Boiled bread

Last night we tried the recipe for Bread in a bag from An Early Meal. It was interesting rather than yummy, but went well with the viking theme.

We made the dough into fist-sized balls, tied them into cloth pieces and boiled them for half an hour. 

Hazelnut treats from An Early Meal

I tried the recipe for hazelnut cookies in An Early Meal. I have already had those made by other people and expected them to be good, which they were. I need to maka a couple of more batches before next weekend, though.

I also made walnut cookies by altering a recipe for walnut meringue cookies using honey and omitting the vanilla. There will be no more batches of those, but I will probably bring the ones I made. Meringue is a diva that requires really clean utensils and a good whipping, and I don't think that I could get a decent result doing that in an iron age kitchen. Substituting honey for sugar made a tasty cookie, but the meringue was somewhat strange, probably due to the water content of the honey. It could probably work in the right proportions, but I'm not really a sweet cook, so my patience for tweaking cookie recipes is small.

Veggie dish

I went to the farmers market a couple of weeks ago and came home with black kale among other things. The next day I tried combining it with (dried) green peas, onions and garlic for a veggie dish not entirely unlikely for a viking setting. I soaked the peas over night and boiled them. Most of the shells came off during the cooking.

I fried onion, garlic and the black kale in butter and added the boiled peas and some salt. The result was good, but I also realized I had made more food than I had aimed for.  

The solution to that was making even more food! I boiled pasta, added it to the pea/kale thing and grated some cheese on top. Lunch for me and two portions in the freezer for later use.

Alu laukar

My shire had a viking cookout last Saturday. People brought their cooking gear and we did a number of dishes. Since I don't have a fireplace, tripod, pots and such for cooking over fire I decided to try a recipe from the book An early meal, a sauce called Alu laukar.

It is basically a cold green sauce from fresh herbs, beer and vinegar. I used chives, dill and fresh thyme plus geuze (as suggested in the recipe) and malt vinegar.

I was not impressed at first taste, added salt, honey and more herbs, but I suspect that the trick is actually to let it sit for a while allowing the flavours to blend, and that it might be worth the effort pounding all the herbs in a mortar (or whizzing them with a blender). I got fed up with it after the chives, so the rest was just finely chopped.

We ate the sauce with rather fatty smoked pork and it was nice with the acidity and "green" flavour to go with it.

I also made some candied walnuts, just honey, malt vinegar and a pinch of salt boiled together and then tossing the walnuts in the mixture. A bit sticky, but nice.

The others made lamb sausage and a stew from deer or roe, and we made flat bread to go with that. We tried one recipe with mashed peas in it, and one plain flour, water and salt. I liked the pea bread, but some other people were rather sceptic to the whole idea.

Brown? How peculiar.

I seem to have bought brown and orange fabric and I fond that somewhat odd since I normally don't like brown. 

The solid brown will become a 14th century dress, the orange a jacket and the lighter brown herringbone one or two underdresses for my apron dress. 

Market time

It's the first Sunday of Visby medieval week, and soon the market will open. I used to be really excited about all the stuff on the market, but today I'm not so sure I really need anything. Or, I'd like to buy a camp kitchen/stove/grill, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to actually come to a decision. 

The temperature in the tent is still reasonable after the rain last night. We've been meaning to make an inner tent for added comfort, but for now we have hung some clothes against the wall where the morning sun hits, plus Nattfari's full circle cloak as an inner roof. 

Bed done

The bed is in our tent, in the camp in Visby. The rope stretches a bit much, though. I hope it gets better with use.

Will it be ready in time?

We decided to bring some wood that had been in storage for two years or so when visiting Nattfari's grandparents in their summerhouse this weekend.

Yesterday we started on a rope bed, but didn't quite finish. Today I have been at work, and Nattfari has had other things to do as well.

I really hope we can finish it before Visby medieval week!

White gifts

I made a new chemise for me. There was enough fabric left for a shirt for Nattfari, but not really for a decent legngth chemise, so I made a shirt. Visby medieval week is a long event, so an extra shirt for him  to change with could be nice.

