A year ago I was reading a book (Keskiajan maut by Satu Hovi, Art House, 2015) on medieval flavours in Finland, that is, ca 1150 – 1500’s. It’s a fascinating book. What did food taste like? What did ordinary people eat? How did different seasons influence what you ate? Food’s position in society, who ate what, how food was used as means of paying your taxes. How food was prepared, what did the utensils look like, how was food preserved. The utensils pictured in the book look just like my grandmother’s old wooden spoons and whisk she used for cooking. Those are my grannie's utensils. Delicious and interesting recipes are included. One that caught my eye was Wild Boar and Date Pie. I had to turn to the cover of the book. Was I reading about medieval flavours? Or something out of the latest gourmet magazine? This dish of the more affluent people sounds like trade routes were well established back then. Dates don’t grow up here. It’s just possible that wild boar was easier to get hold of then than now. There’s an epidemic of African swine flu spreading and the authorities are being very, very careful. If the flu gets here many piggeries are in danger. Especially those letting the piggies live the lives piggies are supposed to be able to live, digging and running around and rolling about outside. I managed to get some farmed wild boar in a tin. Long pepper is another exotic ingredient these days. I suppose I could have gotten some from an Asian food store but none are close by. I used black pepper. My pie dish is a bit too big at 27 cm diameter, but manageable. 25 cm might be better. The recipe: For the crust: 2,5 dl wholegrain wheat; 1 dl sour creme; 2 tbsp soft butter; 2 tbsl water; 0,5 tsp salt; 3 tsp dried or 0,5 dl fresh thyme, rosemary, oregano, savory, sage or parsley. For the filling: about 300 g wild boar; 100 g dates; 100 g cured, smoked pork (saunapalvi); 2 dl chopped onion; long pepper; butter or lard for sautéing the onion. Put the crust ingredients in a bowl and pinch them together to form the dough. I used rosemary. For sour creme I used smetana, similar to creme fraiche but a bit more sour. Pat into the pie dish. Peel and chop the onions and sauté in the fat. I used less than 2 dl. Slice/chop the meat and the dates. Spread onto the pie crust. Sprinkle pepper on top. Bake in 200C for about 45 minutes or until it gets some colour. I baked it for 40 minutes. Chatting with my sister and nieces I didn’t check it until the timer rang – I think 35 minutes would have been enough, it turned out very dark. Ovens are different, need to keep an eye on what you’re baking. So what did it taste like? It tasted good. Strong. We all liked it. To my knowledge, I hadn’t had wild boar since the beginning of the 70’s, so I had no recollection of the flavour. That was a decent piece of roast that had run its life around in some Russian forest; not farmed, in a tin.
The flavour of this pie was bacony, I would say. The cured, smoked pork no doubt attributed to this. The dates pair well with the meat, I was suprised. Not too sweet at all. Their sweetness ”cut” the fat nicely. I served salad with it. I don’t think salads were around in the Middle Ages, certainly not in winter. A typical veg this time of the year would have been turnip, I think. I guess beer would have been appropriate with the pie and undoubtedly there would have been a good wine as well, but I served it with water. To lighten things up, I served lemon mousse for dessert, a recipe I found on-line https://platedcravings.com/lemon-curd-mousse/. I didn’t have enough lemon curd so I used also some apple and zucchini jam I had made earlier. It has lemon juice and peel as well, so I don’t think there was a big difference.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm Piisa and I will be sharing with you my thoughts on this and that, maybe even on whatever. Archives
August 2023
Categories
All
|