Recipes served at Pyracy Pub events

[madPete]

I'm going to start this thread with a more general recipe for period ships biscuit, and then maybe follow up with some recipes we served at Ft Gaines, Ft King George, and Tooele.

[Edit: I have to add that using that period ground flour was night and day over using modern flour. The biscuits were crunchy but soaked up moisture fairly quickly and fell apart. The ones made with modern flour (even Bob's Red Mill whole wheat flour) were hard as a rock, almost like a glue ball,  even after soaking]

See the PDF for more details on the period recipe...

Biscuit Recipe This is how to replicate the basic biscuit of the eighteenth century using readily available ingredients. The amount of dough made using this recipe will equal a ration of one pound of biscuits after they are baked and dried. 3 cups white whole wheat flour 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of water Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour and water. Let the stiff dough rest for 10 minutes to allow the flour to soak up the water. If the dough is too stiff for you to mix it by hand, add an additional tablespoon of water. The dough will be denser than bread dough and you should be cautious using modern mixers as they might not do well under the stress of this stiff dough. The initial water added to the flour will seem insufficient to experienced bread makers, but give it time to incorporate and dough will form. Knead dough until it is smooth. This will take a few minutes. The amount of kneading necessary is less than when developing gluten in yeasted dough, but the time and effort needed for this stiff dough is often the same. After a short while once the water has had time to soak into the flour the dough will become easier to knead. Divide the dough into three to five pieces. Hand roll each piece round like a dinner roll until it is a smooth mass. Press the dough down with the palm of your hand until it is about ½ inch thick. If the dough cracks on the edges or splits, then more kneading is required. Make evaporation holes using a pizza docker or an ice pick. The holes should be about ¾ inch apart from each other and cover the entire surface of the biscuit. They do not need to go all the way through the biscuit dough. Place biscuits on a cookie tray and bake for one hour at 375 degrees. Once or twice during the baking, open the oven door to allow the evaporating water to escape. When the hour is up, remove biscuits from the oven and place them on a cookie rack to cool. Continue to dehydrate them by leaving them exposed. You can also store them in the oven to dry once it has cooled. Once they have dried for several days, the biscuits will be ready to use. They will keep indefinitely if maintained in a dry, cool place, and stored so that insects cannot access them. Enjoy them on a trek, in a camp, or as part of your demonstration kit

 

Reproduction Biscuit article JOTEA 2011-1.pdf

[William Brand]

I have recipes for mischief.  Add Chaaps and Stynky to taste.  

[madPete]

Ragoo French Green Beans

From Colonial Williamsburg Recipes

 

 

18^th century

Take a few beans, boil them tender; then take your stew pan, put in a piece of butter, when it is melted shake in some flour, and peel a large onion, slice it and fry it brown in that butter; then put in the beans, shake in a little pepper and a little salt, grate a little nutmeg in, have ready the yolk of an egg and some cream; stir altogether for a minute or two, and dish them up.

• Glasse, Hannah, “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple” 1796.

 

Boil two pounds of potatoes soft, then peel them, put them into a sauce pan, put to them half a pint of milk, stir them about, and a little salt; then stir in a quarter of a pound of butter, keep stirring all the time till it is so thick that you cannot stir the spoon in it hardly for stiffness, then put it into a halfpenny Welsh dish, first buttering the dish; heap them as high as they will lie, flour them, pour in a little melted butter over it, and then a few crumbs of bread; set it into a tin oven before the fire; and when brown, lay it in the middle of the dish (take great care you do not mash it), pour your ragoo round it, and send it to table hot.

 

21^st century

Note: This is a two-part recipe as you see it here. The beans are done in the first recipe then the potatoes in the second. Combined together they make a neat and attractive dish.

Beans

Ingredients

• ¼ lb. green beans (I used frozen french style green beans)

• ½ stick butter

• 1 tablespoon flour

• 1 medium onion

• Salt and Pepper to taste

• ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg

• 1 egg yolk

• 2 tablespoons (plus) cream

Instructions

1. Cut your beans into 2 or 3 inch pieces and boil in water until medium tender in a stew pan.

2. In a medium saucepan, melt the ½ stick of butter, shake in half of your flour and stir with a whisk.

3. Peel the onion, cut it in half and cut those halves into thin slices. Put them into the butter and flour mixture. Fry your onion in this until golden.

4. Drain the beans from the water and add to the onions and add the rest of the flour, salt and pepper. Stir well.

5. Add the cream, or more if needed and stir well.

6. Whip the egg yolk in a separate bowl and add this slowly to the beans as you stir over a medium heat. After a couple of minutes’ stirring, take it off the fire.

 

Potatoes

Ingredients

• 1 lb. potatoes

• ½ cup milk

• 4 tablespoons butter

• ½ tsp. salt (or a little more if you like)

• 2 tablespoons bread crumbs

Instructions

1. Peel and boil the potatoes in water until soft.

2. Drain and put them into a mixing bowl and mash them.

3. As you mash the potatoes add the milk, half the butter and your salt. Continue to mash them till they are stiff.

4. Mound the potatoes up in a pie plate and dust the flour over them, then drizzle over the rest of the butter melted and then top the whole with the bread crumbs.

