Tangy sauce

Other than pie shapes, I also prepared for the feast of St. Egon by trying the orange and sorrel sauce from Early French Cookery (p. 211). I was kind of amazed to find sorrel at my regular web food store (we get home delivery occasionally for convenience). I used juice from both Seville oranges and regular, and the sauce was tangy but very good. I didn't buy sole since I thought it a bit expensive for at test run. We had it with fish for dinner the first day and the leftovers with chicken the day after. The recipe in the book is based on a brief note of what goes with which fish, and not a complete extant recipe. I'm not sure about the generous amount of butter in it given that it is a sauce for fish probably served on a fish day. Using for example olive oil would probably be equally tasty, but different. If using no fat to rounden the flavour I would probably have wanted some stock or cooking juices from the fish.

Unfortunately I was ill and didn't go to St. Egon, but the kitchen made the sauce anyway. I had promised to get sorrel, which I did and sent with a couple of friends. I was kind of sad to wave a box of sorrel plants off and just go back to bed myself. This time I asked my local store to get it since I realised that they carry the brand of fresh herbs that grows the sorrel and could probably order them for me.

Playing with pie shapes

I tried making a fish-shaped meat pie a while ago. I intended to do that for S:t Egon and Nordmark coronet tourney this weekend but we have got the flu so we didn't go. Anyway, it's at hot water crust pastry from one part boiling water, one part fat and two parts flour. I could work at bit more on the artistic side of things, but I thought the dough was nice to work with, not to hard to shape and it did at least sort of keep the shape given. This is something I might try again since it's a so much nicer presentation than disposable pie tins. The filling is meat and dried fruit boiled in wine and spices and could have been slightly less wet. 

Sock UFO

I bought yarn from a friend ages ago that had some cow hair mixed into the wool. I intended to make a pair of naalebound short socks from it, thinking that they would be slightly more water repellant than regular woolen socks. Unfortunately I miscalculated how much yarn I would need and was unable to finish the socks. I put them aside and thought that I should buy some more yarn to finish them and then I forgot all about them. When I finally got around to asking the seller had no more left of the yarn so I had to go for something else for the last bit of the socks. If one tries to look at the bright side of this I have not only finally finished the socks, but also used up a small ball of brown yarn that I have had for ages. 

Upgrading veils

I have a couple of thin cotton veils that I have been using for ages. The first one I got at a Christmas gift exchange in Gotvik my first year as a member. After that I made a smaller one, which I every time I weat it think is too small, and a larger one that looks cool but is always getting in the way of things, so the first medium-sized one is the one I have been using the most. I have also had  some fine hemp fabric that I meant to make a couple of better veils out of. I have had it for quite some time not getting around to actually cutting and hemming it. This year I did actually manage to make one half circel veil and one oval. The hems could have been narrower, but at least I have new crispy veils. I like the way it falls around the face, it is slighty more stiff than the other ones. Ignore the strange placement and view of the veil, I accidentally just deleted a better photo. 

Almosts

We have been to Double wars, it was great! I hade intended to do some stuff for the tent and things were sort of almost done. I had made tassels for the two cushions for the benches, but I did not have time to sew them on before leaving and I also forgot them at home. Now that we are home again I out them on so that it will actually be done the next time I need them.

I had also made new curtains to use as inner walls since we like to divide the tent into different rooms. I measured by the old ones, completely forgetting that dependeing on which height we put the spoke and wheels at they are a little or a lot too long. I did an emergency basting to get them usable, but they will need a remake. Adding a couple of extra ties would not hurt either.

In many other ways the camping was smooth. The tent behaved well, the rope bed worked much better with the new and different rope and we managed to feed ourselves with a reasonable amount of work.

Sorting stuff

I got rid of the most annoying UFO:s little over a year ago before moving, but there are still projects that I gave up in the middle lying about here.

Yesterday I finished a silk veil, a long oval or maybe a rectangle with very rounded corners. I think that the reason why I stopped hemming it was the realization that it is a slippery silk that will probably make me go crazy when trying to make it stay on my head. Well, it's soft and shiny so I will probably give it go, but I need to find som thin good-looking pins to keep it in place. It's also possible that I stopped because the rolled hem was uneven and that I really, really didn't want to unpick it.

Pink Skjoldehamn hood

I don't think there will be nuch done by made for the Historical Sew Fortnightly. It looks like I never made the blog roll and the things I should finish won't fit in the challenges.

This is a hasty version of a viking hood, and the fit is not great. It's however very much what I'm missing for my viking garb, something to keep the cold off my neck and shoulders. I used information from the Internet, mainly from http://www.medieval-baltic.us/skjold.html and made alterations as I went along. The main piece had a fold on top of the head when I started, but it was much too long so I shortened it there instead of taking out the gores and cutting away fabric at the bottom.

