Eggs au fromage (soft-scrambled eggs with cheese and wine)
Like soft-scrambled eggs and cheese fondue in one amazing dish. Great recipe for weeknight dinner or weekend brunch!
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Eggs à la jardinière (egg and Béchamel bake)
Easy and decadent-tasting. If you ever wished that eggs and Béchamel could be intertwined, this is the baked egg dish for you!
Fortress of Louisbourg Soldier Bread
One of the foods recreated onsite at the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site is soldier bread. This was the primary food ration provided to soldiers stationed at Louisbourg – each soldier received one six-pound loaf every four days, making this food the bulk of their diet.
And this bread. Yikes. It could substitute for cannon balls in a pinch, I think. I remember the first time I visited and tried it. I could feel that first bite throughout its whole path down my esophagus.
The following recipe is from Parks Canada.
Ingredients
1/2 tbsp | 8 g of dry yeast 1 1/2 cups | 350 ml of lukewarm water 1/2 tbsp | 4 g salt 3 cups | 750 ml stone-ground whole wheat flour 1 cup | 250 ml stone-ground rye flour
Instructions
Follow the yeast package directions to get started. Mix in a large bowl: the yeast preparation, any remaining water and one third of the flour. Beat for at least 100 strokes. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes. Beat down and fold in the salt. Add the remaining flour 1 cup at a time until a workable dough forms that is not too stiff. Turn out onto a floured surface and lightly knead until smooth, about 5 or 6 minutes, adding flour as required to prevent sticking. Place in greased bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk. Depending on the weather, this could take between 4 and 12 hours. Punch down, let rise again until double in bulk. (A second rising improves the texture and taste. This step may be skipped). Punch down and turn dough out on floured surface and knead slightly. Divide dough into 2 equal portions and shape into rounds. Let these rise until the surface of the dough yields to the touch, about a half hour. Place on greased baking sheets and bake in an oven pre-heated to 400°F (200°C) for 25-30 minutes.
The bread didn’t rise as much as I expected. My boules ended up being too flat (over-proofed? not enough flour?). I’ll have to try again and see if I can get them looking more like the ones produced at the Fortress.
The Verdict
Is this my favourite bread recipe? That’s a resounding “no”. It’s dense and heavy, mainly because there is no white flour involved. But it’s worth trying to get a sense of what the lives of the soldiers were like.
(If you want an excellent book to learn more about what it was like to live and work in the Fortress, pick up Louisbourg Portraits by Christopher Moore. It won a Governor General’s Literary Award, and is actually a pretty gripping read.)
Eggs à la bourgeoise (an easy egg/bread/cheese bake)
A very quick and very tasty dish – simply eggs, bread, cheese, butter, and seasonings, layered and baked. Try it!
Cabbage farci (cabbage stuffed with meat)
My adventures in stuffing a very large cabbage with meat. Learn from my mistakes! And use a very large pot …
Ham pâté (ham wrapped in pastry)
Ever wrapped a whole ham in pastry? I now have. This is the sort of thing that you make to impress other people (even if only in your own house).
Ham pâté is another 18th century recipe from Louisbourg via From the Hearth. As the author notes, the key is to start with a nice ham, not the processed stuff that’s typical at the deli counter. My local butcher, Windsor Meats, provided me with a great starting point for this dish. I ended up getting a fully cooked ham, but the cooking time in the recipe is enough that you can start with an uncooked or partially cooked ham.
Once again, I couldn’t source ground veal, so ground chicken is my substitute.
The recipe, which is modified slightly from the original, serves 10-12. But it also eats cold really well, so consider making it for a smaller group and having delicious leftovers.
Ingredients
1 ham, 6-8 lbs 1 tsp ground ginger 5 whole cloves (I used 1/2 tsp ground cloves) Stuffing: 1 lb ground veal (I used ground chicken) 1 cup soft bread crumbs 1/4 cup light cream 2 egg whites 1 tsp salt 1/4 tsp pepper pinch nutmeg Pastry: 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1 tsp salt 1 cup lard 1/3 cup plus 1-2 tbsp very cold water Gilding: 1 egg, beaten Mid-cooking addition: 1/2 cup wine (I used white wine) 2 tbsp brandy
Instructions
Remove any bone from the ham, cut off the rind and outer layers of fat. (Save this stuff for the dried pea soup recipe!) If heavily salted, soak 3-4 hours or overnight. If your ham is uncooked, you can partially cook it (boil or bake) and then allow it to cool completely before following the remaining instructions. Sprinkle the ham with the ginger and stud with cloves (or sprinkle with ground cloves). Pastry: Mix the flour and salt. Cut in the lard until it is pea-sized pieces or smaller. Add the cold water and mix gently with a spatula until it comes together as a dough. You may need to knead it a few times. If it needs more water, add a little at a time. Make into a ball and place in the fridge while you get the stuffing ready. Stuffing: Soak the bread crumbs in the cream. Add in the remainder of the ingredients and mix well. Assembly: Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Roll out two pastry pieces, one larger than the other. Place the smaller piece in a baking dish (I used a French oven). On the bottom pastry, spread some of the stuffing (1/2 to 1 inch thick). Place the ham on top of this. Spread stuffing on the sides and top of the ham, and place the second piece of pastry over top. Cut away extra pastry. Moisten the pastry edges with water to help seal the two pastry pieces together. Cut a hole in the top of the pastry (this will be used to add the wine/brandy mix). Use the pastry scraps to create small cut-out shapes. Gild the pastry with beaten egg. Cooking: Bake at 350F for 1 hour. After 1 hour, use a parchment paper funnel to help you pour the wine and brandy into the pastry. Take your time with this, allowing the liquid to soak in slowly. Return to over for 1 hour, or until meat is done. Remove from oven and let sit for 20-30 minutes before serving.
