Tart pastry cases
Assemble these tart cases from pre-made puff pastry (or homemade, if you are adventurous), then let loose with the fillings!
Tag: 18th century
Dessert Cream
Dessert cream has multiple uses, and it’s even delicious by the spoonful out of the fridge!
Lemon meringues
Balance and thrift. Two reasons why recipes that use only one part of an egg (either yolk or white) and don’t offer a companion recipe that uses the remaining eggy part irk me a bit.
As a result, I look for complementary recipes to use up the other part of the egg. Making Frangipan Pie? Got extra whites? Look no further than this 18th-century Louisbourg recipe for lemon meringues.
And if you are in my situation, unable to find the candied lemon peel in any store, you can easily make some yourself.
Recipe modified slightly from From the Hearth. Makes 12-14 meringues.
Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar 2 egg whites 1 tbsp lemon juice 1 tbsp grated lemon peel/zest 2 tbsp candied lemon peel, chopped (small or large)
I didn’t actually add the lemon zest, because all my lemons had already gone into making the candied peel! But the meringues still turned out plenty lemony.
I chopped up my candied peel into small pieces for this, but you could use larger pieces if you want.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 200F. Put sugar, egg whites, lemon juice and lemon rind in a bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Fold in candied lemon peel. Spoon onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake at 200F for about 2 hours, or until golden brown. (It took much longer for mine to reach golden brown, but I made them much bigger).
The Verdict
Even without the lemon zest, these were plenty lemon-y. The bits of candied peel were chewy and the meringues were crisp. Definitely will make these again.
What’s your complementary yolk-using recipe to these lemon meringues? Let us know in the comments!
Frangipan pie (cream, almond flour, and candied lemon peel)
A delicious and yet unusual pie – once you have the ingredients on hand, this is straightforward and popular with both kids and adults.
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!
Eggs à la jardinière (egg and Béchamel bake)
Another great egg dish from Louisbourg! Modified from the original in From the Hearth, this is a relatively simple dish that tastes outstanding. Basically, you take onions, Béchamel sauce and beaten eggs, mix them all together and bake it up.
This recipe is more effort than eggs à la bourgeoise, but still completely reasonable for a weeknight dinner along with a nice salad.
The original recipe suggests this dish serves 10-12 people, but if it’s your main dish expect it to serve 4-5.
Ingredients
4-5 onions (mild flavoured varieties), cut in thin strips 2 tbsp butter 2 tbsp flour 2 cups milk 10 eggs, well beaten salt and pepper to taste
Milder or sweeter onions, like Spanish, Walla Walla, or Vidalia, are best for this dish because it contains a LOT of onion. If you only have the standard cooking onions, you can make them less pungent by blanching them after cutting them up.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350F. Melt butter in an oven-proof frying pan or French oven and sauté onion strips until translucent. Add flour to the butter and onions and cook briefly. Add 1/2 cup of milk and mix well to work out any lumps of flour. Add the rest of the milk and simmer until Béchamel sauce is thickened, stirring continually. Add salt and pepper. Remove from heat. Mix beaten raw eggs into pan with Béchamel and onions. Bake in oven at 350F for 20-30 minutes, or until eggs are done.
It was pretty easy to make this recipe all in one oven-safe pan or pot. It’s a little bit of work to get the Béchamel smooth with big strips of onions in there – you could put that together in a separate sauce pan, but then you lose that one pot advantage. Otherwise this is pretty straightforward.
The Verdict
I really enjoyed this dish! It has the texture of a frittata, but tastes like Béchamel as well as eggs. And the onions, despite their prevalence, were not too strong. They give a really nice texture to the dish.
Definitely one to make again!
Fortress of Louisbourg Soldier Bread
Soldier bread is a dense and rustic loaf that sustained soldiers at the Fortress of Louisbourg.
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)
Those 18th century French people in Louisbourg stuffed many things. This recipe involves stuffing a large Savoy cabbage. It’s a surprisingly flashy dish for being cabbage-based. Be warned, you need quite a large pot with a close-fitting lid for this dish that feeds 8 people.
Check out the other stuffed (farci) recipes we’ve tried so far: eggs and cucumbers. You can also see a stuffed cabbage from the WWII era here.
