille, is a soup containing various kinds of cooked fish, shellfish, and vegetables, and flavored with a variety of herbs and spices. Many French families created their own variation of this standard recipe by adding different vegetables (celery, zucchini, squash, etc.), as well as herbs and spices including garlic, orange peel, basil, bay leaf, fennel, and saffron.

In earlier recipes, traditional bouillabaisse contained three kinds of fish, typically scorpion fish, sea robin, and the European conger and could include bream, turbot, monkfish, mullet, or silver hake. The dish would also traditionally include various shellfish and other seafood options including sea urchin, mussels, velvet crab, spider crab, or octopus. More expensive versions would include langoustine or European lobster. Many of the fish and seafood options listed above can be difficult to find at a standard fish market or grocery store.

This particular dish can be made by substituting any local or regional fish or shellfish. The recipe below fairly represents the traditional dish with some modern twists.

INGREDIENTS
1 large leek, sliced
1 lb. of tomatoes skinned, seeds removed, and diced
4 medium cloves of garlic, minced
2 ribs of celery, diced with leaves intact
2 tb of chopped fresh parsley
1 medium bay leaf
1 tb green onion, finely chopped
1/8 tsp. of black pepper
2 tb olive oil
4 cups of chicken broth
2 medium potatoes or turnips, sliced
1 and ½ lbs. of white fish, cut into 2-inch pieces
¾ fillets of red snapper, cut into 2-inch pieces
12 small fresh clams
½ lbs. of medium shrimp (31-35/pound), shelled and deveined
1/8 tsp. of ground saffron or turmeric
½ lbs. of calamari, cut into 1-inch pieces (optional)
¼ lb. of medium scallops, washed and quartered (optional)

TECHNIQUE
In a large saucepan, sauté the leek and tomatoes in the olive oil with the garlic, parsley, bay leaf, and pepper for about 4 minutes on medium heat. Add the clams to the mixture along with the optional calamari and scallops and continue to cook for three more minutes.

Add the broth, potatoes or turnips, and the saffron or turmeric and cook for 5 more minutes. Bring to a boil and then reduce to low heat, adding the rest of the fish (not the shrimp) and simmer for an additional 5-7 minutes. Add the shrimp and simmer for an additional 5-7 minutes. Stir gently now and then, avoid breaking up the fish. Remove from the heat once the shrimp is done (bright pink and tender). Remove the bay leaf and garnish with the green onion before serving. Makes 16 cups.

In Marseille, the broth is served as a starter course in a bowl containing the toasted bread and rouille, a mayonnaise made from olive oil, bread crumbs, garlic, saffron, and cayenne pepper. The recipe for rouille is provided below for your benefit.

3 tb water
3/4 cup coarse fresh bread crumbs (preferably from a baguette, crust removed)
3 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
3 tb extra-virgin olive oil

Rouille is made by gently adding water over the bread crumbs in a bowl. Mash the garlic into a paste with sea salt and cayenne using a mortar and pestle or the flat edge of a knife. Add the moistened bread crumbs and mash into garlic paste. Add the olive oil in a gradually mashing and stirring vigorously with pestle until combined very well.

February 15, 2011March 5, 2012

Feast for a King (Renaissance Magazine – January 2011)

Unless readily available, spices we’ve grown accustomed to today were very expensive and hard to obtain during the Renaissance. Salt was rarely used and the spices from the Silk Road – cinnamon, clove, allspice, mace, and ginger, gradually migrated from the Silk Road, across the Arab nations, up the Mediterranean, and north throughout Europe. France, one of the first cultures to embrace these new spices, would blend them with other, more familiar ingredients, and present the dishes to the royal family and visiting nobles.

Although this recipe was prepared originally for nobles, it can be recreated in one’s own kitchen. This dish is ideal for an evening of wine, candlelight, and romance. The brandy and apple sweetened duck meat, complements the baked apples and the carrots and can become even more decadent with toasted bread, truffle oil, and a dessert small enough to share.

