An excellent sweet 'mango' chutney - sans mangos

No photos today, just a quick recipe before I forget how to make this amazing condiment.

A couple of weeks ago, a branch from an apple tree broke because the apples on it were too heavy.  Unfortunately, the apples weren't ripe yet.  Then I remembered about this Victorian recipe I read for mango chutney, only it didn't have a single mango in it.  Instead, it had unripe apples.  Perfect!

Based loosely on recipe 392 of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, I had to make a few changes.  I have a tender place in my heart for anyone who applies garlic by the quarter pound, I must admit that some of the other ingredient quantities were a bit unusual to the modern taste.  So changes were made to method and quantities but without Mrs B's little book, I wouldn't have thought to make such a scrummy chutney.

Here's a little note that Mrs Beeton gives regarding her version of the recipe:

This recipe was given by a native to an English Lady, who had long been a resident in India, and who, since her return to her native country, has become quite celebrated amongst her friends for the excellence of this Eastern relish.

Sweet "Mango" Chutney

All ingredients are approximate

3 large onions
drizzle olive oil
2 Tbs mustard seed
1 Tbs powdered ginger
4 dry chilies lightly crushed (seeds included)
a large handful of garlic
At least 6 unripe apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunks less than 1 inch cubed.
1 cup raisins
2 cups apple cider vinegar or equivalent
1 to 2 cups of sugar
boiling water
2 Tbs salt

• Chop the onions into about 1/2 inch chunks, in a large heavy bottom pot, fry onions on medium-low with olive oil until transparent
• add mustard seed, ginger, chili and garlic to the onions, stir well, cook about one min
• add apples, raisons and vinegar to the onion mix, bring to boil and then turn off heat
• Mix 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of boiling water to make a syrup.  Mix until sugar is dissolved
• Add syrup and salt to the apples.  Mix well and bring back to a boil.  Taste and add more sugar as necessary.  Boil on high for about 5 to 15 min or until enough liquid has evaporated.  Mixture will thicken as it cools.
• Place into washed (and if you like, sterilized) jars, seal with lid as per normal.  Because of the spices, salt and sugar, I didn't heat process these jars.  Mrs B never did, she just tightly wrapped the mouth of the jars with sheep bladders.  But as sheep bladders are hard to come by these days, so it's up to you to know how to safely can your food.  If you have any doubt, keep it in the fridge.

Affordable: Apples would have gone to waste as they fell off the tree far too early to ripen on their own.  Onions are from the garden.  That leaves the spices, raisins and sugar - so... totally guessing, let's pretend it's about $2 for this.  It made 6 and a half 8 oz jars full, which makes it 30 cents per jar.  This tastes almost identical to an English apple chutney I bought from the store once upon a time, which cost $8 for the same size.  That's a savings of $7.70 cents.  NICE!

To make it Vegan Friendly, you need to replace the sugar with a vegan friendly sweetener, and to be careful not to harm any worms that are probably living in your apples, thus causing them to fall before they were fully ripe.  

Medieval Goose - two ways over an open fire

You remember Henry and William?  Two lovely geese I raised by hand from (not so) tiny eggs.

Maybe squeamish people should click away now, as this post involves processing and consuming my lovely boys.  But in a good way.  A very good and fulfilling way, with friends and free flowing mead.  It's been difficult gathering my feelings and thoughts to write about it, but I want to share the experience with you, if you'll let me.

Once a year I travel to the 14th Century for, what passes as a vacation.  A wonderful week or two among friends, dressed in funny clothes, eating medieval food, doing medieval things.  Living life just as they would in the year 1371, only we do it with potable water.

Things are never quite that simple, because while we are living a medieval life, we are also an interactive display for the public.  Visitors wander in and out of our camp while we cook, eat, spin yarn, weave, cast metals, practice combat... and all the regular day to day tasks correct for our period.  It's great fun interacting with them and showing off what we are doing.

A setting with good friends and a chance to educate random people about food and food choices - what  Pastafarian could pass up an opportunity like that?  So I brought my geese to the park, early one morning.  While The Captain and I hugged our feathered friends, they met their end.  I cried.  A lot.  But their end was just the beginning.

Plucking pheasants geese

As the day progressed a whole host of helpers plucked the larger of the two birds as we prepared him for roasting on the spit.  The smaller fella we skinned.  That took most of the morning, and some fun rhymes about pheasant pluckers and their sons.

With the smaller goose, we made a soup.  I carved off the meat and put to one side.  A broth was made from the bones, onions, carrot leaves and a few other tidbits that were kicking about.  After a few hours, we strained the broth, added it to some lightly fried veg, spices and the rest of the goose meat.  Delicious.

Goosefat

Not the most appetizing of photos, but very interesting for someone like me who hasn't worked with goose before.  First thing I noticed is how colourful the bird is under it's skin.  The yellow chunky bits are fat.

Fats of all kinds were highly prized in the middle ages, especially in Northern climes where there were very few sources of vegetable oils.  Fat was used to make soap, lotions, lighting, cooking, lubrication for wagon wheels, and many other things.  As we know now, fat is essential not just to make you feel full when eating, but also for brain development, skin, Vit D processing, and so many other things.  I had often read that goose fat was the most valued fat of all, but I never realized why before.

Unlike lard or tallow, when rendered, goose fat is liquid at room temperature.  It was quick and easy to render, especially because it's easy to see and trim the fat thanks to the natural colour coding inside the goose.  There is a lot of fat inside a goose!  It's also quite a mild taste, a lot like olive oil with a slight meaty undertone.  Very neutral flavour.

The roasted goose was much easier to process.  Just clean out the innards, trim some of the fat from the cavity, stick a stick in it and put it in front of the fire, turning from time to time.

"Is that a real goose?"