Another UFO

I found another UFO the other day, a knitted wool cap that just needed fastening of threads and a run through the washing machine for felting. It is not yet fully dry, but I tried it on with a linen cap under for a quick photo. I think it turned out fine.

It had been sitting on a shelf for quite some time, but as I recall it the knitting was fairly straight forward. Lady Helwig suggested using nine needles and making all changes once per needle rather than by counting. I really liked that.

HSF14 Challenge #4: Under It All

Last time I moved I did actually get rid of some of the things that I would probably never finish. This shirt however I could not leave since it is such a lovely soft fabric.

When the Under It All challenge came up I decided to take it out of the bag where it had been sitting for five years or so. I soon realized that the problem was the ruffle. "What ruffle?", you ask. Well, the one that I unpicked, tried once more to attach neatly and then unpicked again and settled for doing without in order to actually finish the shirt. 

I also decided to sew the remaining long straight seams using the sewing machine. I then unpicked those since I had it inside out when sewing them. The only reasonable place to use the sewing machine at the moment is the kitchen table, and by the time I had unpicked the seams someone else had spread out an entirely different project there. So the shirt is hand-sewn since I wanted to finish it rather than wait for my turn to use the table.

The Challenge: A 16th century shirt

Fabric: Thin hemp

Pattern: Loosely based on somebody's description of the Sture shirts, I think. 

Year: 16th century

Notions: thread (linen, silk and cotton by the looks of it)

How historically accurate is it? Reasonably

Hours to complete: No idea, how about thirty?

First worn: Only for the photo. I intend to make a dress to go on top of it.

Total cost: None now, and I don't remember how much it was when I bought it. 

Menu Nordmark universitet

Friday night was Valentine's Day. We had soup, bread, some prosciuttio and a couple of noce cheeses. And a really, really rich chocolate cake (not made by me).

Saturday lunch was a beef stew served served with cracked wheat.

Saturday dinner was a buffet rather than a full banquet:

Bread
Butter
Mustard
Cherry sauce (sweet and sour, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper)
Cabbage salad (fresh parsley, leeks)
Soup of green peas (cinnamon, black pepper)
Hen pie (dates, raisins, spiced wine)
Pork sausages (smoky apple)
Lamb roast (garlic and rosemary)
Mashed carrots with almond milk (black pepper and sage)
Marchpane (rose water or saffron)
Apple pie (saffron, rose water)
Whipped cream
Cookies (saffron, cloves and nutmeg)

There were some late omissions, there should also have been:

Rice
Cameline sauce
Cheese balls

People seemed to enjoy the food. There was enough of all things, but there was not a lot of leftovers. The home-made pork sausages (not made by me) all disappeared but I think people had seconds and thirds of those, so there was no shortage. I assume there might have been more meat left if there had been an additional starch (rice).

Some short things to remember:

-make lists!
-cinnamon and peas are friends, the soup was nice even without the intended saffron
-bring extra saffron
-people are great, there was so much help and nice conversations in the kitchen

No flow

The food for Nordmark university was well received, but working in the kitchen was hard work. Things went slow, just in time or almost in time and I am very grateful to all the people who volunteered to help. Some of them was there all the way helping with shopping and setup, and that was really great.

I made gluten free bread for the first time ever. It was very fluffy, but I most admit to not particularly liking the flavour of it.

Erich for example, who not only made awsome sausages beforehand, smoked them on site while it was snowing but also came out in the kitchen to fix the last bit of getting them brown and pretty for serving. They were done, but didn't look done and I miscalculated the time it would take to get them browned.

Cheese balls

I tried making the cheese balls from Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin. First i read the English translation from medievalcookery.com, which sourced it from David Friedman's web site, and then I tried the original version found at http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/tx/sawe.htm. . I also found a German redaction at http://www.kochmeister.com/r/65519-kaesekuechlein.html which I used Google translate on. I don't really read German, but to me gebacken sounds more like baking than frying so I went with that option.

250 ml grated mature cheese
250 ml bread crumbs
1 egg
salt and pepper

I mixed the ingredients and rolled the dough inte balls, ended up with twelve I think. I then baked those at 200 degrees for ten minutes or so. The balls were nice. I had them for lunch with a salad and will probably make them for Nordmark University.

    

Sewing

I decided to try the Historical Sew Fortnightly.The setup is a new challenge every two weeks, but I might skip some of them. I can't quite wrap my brain around what to do for "Innovation" and "The Politics of Fashion " anyway.  I'm a bit surprised that I decided to do this since I don't really enjoy sewing and don't identify myself as a seamstress. I do enjoy having stuff when it's done though, so this is a way to actually get some things finished.

The Challenge: #1 Make Do and Mend
I have an old green dress that had three small holes near a seam in the lower skirts. I decided to use a patch on one of them and moved the seam 5 mm to get rid of the other two.

