Cooking for Dayboard; or how I came to love the nickname “Meatpie”

So, this has sat in my blog drafts for like three months…. whoops.

My local area – the Incipient Riding of Ravensbridge, in the far northeast corner of Malagentia – was hosting the day board for the Malangentian Fall Event, Harvest Moon.  I had said previously how much I loved cooking in general, and how I was starting to get into period recipes.  In fact, some of the most fun, low-key events that we have done were the themed potluck lunches that we did about once a month for a while.  So when this came around, I offered to chip in and help.  I figured I could make a couple of meat pies to help fill stuff out.  Then a couple turned to four.  Then four turned into six.  The gravity of this hit me about a week before the event.  Six meat pies is A LOT OF MEAT PIE.

Initially, my thoughts were two beef pies, a massive Hungarian tart, a capon (chicken, really) pie and a salmon-shaped salmon pie.  There was a lot of discussion back and forth, and cooler heads pointed out that fish dishes are tricky to get right in an uncontrolled setting like a day board, and that a vegetarian option would be really good.  So, I swapped the salmon pie out for a Genovese Tart.  Here is a break out on them all, including some variations on how I prepared them; I had both kitchen resource issues and a desire to make every one a little differently.

To make Pyes of mutton or bief…

http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/pyes.html

While this is a pretty straight-forward recipe, six pounds of hamburg (since the recipe calls for two each, and I wanted to account for shrinkage) is a lot to make in one sitting.  I thought that it would be nice to have something that didn’t need utensils, necessarily.  Also, I realized that I don’t have a skillet large enough to brown six pounds of hamburger, so I was going to have to brown it in rotations.  What to do?  Using the short paest recipe that I had used for tarts at a previous party, I made about 4 dozen(!) muffin sized individual servings.  They were really, really good and held up to being served chilled really well.  I actually made these the night before, put them in the refrigerator overnight, and then put them back in the oven to warm up just before I left to go to the event (which was about an hour away).  My thought was that if I arrived just as day board was starting, these guys would be perfect, and they seemed like they were very good.  The muffin thing really worked out well, they turned out like little savory meatballs with a crust, and were a big hit at the day board.  Definitely on the list of things to do again.

Capuyn pasteyen

http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/caponpie.html

I also made this dish the night before, correctly suspecting that this would be a decent dish served coldish.  Again, with only one stove, an hours drive, and a cooking window of about 12 hours (that is, it was going to take me 12 hours to make everything), I had to cook everything in a certain order.  This one I made more traditionally with again the short paest crust, minced chicken on the inside, and covered with crust.  This also went very quickly, I never even got a chance to sample it!

Torta ungaresca

http://medievalcookery.com/recipes/hungarian.html

So here’s the scene – Capon pie in the oven, cooking away lovingly.  Meat pie filling on the stove top in a variety of stages between raw and browned enough that I can put it into the muffin tins.  I have no hands nor burners free.  It’s midnight and I have 8 pounds of chicken and pork that need to be cut, cooked, and then baked.  I have cooked already for about six hours.  There was only one solution – put it in the slow cooker.  And I have to say that it worked out AMAZINGLY.  It was perfect, the meat was perfect, the texture was perfect, the spicing was perfect, the mixture was perfect, it was great, great, great.  Again with the top crust so that everything stayed contained, I cooked the meat over night, and then cooked the actual dish (I suppose it was more of a… casserole?  since I made it in a 9×13 pan), brought it while it was still warm.

Something for the vegetarian inclined

http://greneboke.com/recipes/genovesetart.shtml

I was not sure about this one, if I am being completely honest.  I was a little nervous, mostly because I don’t eat vegetarian, and I wasn’t wholly sure on the details of it all.  I had never cooked with blanched vegetables or curdled milk.  I had never used chard.  This was an adventure.  I served this one open-faced, and if I remember correctly was the last one to come out of the oven.  It was UNBELIEVABLY good.  I was honestly shocked at how good it was.   I really can’t say enough about how good this was, except that I am definitely going to make it again because it was absolutely delicious.

In conclusion….

So there you have it.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the variety and the pies all went off really well.  I finally, after a nice long nap, stumbled down to the Day Board site and there was almost nothing left, so I took that as a victory!  And I love cooking, so this was a nice project for me to dive into for a day and a half when I could just spend it all in the kitchen.