A Tudor Feast at Christmas

A new day coming

So Skyrim's going to have cooking in it. This will change everything! This blog will continue, of course, but it'll be less theoretical and more focused on the real world versions of what's going to doubtless be a very interesting collection of recipes. For example, in the E3 demo, there was salmon. That's a new one.

And another thing, there's this "Skyrim Food Truck" they're doing. Well lo and behold, it's coming to MY neck of the woods end of this month. To Boston University, my alma mater, no less. You better BELIEVE I'll be there, taking pictures, and sampling foods of a Skyrim-themed nature.

So tonight I'm making Mutton Stew from my Medieval Cookbook. It does assume existence of chickens and eggs, but both have allegedly been confirmed for Skyrim. so what the heck. Tonight's choice wasn't so much to adhere to Tamriel guidelines, but because my husband was idly flipping through my new cookbooks and said, "Ooooh, can we do mutton stew sometime?" :)

Blackberry Bread Pudding

*Contains ES-Unverified Ingredients*

Today I was cleaning out the shows on our DVR, and there happened to be two episodes of Good Eats on there. One of them was about bread pudding. I watched it, and it was obvious almost right away that this should be the first recipe for this blog. I have adapted the Alton version to ES (Elder Scrolls) where I could. He used refined sugar, dried cherries, and golden raisins. I went with honey (since there is mead in ES) and blackberries. Since the Pleyn Delit recipe has white wine as an option, instead of Alton's 2 ounces of rum, I used some mead. The spices are of course the problem part here, all of them being unverified, but bread pudding without these spices is going to suck, so I'm just rolling with it. I did leave out pepper, not totally on purpose though. ;)

We'll see how this works out. In true Alton fashion, the whole recipe takes like 9 hours from start to finish. As I type this, I'm at the "dry bread cubes in the oven for 2 hours" part.

The original recipe calls for 5 cups of dairy. This left me with WAY too much liquid. I dunno, maybe because it was a smaller bread boule, but I reduced it to 4 cups of dairy.

Blackberry Bread Pudding

An adaptation from Spiced Bread Pudding (from Alton Brown, my secret geek crush) and the Cherry Bread Pudding recipe in Pleyn Delit.

Ingredients

* 1 cinnamon stick
* 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
* 1 teaspoon dried orange peel
* 15 whole cloves
* 1/2 ounce crystallized ginger, chopped (look, ES HAS to have ginger, it's just that good)

* 4 cups half-and-half, divided
* 3 large whole eggs
* 3 large egg yolks

* 1 cup honey
* 2 ounces mead

* 1 (10-inch) bread boule
* 1 package frozen blackberries

Directions

Place the cinnamon, nutmeg, dried orange peel, cloves, and ginger into 3 cups of half-and-half in a microwavable container and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Check the temperature of the mixture and microwave in 30 second increments until it reaches 180 degrees F. Cover and steep 15 minutes.

Place the eggs and yolks in a blender with an 8-cup carafe. Blend on the lowest speed for 30 seconds. Raise the speed to quarter power and slowly add the honey and blend until thickened slightly, about 1 minute. Add the remaining 2 cups half-and-half. With the machine still running, pour in the spiced half-and-half through a small hand strainer and add the mead. Store in the fridge till the dry bread cubes are ready.

Preheat the oven on the lowest (or warm) setting.

Cut a 7-inch round disk off the top of the boule using a long bread knife or serrated slicer. Tear the disk into pieces and scatter in a large roasting pan. Cut all the way around the inside of the boule just inside the outer wall. Cut downward and across the interior of the bread, first in one direction, then 90 degrees to it to create a grid, the way you would cube mango flesh to remove it from the skin. Remove the plugs of bread and tear into hunks about the size of an egg. Add to the roasting pan and bake until bread is dry, 1/2 to 2 hours.



Sprinkle the fruit over the bread, pour in the custard, and press the bread to submerge all the pieces. Cover and soak for 2 hours at room temperature or for up to 8 hours in the refrigerator.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Baste the inside of the bread shell with melted butter. Be sure to cover the bottom with a thin layer to prevent the custard from soaking through. Place the bread shell in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet and place in the oven to toast the interior for 30 minutes.

Remove the bread shell from the oven and transfer the soaked bread mixture into the shell. Bake until the bread pudding souffles and reaches an internal temperature of 165 to 170 degrees F, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Remove and cool 30 minutes before slicing or scooping and serving.

The verdict: it was good, and one of the few recipes that came out looking almost exactly like the tv version. Not sure it was worth 9+ hours of work, though.

Guides and medieval cookbooks

My first two medieval cookbooks have arrived.

1. Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks
2. Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook

Pleyn Delit has a really great introduction that talks about what eating habits were like in those times. It was all about the bread, baby. They even used it as a thickener for sauces and pottages (soups). Other ingredients that keep popping up are peas and almond milk. We don't have peas, and strictly speaking, we don't have almonds either (though maybe Ironwood nuts would do). And spices like cinnamon and pepper, and herbs like parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme aren't explicitly mentioned either. Not that they would be if they ARE present; they don't have a lot of bearing on RPG activities. That's a big part of the justification for assuming we have them to work with, but I'm still going to classify them as "unverified" items.

On the other hand, in Medieval Europe they didn't have tomatoes or potatoes, and I am pretty sure corn was a New World thing, so we've got some serious consolation prizes there.

And another thing. Evidently, Shakespeare never knew about coffee or tea. Or chocolate. Or vanilla. Poor guy!

The basics

Welcome to Elder Scrolls Cuisine. I started this blog because I thought it would be fun for both me and my kids, and OK, mainly because I'm trying to pass the time between now and when Skyrim comes out. The goal? To more closely live, breathe, and eat Oblivion-style. So the rule is, recipes and dishes here have to be cookable using the ingredients that the developers of Elder Scrolls have revealed in the game to be available (or ingredients that can be reasonably assumed to exist there based on other evidence).

So let's start by seeing what's available to work with. Following are the food-based Alchemy ingredients found in Oblivion.

Main Ingredients
Apple
Beef
Blackberry
Boar
Bread
Carrot
Cheese
Corn
Crab
Fennel
Fish (slaughterfish)
Flour
Garlic
Grapes
Ham
Ironwood Nut (acorn?)
Leek
Lettuce
Mushrooms
Mutton
Onion
Orange
Pear
Potato
Pumpkin
Radish
Rat Meat
Rice
Strawberry
Tomato
Venison
Watermelon
Wheat Grain

Seasonings/Herbs
Arrowroot
Bergamot
Flax
Ginkgo
Ginseng
Lavender
Milk Thistle
Mugwort
St. John's Wort

Finished Dishes
Shepherd's Pie
Sweetcake
Sweetroll


In addition, the following can be found in taverns and travels.

Ale

Beer
Wine

Mead
Oysters


Based on the items available, we can assume the following with relative confidence.

• If ale, then barley
• If mead, sweetcake, and sweetroll, then honey
• If ocean, then salt
• If cheese and beef (wait, beef?), then dairy
• If ham, then pork and bacon

So these are the ingredients an Elder Scrolls cook has to work with. From here on, I'll reprise that role. I'll categorize recipes based on whether they use all confirmed ingredients, or some assumed ingredients. I'll base things as closely as possible to the medieval cookbooks that are currently on their way to my house. :)

According to fans on the official Facebook page, eggs and chickens have been confirmed. This is very exciting news.

Other ingredients I'm missing?