While we are working with the geese, the public flows in and out of the kitchen area and I talked with them about what we were cooking.  This probably the best part of the week for me.  I love hearing people's questions and listening to their stories.  Although, while working with the goose... things were a bit different.

The most common question of the day was, "Is that a real bird?"

The first few times I heard someone ask that, I wondered why we would be plucking an unreal bird?  What would an unreal bird look like?  How would it taste?

After a while, I decided (or at the very least hoped) they meant was, is it something that comes wrapped in plastic from a store or a bird we were in the process of transforming from live to dinner.  

Not surprisingly, many of the people were taken aback when they discovered what we were doing.  They had never seen anything like it before.  Even avid meat eaters didn't know what to make of it.

So I told them the story of the geese and how they came to be there.  I described how I hatched the eggs, raised the geese by hand, loved them and gave them a fulfilling life.  I shared how honoured I was that these geese would provide sustenance for us, and how we would honour them by making certain not a scrap would be wasted.  And most importantly, I talked about the difference between modern day methods of raising meat and the way it was done in the Middle Ages.  In the past meat was an infrequent luxury - and still is for most people who live on this planet today - so no part would go unused.  If we are going to eat meat, in our society today, we have the luxury of choice - we can choose to eat an animal who lived a miserable confined forcefed existence, or we can choose to eat fewer animals; ones who lived in a manner most true to their nature.  Why is it so many people proclaim they care about animals, but still buy miserable-meat?

I like to believe I got people thinking about what they eat when they eat meat.

Chowing Down (as in goose down... well, I tried)

Goose soup, goose livers and hearts fried in goose fat, and roast goose.  Add rice and a few veg to the mix and ring the dinner bell.

Everything was delicious.  We toasted the geese with homemade mead.

I don't know how to say this but while I ate, I was both incredibly sad and unbelievably joyful.  I was sad (and still am a little inside) because I'm always sad when one of my animals comes to an end - be it for food reasons or others.  These animals become my friends, even though I know that they will be food some day - I'm determined to give them the best life I know how.

But like I said, I was also joyful.  Amazingly so.  Enjoying the meal with my medieval friends was uplifting. I felt they honoured the lives of my animals - that it wasn't just meat to them.  It was sustenance, both of body and soul.

I'm losing the thread of what I was saying, but I doubt many people read to the end of a post this long.  Basically, what I am looking to say is: despite my conflicting emotional state, I am glad this happened.  I would do it all again  if it meant sharing a meal with these lovely people.  In fact, I already have a flock of replacement geese.  Between educating the public, learning new skills, and enjoying time with my friends, it was a very successful day.

Sourdough Nettle Rye Bread recipe - or let's get Medieval on Your Nettles

Yesterday I made an adaptation of an adaptation of a medieval recipe for Nettle Bread.  It's exceedingly delicious, with a sweet and moist rye bread crumb.  I like it sliced thin, lightly toasted and smothered in butter (homemade is best) and a few drops of honey on top.

Rustic nettle bread

We have the perfect growing place for stinging nettles, it's moist year round, it's acidic, it's downhill from the neighbour's manure pile so the soil is overloaded with nutrients.  There is not much else that will grow there, but the nettles thrive.  So I harvested a large basket full of just the leaves.  My nettles are getting a bit old and scraggly, but if you have young nettles, you can use the stem as well.

Although I made a huge batch of nettle bread this time, I'm going to scale down the recipe for you.  Those of you without constant access to nettles might have to wait till they are available in the shops in the spring... Far too expensive for something available free in the wild, but when that's all you have... well, you make do.  The bunches sold in the store are about a cup worth - but you can use more or less depending on what you have on hand.

blanching nettles
(in the water I used for brewing small ale later that day.
This should be interesting)

The recipe I used for inspiration comes from the beautiful book The Medieval Kitchen, a social history with recipes by Hannele Klemettila (the final 'a' in the name has those two little dots on top).  The author uses modern yeast and caraway seeds.  I hate caraway seeds, possibly more than I hate mushrooms.  They disgust me.

Last year I used Klemettila's recipe and it's quite nice (without the caraway seeds).  It's written in a way that assumes you are very comfortable baking bread and the recipe uses modern ingredients and methods that were not available in the middle ages.  Like most of the book, it is more an attempt to introduce the modern pallet to some of the medieval flavour combinations.  Combine that with the layout and gorgeous pictures, I think it's a good introduction to medieval food.

For me, it's not enough.  In the middle ages a person couldn't just drive down to the supermarket and pick up a packet of yeast.  They had to capture their own yeast, very much like we do with sourdough today.  In fact, in some parts of Europe, it was exactly like we do with sourdough today.  To keep the bread as medieval as possible, I used sourdough instead of modern yeast.

Because the nettles have so many natural sugars, I figured a heavy rye bread would do the trick.  And I was right.

This bread uses a sponge so start it the evening before you plan to bake.  It is also a bit different than many bread recipes in that I only rise it once.  It's a trick you can use for sourdough when you can't guarantee you'll be available to shape the loaves for the second rise.  This creates a more rustic texture, sometimes creating those big air pockets in the loaf.  I kind of like it.

Stinging Nettle Sourdough Rye Bread

About 1 cup of fresh nettles - or a lot more if you have it
1 tsp salt
Sourdough starter
Rye flour
Wheat flour
1/2 tsp Whole fennel seeds
1 tsp honey (optional - makes it no longer vegan)
water

The night before baking day, we make a sponge:

• Put 2 Tbs sourdough starter (from the fridge or already active is fine), 1/2 cup water, and enough rye flour to make a thin batter.  Cover with a cotton or linen towel and leave on the counter overnight.  This is called the sponge.
• Feed your starter as per normal - I'm assuming you are already slightly familiar with sourdough.