(Recipe modified from From the Hearth.)
Ingredients
1 large (or 2 small) Savoy cabbage Stuffing: 1/2 lb ground veal (or substitute ground chicken) 1/2 lb ground chicken 1/2 lb bacon, finely minced 1 3" slice beef marrow (optional) 1/4 cup mushrooms, finely minced 1/2 cup chives, finely minced 1 clove garlic, finely minced 1-1.5 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper Bouillon: 4-5 cups beef or chicken bouillon 2-3 tbsp beef essence (I don't even know what this is, so I didn't use it. I added some Worcestershire sauce instead, because I associate that with beef dishes.) 1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced 1 sprig fresh thyme 2 tbsp fresh basil 1 medium onion, sliced 8 oz veal, thinly sliced
Veal is hard to come by where I live, so I substituted ground chicken in the stuffing and pork in the bouillon. I mixed and matched fresh and dried for the herbs, depending on what I had available, and had to skip on the beef marrow.
The cookbook also suggests substituting a fish-based stuffing, if desired.
Instructions
Mix all the stuffing ingredients together and set aside. Remove the outer and/or damaged leaves of the cabbage. Place cabbage in a large pot of boiling water for 8-10 minutes, until the leaves in the centre open when pulled. Use tongs to separate them when you are checking, and also to make sure the boiling water reaches inside. Make sure the cabbage stays firm. Drain and pat dry. Let cool until you can easily work with it. Meanwhile, place all the bouillon ingredients in a large pot and heat to a simmer. Ensure you will be able to cover the pot tightly with the lid when you add the cabbage. Gently open the leaves of the cabbage to access the spaces between them. Fill the spaces between the leaves with stuffing, trying to get the stuffing down near the core. Close the leaves back over and tie the cabbage with kitchen string. Place the cabbage in the hot bouillon, which should come up no more than halfway. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes, or until the cabbage is tender and the stuffing is cooked (I recommend using a good kitchen thermometer). Remove cabbage and allow to drain. Remove string and place on platter for serving. Strain the bouillon and serve separately.
So, my first mistake was choosing too small a pot to try a parboil the cabbage. I found it really needed to get that boiling water into the centre of the cabbage to really open those leaves, and that means you have to be able to submerse the whole cabbage.
I had to switch pots during the initial cooking step. As a result, my boiling of the cabbage took longer than the recipe suggests.
Once I had the large stockpot going, I could get the hot water where I needed it. The outer leaves ended up being slightly more cooked than the inner leaves as a result, but it wasn’t drastically noticeable.
I couldn’t see enough (and didn’t remember enough) about what the inner structure of the cabbage looked liked, so I wasn’t sure where exactly to aim my stuffing. I ended up trying to stuff between layers of leaves, but didn’t get it down far enough to fill the cabbage.
Take a look at the slice further below to get a sense of where the stuffing went and where it could have gone. As an alternative, the centre could likely be cored out to accommodate a mass of the stuffing, but I think alternating layers of cabbage leaves and meat would be much more appealing.
Tying the cabbage was pretty straightforward. Although I was a bit worried the stuffing might squish up and out when I drew the top together, it only took a bit of prodding to get it all enclosed.
I didn’t follow the directions well here – I ended up putting in too much bouillon. Don’t make my mistakes!
The bouillon was pretty tasty, but we did have to cook it down a bit as I’d made it a bit watery to begin with.
The cabbage turned out pretty well. I used a digital thermometer to ensure that stuffing was fully cooked.
You can see from the slice above that I only really got the stuffing down about a third of the way into the cabbage. Next time I’ll be working on getting it between those leaves and down lower.
The Verdict
This stuffed cabbage was quite tasty! It was a little awkward boiling/braising such a large single vegetable, but once we brought in the big pot the cooking became manageable.
Getting the stuffing throughout will be the next challenge to tackle. I’m planning to try stuffing between the leaves one more time before resorting to cutting out part of the core.
The cabbage sliced up nicely and looked pretty impressive on the table. We used some quality bacon, which made a positive difference.
Would you core it, or try to stuff between the leaves? “Leave” a comment!
Cucumbers farcis (cucumbers stuffed with meat)
A surprising recipe from the 18th century – cucumbers stuffed with meat and poached.