I also made a new coif for Nattfari. He only had one and it was a bit on the small side so I hope that the new one will be better. He was away when I cut the fabric so the size is a bit of guesswork.

Mending stuff

With less than two weeks until we leave for Visby Medieval Week there won't be much fancy new stuff being done, but some mending of old stuff and perhaps some new underwear. I have started on a new St. Bridget's cap since the one I currently have is made from a cotton fabric, and I also think I need another chemise.

This is one of Náttfari's hoses, and there seems to be a big gap between the foot part and the upper part. I will now spend a couple of minutes sewing that shut, since Náttfari himself is away and will probably not have time to fix it when he returns next weekend. Or rather, if he has time to fix things, there are other things I would prefer that he did. While sewing I'm watching the first season of The Tudors.

Less is less

I had a cheap fabric that I had intended to make an inner floor from if and when I got a bigger pavillion. Now the day had come to actually do that. 

It's just that there was nowhere near as much fabric as I had thought, only about six metres. When I bought it I got what was left of it in the store, so at least there is no remorse about not having bought more. We will still need carpets, though. 

The Majgreve menu and some thoughts

Friday

No food served. There was fire so that people could heat food that they brought. Erik graciously offered to stuff my sausages with cheese and wrap them in bacon. Yes, everything is better with bacon.

Saturday

Breakfast
Due to the uncertain number of participants and wanting to keep the budget I opted for pancakes and no other form of eggs served for breakfast. Otherwise it was a rather simple breakfast. The coffee filter holder worked fine directly in the thermos.

Lunch

Stew with chicken boiled in beer , bacon and root vegetables
Bread
Butter
Cheese

The stew went down well, but given the small amount of participants adding a kg of bacon was unnecessary and there was way to much food left although we decided not to chop all the vegetables.

Dinner

Smoked and dried beef (Bosnian style, with garlic)

Smoked pork tenderloin
Smoked salmon
Cream cheese
Butter
Honey butter

Bread

Flatbread
Radishes

Soup of greens

Mustard
Sauerkraut with apple and cumin
Pork belly

Rosehip and apple soup
Whipped cream
Hazelnuts
Dried apples
Dried plums
Dried blueberries

The iron age house had two indoor fireplaces and two outdoor fireplaces. All the water had to be brought to site and there was no electricity. Most stuff went well anyway, but more could have been prepped. I forgot the vegetables that I had peeled and chopped at home, and I had not done all of them anyway.

I did a lot of the shopping on my way to the event and was pleasantly surprised at the lack of stressed Friday evening shoppers at that store. 

We did not use all the smoked pork tenderloin, and did not have any hard cheese for dinner. Most of what was put on the table was eaten. I think that there was enough food, but it might have felt good to have some more leftovers to prove it.

I had bought some meat for a stew as well, since the numbers I was given the day before the event suggested there would be a lot of people. Given the actual turnout I decided to leave it in the cooler since cool leftovers are better than warm leftovers. 

There should have been a frumenty-like dish as well, made from barley, but it got burnt very early in the cooking process. We decided not to scrub the pot and wait for the water to boil again and just let that dish disappear. 

This interpretation of viking food seems to go well with the fussy eaters. Not to complex flavours and the foods can be identified

The numbers are likely to change late when cooking for local Holmrike events. I need to shop less ahead and have a plan to add food late in the process. 

I would like to recruit at least one dedicated kitchen helper ahead of time. It worked getting a bit of help here and a bit there, but it would have felt good to not have to rely on the event steward constantly helping out. 

On the subject of the event steward: she did well and I would no doubt work with her again if she decided to do another event.

Whipping lactose free cream is hard. Not sure if it is the lack of lactose, or that it was only 35% fat plus some thickening agent. 

New underdress

I have had this fabric for quite some time. I fell in love with it, but the colour is not very flattering on me so I have been unsure of what to do with it.  I also had a piece of the same fabric in green and white which I used as a lining for a liripipe hood. It is a linen/cotton mix that frays a lot, so it needs rather large seem allowances.