Now it's baking day, let's get's medieval on your nettles

• Toast the fennel seeds in a dry fry pan until they smell amazing then put to one side to cool.  While it's toasting, you will want to shake or stir the seeds quite frequently to ensure nothing burns.  When cool enough to handle, coarsely grind it with a mortar and pestle or a spice mill.  
• Bring a fairly large pot of water to the boil and dunk the nettles in the boiling water for about 3 minutes.  Take the nettles out and put them in a bowl, add about a cup of cold water to the nettles.  When the nettles are cool enough to touch comfortably, take them out of the cold water and strain them - keep the cold water, we're about to use it.  Let's call it nettle rinse water.
• Combine the nettle rinse water, sponge, 1 tsp salt, toasted fennel seeds, a handful of flour, and a handful of rye flour.  If you are using honey, add it now too.  Mix it up well and put it to one side.  
• Take the nettles that have drained, chop them up as finely or as coarsely as you like.  The cooking should have neutralized the sting.  Add this to the flour/sponge/fennel/water mix above.  Stir vigorously, almost whisking it in as this will help to activate the gluten in the flour and ensure the nettles are well incorporated into the dough.
• Add another three or four handfuls of rye flour, or about 1/2 a cup, and mix well.
• Add regular flour by the handfuls, mixing between each addition, until you have a shaggy mess.
• Put the shaggy mess onto a well floured board or counter, kneed it until no longer shaggy, but instead a lovely smooth.  
• Shape into one or two loaves, then put on a baking sheet.  Cover with a towel and leave it alone until double in size.  This may take an hour or it might take 8, depends on your yeast and many other factors... most of which are beyond your control.  A lot of people like to leave it somewhere warm, which is okay, but for me doesn't make as nice a texture or as long keeping loaf.  Just put it somewhere where it isn't in a draft.  
• When it's double in size, preheat the oven to 400 F.
• While the oven is heating up, use a very sharp knife to carefully cut some lines in the top of the bread.
• Bake at 400 for 35 min for the small loaves, or 40 min for one large loaf.  Bread is done when it sounds hollow when you tap it on the bottom.
• Take out of the oven, wrap the loaves in a cotton or linen towel and leave at least 12 hours to cool before storing in plastic.  Or if you are hungry now, wait at least 10 min before cutting into it.

So beautiful, ready to rise

Affordable: Yes, if you're harvesting your own nettles and not paying grocery store prices.  The nettles add a lot of nutrition and a little bit of bulk to the bread which is pretty awesome.  Nettles are very healthy - just google stinging nettles to find out all the good things they do.

If you omit the honey, this is a vegan friendly bread.

Tradition and transition?  It seems to have been quite common in medieval times, but the tradition has died out.  As a Transition bread, however, this is going to be a good recipe to keep around.  A dense nettle bread is very common during starvation times, like during World War 2 for example.  Usually wheat flour is one of the first things to be rationed, so breads were made with whatever grains were on hand, and often augmented with nettles and other nutritional weeds that are usually ignored in times of plenty.

We would be foolish to think that we won't ever have a starvation time again in The West, but for now, it's actually quite a yummy bread, the nettles adding  a little bit of tang, sweetness, and even help prevent the bread from going moldy.

nettle toast and honey, delicious.

Soy Free Sweet Miso Paste Recipe, with just a little bit of soy-free Tamari on top

For those of us with soy allergies and sensitivities, finding a soy-free miso paste that we can enjoy (and afford) isn't easy.  So I decided it was time to make my own.  I'm not certain what surprised me more, how affordable it was to make or how easy.

Miso paste and tamari
both made without soy

You can use any pulse, be it lentils, chickpeas, fava beans, black eye peas, anything, to make miso.  You don't need soybeans.  The only potentially difficult ingredient to get is Koji rice, but most asian grocery stores can order it in for you already cultured.  You can also make it at home with a bit of dedication.  It takes a couple of days, and you can get the koji spores from GEM Cultures.  The third ingredient is salt.

The method for making sweet miso is easy: get the koji rice ready the day before and soak the beans.  Next day, cook the beans, mash them (or not) and then mix them with the koji rice and salt, and maybe a bit of bean cooking liquid.  Pack it in a vessel with a inner lid and weight to press the miso down, then tie it up with a cloth and leave it on your kitchen counter for 2 to 8 weeks.

Red Miso, has the same method for making it, only different ratios of ingredients and it needs to ferment for at least a year.  It also requires different temperatures.  Since it's more fussy, I decided to start with the Sweet Miso recipe.  But I have everything I need, including confidence, to try one year miso later this winter.

For this first batch I cleaned out the back of my cupboard and used a mixture of forgotten dried beans (mostly Romano and Black Eye Peas).   But like I said before, you can use any bean to make miso paste.  Most people use chickpeas for their first soy free miso making experience.

I used an antique food chopper to mash up the beans
but you can use anything you like from stick and bowl
to cement mixer.

The references I used for this are The Book of Miso, especially this chapter, and Katz's two books, Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation.  This is the recipe I used for the second batch of sweet miso as the first batch didn't have nearly enough saltiness to it and tasted a bit sour.

From what I've read, 1 gallon is about the smallest batch of miso you want to make at a time.  Something to do with the ratio of surface area to the volume of the something something.

Miso ready to dig out of the 1 gallon vat
you can see that some white mould has formed on top
that's normal.  Koji is a kind of mould, a delicious one.

So that's what this recipe makes, 1 gallon.  The ingredients cost me just under what one pound of soy-free miso paste is in the shop.  Since it made close to 10 pounds, I'm very happy with how affordable this is.  Next year I plan to grow my own beans which will cut the cost in half, and culture my own koji rice, which will take price of making this from $15 down to about $5 per gallon.

