Playing with my train set

[madbaker]

The quote comes from Lenny Henry in Chef! - he's a two-star professional chef and he has a day off. So he spends it in the kitchen trying new recipes.

And that's pretty much what I did.
ldyanna drove down, we went to the Ferry Building to play in the "Disneyland of food", and after a side trip to the hippy-dippy market (I'd forgotten to look for leeks) we started looking at five 15^th century Italian recipes I'd pulled from the Libro di cucina.

It was fun. We had good chattage. We made a pork sausage recipe (called yellow sausage, even though the ingredients were pork, white cheese, and some other things - the only thing remotely yellow was saffron, and there's no way that it could turn the sausage yellow); an onion tart; a "chopped dish" of beef and egg; and a dish of mushrooms (I used dried morels and chanterelles). The tart was quite good, the sausages were good but dry because I let them overcook in the smoker, the chopped dish was fine but nondescript and, surprisingly, the mushroom dish was the least successful in my mind.

We didn't get around to making the fifth dish, apple fritters, because I mistakenly thought we had sufficient apples. That was okay, though, because even with bonacorsi's brother in town, we had a St. Teresa-like excess quantity of food. We ended up inviting the upstairs neighbors down to join us.

The wife and I drove to Geoffrey and Crystal's for projects day. She and Geoffrey made some metal trenchers while Crystal and I smoked bacon, tomatoes, garlic, scallops, and cheese. The cheese melted through the grate - oops. The tomatoes are worth trying again with San Marzanos (aka Roma) and I have high hopes for the scallops, which we will eat tomorrow. The bacon was good as usual. Then we stayed for a lovely dinner and more chattage.

Scallion or onion tart etc.

If you want to make a tart of all these things, take whichever you want and boil it well. Take it out of the water and squeeze out of all the water in a sieve and then chop them finely. Take fine lard and chop/grind it well, eggs, fresh cheese, and saffron and mix all these things together and make the tart. (Libro di cucina, 14th century)

Crust: (Short Paest for Tarte)
3/4 cup flour
4 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp water
1 egg yolk, beaten

Cut butter into flour until pea-sized. Mix in beaten egg and water. Gather together the dough and pat into a disk. Cover and let rest for ten minutes. Roll crust and place in a lightly-greased 8" pie pan.

Filling:
3 ounces shallots
12 1/2 ounces fresh white or yellow onions, green tops attached
4 eggses
4 3/4 ounces fresh goat cheese
6-8 threads saffron

Peel and chop both the shallots and the onions. Include most of the green tops. Bring enough water to cover the onions to boil in a pot. Boil the onion/shallot mix for three minutes. Drain and cool.

Beat the eggs just to mix yolks, then crumble in the goat cheese and the saffron threads. You may want to crush the saffron before adding. Stir the onion into the egg mixture. Pour into prepared pie crust.

Bake at 350 F for 45 minutes. If the crust starts to brown too early, cover edges with pie shields or aluminum foil. Makes a scant 8" pie.

The lard was omitted because the cheese provided enough fat and to keep it vegetarian. The onions and shallots were chopped before boiling for ease of preparation.

What worked: This was quite good - oniony without being overbearing and rich from the cheese and egg. Also pretty, with the saffron turning the mixture yellow and the green tops providing a nice color contrast. Also, ldyanna is much better than I am at making pie crust.

What didn't: We were trying for the emphasis to be on the onion, but it was fairly quichey anyway. Perhaps a higher percentage of onions are needed. Also, I was slightly disappointed that there wasn't more goat flavor in the tart. I might disregard the "fresh" cheese specification and use a more strongly-flavored soft goat cheese.

Will I make it again? Oh yes. This will probably show up at events.