armoured turnip!

Aaaand the prize for best named recipe so far goes to.... armoured turnips: baked sliced turnips with white bean boursin (made with urad dal, because some of us have managed to run out of white beans even though we could have sworn we had a giant jar of them somewhere) from the Uncheese Cookbook. Basically layers of sliced turnip, cheese and the ubiquitous cinnamon/ginger/clove combo. These are clearly the predecessor to scalloped potatoes. I ate them on kasha with greens. I will do this again with pumpkin or kabotchka squash or sweet potatoes. Something bright orange.

I was a little apprehensive about anything called "boiled sallet", but I tried this, staying remarkably close to the actual instructions, minus the egg: boiled broad beans and leeks (I figure anything green counts here) drained and tossed with with oil, vinegar, ginger, cinnamon and currants. This was remarkably yummy and comforting on polenta. The recipe calls for chopped boiled egg and harps on about how important it is, so I added an okara burger (okara, capers, liquid smoke, garlic, cilantro, chickpea flour, tamari) to my plate.

Here's what I followed:
Source [A new booke of Cookerie, J. Murrell]: Diuers Sallets boyled. Parboyle Spinage, and chop it fine, with the edges of two hard Trenchers vpon a boord, or the backe of two chopping Kniues: then set them on a Chafingdish of coales with Butter and Uinegar. Season it with Sinamon, Ginger, Sugar, and a few parboyld Currins. Then cut hard Egges into quarters to garnish it withall, and serue it vpon sippets. So may you serue Burrage, Buglosse, Endiffe, Suckory, Coleflowers, Sorrel, Marigold leaues, water Cresses, Leekes boyled, Onions, Sparragus, Rocket, Alexanders. Parboyle them, and season them all alike: whether it be with Oyle and Uinegar, or Butter and Uinegar, Sinamon, Ginger, Sugar, and Butter: Egges are necessary, or at least very good for all boyld Sallets.

Medieval food is not pretty. But is is yummy. Things I've noticed so far: I miss chilli, and it's amazing how different food is without tomatoes (I'm still eating the ones that come in my vegbox, but I've not been buying extra ones, because they're a new world food, and so aren't in any of the medieval recipes). Also, I think I may end up with a cinnamon addiction and start adding raisins/figs to everything by the end of the modern medieval project. Quinces are underappreciated, and I love them.

Music that is also not pretty and yes yummy: The pubcrawlers.

Pease porridge hot...

Comfort food at it's finest, as people have known for..oh... 5 or 600 years, at least.

Boil split peas, onions, basil, thyme, cinnamon, a smidge of dried ginger, some cloves, and a bay leaf in Rauchbier (smoked beer...which is an excellent way to sub that smoky richness that french canadian pea soup has. I find liquid smoke just doesn't measure up for this one. It's just too... thin... for lack of a better word). Salt. Nothing could be easier. Eat with irish soda bread (whole wheat spelt flour and oat flour at about a 3:1 ratio, baking soda, salt, soured soy milk...ie, soy milk with vinegar). We also had some baked cauliflour with this, both the flower and the big leaves. Just pop it in the oven with a little olive oil and salt while the bread bakes.

dance warmly to something much more modern: musique pour 3 femmes enceintes

Oh the cinnamon!

Continuing on with my Modern Medieval project, here are three things I made. I'm getting the hang of this stuff in terms of techniques and seasonings. Basically, everything is either a stew or a pie. Salt was hard to come by, but sugar (honey...or in my case, agave and maple syrup) were not. My flat smells like a combination of a persian restaurant and my parents house at Christmas. This is fun.

Stewed Pumpkin.
2 large onions, chopped, with half a pumpkin, also chopped and some tvp. baked in water, marmite, white wine, sage, pepper, liquid smoke. When it's done, add salt and saffron, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. We ate this over spelt pasta, with a tomato and parsely salad on the side.


bastardized from: godecookery.com
ORIGINAL RECEIPT:

10. Gourdes in Potage. Take young Gowrdes; pare hem and kerue hem on pecys. Cast hem in gode broth, and do þerto a gode pertye of oynouns mynced. Take pork soden; grynde it and alye it þerwith and wiþ yolkes of ayren. Do þerto safroun and salt, and messe it forth with powdour douce.

- Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

Cinnamon Soup.
...veganized, modernized...now with tofu! and green! And holy shit, will I ever be making this stuff again! YUM.

Ahem. Tofu marinated overnight in: soy sauce + water, nutritional yeast, oregano, ground coriander, finely chopped garlic and onion, light miso. This is what i do to tofu that's still edible but definitely past it's prime. If you want a richer marinade, add a good swig of balsamic vinegar and a dollop of mustard to the marinade. Bake or fry this while you make the soup. If you fry it, dredge it in flour first. I usually bake it because I'm a lazy ass and I don't like fried stuff (which I suppose makes me a weird lazy ass).