Soy Free Sweet Miso Recipe

1 kilo of dried beans
1 kilo (or just over) Koji Rice
140 grams sea salt (non iodized) plus extra
water
Kombu/kelp (optional)

Some other stuff you will need:
A container that fits more than 1 gallon (otherwise known as vat)
Something to mush the beans with
A plate or inner lid that fits inside your vat leaving as little room between the walls of the vat and the plate as possible.
A weight, could be a rock that has been purified with boiling water and scrubbed with salt
A cotton or linen, tightly woven cloth
...and other things.  This link covers it better.

• Wash the beans well, and soak overnight.
• Rinse the beans and boil with lots of water until they are mushy.  How long this takes depends on the kind of bean and how long they have been sitting in the back of your cupboard.  The older, the longer.  Usually for me it's about 2 hours, but some beans can take upto 14.  You can also use a pressure cooker for this step, but beware if yours is aluminium as sometimes that can contaminate your food.
• While the beans are cooking, bring your koji rice to room temperature (if it's not already).  I'm going to assume at this point that you read the entire recipe before starting out and already have your koji rice ready to go.
• Drain the beans, reserving the liquid.  Mash them up however you like.  It can be a paste, or it can be chunky, some miso recipes, like Natto Miso, keep the beans whole.  I do moderately chunky and puree or not as required when I use the finished miso.
• If you are using kombu then keep in large pieces and soak in tepid water now.
• Combine the salt with about 1/2 cup of bean cooking water, make certain it dissolves completely.  
• When the beans are below 140F (aka, you can put your hand in them and they feel somewhat warm, but not hot), then add the salt water and koji rice.  Mix really well.
• Add more bean cooking water as needed.  The goal here is to make a fairly moist, but not too moist mush.  To tell if the texture is correct, make a ball, like a snowball, from the bean mush.  Toss the ball firmly and assertively against a surface, like the bottom of your miso vat.  If the mush ball spatters everywhere, it's way too wet.  If it cracks upon impact, it needs more water.  And, if it just settles in, not cracking but not spreading out everywhere, then that's about right.  See the video in this post for an example of what you are aiming for.  
• Make certain the inside of your vat is clean but don't use any antibacterial soap on it as this will damage the miso.  I often use a bit of sake or vodka to wipe inside the vat before the next step, but this is optional.
• (Optional) Wet the inside of the vat and sprinkle lightly with salt.  Most people say this isn't necessary for sweet miso, but I find it makes a huge difference.  
• Firmly press your bean mush into the vat, so that there are no air pockets.  I do a few snowball size bits of bean mush at a time, stop and massage them into the crevices, and repeat.
• When the vat is almost full of bean mush, smooth off the top.  Evenly sprinkle at lest 1/2 a tsp of salt on top.  Cover the surface (directly on the surface) with clear wrap, or even better with kombu seaweed that you soaked earlier.  I go for a double layer, ripping the seaweed as needed to cover every last part of the surface of the bean mush.  
• Place your plate or inner lid on top, and then your weight on top of that.
• Cover with a tightly woven cloth and tie the cloth down so that no dust or insects get in.
• Place the vat in a secluded part of the kitchen where it can stay at a fairly steady temperature, room temperature.  Check it after two weeks, but it will probably take a month.  There should be a layer of liquid on top (the Tamari, see below), maybe some white mould from the Koji Rice, and should smell like miso.
• When you are ready to try some, drain off the liquid (keep it to one side for tamari, though if the miso is still immature, you may need to put it back in the vat again) and scrape off the mould.  Dig out half a cup from the center of the vat to try.  Press the bean mush back together to ensure there are not air pockets, smooth off the top, sprinkle salt on it, and wrap it up as before (kombu optional), replacing the tamari on top.  Try the miso you dug out.  If it's not ready yet, wait a week or two before trying it again.  If it is ready, then you can put all your miso in jars in the fridge, or you can use this same method to dig out miso you need for the week and let the rest continue to age.

You can see the coarsely mashed beans
and bits of koji rice in the miso
Sometimes I leave it as is, other times I puree it before use

Tamari (No Soy) Recipe

This is the liquid that forms on top of the miso paste while it's fermenting.  It tastes like super-strong-super-salty soy sauce.  Only if there are no soy beans in the miso, there won't be any soy in the tamari that forms on top.

Before you dig out your miso from the vat, drain off most or all of this liquid.  It's probably going to have some mould on top.  Remember, mold is one of the three main ingredients in miso (Koji Rice = special mouldy rice).  If the mould is white, yellow, or a bit blue-green, it should be fine.

Strain the tamari to remove the mould, sometimes this takes many strainings or even a bit of tightly woven cloth.  Bottle and store in the fridge.  Use as you would soy sauce, only use less of it, this will be much stronger.

Soy Free Tamari
Very salty taste, but delicious

Affordable:  Yep. I talked about this above

Vegan Friendly: Yep.

Healthy: Yep. There are some really fascinating studies out there about how daily consumption of miso has helped prevent radiation sickness, improve gut function, detoxify heavy metals from the body, and other good-for-you things.

Traditional:  Yep.  Until about 60 odd years ago, most families in Japan made their own miso paste, and each region (and family) had their own recipe.  Nowadays there are only a few dozen misos commonly available for sale in the shops.  Which is a shame.

Transitional:  YES!  With the consolidation of miso making to mid size and large companies, we have become very reliant on global trade and long distance shipping as a means of supplying our miso.  I think making our own miso paste can serve a role in transiting away from a lot of the problems we have with the current food system.  It's not just good for soups, but also for preserving pickles, marinades, condiments, and has huge health benefits.  Even those not use to eating miso could find this salty-savoury-sweet treat a beneficial addition to their daily diet.



There are a lot of different ways to make miso out there, this is just one of them.  The Book of Miso is currently the best English language book about miso, history, manufacturing, everything.  You can make miso from different pulses, grains, and even vegetables.  This experiment has opened up a whole new world, and I'm looking forward to exploring it all.