5. Brown the top of this mixture in the oven with the broiler on until the crumbs are brown and crisp.

6. Gently place the potatoes in the center of your serving plate with a nice flat spatula. Then take your ragooed beans and spoon then nicely around the potatoes. You are ready to serve.

 

[William Brand]

The Ragoo French Green Beans and Potatoes were excellent!  One of the best 'comfort meal' dishes at the event last April.  It was so nice to stand or sit about with other sailors and eat good food.

[madPete]

2 hours ago, William Brand said:

The Ragoo French Green Beans and Potatoes were excellent!  One of the best 'comfort meal' dishes at the event last April.  It was so nice to stand or sit about with other sailors and eat good food.

Actually, that was Ft Gaines in September.

April was Potato Soup and Lobscouse, which will be posted sometime soon.

[Stynky Tudor]

15 hours ago, madPete said:

Actually, that was Ft Gaines in September.

April was Potato Soup and Lobscouse, which will be posted sometime soon.

On all accounts I thought it was all delicious! Though I really loved the Beef Stew/Lobscouse at FKG.

[William Brand]

Oops. Mixing up the sites.  I still mean the Ragoo beans, but at Gaines!

[Mary Diamond]

Tudor Smith! Your recipes for bread, shortbread, and chocolate are hereby requested!

[Tudor MercWench Smith]

The bread is still very much a work in progress, and I am perpetually making adjustments but here's the basic jist of it...

Bread flour - 4 cups/450g
Water - 1.25 cups/ 275g
Starter - 1/3 c/100g
Salt - 1.5 tsp/10 grams

Feed your starter the night before
Mix all ingredients in a bowl until shaggy
Kneed for 8-10 minutes (can use a stand mixer) until elastic and smooth and "feels" right
Cover and let rise 6-8 hours or til double
Tip out onto lightly floured surface, and shape
Put on parchment paper and put into Dutch oven and cover for another 2-4 hour rise or until doubled (will vary based on temp).
Score the middle with a very sharp knife then bake at 475-500 degrees - if starting from a cold over bake for about 50 minutes, then do 5-10 uncovered. If starting from a preheated oven, do about 20-30 minutes. If baking in a wood fired brick oven, bake at whatever temp the oven gods will allow the thing to get up to for as long as it takes for it to resemble bread. . . 

For fun a few days ago I ran this through chatGPT to write it as if it were an early modern recipe. It was not disappointing lol . . . 

 

Edit to add: while this recipe is entirely appropriate to period in that soughdough starters have been used since at least documented the Egyptians, and this was the only way to get levened bread, from all research I've found, use on board a ship would be highly unlikely due to the conditions being tricky to keep a starter healthy and alive and the difficulties of keeping flour fresh in storage - so this bread would have been a landside treat only, unless I can find some documentation otherwise. 

Edited January 27 by Tudor MercWench Smith

[Tudor MercWench Smith]

This is the recipe for the Chocolate. 

https://rarecooking.com/2016/01/28/chacolet-from-rebeckah-winches-receipt-book-at-the-folger-shakespeare-library/

I recommend reading it there rather then having me transpose it over, because the original creators have so much good insight and provide the recipie in the original text as well as the modern transcription. 

Sadly, I do not recall which shortbread recipe I used back at FKG1 specifically, but this tends to be my general procedure:

Shortbread: 1 c butter 1/2 c powdered sugar 1 3/4 c flour 1/3 c cornstarch Cream together softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Sift the flour and cornstarch into the butter and mix. Scoop into small balls and flatten with your hand or a stamp. Bake at 300 for 20 minutes

[William Brand]

58 minutes ago, Tudor MercWench Smith said:

This is the recipe for the Chocolate. 

https://rarecooking.com/2016/01/28/chacolet-from-rebeckah-winches-receipt-book-at-the-folger-shakespeare-library/

I recommend reading it there rather then having me transpose it over, because the original creators have so much good insight and provide the recipie in the original text as well as the modern transcription. 

Sadly, I do not recall which shortbread recipe I used back at FKG1 specifically, but this tends to be my general procedure:

Shortbread: 1 c butter 1/2 c powdered sugar 1 3/4 c flour 1/3 c cornstarch Cream together softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Sift the flour and cornstarch into the butter and mix. Scoop into small balls and flatten with your hand or a stamp. Bake at 300 for 20 minutes

That was a very insightful page and I enjoyed transcribing and gleaning parts of it for the upcoming print project.  Plus...it tasted good at the event.

[Tudor MercWench Smith]

2 minutes ago, William Brand said:

That was a very insightful page and I enjoyed transcribing and gleaning parts of it for the upcoming print project.  Plus...it tasted good at the event.