Ingredients:

1 whole duck (4-5 lbs.)
3 tart apples (more apples may be used as well)
3 cups brandy
1.5 cups of apple cider
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp of fresh orange zest
1/8 tsp ground clove
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground cardamom seed
pinch of mace
3 tbsp butter
2 cups of young carrots (baby carrots may be used instead)
salt and pepper to taste

Begin the recipe by rinsing the inside of the duck with cold water and pat dry with a clean towel. Blend the brandy and apple cider together in a bowl. Take one apples and remove the core, and slice it into quarters. Place those quarters into the cavity of the duck. Invert the duck, so that the opening of the body cavity is on top, and place into a separate, deep bowl or freezer bag. Pour the brandy/cider mixture into the body cavity. The liquid should overfill the duck and the remaining liquid should remain in the bowl, and set aside to chill for one hour.

Pre-heat over to 400 degrees.

Take a pot large enough to all the duck to lay flat. Melt butter in the pot; add the carrots, and sauté lightly. While sautéing, mix the clove, cinnamon, allspice, cardamom seed, orange zest, and mace together. Once the carrots are covered in the butter, lay t

hem flat in the pot. Drain the brandy/cider mixture from the duck and reserve. Place the duck on top of the carrots and score the skin of the duck so that the fat may run into the pot. Pour the reserved brandy/cider mixture over the duck.

Sprinkle the spice mixture on top of the duck and cover. Bake for 1 hour. Remove half to two-thirds of the juices

from the pot to let simmer to a reduction in a separate pot. Core the other two or more apples and add to the pot. Uncover the duck and bake for an additional half an hour until juices of the duck run pink. Remove the duck, baked apples, and carrots from the pan and let it sit for 10 minutes before carving the duck. Sprinkle some salt and pepper to taste and serve with the sauce reduction as a garnish. Serves 4

The recipe requires some time to set up, but it is easy to prepare. While cooking, one can set the table and get ready for an evening of flirtatious conversation and romance.

January 5, 2011

Cooking Techniques of the Renaissance

Preparing food with heat or fire is an activity unique to humans and over the years it has perfected into an art form. Many anthropologists believe that cooking over a fire developed around 250,000 years ago. From cooking, developed agriculture, commerce, and transportation across different regions, offering cooks new ingredients and techniques. New inventions and technologies, such as pottery to hold and boil water, expanded cooking techniques.

The most common cooking techniques included roasting with a firedog over an open fire where instead of cooking on a single spit, they use multiple spits. Meats roasted on these firedogs included joints of larger animals or multiple smaller animals being cooked together.

Boiling meats was also popular. Using large cauldrons, cooks would place meat in boiling water or wine and place the meat into the pot using large hooks called flesh hooks. Meat was often parboiled before they were roasted on a firedog. Other cooking techniques include frying, hearth baking, and oven baking.

One of the techniques that fell out of favor over the years is salt baking. Baking in salt is not difficult. This technique has become popular in many of the fine dining establishments where servers will crack and remove with flourish. Inside the white salt dome lies perfectly cooked, moist and fragrant fish. Baking fish (or vegetables, even other meats) in a salt crust creates a sort of oven within an oven. The salt seals in moisture essentially steaming the fish inside. Because the salt absorbs the moisture, the texture of the fish ultimately is more like roasted than steamed fish.

Below is a fairly easy-to-follow recipe on how to create your own salt baked fish. I have created this dish using a multitude of seafood including salmon, trout, eel, and other local white fish. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Ingredients:
4 cups kosher salt
1 whole red snapper, striped bass, or porgy (1-1/2 pounds), cleaned and scaled (we used tilapia in this recipe and it was delicious)
1 lemon
3 rosemary or thyme sprigs

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Line 13-inch by 9-inch baking pan with foil; spread 2 cups salt in bottom of pan.

Rinse fish inside and out with cold running water; pat dry with paper towels. From lemon, cut 3 slices. Cut remaining lemon into wedges. Place lemon slices and rosemary or thyme in cavity of fish.