Happy Mead Maker

Where I make mead; pear and rosemary mead; and quince and spice mead.



Mead is a magical elixir made from honey.  Among other things, it's know as the drink of the gods.  It's said to have the power to grant you insight into the unseen realm - which is surely true if you consume enough of any alcoholic drink.

Then again, the bees are said to travel between this world and the next, as messengers to the gods and the dead.  That's one of the reasons why the mythology of bees says we must tell the hive the household news each day.  Imbibing a drink made from the nectar of such supernatural messengers must grant some special powers, if only temporary.

I have read about mead from time to time, in poetry and literature, but always believed it was far too complex for me to try making.  Until recently, none of the local shops carried it, or if they did, it was beyond my price range.  But recently, I've grown more enamoured with the idea of mead.  I have found numerous mentions of mead through my research into medieval and iron age cooking.  Giving my new found courage (and decent level of success) with fermenting and increasing desire to keep bees, I have decided it is time to try mead.

I first tried some mead at a medieval event, it was berry mead and to my taste, it was very sweet.  But good, and surprisingly strong alcohol content.  But still a bit yeasty (I get flushed from yeast) so I imagine it would have been even better with another racking and 6 months more ageing.  Then I discovered some mead in a liquor store.  Two brands from Vancouver Island, actually - although it was all fruit and berry mead, with only one bottle of spiced mead, which was as close as I could get to unflavoured.  So I brought a bottle of spiced mead home and have an oz of it every now and again.  It helps settle my stomach if it's still upset at bedtime - an added benefit.

Deciding that yes, I like mead, it is now time to make some of my own.


Following the instructions from Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation, I combined 1 part raw honey with 4 parts room temperature water, mixed very well and left in a wide mouth container, stirring at least three times a day, for about a week until it looks like there is yeast active (small bubbles, froth, taste and smell).  Then it goes in a jug with an air lock to bubble away.  Once it's finished bubbling, I'll taste it and rack it (move it into a different jug with an airlock to aerate the mead and re-activate the yeast).  I don't know how long I'm going to age the mead before bottling, there are some meads that age for years before bottling, others are drunk in a matter of weeks.  I think it will depend on what else is going on in my life and how it tastes to determine when I'm ready to bottle it.  For these first few stages, I have it upstairs at room temperature, but once I rack it, I think it will go downstairs where it is cooler.

The first batch looked good, so why not try some more?

I had a hand full of pears that missed being made into Parry this year, so I thought why not pear and rosemary?  It's a good pairing - ha ha - as I've used this combination as a sauce for pork.

The quince tree only had two quinces.  Quite frankly, I can't seem to like quince very much, it's kind of coy tasting and very strong smelling.  But I don't want to waste them, so I decided to try for a Quince Poudre Douce tasting mead.  Quince, pepper, ginger, cinnamon stick, and some anise (because they look so pretty).

pear and rosemary

 To make flavoured mead, at least according to Sandor Katz, is to slice up your fruit very fine and add them to the mead during the open vessel stage.  Proceed as per normal mead, and strain when you put it in the jug.

quince and spice

The fruit has natural yeast on it, so it will usually start to ferment faster than honey on it's own.  However, certain processing and herbicides in commercial fruit may have adverse effects if you are capturing wild yeast like I did, so please use organic or home grown fruit.


For the fruit mead, I used less honey as the fruit already has plenty of sugar.  I did 1 part honey for 5 parts water.

These are just small batches one gallon, or in the case of the first mead, half a gallon.  These tastes combinations may be completely horrid!  But from what I've read, if the mead tastes terrible, leave it for six months to four years, and it could improve... or else, you may have killed the offending taste buds in the interim.

During the open pot method while I was stirring three times a day, I was amazed with how the smell of the fruit mead changed.  At first the pear and rosemary smelt horridly medical, the rosemary was overpoweringly antiseptic. But after a couple of days, the smell of the herbs subsided and it started smelling strongly of pears left too long in the sun.  By the end of the week, it was quite pleasant smelling, a nice balance of herb and fruit, although it tasted overpoweringly of sweet and yeast at that time.  The quince and spice started out smelling of nothing at all, then after a day it started smelling of sickly sweet quince.  The quince smell grew sweeter and more pungent until it was rank, almost rotten, on the fifth day.   I almost tossed the batch, but instead on the 6th day it suddenly didn't smell revolting any more and started to smell like pepper with a hint of quince.  I didn't taste it when I put it in the jug, but I think it will be okay...

...eventually.

This process is simple, albeit fruit fly generating.  I can't believe I ever imagined it would be difficult.  It is a nice way to use up small amounts of fruit, berries, and other goodies laying around.  I'm looking forward to finding out how these little experiments taste in a few months time.


I think that making mead at home is an affordable way to make a nice sipping alcoholic drink.  Considering it costs about $25 for a 750ml bottle at the local liquor store, as opposed to the $12 starting price for a drinkable plonk (wine),  you don't need much honey to make a bottle of mead.  About 1/2 to 2/3rds of a cup aught to do it, which is about $1.30 per homebrew bottle of mead.  Would be less if you make mead from gleaned fruit and use less honey per water ratio.  Although making mead doesn't take much active time, it does require a lot of waiting, I'm told, to make a good mead.  So perhaps it is worth the extra twenty three dollars not having to take up space and carboy waiting for the mead to age.

Honey has many health benefits and mead also has a long tradition of healing qualities.  I only know some of the cultural mythologies that surround this elixir, but I suspect there are some scientific studies out there for those who care to look.  Of course, like all alcoholic drinks, moderation is key.  A little everyday is said to help your health, however, too much... well, you've all seen the government warnings I'm sure.

