Leche Lombard, a medieval date roll, with a Chinese-style bonus!

Leche Lombard is a medieval English recipe on page 133 in A Taste of History by Maggie Black.  I made this dish once before, years ago, and recalled how much I enjoyed it.  When I came across the recipe again, I took the opportunity to make it.

ISBN 0-7141-1788-9

The word "leche" implies that something is thickened.  In this case, a spiced date puree is thickened with egg yolks and bread crumbs, turning it into finger food, and served as an appetizer or a dessert.  It is not hard to make, especially if you have modern kitchen tools like a stick blender or a food processor.  If you want to go more "medieval", you can use a mortar and pestle.

In this case, I was taking it to a social gathering where I knew the people would be willing to try something new.  

Leche Lumbard -- Date Slices with Spiced Wine

1 3/4 pound dates, pits removed

3/4 pint medium-dry white wine

3 ounces light soft brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

6 hard-boiled egg yolks

about 6 ounces soft brown bread crumbs **have more on hand just in case**

3 - 4 tablespoons Madeira heated with a pinch of mixed spices

My bread crumbs were not brown, but they were soft.

Break up the dates and simmer with the wine and sugar until pulpy.  Pound or put through a food processor until almost smooth.  Mix in the spices and sieve or work in the egg yolks.  In a bowl, knead in enough breadcrumbs to make the mixture as stiff as marzipan.  Form it into a 2 inch (5 cm) diameter roll, and chill until firm.  Cut into 1/4 inch slices.  Arrange in overlapping lines on a plate, and trickle a drop or two of cooled, spiced wine over each slice.

My Notes

This recipe and a different redaction of it, is also found on page 138 of Fabulous Feasts by Madeleine Pelner Cosman.  That is how I knew the original name, which is not part of A Taste of History.

Here are the pictures of cooking the dates "until pulpy."

Ready to cook.

Pulpy.

I used a stick blender to puree the dates in the pan:

Smooth enough!

Just for fun, I pounded the bread in the mortar and sieved it until it was little bits.  I also pushed the egg yolks through a sieve until it was tiny pieces.

Then I mixed everything together well.  It wasn't as stiff as I wanted or as I recalled when I made it previously, but I was out of breadcrumbs.  I had to take it as it was and hope for the best.

So I rolled into a log shape and wrapped it in waxed paper for chilling.

About 2 inches in diameter and 15 inches long.

This fit on a tray in my refrigerator.

It didn't firm up as much as I had hoped, even after 4 hours of chilling.  But I sliced it anyways and arranged it on a serving platter with the spiced wine on top.

The Verdict

They were sticky but not terribly so.  I could pick up a slice and eat it without losing much or any along the way.  I liked them -- the texture was interesting, the flavor was spices and dates and richness.  It was not too sweet, and the wine seemed to add a more "adult-like" feel to this dessert.

The people at the gathering I attended enjoyed it.  One thought it was good enough that maybe it was "healthy", which made me laugh.  No, not really, but it was fun to think so.  Most pieces were gone by the end of the evening and the host wanted me to leave some behind, which I did.

Success!  Although I would add more bread crumbs to make it thicker and not so sticky.

I also think that you could make the texture more interesting by kneading in some toasted nuts (I would use chopped almonds) before making the roll.  

And Now for the Bonus

What I took to the gathering was not all the date mixture.  I had a lot left over at home.  I decided it would be a good filling for a Chinese moon cake.  Completely non-traditional, I guessed, but I had been given a moon cake mold by YT and wanted to play with it.

Exterior view of the mold.

Interior view.

I used a recipe from Nyonya Cooking's website to make the golden syrup and the dough.  Click here to see it.  I already owned a bottle of lye water.  Golden syrup is just a simple syrup of water and sugar with a strong lemon flavor, and it was easy to make.

Just add water.

Simmered for 35 minutes to turn golden.

It tasted lovely!  I think I would make this just to have on hand for an ice cream topping or brushing on a cake or to put in my tea.  

To make the dough, which the site calls "foolproof", requires cake flour, for which I substituted 200 g all-purpose flour mixed well with 40 g cornstarch.  Also, the dough recipe author has never met this fool, as I managed to mis-measure the lye water, putting in too much.  I completed the recipe anyway.

Include the golden syrup!