I am low key obsessed with that site lol. I had intended to do donuts and Shrewsbury cakes from there at the event too, but the donuts didn't cook up well and I wanted to prioritize the wood and the cooktime. Maybe next time I will make them ahead of time. 

[madPete]

1 hour ago, Tudor MercWench Smith said:

The bread is still very much a work in progress, and I am perpetually making adjustments but here's the basic jist of it...

Bread flour - 4 cups/450g
Water - 1.25 cups/ 275g
Starter - 1/3 c/100g
Salt - 1.5 tsp/10 grams

Feed your starter the night before
Mix all ingredients in a bowl until shaggy
Kneed for 8-10 minutes (can use a stand mixer) until elastic and smooth and "feels" right
Cover and let rise 6-8 hours or til double
Tip out onto lightly floured surface, and shape
Put on parchment paper and put into Dutch oven and cover for another 2-4 hour rise or until doubled (will vary based on temp).
Score the middle with a very sharp knife then bake at 475-500 degrees - if starting from a cold over bake for about 50 minutes, then do 5-10 uncovered. If starting from a preheated oven, do about 20-30 minutes. If baking in a wood fired brick oven, bake at whatever temp the oven gods will allow the thing to get up to for as long as it takes for it to resemble bread. . . 

For fun a few days ago I ran this through chatGPT to write it as if it were an early modern recipe. It was not disappointing lol . . . 

 

Edit to add: while this recipe is entirely appropriate to period in that soughdough starters have been used since at least documented the Egyptians, and this was the only way to get levened bread, from all research I've found, use on board a ship would be highly unlikely due to the conditions being tricky to keep a starter healthy and alive and the difficulties of keeping flour fresh in storage - so this bread would have been a landside treat only, unless I can find some documentation otherwise. 

I made some bread prior to the Tooele event and was flummoxed with getting it to rise the second time. For a time I thought it was bad yeast, but finally figured out the warm setting on my oven was too warm for yeast and rising dough, it was killing the action of the yeast. I've not tried to maintain a starter from batch to batch, like a sourdough, just did the yeast test prior to each batch. Since I've figured out the rising issue, I need to get back to it. The first loaves were not so perfectly risen, but we ate it up anyway with pea soup at Dana Point. One of the meals at Tooele I ended up purchasing round loaves at the deli.

A good pie crust is the other task. There are so many period recipes in the form of pie like Onion Pie and Pigeon Pie. We have too many pigeons here! (kidding of course). but need to experiment with substitutions and some period meals for this year! I made sweet potato pie from my garden a couple years ago for a local event that was a hit, even with storebought crust.

[Tudor MercWench Smith]

7 minutes ago, madPete said:

...I've not tried to maintain a starter from batch to batch, like a sourdough, just did the yeast test prior to each batch. Since I've figured out the rising issue, I need to get back to it. The first loaves were not so perfectly risen, but we ate it up anyway with pea soup at Dana Point. One of the meals at Tooele I ended up purchasing round loaves at the deli.

A good pie crust is the other task. There are so many period recipes in the form of pie like Onion Pie and Pigeon Pie. We have too many pigeons here! (kidding of course). but need to experiment with substitutions and some period meals for this year! I made sweet potato pie from my garden a couple years ago for a local event that was a hit, even with storebought crust.

People make maintaining a starter sound so much more complicated then it needs to be, I have found. And honestly, I've had better luck with it then conventional yeast, which I find dies and goes inactive in my cupboard pretty quickly. Meanwhile, my starter gets fed maybe once a week right before I bake. I've only had maybe one loaf out of a dozen or so, so far, not rise. Other misc failures abound of course, but rise hasn't been one off them too much. Temp is a big deal, but can be adjusted for with more time to let it rise. That's the other thing I am learning - it's an art, not a science. It may say  x hours rise, but that literally depends on the weather. Let it rise til it looks good. Put in as much flour or water til it feels right. Recipes are more like guidelines anyway, to quote a favorite pop culture pirate. 

I actually had a pretty good discard dough recipe I used back at Thanksgiving, it was nice with the apples, but it would probably lend itself well to a savory pie. If you'd like, I could dig it up and you could play with it for you pigeon purposes. 

[madPete]

Actually that loaf I purchased was from a vendor at the Tooele event (not the deli). There was a small section one day like a farmers market and there was a vendor that had a variety of breads that were round loafs and very tasty. I forget what variation that was exactly.

[Mary Diamond]

Once I get a few more projects cleared, I would like to try the baking/sourdough thing… but needs must wait, I can’t add another project and learning curve right now…

[Tudor MercWench Smith]

18 hours ago, Mary Diamond said:

Once I get a few more projects cleared, I would like to try the baking/sourdough thing… but needs must wait, I can’t add another project and learning curve right now…

Let me know when you are ready and I can send you some starter!

[Mary Diamond]

Will do, thank you!