Allergies:  Homebrewing something like mead is nice because you can avoid a lot of allergies like sulphites (or was that sulphates?), extra ingredients, and can brew it long enough so that all the yeast is exhausted.  Keep in mind, some people have negative reactions to honey and alcohol.

Iron Age Cooking - A day with Project Germani

I had the good fortune to spend a day with Project Germani.  They are a small but growing group of people who enjoy demonstrating what it was like to live in the Iron Age.

Most of the members are high school students who are still getting use to the idea of cooking for a group.  So they asked me to come along and help them do some cooking.

Together we made oatcakes, always a yummy and popular treat.  Then we had a look in the cooler which was full of an interesting, albeit eclectic, selection of foods.  There were lentils and pot barley, but also mustard and ketchup, radishes and kale.  I felt like being thrown into an episode of Chopped with no access to pantry and fridge.

With no real plan, we set to work soaking the barley.  Without any meat to include in the stew, we decided to toss in the lentils too.  As we were feeding a bunch of teenage boys, we definitely needed the extra protein from the lentils.  Protein and fat help them feel full, and the carbs from the barley help give them long term energy.

Once the lentils and barley were soaked for an hour or so, we par-boiled them in a pot over the fire.  Drained the water, and added chicken broth, turnips, beet, some butter, and a bit of salt.  Let simmer over the fire until the root veg were tender, adding more broth as needed.  Then it was time to make some greens.

Got some people cutting up greens, which included the kale, and the radish tops, and an impressively large amount of parsley.  Cooked it in butter, stirring frequently until wilted enough.   Served it on top of the stew.  Yummy!

I say 'we' but really it was them that did the work.  I just sort of asked questions about what they wanted, and suggested the method that would work best with the ingredients and cooking facilities.  They did a fantastic job!  It also turned out to be a much healthier meal than I expected from teenagers.  Well done guys!

It was great fun hanging out with them and learning about what life was like two thousand years ago.  My favourite part was learning about the different tools, especially the knives, they used during that time.  This also seems to be a time when there was a lot of interaction between cultures, which is always exciting.  Not just because they traded/acquired forcefully tools and objects, but also the more subtle exchange of culinary traditions, movements of ingredients between cultures, and how it affects the cooking and agriculture practices of the different peoples.  It's very different than the time I've spent in the 14th Century when the culture in Europe was far more uniform.

14th century cooking: Caudle of Almonds Recipe

Caudle of Almonds is a kind of medieval almond milk made with wine or ale.  According to Peter Brears book, Cooking and Dining in Medieval England, it was considered especially good for people with a dodgy tummy.

Cooking with and drinking almond milk was a frequent occurrence during the 14th Century.  Not only was it considered a healthy milk substitute, in the middle ages there were many days in the Christian calendar that forbid the consumption of dairy products.  Isn't it nice that almonds don't come from a cow?

I suspect almond milk may have become more popular as the populations in cities increased during the 13th and 14th century.  Suddenly you have all these people living in close quarters, with most of the dairy products being shipped in from the countryside or from cattle being raised in close quarters in town.  Cows living in small yards, with no access to fresh grass, can lead to some milk borne illnesses...unhealthy cow creates inferior milk.  So, if you can afford almonds, you make almond milk.

Now, quite frankly I strongly dislike almond milk.  It doesn't taste like almonds and it doesn't taste like milk... it tastes like powered over sweetened chalk in water.  But that's the almond milk out of a box from the supermarket... Since I'm doing a lot more medieval cooking these days, I decided it was time to try making my own almond milk.  Since I'm a coward at heart, I decided to try the more flashy version of almond milk:

Caudle of Almonds

Inspired heavily by Cooking and dining in Medieval England, by Peter Brears, with a few changes of my own.

A pint of white wine or wine and water mixed
a large handful of almonds  (I used raw)
Honey to taste (or for vegan version, a different liquid sweetener)
Poudre Forte or you could just use cinnamon and/or nutmeg mixed.

• Bring the wine to a boil, take off the heat and add almonds, about half a teaspoon of honey, and a generous pinch of spice.  Leave to steep for an hour or so to cool.  
• Take the almonds out (keep the liquid) and smash them good.  Mortar and pestle is fine, or use the blitzer.  The aim is a fine mush.  Add the liquid back to the almonds and pound or mash again - this is the tricky part for me.  apparently my blitzer does not fit a full pint of liquid and makes a huge mess all over the kitchen when I ask it to try just this once.  Also the blades aren't sharp enough to mash the almonds fine enough.  So I did about half way in the blitzer then transferred small batches to work in the mortar.  
• Strain the milk through a fine sieve or cheesecloth. Flavour with more honey and spices if needed, and sprinkle a few spices on top.

I loved how this tasted!   I cannot tell you how different this Caudle of Almonds was to boxed almond milk without falling into a huge pit of cliches - It's not even the same planet, worlds apart!  And I don't think it's just that this was made with wine, wine is lovely and all, but it was the pure almond-ness quality, the almond milk qua almond, that made is delightful.  

The Caudle of almonds also helped settle my stomach.  I had a very stressful day and my stomach was acidic and full on reflux.  I drank it warm with some extra honey, but I don't think I boiled off the alcohol from the wine, as I was quite sloshed after drinking a pint of Caudle.  Very delicious and I can see making this again soon. Just need to find a better method for creaming the almonds.  Got an idea brewing for that though...

Vegan friendly? - you need to substitute the honey with your favourite sweetener for this to be vegan friendly.  It's easy enough to do, so I am going to give it a qualified yes.

Affordable? - um... depends.  If you are like me and do not trust the bulk food bin and have to special order almonds from a place that doesn't mix nuts, no it is not even a little bit affordable.  But as far as normal people go, it's probably okay on price.

Allergy issues - depending on your allergy it can be a friendly or feendish drink. 