I found that the mold could hold 25 g of filling with 25 g of dough comfortably.  It took a little practice to get it to work well in the mold, but it wasn't hard.  Weighing everything on a scale was a good idea.

This was too big for the mold.  Reduce by half.

Out of the mold, ready to bake.

First you bake them for 10 minutes, let them cool for 10 minutes, brush them with the egg wash, then bake them again for 10 minutes or until golden brown all over.  

Done!

Honestly, the filling was better distributed than this in many of them.

The Verdict

Nyonya's site says to let the cakes sit in a closed container for about 3 days for the oil in the filling to soften the crust.  Another website agrees but encourages tasting it while the crust is still crispy.  I did both.  

First, it was really obvious that I had put in too much lye water.  I could taste it and it was not a pleasant addition.  Even after the cakes had matured for a few days, the lye flavor was there.  However, I could get past that in order to judge the final result.  

I thought the leche Lombard filling was a very good idea.  It achieved similar results to the professionally-made moon cakes I have previously tried.  Tasty, not too sweet, and balanced with the crust.  My observation is that Asian desserts are very understated, and this was that.  But it was still flavorful enough to be interesting.  

Success again!  Just be careful in measuring the lye water...

Roast Turkey with Meat Stuffing - Two Pinedo recipes

It's time for a Pinedo recipe!  And this time, it is a twofer.  I had a turkey to roast and I wanted a different type of stuffing for it.  Miss Pinedo did not fail me.  (Look at the keyword "Pinedo" to see more of what is going on here.)

On page 113 is her recipe for roast turkey.

My Translation

The word "malbarda" I translated as being "albardar", which means to wrap in bacon.  Using the idea that "it can be filled with mince of all kinds", I looked at her mince or stuffing recipes.  I chose this one on page 226, because I have never tried meat stuffing before (it was always bread-based):

My Translation

While the oven was heating to 450 degrees F, I worked on the stuffing.

My Redaction of the Turkey Stuffing

1 lb, 5 oz pork loin, chopped (about 2 1/2 cups)

8 oz. Roma tomatoes, chopped to about 1/2 inch cubes (about 1 1/2 cups)

2 teaspoons crushed garlic

4 oz ham, chopped (about 1 cup)

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup sliced almonds

1 teaspoon capers, drained

10 black olives, chopped

3 tablespoons parsley, minced

1/4 teaspoon ground saffron

1/4 cup white wine

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

Mix the pork loin, tomatoes, and garlic.  Add the rest of the ingredients except the wine and the vinegar.  Mix well.

Add the wine and the vinegar.  Mix well.  

Stuff the interior of the turkey with as much as possible (it will shrink).  Include a lot of the liquids.  Any leftovers can go into a covered casserole dish to be baked separately.  

See the turkey recipe to finish this up.

My Notes

Chopping the pork meant trying to break up the big pieces into small pieces that would mix well with the other ingredients.

Pork before chopping

Chopped pork

Pork, tomatoes, and garlic

Everything but the liquids, pre-mixing.

Everything mixed.

My Redaction of the Roasted Turkey with Notes

1- 14 lb turkey, fresh or defrosted

1 pound bacon

1 batch stuffing

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Rinse turkey inside and out, removing the giblets and neck.  (Save or discard; they are not being used in this recipe.)  Dry the turkey with a paper towel.  Place in baking dish.

Stuff the interior with as much stuffing as possible.  It won't expand like bread stuffings do, so pack it full.  I used about 2/3 of the stuffing mixture to fill this bird.

This turkey did not have the usual flaps that would cover the stuffing, so I used Miss Pinedo's recommendation to cover the stuffing with a slice of bread.  

Tuck the wings under the back.  Cross the legs and tie them together over the bread slice.

Cover the outside of the turkey with slices of bacon, tucking the bacon ends into the sides of the baking dish.

A bacon mummy

Put the turkey in the hot oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 325 degrees F.

Cook until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 180 to 185 degrees F and the stuffing to 165 degrees F.  This *should* take 15 to 20 minutes per pound.  However, mine cooked a lot faster than that.  It should have taken about 4 hours.  I'm glad I checked it after about 2 1/2 hours, because it was done, almost overdone.  I noticed that the bacon smelled done after 2 hours, and I wondered if that was a good cue to check the bird for doneness.  (I really don't know.)

Too far?