Soup (for one):
1/4 - 1/2 cup ground almonds
1 person worth of veg broth or water + marmite (dude, i have no idea how big your soup bowl is. make your own decisions here)
a bit of leek, finely chopped
1 tsp cinnamon. heaping if you have a big soup bowl.
a smallish bit of grated ginger
sprinkle o ground cloves
sprinkle o anise seeds
chopped broccoli ( broccoli is so fabulous that i'm sure medieval cooks would have added it to everything if it had been available.)
salt if you need it (check AFTER you add the marinated tofu, cuz it's quite salty)

dry roast (brown) ground almonds. add everything else except the broccoli and simmer until thick. add broccoli and simmer until it's done right (slightly crunchy). Add tofu. Eat. I will definitely make this again. Possibly with chickpeas and eggplant instead of tofu and broccoli. Either way: winner. I had some bread and tomatoes (aka "a tomato sandwich") with this, but I think it would be amazingly good with cooked kasha added to it. Just a hunch.

bastardized from the original (and modern omni) versions at: http://recipes.medievalcookery.com/cinnamon.html

Greens (no photo...it's just a pile of kale on mashed spuds). I was cinnamoned out, so I made this:

Kale and leeks, simmered in veg broth and pepper, drained, mixed with nutmeg and okara ricotta (okara, vinegar, agave, salt, miso). On mashed potatoes. Potatoes had not yet been introduced, but they're in my veg box. I figure that mashed is about right, since most medieval recipes I've seen serve the main dish on some sort of stewed grain gruel (like rice pudding or soupy polenta).

...again from godecookery.com:

Poree de cresson

PERIOD: France, 14th century | SOURCE: Le Viandier de Taillevent | CLASS: Authentic

DESCRIPTION: Stewed cress and chard, tossed with cheese

---

ORIGINAL RECEIPT:

153. Poree de cresson: To Make Stewed Cress. Take your garden cress and boil it (var: parboil it), along with a handful of chard, then chop it up fine, sauté it in oil and then put it to boil if you so wish. On non-fasting days (it may be cooked) either in meat broth, or in butter, or with cheese added, or just plain without putting anything in it, should you like it that way. It should be salted to taste, and the garden cress should be well culled. It is good against gallstones.

- Scully, Terence, ed. Le Viandier de Taillevent. An Edition of all Extant Manuscripts. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1988.

Leek pies and potluck survival tips

So here we go, kicking off Ducky's Modern Medieval. See an earlier post for how I'm doing this. As for the why... it's just a different method of cooking and new (old) spice combos. I love the mix of sweet and savory, and how most of the recipes I've seen lend themselves well to the Scottish winter of root vegetables and homey, heady food. It's also fun to see how many of the foods look familiar (this one just looks like a quiche), but uses flavour combos that aren't terribly common in european cooking anymore, though I did find myself thinking of persian food while the smells of this baking filled my kitchen.

I brought this to a (work) potluck, where I was pleasantly surprised that some people brought vegan food. But that was a bonus, and over the past few years, I've learned not to expect that. I go to (non vegan) potlucks to see my friends or socialize with my colleagues, not for the food. Keeping that in mind:

Vegan potluck strategies (for an omni potluck):
1. Bring something super extra duper yummy. Now is NOT the time for your low-fat, quick or "love it or hate it" foods. Like it or not, you are probably going to be "the vegan". And thus your food is "the vegan food". See this as an opportunity to show people that we don't live on twigs and apples alone.
2. Put some of your food aside for yourself BEFORE leaving. Yes, as in a separate tupperware container that you leave in your backpack, purse, tote bag...whatever. That way, you know you'll have something to eat even if no one other than you brings anything vegan, and if everyone swarms the dish you bring and wants to taste "the vegan food", you won't be stressed about having to spend the entire time hungry or sugar-buzzed or regretfully drunk in a room of work colleagues etc. Plus, you want to be generous with the vegan food, because you are "the vegan". Sorry if you didn't apply for the ambassador posistion; it comes with the territory.
3. Bring a main dish. Why? Because you need dinner. If you are a cupcake warrier, just make sure you bring a dinner-ish thing for yourself, like some hummous and veg and bread. Or a sandwich, or whatever.
4. Bring a dessert too. Since you've cooked a fancy main, just pick up a nice dark chocolate bar or something. If you are a cupcake warrier...grrrrrrrrr! Amaze them!
5. Chill. If you're at an omni potluck, you're clearly not there for the food. You're there to socialize. Focus on that. If it all goes horribly wrong food-wise, eat the bag of nuts that you cleverly stashed in your bag beforehand, dig into that chocoalte bar, drink abusively, and enjoy time with your friends and/or colleagues. It won't kill you to skip dinner for one night. If you *really* are miserable, leave politely.