The ham I purchased still had part of the bone in it. I was unsuccessful in trying to cut out the bone without cutting the whole ham piece in half, however since the pastry keeps it all together in this dish I wasn’t too worried. It was apparent once we cut into it, but again, we were cutting it up anyway!
The pastry and stuffing was enough for this smallish ham – if you intended to make a larger ham, you would definitely need more of each.
I think the edges of my pastry were sealed well, but could have been cleaner looking (although that doesn’t impact the taste). I probably could have wrapped the top pastry sheet over the bottom instead for a better looking result.
I … didn’t pour the wine and brandy in slowly enough, so I had lots of spillage over the outside of the pastry. In the end, it cooked down on the outside, and still flavoured the dish. But I’d do it more carefully next time.
The final product looked pretty good. Even the pastry edges looked better than they did before cooking.
There was quite a lot of liquid in the bottom of the pot when it was time to serve it (after 20 minutes of resting), and initially the bottom pastry was quite soggy. By the next day, however, the liquid was gone (absorbed?) and the bottom pastry was fine. A cooking mystery.
From the Hearth suggests serving this with any of a number of sauces – Robert, Espagnole or Béchamel. We found it tasty without any sauce, but I could see adding a sauce for a special dinner.
The Verdict
This ham wrapped in pastry was delicious, and would make a very festive dish for a holiday meal. I would make this again.
As is often the case, good quality ingredients is likely the key to a great dish. Definitely get yourself a high-quality ham to make this.
More recipes with meat wrapped in pastry to come! What would you wrap in pastry?
Eggs farcis (breaded egg and veggie balls)
A historic egg and veggie dish that produces delicious balls fried in butter.
Cucumbers farcis (cucumbers stuffed with meat)
A surprising recipe from the 18th century – cucumbers stuffed with meat and poached.
From the Hearth
A lot of our recent culinary adventures are starting with this book:
From the Hearth: Recipes from the World of 18th Century Louisbourg by Hope Dunton
We picked this up at the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site, probably the most impressive historical recreation in Canada. The French had meticulous records from their attempts to colonize various parts of Canada, and Louisbourg was no exception. Using said records, Parks Canada rebuilt about 1/4 of the Fortress (which was destroyed by the British) and it is populated with both people and historic animals each summer.
The Fortress has a couple of restaurants with authentic fare in an 18th-century setting – recreated flatware, costumed servers, non-electric lighting, etc. We liked the food, so we bought the book.
These posts describe what we’ve cooked out of this book of historic recipes:
Meat dishes:
- Ham pâté (ham wrapped in pastry)
- Sausage à la moutarde au gratin
- Fillet of beef pâté
- Sausages à l’étuvée
Vegetable dishes (often meaty too):
- Cabbage farci (cabbage stuffed with meat)
- Cucumbers farcis (cucumbers stuffed with meat)
- New peas (fresh peas in cream sauce)
- White beans au gras
- Dried peas with salt pork
- Carrots à la Portugaise
- Matelotte of large onions
- Cauliflower, the third way
Egg dishes:
- Eggs farcis (breaded egg and veggie balls)
- Eggs à la bourgeoise (easy egg/bread/cheese bake)
- Eggs à la jardinière (egg and Béchamel bake)
- Eggs au fromage (soft-scrambled eggs with cheese and wine)
- Talmouses
- Eggs with candied citron peel (also a dessert!)
Desserts:
- Frangipan pie (cream, almond flour, and candied lemon peel)
- Lemon meringues
- Dessert cream
- Tart pastry cases
- (Although not in the book, candied lemon peel features in many recipes)
- Oeufs au pain (bread pudding soufflé)