Allow the bird to rest for 20 minutes before carving.  I used some of the juices in the pan to baste it while it was resting.  Cut off the string on the legs and use a spoon to remove the stuffing into a bowl.  Carve away!

The Verdict

The turkey meat was pretty good.  I thought it was a little overcooked, but my guest tasters disagreed.  We all agreed that the breast meat was moist and not dry.  The dark meat seemed a little dry.  I think I would douse it with pan juices before serving it, next time.

The bacon was crisp and much of it stuck to the skin.  I like chewy bacon, so this did not appeal to me.  I wasn't going to serve it, but my guest tasters really wanted to try it.  They liked it broken up and sprinkled on the stuffing.

We all thought the stuffing was dry.  I believe it needed more fat; it could have dried because the missing flaps weren't there to trap the moisture or I didn't get enough of the wine and vinegar liquids into the stuffing while I was filling the bird.  This is why I recommend specifically getting those liquids into the interior.  

But we did agree that the stuffing had a good flavor.  It was meaty, which was interesting because we all had experienced only bread-based stuffing.  In fact, the meat was the dominant ingredient; it overpowered the raisins and olives.  (We all thought it needed more raisins and possibly more olives.)  One guest taster said, "The raisins were good to find, but they didn't last long."  

The seasoning added a good depth.  It was not strong, but it was well-balanced, and we liked it.  The almonds added an important crunch.  When I focused on it, I could taste the vinegar, which was good.  The acid bite (slight as it was) was the right addition to keep it from being "just meat."

Success!  Twice!

Meanwhile the extra stuffing was placed in the oven at 325 degrees F.  I drizzled on some olive oil first (because I didn't want it to be dry), then covered it for the first 30 minutes of baking.  I uncovered it for another 15 or so minutes since it looked too wet.

Prebaking

Done and very moist

This was also good!  It was, most definitely, not dry.  I didn't need to put the olive oil on it.  The wine and vinegar flavors came through, and they made the whole mixture very moist.  We all liked this better than what came out of the turkey because we could taste the seasonings more, although it still needed more raisins.  I could taste the saffron and tomatoes more, too.  

I never tasted the capers, so I could probably have put more in.  Try it, if you like capers.

Success again!

 

A Little Foodie Fun, with Fire! Mole Colorado

It was another cold and rainy day, so I made a fire in my fireplace.  At this point, it is almost a reflex to want to cook with that fire, so today I decided to create a mole colorado, Oaxacan style.  (Pronounced "moh-lay".)

A mole is a sauce, and this particular one needed to be tomato-based.  My challenge was to create it without a specific recipe.  I wanted to make it using general guidelines for moles and many of the traditional ingredients as I had read about them.

The guidelines are:

• Moist ingredients (tomatoes, onions, garlic) - char the exterior on a comal or dry skillet
• Dry ingredients (chiles, spices, nuts, seeds) - toast on a dry skillet
• Blend everything together with just enough water
• Simmer until the flavors meld and the sauce thickens

Some of the ingredients I picked were not appropriate for charring or toasting, so I held those out until the blending step.  But I get ahead of myself.  

My Creation

1 large brown onion, unpeeled

4 Roma tomatoes

3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled

3 New Mexico chiles

3 costeño chiles

1/4 cup white sesame seeds

1-3 inch long stick of cinnamon plus another 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 allspice berries (you might want more)

1 ounce bittersweet chocolate

1/2 cup raisins

1/4 teaspoon salt

about 2 1/2 cups water

First I needed to char the tomatoes, onion, and garlic.  The onion was big, so I cut it in half and placed the pieces cut-side-down on the dry skillet.  The tomatoes went whole over hot coals.  The garlic cloves were also placed in a dry skillet.

Coals cool down and sometimes they do that faster than I anticipate, so the garlic and the tomatoes got moved around as needed to find the heat.  You can see in the picture above that the live fire was closest to the pan with the onions, so that is where the garlic and tomatoes ended up.

I wanted to do more than just char the onion halves on the cut side.  I wanted them to be pretty cooked once they were ready to leave the fire.  So after they cooked on the cut side, I turned them to cook on the skin sides.  In all, they were on the fire the longest and were soft almost all the way through.  They also got a nice char on the cut side.

I charred the garlic with their skins on until the skins split.  This had cooked the garlic to soft.  The chiles were charred in the dry skillet until they had turned mostly black and puffed up.