First I made a pair of oriental pants out of the fabric, but they were not baggy enough to be comfortable, so I have now undone them and made an underdress for my viking garb. There was some unused fabric to add as well.

Green soup

I am planning on making a soup from chopped green leaves since they are one of the few fresh vegetables around here this time of year. I meant to pick nettles, but will have to substitute buyable greens. Apart from spinach there will be parsley and rocket in the soup I think.

The soup will be simple, just greens, stock and cream.

Flatbread

I tried a simple flatbread recipe yesterday.

300 ml flour
125 ml water
a pinch of salt

I combined several different flours and kneaded a dough, and made 8 flat cakes which I cooked on a frying pan with no grease. They were a bit on the thick side, but the proportions of the dough works.

On numbers

It is less than two weeks to the Majgreve event and the deadline for registering was last Sunday. The number of attendees still seems to be a bit uncertain although we are soming to some sort of decent approximation. There was a group meeting on Monday and the progress report from the event staff group made a surprisingly large amount of people remember that they had intended to come.

I have prepared some stuff in advance although there was some uncertainty, but might need to add a dish to the feast, or do some other late tweaking. It is a good thing that the store is close to the site.

Pork belly

A longhouse calls for pork, right? This is a test run of a piece of pork belly boiled, sliced, glazed and fried. I plan to do the boiling and slicing at home and the rest on site.

I used the following for the test:

500 g salted pork belly

500 ml water

2 tsp salt

50 ml elderflower cordial

1 tsp rosemary

1 tsp mustard powder

And then I glazed it with:

1 tbsp honey

1 tsp malt vinegar

0,5 tsp mustard

a little fresh horseradish

salt

I am a bit unsure about the use of rosemary for Viking age and might use some other herb the next time. For the real deal I will probably also put more salt and spices in the cooking water since the meat itself could have been spicier. All in all it was rather good, though.

After Double Wars

Most things went well, the weather was good and there were lots of nice people, as usual,

Here are some random notes, mainly for me:

• Inner walls/dividers for the tent would be nice to replace.
• The heater needs a good cleaning and possibly different fuel. 
• The heater was nice, but not really necessary. 
• Kitchen chest can lose some stuff, and the cutting board should be on top, not under everything else.
• If we make a bed it might be nice to add some sort of shelf for small stuff, phone, water bottle, etc.
• Having two sheep skins in bed is nice.
• We brought way too much food. 
• Soup, bread and dried meat is a decent lunch.
• Use sunscreen when packing.
• Bring a larger container for water.
• I really need to finish the Mästermyr chest.
• Cushions for the benches would be nice. 

Dried meat

Náttfari and I both like beef jerky. He likes his chili-hot, I can do with less heat. We are prepping some meat for bringing to Double Wars. The first batch is drying on low heat (ca 75 degrees C) in the oven now. It was about 1 kg before trimming off fat and stuff. It was soaked for almost 24 hours in:

75 ml sea salt
75 ml cane sugar
75 ml white balsamic vinegar
0,5 tbsp black pepper
0,5 tbsp long pepper
2 cloves of garlic
2 tsp ground dried onion

First tasting suggests that using less salt or pickling it for a shorter time might be better. There is also probably no such things as to much garlic, so I could have used more. The recipe was an adaption of this recipe found at Foodily.

New old tent

We bought a used tent a couple of months ago and tried assembling it today. It went well and I look forward to using it at Double Wars.

Rose hip soup, take two

So I tried again, using ground rose hip this time, which was much easier. Proportions this time:

100 ml rose hip powder
500 ml water
30 ml honey

I whisked rose hip powder into water and boiled it for a couple of minutes. The texture was less smooth than when I boiled pieces of rose hip for twenty minutes and then strained it. Soaking or maybe boiling for at bit longer might improve that.

It had much more twang now that some of the acidity is left and would probably be nice with a dollop of whipped cream. I think that a combo with dried apples would also work fine if one used less honey.

Boring sewing

Now I only have the last little bit of hemming left on my new shift and I find it boring.

Ah well, I need it done in two weeks for Double Wars. I got rid of all the less good ones when I moved a couple of months ago.