Fabric: Thin green wool

Pattern: One of the Herjolfsnes dresses, pattern originally made by a friend.

Year: 14th century

Notions: Thread

How historically accurate is it? Reasonable from the outside. It has lots of machine-sewn French seams on the inside. The patch is made from the same fabric as the dress and hand-sewn with silk thread. The thread is a bit too bright, but I find the result OK.

Hours to complete: Under 1. It was done about a week ago, but I didn't get around to blogging.

First worn: The dress itself maybe in 2008. It hasn't been worn after mending.

Total cost: Almost none, just some thread and scraps.

To stand on somebody's shoulders

When cooking a dish that I haven't done before there are several ways to go. I read original recipes, I compare them to modern ones for proportions and measures and I cook recipes redacted by others.

Today I'm going to try a couple of cookie recipes. Sweet and pretty isn't what I do best, so I'll work with other peoples recipes. I hope that if they have published it, it's probably a working recipe. Especially if there are pictures.

Today I'm trying these:

http://www.kiriel.net/cooking/laurelprize.html#1
http://www.medievalcookery.com/recipes/wafers.html

I haven't made wafers since I moved in with Nattfari, and only twice before that. First time went fine, second was horrible so there is also the element of trying the wafer iron on this particular stove. If things work out I will make cookies for Nordmark University.

Boiled bread

Last night we tried the recipe for Bread in a bag from An Early Meal. It was interesting rather than yummy, but went well with the viking theme.

We made the dough into fist-sized balls, tied them into cloth pieces and boiled them for half an hour. 

Hazelnut treats from An Early Meal

I tried the recipe for hazelnut cookies in An Early Meal. I have already had those made by other people and expected them to be good, which they were. I need to maka a couple of more batches before next weekend, though.

I also made walnut cookies by altering a recipe for walnut meringue cookies using honey and omitting the vanilla. There will be no more batches of those, but I will probably bring the ones I made. Meringue is a diva that requires really clean utensils and a good whipping, and I don't think that I could get a decent result doing that in an iron age kitchen. Substituting honey for sugar made a tasty cookie, but the meringue was somewhat strange, probably due to the water content of the honey. It could probably work in the right proportions, but I'm not really a sweet cook, so my patience for tweaking cookie recipes is small.

Veggie dish

I went to the farmers market a couple of weeks ago and came home with black kale among other things. The next day I tried combining it with (dried) green peas, onions and garlic for a veggie dish not entirely unlikely for a viking setting. I soaked the peas over night and boiled them. Most of the shells came off during the cooking.

I fried onion, garlic and the black kale in butter and added the boiled peas and some salt. The result was good, but I also realized I had made more food than I had aimed for.  

The solution to that was making even more food! I boiled pasta, added it to the pea/kale thing and grated some cheese on top. Lunch for me and two portions in the freezer for later use.

Alu laukar

My shire had a viking cookout last Saturday. People brought their cooking gear and we did a number of dishes. Since I don't have a fireplace, tripod, pots and such for cooking over fire I decided to try a recipe from the book An early meal, a sauce called Alu laukar.

It is basically a cold green sauce from fresh herbs, beer and vinegar. I used chives, dill and fresh thyme plus geuze (as suggested in the recipe) and malt vinegar.

I was not impressed at first taste, added salt, honey and more herbs, but I suspect that the trick is actually to let it sit for a while allowing the flavours to blend, and that it might be worth the effort pounding all the herbs in a mortar (or whizzing them with a blender). I got fed up with it after the chives, so the rest was just finely chopped.

We ate the sauce with rather fatty smoked pork and it was nice with the acidity and "green" flavour to go with it.

I also made some candied walnuts, just honey, malt vinegar and a pinch of salt boiled together and then tossing the walnuts in the mixture. A bit sticky, but nice.

The others made lamb sausage and a stew from deer or roe, and we made flat bread to go with that. We tried one recipe with mashed peas in it, and one plain flour, water and salt. I liked the pea bread, but some other people were rather sceptic to the whole idea.

Brown? How peculiar.

I seem to have bought brown and orange fabric and I fond that somewhat odd since I normally don't like brown. 

The solid brown will become a 14th century dress, the orange a jacket and the lighter brown herringbone one or two underdresses for my apron dress. 

Market time

It's the first Sunday of Visby medieval week, and soon the market will open. I used to be really excited about all the stuff on the market, but today I'm not so sure I really need anything. Or, I'd like to buy a camp kitchen/stove/grill, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to actually come to a decision. 

The temperature in the tent is still reasonable after the rain last night. We've been meaning to make an inner tent for added comfort, but for now we have hung some clothes against the wall where the morning sun hits, plus Nattfari's full circle cloak as an inner roof.