See my affordable section above about mixed nut contamination which a lot of people who don't have nut allergies in the family aren't use to taking into account, and not suitable for people with allergies to almonds.  Some people may have reactions to the sulphates (assuming you are using a commercial wine) in the wine.

However, it makes a great substitute for milk and is excellent substitute for warm-milk-before-bed drinks like horlicks.  

Medieval cooking: Poudre Douce and Poudre Fort recipes

Here's a couple of recipes I brought back from my trip to the 14th Century.  Poudre Fort and Poudre Douce (or strong powder and sweet powder).  You can use these two powders in just about anything.  The Fort or strong powder, I use for cooking meat, fish, veg, rice, soups, and anywhere else one might use pepper in modern cooking.  The Douce or sweet powder, I use for bread making, just about anything dessert, or even sprinkling on fresh fruit.

Poudre Fort

1 pinch powdered ginger
2 pinches of powdered cinnamon
about 4 to 8 Tbs peppercorns ground fine (at the medieval camp I did this by hand, it wasn't too time consuming)
1/4 tsp sugar (any sugar will do, so long as it's in granular/dry form)

• Pulverize into powder anything that isn't already, and blend well.  Keep in an airtight jar on the counter so it's always on hand when you need it.

Feel free to alter the ratios or add other spices like nutmeg to taste.  This is just the recipe that was passed down to me by an expert medievalist (I'm thinking that's probably not the right word for it, but it will serve till I can think of a better one).

Poudre Douce

1 recipe of Poudre Fort (see above)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (yes, we are doing cinnamon twice)
maybe a pinch of nutmeg or allspice
More Sugar (any dry sugar, powdered, granular, date, palm, beet, &c.) - I tell you how much below.

• Pulverize into powder anything that isn't already.  Mix together all but the (extra) sugar
• Guess about how much spice you have here (by volume) - probably getting close to a 1/4 cup by now.  Add an equal amount of sugar to the other spices.  So, if you have roughly 1/4 cup of spices, then add 1/4 cup of sugar.  If you have 4 Tbs of spices, then add another 4 Tbs of sugar.
• Mix everything together really well, keep in an airtight jar on the counter so you can use it always on hand.

With time and practice, you will develop your own ratios for these spices.  There are many other recipes for these that have developed over the centuries.  Some completely different than the ones shown here.  

However, these are so incredibly delicious, I'm really surprised they aren't more common.

A word of caution for allergies: Some modern spices have Soy and other oils/lecithins used in the processing.  Always check the ingredients on the spice packets if you are cooking for someone with allergies.

Where My Food Comes From - farmyard butchery

Warning: this post is about where meat comes from, home slaughter and butchery on the farm.  It may not be for all readers.

First time slaughtering my own animals for food on the farm has been a very emotional and spiritual experience   We processed (a deceptively nice word for killed and cut up) a goat and a ram last week.  It made a very strong impression on me, and as traumatic as it was, I feel satisfied that I did it, and will do it again.

Trying to reconcile the fact that I eat meat with the rest of my values has been a long journey   I want to be consistent in values and actions, to have my actions congruent with my beliefs.  This has been one of the places where I seriously failed at doing so in the past.

Left to right: Hunting knife for boning, cleaver for soft bones,
kitchen knife for cuts requiring strength, and on top a steal to maintain a sharp edge.
Not shown, bone saw.

With the goat and the ram, I had different friends do the actual deed (very interesting to see the difference in styles, but that's a subject for another time).  Then I helped skinned the animals.  Brought the flesh inside and butchered it.  Took me about 3 to 4 hours per animal to skin and get it into freezer size portions - roasts, stewing/sausage square, cuts for hams, and so forth.

It was really amazing to me to turn a living animal into food - I felt intensely grateful to the animals and it gave me a very different view of life.  I learned a lot about myself.

I learned that I don't ever want to make a killing stroke on an animal.  This is really heart shatteringly difficult to watch.  But I do feel I could do it if needed to be done, in a survival situation and there was no one else around to do it.

I also learned that processing the meat myself made the emotional transition much easier.  Because I felt so grateful  I didn't want to waste anything.  In a small abattoir or large slaughter house, they have what they call hanging weight.  This is the meat minus the skin and organs.  From hanging weight to packaged ready to go, the usual loss is 20 to 30%.  For my half of the ram, I started with 40lb of meat, and after it was cut up ready to go, ended with 39lb of meat, that's a loss of only 3%.  I'm keeping the fat for cooking and soap making, the bones for broth, the little scraps of meat for sausage and stew.  Moreover, I know where each piece came from and can cook it accordingly.

Gratitude to the animal is very humbling and reduces waste.

Keeping the animal at home for slaughter, saves it a long trip to the abattoir, a journey that can take days of stress.  On top of that, at the slaughter house, the animal is surround by other stressed out animals, and the smell of blood and other things that terrify them.  Not going into details here, but at a facility, the animal basically has a stressful end.

When I think back on the abattoirs and slaughter houses I've visited (big and small), I know how much I disliked the conditions.  The conditions were clean and up to code, but that's not what bothered me.  The way the animals end, the stress and fear that they display - because animals do display these emotions.

On top of that, the facility butchers the meat, cutting it up according to their standards, which, quite frankly, are different than my own.  With some things, I can be very fussy in the kitchen.  At a facility that processes hundreds or thousands of animals a day, many perfectly good cuts are ground when they don't need to be.  It saves a lot of time and energy for the home cook, but it also produces a lot of waste.

It's better for the animals to have their end at home, and it's better for my kitchen economy to process the meat myself.  Although I do need more practice and/or lessons to get the cuts of meat better.

I also feel really bad for all the commercially processed meat I've eaten in my life.  I don't think I want to buy meat again, not without knowing where it came from and how the animal met it's end.