Place fish on bed of salt; cover with remaining 2 cups salt. Bake until fish is just opaque throughout when knife is inserted at backbone, about 30 minutes.

During the Renaissance, cooks would place parchment, leaves, or husks in the bottom of the pot and place the fish on top of it. It would allow the fish to bake in the salt without burning or scorching the salt or the fish.

To serve, tap salt crust to release from top of fish; discard. Slide cake server under front section of top fillet and lift off fillet; transfer to platter. Slide server under backbone and lift it away from bottom fillet; discard. Slide cake server between bottom fillet and skin and transfer fillet to platter. Serve with reserved lemon wedges.

Yield: 2 main dish servings

As you can see from the photo timeline, we pulled it from the open fire, removed the crust, and plated the dish for presentation.

July 29, 2010

Old Twist on Meatloaf (14th Century English recipe)

From the July issue of Renaissance Magazine

Over the years, my historical research with cooking, recipes, and food has taken me to different cultures and tasting their cuisines. Occasionally, I will encounter a new tidbit of information that will surprise me as well as culinary professional colleagues and amateur foodies alike.

The modern meatloaf usually consists of a combination of bread or cracker crumbs, eggs, and ketchup; some other ingredients may be added to each recipe making it unique for the geographic region or various family traditions. Meatloaf has been with us for a very long time, but under different names.

The oldest recorded ground meat recipe can be found in Apicius, an ancient Roman cooking text. This recipe consisted of finely chopped meat (or mince), combined with pepper, garum (a fermented fish sauce popular In Roman cooking), and pine nuts while its center contained white bread crumbs soaked in wine. This mince was wrapped in a sheep’s stomach or upper intestines and then baked in a large oven.

Other versions of meatloaf can be traced to German, Belgium, and Holland 5th century recipes. These central and northern Europeans regional forms of meatloaf usually consisted of minced or ground pork, hard boiled eggs, and bacon with bread soaked in milk or wine to help form the hand-shaped loaf and then baked. These later forms influenced recipes from other cultures including the Middle Eastern kofta and Italian meatballs. All meatloaf recipes came about for the same reason; by adding various fillers including bread, rice, or oatmeal to chopped, minced, or ground meat, anyone could stretch a small amount of meat to feed others. Today, meatloaf has become a mainstay in the comfort food menus in many homes. In this issue of Renaissance Magazine, I am sharing a meatloaf recipe from 14th century England.

Meatloaf
2 lbs. (4 cups) ground or minced beef
1 cup of oatmeal
1 / 3 cup of red wine
4 eggs
1 /4 tsp black pepper
1 / 4 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 / 8 tsp ground mace
1 / 8 tsp ground cloves

Combine ingredients in large bowl and shape into a loaf or place in deep casserole pan. Add a pinch of the mace and ground cloves and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Drain off fat and tip onto serving platter and slice up servings. Serves 4-6

Glazed Root Vegetables
4 cups of root vegetables, largely diced (carrots, rutabagas, turnips)
1/2 cup of brown sugar or honey
1/4 cup brandy
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp of ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp of ground clove
1 / 4 tsp ground ginger
Salt to taste

Cook vegetables in pot of water until tender. Drain water. In a separate saucepan, melt the butter over low heat and add the brown sugar or honey, cinnamon and cloves. Continue to stir, slowly adding the brandy to the sauce mixture. If honey is being used, the sauce will need to be reduced by one half. Turn up the heat to medium and add the root vegetables. Continue to cook over medium until sauce thickens. Serves 4.

Unlike the modern meatloaf recipes that have a saltier finish due to the use of ketchup, this recipe has a sweet/spicy finish due to the cloves, cinnamon, and mace. The oatmeal provides an even binder when combined with the red wine and eggs. I’ve also partnered this recipe with a side dish of Glazed Root Vegetables. Both dishes complement each other rather well and may be served with red wine.