The big chiles are New Mexico, the small are costeño.  Note the garlic cloves.

The tomatoes didn't get much charring but they did get soft and the skin broke up.

I toasted the sesame seeds until they smelled nutty, which also made them more ivory than white in color.  Toasting the cinnamon stick didn't change its appearance much, but it smelled more spicy than usual.  The whole allspice berries also smelled a little fruity once toasted.

Use more allspice

Once everything was done with the fire, I moved to the kitchen.  I removed the peel from the onion and the garlic cloves.  I did not remove the stem ends from the tomatoes.  I pulled off the stems from the chiles and removed their seeds.  

All the ingredients went into the blender *in batches* with some water to get it all moving.  This included the chocolate (broken into pieces) and the raisins but not the ground cinnamon and salt.

The first batch needed one cup of water.  Once that was blended, I poured most of it into a kettle.  I left some behind to act as liquid for the next batch, which only needed 1/2 cup water to get it going.  The third and fourth batches didn't need more water at all when I left some of the previous batch with them.  Then I used about 1 cup water to rinse out the blender jar.

All batches went into the same kettle, then were stirred together.  This means it is not important what ingredients went into which batch -- as long as they were blended to smooth each time and added to the kettle.  By "smooth", I mean that there were no visible chunks, even though the mixture looked grainy.  The chiles became tiny, dark flakes in the liquid, so it wasn't perfectly smooth looking.  

This is smooth!

The kettle went onto the fire, where I put coals below it, a few around it, and it was near the live fire.  I stirred it often.  I also rotated the kettle so the hot side near the live fire was switched with the cooler side away from the fire.  I added more coals around the edges as needed.

It started steaming quickly.  Sometimes it bubbled and blurped on the hot side, reminding me to stir it more.  

See the blurp?

I tasted it occasionally.  Before cooking, the dominant flavor was raw tomato, bright and acidic.  I knew the mole had to cook at least until that raw tomato flavor was gone.  That took about 30 minutes.  Then the dominant flavor was onion (it was a very large onion), and I wanted to cook the sauce long enough to get that onion flavor blended with the others.  That took about another 30 minutes.

After 1 hour of cooking, I decided it needed more cinnamon, so I added 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (untoasted) and it needed salt, so I added 1/4 teaspoon.  I wish I had added more allspice, but I was reluctant just in case I over-seasoned it.

It cooked another 10 minutes when I declared it thick enough.  You can see by comparing the first kettle picture to the one below that the level reduced about an inch, mostly from steaming.

Notice, too, that the color darkened considerably.  That isn't from the lighting -- the uncooked sauce was red; the cooked sauce was brown.

The Verdict

I had some roasted pork tenderloin and some roasted turkey in my refrigerator, so I sliced them up and warmed them in the oven.  A few slices went onto each plate, some mole was spooned over the top, and was garnished with sesame seeds.  There were flour tortillas and a tossed green salad on the side.  And wine!

Pretty!

We liked the mole with both meats.  We couldn't really decide which one was better with it.  (This was not a problem!)  I particularly liked dunking the flour tortilla into the extra mole and eating it without any other meat or garnish.  I thought the flavor of the mole was emphasized this way.

That flavor was ... complex...  Not that this was unexpected, with all the different ingredients involved.  It is just challenging to describe.

My guest taster thought there was meat in it, so I would say it had an umami taste.  We both thought it was fruity, probably from the raisins.  It was bitter, but not in a bad way.  That could be from the charring, but also from the bittersweet chocolate.  My guest taster had wondered if there was chocolate in it, and was happy to learn there was.  I could taste the cinnamon but not the allspice.  I wanted more of both spices.

I could not taste the garlic, but I don't know if it needed any more.  I would say not.  

The chiles were there, adding a lot of flavor and only some heat.  I had been warned that costeños were hotter than what I was used to, and to use them with caution.  This was good advice!  While I didn't get a burn from the chiles, their heat was present.  Maybe I could have put in one or two more, but considering I am a chile newby, it was good that I didn't.

The sesame seeds, surprisingly, didn't get broken up much by the blender.  I was surprised at how many were still whole or nearly so after the mole was cooked.  This added a nice little sesame flavor blast while I was eating it.  

In summary, it was sweet, bitter, deep, rich, mildly spiced with a little chile heat.  As I said, it was complex.  We loved it.