...and we don't need advice for a vegan potluck, now do we? Except for don't eat too much earlier in the day. Maybe go for run. And wear elastic-waist trousers...

Enough about my winner "how to survive an omni potluck" strategies.

Modified from Amber Day Tart
(modern omni recipe on www.godecookery.com)

My veganized version, which is by now only loosely based on the original: 3 leeks, chopped in rounds and boiled in water and white wine until all the liquid has evaporated and the leeks have lost the will to live, a few raisins, about 1/3 tps each of sage, cloves, nutmeg, generous pinch of saffron. Tofu bit (replacing eggs, and cheese etc): mashed silken tofu, sweet white miso, chickpea flour, salt, white wine vinegar, mustard. Baked in a pie shell made of pizza dough (flour, yeast, salt olive oil, water). Mix leek bit (no water left) with tofu mash. Add 2 big bunches of chopped parsely. Place in prebaked pie shells (Bake the pizza dough at high-ish heat until it is not-quite-done. say half the time you would usually bake it for. The point here is to just make sure it has a crust so you don't make it all soggy when you add the filling). Top with walnut chunks. Re-bake on lower heat (180C/350F) until set. Huzzah!

ORIGINAL RECEIPT:

173. Tart in ymbre day. Take and perboile oynouns & erbis & presse out þe water & hewe hem smale. Take grene chese [brede AB] & bray it in a morter, and temper it vp with ayren. Do þerto butter, saffroun & salt, & raisons corauns, & a litel sugur with powdour douce, & bake it in a trap, & serue it forth.

- Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler. Curye on Inglish: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth-Century (Including the Forme of Cury). New York: for The Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

modern medieval music: dead can dance

taking a bow. plus, going all medieval on your ass

Lelly gave me a blog award! Eeeeeeeeeeee! How very exciting! Thank you! Apparently I am supposed to put up this little banner thing. And nominate more people. I can do that. But Lelly already nominated Vincent over at Vegan Improv. *sigh* Once again, Lelly is a step ahead of me. Now, I suspect that the people I nominate are supposed to nominate yet more people, so get on it you guys!

First, I nominate Tuimeltje over at twigs and tofu, because she tries new stuff, and rocks.

And Jake, who writes some of the funniest and most insightful stuff out there.

And...ahem.. Hezbollah Tofu, for being fabulous, and regularily exposing the fuckwititude of Anthony Bourdain. This saves me endless time, as otherwise I would have to expose said fuckwititude myself. Plus, yum fancy-pants food that will impress everyone you know and often takes a long time to make, which can lead to excellent bouts of cooking-as-procrastination.

Also, Jillian and her bitchin' vegan kitchen. Jillian makes food by actually following the recipes. This is an inspiration to me, and I secretly use her as my recipe tester, even though she doesn't know it. Shhhhhhh!...

And finally.... Vegandwhatnot, a fellow Canuck ,whose blog is just starting out, but looks brilliant. Saskatchewan needs more vegans. And more pirates.

Now. A project: Ducky's Modern Medieval. Starting at some yet-to-be-decided date this fall, I shall embark on a one-month experiment, mostly to see how my tastes change if I move away from the dominant spices in my spice cupboard. Soooo...for a month, I'll let loose in my kitchen with medieval recipes. Yes. A month of vegan medieval. Just to be clear, I won't be following the recipes in the sense of trying to recreate medieval food. The question is: if a cook from a medieval vegan kitchen (say a monastery) found themselves with my vegbox in my (modern) kitchen every week, what would they do? For lack of a better term, I guess I'll be doing fusion cuisine, only across time instead of geography. So Modern Medieval, not "Ducky's Time Travel", okay? There seem to be a fair number of vegan recipes out there, mostly because meat, eggs and milk were off limits for so many religious communities for so much of the year. I'm vegan for slightly less godly reasons, but no matter. I shall move bravely forward (or backwards? which am I doing here?). Basically, this is going to be an experiment with different spice combinations and cooking techniques. I've been fascinated by medieval/renaissance cooking for a while now, partly because there isn't much of a distinction between the use of what we would now consider to be sweet and savoury spices and partly because there was some pretty interesting cooking (and scholarship) before plain boring-ass food took over because it was somehow less sinful (less decadent?) than yummy food. So, bring on the cloves, cinnamon and rosewater! If you have any specific recipes you'd like to me try out, send me a link, and providing it's not something totally unveganizable, I'll probably try it.