HFF 3.16: Preserves

I feel a little bad for using a modern translation, and a lot bad for posting the challenge event late this fortnight. But I have been wanting to try these, I needed something from this time-frame for a recent event, and then I realized that I made a recipe using no less than three ingredients fitting the current challenge. So, I guess it balances out...

The Challenge: Preserves: Preserve seasonal produce, or make a dish which calls for preserved ingredients.

The Recipe: Ryschewys Close and Fryez

Take Fygys, & grynd hem smal in a mortere with a lytil Oyle,
& grynd with hym clowys & Maces; & þan take it vppe in-to
a vesselle, & cast þer-to Pynez, Saundrys, & Roysonys of Coraunce,
& mencyd Datys, Pouder Pepir, Canel, Salt, Safroun; þan take fyne
past of flowre an water, Sugre, Safroun, & Salt, & make fayre cakys
þer-of; þan rolle þin stuf in þin hond, & couche it in þe cakys, & kyt
it, & folde hym as Ruschewys, & frye hem vppe in Oyle; and serue
forth hote.

The Date/Year and Region: English, c.1430 [from the Harleian MS. 27, c.1430, printed by the Early English Text Society in 1888, with the modern translation from Historic Royal Palaces, c.2016]

How Did You Make It: I chopped up 9 dried figs and 6 dates, and mixed these with 3 Tbsp of dried currants. [At this point I should have added 1/2 tsp each of mace, black pepper, and cinnamon according to the modern recipe; possibly also cloves and saffron if I read the original correctly.]

I ground up a generous pinch of saffron stamens, and mixed them in 1 cup of water (turning it pale yellow), and then used it to make a paste with 1 3/4 cups white flour and 5 tsp sugar. I rolled this out on a pastry mat, cut it into ~2" circles with a biscuit cutter, added ~1 Tbsp of fruit filling to each circle, and folded the paste into half-circles. These were fried in lard until crispy and slightly-brown.

Time to Complete: About an hour to mix up the ingredients, and fry them in a deep pan.

Total Cost: Unsure, since I bought the ingredients at various times. The dried dates, figs, and currants are somewhat pricey in my part of the world, and the saffron is far from cheap.

How Successful Was It?: They taste nice: a little unusual to my palate, but interesting without being overwhelmingly weird. The figs and dates comprise the majority of the actual flavor; I barely noticed the sugar and saffron in the crust. I was worried about serving them cold (~8 hours after cooking), but they went over well at Faire. That being said, they definitely don't age well--I tried one couple days later and it was just sort of dull and chewy.

Interestingly, the fresh rhyschewys tasted fine even though they were much blander than they should have been. Honestly, I made a lot of mistakes here--I tripled the filling, but only doubled the crust (and somehow ended up with most crust than filling despite that), forgot all the spices, forgot the salt in the crust, and fried them wrong...and still ended up with an edible dish that I want to try again. The take away is that these just might be idiot-proof, and that I should never attempt to follow a recipe before 9am.

How Accurate Is It?: Aside from using the electric stove, the major issue was that I forgot to spice it. I also used lard to fry them--mostly because I got into a quandry about what sort of oil to use, and partly because I should not attempt to follow instructions quite so early in the morning.

Verdict: I like this, and will make them again (both because they were easy and well-received, and because I need to try it with the proper spices).

Rhyschemwys: 15th century fried fruit fritters.
Delightful, despite me doing everything wrong with them.