[SCA] Purim cooking

[cellio]

Tonight I did a trial run of one of the recipes for the Purim event, a fish pie. The ones for the event will not all be as whimsical as this, but one probably will be.



(The tail "fins" slipped in cooking.) I'm not sure what to use for the eye. I'm thinking maybe a green grape (or half of one), but I didn't have any in the house.

I seem to have zero talent for pie crust. The first problem is that it was kind of tough (I mean even before baking); I understand that this means I kneaded it too long, but the line between "not yet one coherent ball of dough" and "over-kneaded" is, in that case, way too fine. As soon as it all held together I stopped.

I assume my problems rolling it out are related to this. I couldn't get it as thin as I wanted. It just wouldn't go, after a while. I suppose I should go looking for "pie crust 101" on Wikipedia or something.

Comments

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

That looks pretty good to me. And I think a grape would be a great "eye."

Looks like fun to do, too!

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

What are you using for a recipe? My mom's recipe is just oil, flour, and water, and maybe a little salt, and it's really good -- very flaky. It's too late to call her for it now, but I'd be happy to get it from her tomorrow.

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

Ooh, also, can you use a green olive for the eye? Green olives with pimentos might not be strictly peiod (and I've no idea if they're kosher), but it'd look cool!

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

For a flaky crust, chop stuff together til it looks "sandy" and clumps a little.
Then press with the heel of the hand, and it will lock into a ball. Done.

Remember to keep it all as cold as you can ( ice water, cold board, refridgerate to keep cool, etc ).
The pie looks lovely, I do wish I could be there. The almond is cute.

[cellio]

The scales were a little tedious; pressing them into the dough wasn't working too well. I guess I needed some sort of binder. (Egg?) But for one pie at the event, I can do scales. :-)

[cellio]

This recipe called for flour, water (in which the yeast is primed with a little sugar), egg, salt, and a little pepper. No fat (well, except from the egg), which I didn't think about until now.

Since this crust has to encase the fish (and a sauce), I think I actually don't want something too flaky -- it might lose structural integrity. But thanks for the tip -- there are other times when a flaky crust is exactly what I need, and now I have that clue.

[cellio]

Olives are kosher. Also period in some form; I don't know about green versus black, but I suspect a green olive (sans pimento) would work well. Thanks!

[cellio]

Thanks for the instruction! Much appreciated.

I rolled out the dough immediately after the second kneading. (Knead, cover with wet towel and put somewhere warm, knead just enough to get out the air pockets, and then roll.) Was that my mistake? Was I supposed to chill it before rolling?

Sorry you can't be there, but it would be a bit of a shlep (especially for a Sunday event).

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

When I made the "Pastry of Fish" soteltie last year, I used a cros-section slice of black olive for the eye. I'll try to post a link to a picture....

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

Yeast, in a pastry crust? Interesting...

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

If the fat gets warm, it soaks into the flour rather than resting between microlayers, and becomes a tougher entity, yes.
I like to wrap it in plastic, get it cold in the 'fridge for a half of an hour, then roll it out cold. It will crack, but patches press in nicely.
If it begins to warm, place it back into a cold spot til it chills. Dont bother to knead, it will do more harm than good.
Thanks for the nudge, I'll post some pie crusts tomorrow or the next day. Not period, but reliable.

Looking forward to hearing about the meal!

[cellio]

While these are called pies, they're apparently supposed to be stuff wrapped in something bread-like. (Granted, I have the impression that almost all bread and crust recipes are speculative, when it comes to the middle ages and renaissance.)

[cellio]

Thanks! That sounds like it would work well. (I'd like to see the picture, when you get a chance.)

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

Okay, fair enough. Might something like a pizza crust be useful?

[cellio]

Good idea -- thanks!

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

Cute fish!

I have never heard of a yeast-based pie crust. All the pastry crusts I know of rely on keeping everything chilled so the fat doesn't soak into the flour, but yeast needs warmth and time to rise. What exactly is this supposed to be like?

[cellio]

It's supposed to be bread-like. It doesn't get the structural support of a pie tin while cooking, so I would expect something a little sturdier than a conventional pie shell, but I overdid this one.

Hmm -- if I think of it as bread, maybe I could set the bread machine to doing the mixing and kneading for me. I'll try that experiment and see if it's any easier to roll out.

(I wonder how long the dough would keep -- can I make it at home in the bread machine several days out and bring balls of dough to the event? Fridge or freezer? I've certainly seen frozen bread dough in the grocery store (thaw and bake), but who knows what chemicals that stuff is loaded up with and how they affect the process.)

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

I was, of course, assuming a pastry crust.
For a pie which needs integrity, you lose all tenderness by design.
For these crusts, often they were intended to be discarded by the diners, perhaps eaten like trenchers by servants and dogs after dinner.

[magid.livejournal.com]

You can freeze dough at home; thawing is part of the next rise (longer than usual, natch). Don't leave it in the fridge for more than a day or so, because it's not cold enough to completely stop the rising process (which is to say, the dough will keep rising, slowly, in the fridge, and a couple of days' rise is too long).

[ellipticcurve.livejournal.com]

Pie crusts ARE tricky. I'm fairly competent at them, but it took me a while (and a lot of terrible crusts) to get that way. My tips, FWIW:
Use cold water.
Use cold butter. I like to soften it a little, cut it into cubes, and stick it back in the fridge.
I mix it in the electric mixer until it's not quite consolidated into a ball. Finish by hand. Try to touch it as little as possible.
It not getting thin enough sounds to me like there's too much gluten in the dough (this could also be contributing to toughness). If you're using bread flour, certainly switch to all-purpose; also, consider pastry flour.
For regular pies (i.e. not the free-form one pictured above), I almost always blind-bake the crust. I've never had an underdone crust since I started doing this.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Just in case it makes a difference (it probably doesn't), you might migrate from "pizza crust" to "stromboli crust".

[cellio]

Ah, good point -- crusts for containing stuff, as opposed to crusts for merely supporting stuff. (And there is a sauce inside this along with the fish.)

[cellio]

Thanks!

[cellio]

Thanks!

More evidence that this particular recipe intended something unusual: it specifically called for warm water (for priming the yeast). Now I know not to try to generalize from this.

Scales

[misoranomegami.livejournal.com]

Sorry random person passing through...

If you wanted to try something differet for the scales you could make the dough a little thicker and then do a series of snips with some kitchen sheers. That way you have little raised triangular bits standing up that you don't have to cut and attach by hand and if you wanted more definition you could squish them with your thumb to shape them individually.

Re: Scales

[cellio]

Thanks for the suggestion! That sounds like it would look really spiffy. (Nothing beats "scales" that are actually attached, after all.)

Oh, and if I had any problem with random people passing through, I wouldn't post things for the world to see. No need to apologize.