The next day we heated up some of the pork roast, covered the slices with a fried egg, and spooned some mole over the top.  That, with some flour tortillas, was breakfast.  Excellent.

I don't know how my mole would compare to a "typical" mole colorado from Oaxaca.  I don't think it matters.  It was good and we wanted more.  I achieved success.

Ensalada de pepinos - Cucumber salad, a Pinedo recipe

It's time for another Pinedo recipe!  (See the side panel for the tag "Pinedo" to see them all.)

My garden is producing chervil, an herb that tastes like black licorice.  I wanted to try one of her recipes that uses it.  Today I was in the mood for a salad, so on page 100 I found:

My Translation

I suspect that every culture that eats cucumbers has a version of cucumber salad involving vinegar -- they are a natural pairing.  

Aside from the use of chervil, this recipe is interesting because of the process she calls "deflamming" (desflamar).  This website, The Importance of Desflamar in Mexican Cooking, explains that soaking chiles in various liquids (milk or sugar water, for example) is useful to reduce the heat of the chiles in order to let the "underlying flavors shine."

In this recipe, the cucumbers and onions are deflammed; the cucumbers by soaking them in fresh water and the onions by soaking them in cold water with lemon juice.  Why do this at all?  

Cucumbers can be bitter.  A bitter-tasting chemical called cucurbitacin can form, mostly in the skin or just below it and at the ends, all because of the growing conditions - too dry or poor soil can contribute to this.  Peeling the cucumbers helps remove that, and soaking them in water may also help.  My cucumbers were not bitter to begin with, and I could not taste a difference after deflamming them.

Deflamming the onions helps reduce the strong taste that a raw onion has.  In this recipe, I soaked the sliced onions for 2 hours in water, a little crushed ice, and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.  I saved a few slices out separately so I could taste the difference between them, and it was quite distinct.  The raw onion's flavor was sharp and potent, whereas the deflammed onion's flavor was mellow and mild.  I could not taste the lemon, but the process turned the onions with bite into ones that were pleasant to nibble.

My Redaction 

4 cucumbers, about 2 pounds

5 ounces white onion, peeled and thinly sliced

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tomato, quartered and sliced (1 more would be fine)

1 large jalapeño chile, seeded and deveined, quartered and sliced

2 tablespoons chervil, finely minced

(water cress if you can find it; I couldn't)

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly ground pepper to taste

4 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon fresh Italian oregano, finely minced

Peel and then slice cucumbers into rounds just less than 1/4 inch thick.  Soak in fresh water for 2 hours.  Peel and thinly slice the onion.  Soak in a mixture of water, a few ice cubes, and lemon juice for 2 hours.

Deflamming the cukes

In the meantime, prepare the tomato(es), chile, and chervil, and place in a large bowl.

Use a bigger bowl than this for mixing.

Drain the cucumbers and onions, then add to the tomato mixture.  Drizzle the oil over everything.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Mix well.

I added about this much pepper.

If the salad is not to be served right away, cover it and put it into the refrigerator.  Just before serving, mix it again, then add the vinegar and oregano.  Mix well.  A little piece of chervil makes a nice garnish.

Garnished with some chervil

The Verdict

My guest tasters and I all agreed that this was a very good salad.  The flavors were interesting:  the chile was a surprise to them but it didn't add fire, just its distinctive jalapeño taste.  We agreed the amount was just right (even the chile lover in the group), although a little chile heat would have been acceptable.  The onions were delightful because they didn't have that raw onion bite.  

We all wanted more tomatoes in the salad.  I would increase it to two for the same amount of cucumbers.  We thought the amount of salt and pepper was just right.

The chervil was a subtle support flavor, which was good because not everyone likes the taste of black licorice.  It was not something you could single out without focusing on it, and when I did focus on it, I liked the level of licorice flavor it added.  I did not focus on the oregano taste, so I feel it was a good background flavor, adding complexity without calling attention to itself.

The flavors were balanced, and the vinegar and oil mix was refreshing.  It was pretty to look at.  Success!

I enjoyed the leftovers the next day, so if you want to make this salad ahead of time and allow the ingredients to marinate in the oil-and-vinegar dressing, please do.  Miss Pinedo probably had limited refrigeration capabilities, so she might not have considered making this ahead of time.  Just mix it well before serving.