Seasons

We were looking at eating in season at Majgreven. Late May/early June around here is buzzing with life, but not much of the new growth is really ready to eat.

I am thinking of salted/smoked/dried foods as a base, add dairy products and small amounts of fresh early vegetables. If I have the time I might dry some food myself, otherwise there will be what is easy to get, for example apples, prunes and rosehips. There will also be bread and grains in some form, barley is likely to appear.

Playing with sourdough

I am testning bread recipes using sourdough. Having moved a couple of months ago means that the oven and I need to get to know each other. Things come out darker than I expect and I am not yet in the habit of using a thermometer on my bread. I might start doing that soon. Funny that, how much electrical ovens can vary.

Yesterday I tried this overnight sourdough bread recipe and made buns for brekfast. They turned out good, but involved a bit too much waiting for breakfast to really become a favourite. 

Rose hip soup

Rose hip were mentioned among things vikings ate, and being Swedish I decided to try a rose hip soup for Majgreven. Not the very sweet version from a box, but a darker home made one made from dried rose hips and honey.

Most modern versions contains potato flour or some other starch, but thicker soup can also be achieved by adding more rose hip. I tried these proportions:

100 g dried rose hip, no seeds

1000 ml water

100 ml honey

Boil rose hip in 900 ml water for about 20 minutes. Mix. Depending on how good your mixer is and how much body you want to your soup you might wish to strain it as well. I did, and then I added the honey solved in the rest of the water.

I found it much too sweet and will use less honey next time. I have no idea what I was thinking adding a large chunk of honey rather than adding a little and tasting it. I will also consider using ground rose hip instead of whole pieces.

Things to do

This is the current list of things I want to try:

• Rose hip soup from scratch
• Barley porridge (sweetened and fried?)
• Dried berries (no sugar added)
• Something tasty for the vegetarians

If possible I would like to make sausages as well, but that is a bigger hurdle to get over.

I will probably make some bread as well, but it will probably be "just bread" rather than "well-researched viking bread".

Things to do:

• Visit the site to get a better idea of how it works
• Set the menu
• Estimate amounts to buy
• Make bread
• Prepare at least part of the food ahead of time since there is no running water and no refridgerators on site.

There are a number of other things happening during spring as well, so the available time and energy will be limited.

On a more personal note I would like a new apron dress for my viking garb.

Viking food revisited

Some time ago my old group Gotvik used to have an event at Ale vikingagård, a reconstructed longhouse outside Gothenburg. I cooked some viking-ish food there and found it intriguing given the lack of actual recipes.

My current group Holmrike is running a May count event (first weekend in June, though) at another "new" longhouse, Tostesta and I have volunteered to cook. This site is more primitive, there is no running water and all the cooking will be done over open fire. It should be fairly small though, we are estimating somewhere between 20 and 40 people.

So now I have started over with the Viking food. Research will be quick and dirty as the goal is to set plausible food on the tables and having fun cooking over fire.

Research will be quick and dirty. I started with a quick web search and came up with these for a start:

http://eldrimner.wordpress.com/category/viking-age/
http://vikingfoodguy.com/wordpress/
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/food.shtml
http://www.danishnet.com/info.php/vikings/viking-food-140.html
http://www.ydalir.co.uk/crafts/cook.htm
http://www.fotevikensmuseum.se/art_50_99/viking_art60j.htm
http://www.sca.org.au/st_florians/university/library/articles-howtos/9-12C_Norse_Food_AR070604.htm
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-83431/mat.html
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=407&artikel=277164
http://hem.passagen.se/susbrom/RECEPT.HTM

I was going to look into books as well, but will probably have limited time for it. I am very interested in An early Meal by Serra and Thunberg that will be published later this year, but probably not soon enough to be useful to me this time.

Spring cleaning

I have decided to start writing about my SCA interests again and decided to move from LiveJournal to Blogger. I have another Blogger blog and I am reasonbly content with both the web interface and the app.

New entries will be in English. I might move some stuff from the old place in order to keep recipes and ponderings in one place.