What am I going to do with all this meat?  The Ram/mutton is mostly for eating.  The fellow was only just 2 years old (in 19th C England, 2 years old and younger was lamb, whereas most countries now have the age at 12 months or less) and a very gentile personality.  The meat is tender and mild flavoured, very tasty and perfect for roasts, fresh sausage, soups, stews, pasta, &c.  I think I'll make a couple of small hams from the hocks, just to see what it's like dry cured.  As for the goat, she was old and high strung.  Her meat is mostly going for curry, dry cure ham, and dry cured sausage like Kabanosy - things that are slow cooked and spicy, or spicy and cured.


Now keep in mind, home processing animals from start to finish is not an easy task - emotionally or physically.  It's not at all like the books say it will be.  If you want to home process your animals, here are a few things you need to do first.  Check the local laws.  Some countries no longer allow farmers to kill their own animals, or require a special licence or certification to do it - I have opinions about this, when it's done right, it's the most gentle passing possible for the animal, but it has to be done right.  Other places like here, we can only kill our own animal on our own land for our own consumption   If we want to sell our meat, it has to be processed at a government inspected facility.  Another thing you need to consider is your  neighbours.  if they are within site of your yard, they may take issue and cause a fuss.  Or they might come by and demand some meat for dinner.  Last of all, have everything clean and ready before you begin, including somewhere to hang the meat, knives sharpened, freezer paper... &c.

Making Pastirma at home - plus recipe

I'm intrigued by stories of food from the Old Country.  Traditional recipes that combine preservation and deliciousness are always up my alley.

A friend of mine from Lebanon was telling me about this cured meat he knew as a youth.  Back in the old country, it was made from goat or mutton, coated with a spicy paste, and dried for ages before enjoying as a breakfast meat of all things.  In North America it's easier to get beef, so when I saw an Eye of Round Roast on sale, I picked it up and set to work.

Pastirma has several different names depending on the region, and different variation on the spice mix.  But what they do all seem to share in common are that the meat is pressed and the spice mix includes fenugreek and garlic.  Legend has it that in past days nomadic tribes would press the meat between the thy and the horse as they road along.  The salt from horse and rider sweat would help cure the meat, then it would be coated in spice and hung from the saddle as they road from place to place - how much of this is true, I don't know (I wasn't there).

Pastirma is also the ancestor of several different cured meats.  You can see how it travels West across Europe   There is Bresaola, and even Pastrami and Corned Beef are very similar to this style.  Interesting how more sedentary cultures use a brine cure, where as more mobile cultures use a dry cure.  If I was still an anthropology student, I would write a paper on this.

The modern method does not require a horse.  After much questioning of my friend and research (both in books online) I found two recipes for pastirma that I liked best: Middle East and Africa Cooking & Baking recipe for Basturma and TheArmenianKitchen.com Homemade Basterma.  I ended up combining Folklore with these two recipes.

I adore how this turned out and can easily see why it is so popular in the middle east.  I just want to gobble it all down, but it's so rich that only a few shaved slices is enough for me.  I can also see why it's so expensive to buy in the shops; it took over 5 weeks to make.  If I had a better set up for curing my meat, I think I could have done a better job, but even with my limited resources  it makes a very friendly start to dry curing meat.  It's also very forgiving about timing, humidity, temperature, &c.... which in my opinion are the best qualities of any long-term, farmhouse, homemade, foodstuff.


You can use any lean cut of red meat: lamb, goat, horse (if you are into that kind of thing), moose, dear, antelope, beef, or well, just about anything.  My understanding is that the better quality the meat, the better the finished product, so for my next go at this recipe I'll be using some goat that was raised on this farm.  Then again, it turned out this good with some commercial feed lot beef, so I can't imagine how good it will be with some real meat!

My Pastrima Experience

About 4lb meat (I used eye of round cut in half lengthwise)  no more than two inches thick.

eye of round

less than 1 cup kosher salt

• Trim as much fat and silverskin as you can from the meat, slice it in half longwise if it's more than 2 inches thick, and rub the salt into the meat.  Put into a ziplock bag, remove the air from the bag the best you can, and leave in the fridge for 4 to 6 days.  It will be firm to the touch when it's ready.
• Rinse off and soak in cool water for 1 to 3 hours.  Rinse and dry before moving onto the next step.
• Wrap the meat in cheesecloth and press.  I used an old crock and some boards and rocks (bleached with H2O2, both before and after).  Press in the fridge for about 2 days.

getting ready to press the meat

meat wrapped in cheese cloth and a board for pressing.

pressing the meat in the fridge

• Take some kitchen or butcher twine and place in boiling water to sterilize.  A darning needle too.
• Thread the string through the narrow end of the meat, tie in a loop so you can hang the meat by this.
• Unwrap the meat, and wrap again in clean cheesecloth. Hang for 10 days for 2 weeks (I hung in the fridge, but anything below about 10 degrees C should be fine if you salted it enough in the first step.

hanging in the fridge

meat after hanging in the fridge

spices ready to mix

• Prepare the spice mix.  I used:

1/3 cup Paprika

1/4 cup Fenugreek

1 Tbs Alspice

1 Tbs Black Pepper Corns

1 Tbs Cumin Seeds

1 tsp Cayanne

1 Bud (not clove, the entire bud) of Garlic

1 Tbs salt

about 1/2 to 1 cup cool water

• I ground any spices that needed grinding, then mixed in the cool water a little at a time to make a thick paste.
• I unwrapped the meat and carefully coated it with the spice mix.  It smelled amazing!  I was very careful to get every bit of surface area covered, it took a while.



at first I hung it near the hearth,
then I remembered fire makes heat,
so I moved it to the cupboard

• Hang to dry somewhere out of the way.  Ideal would be about 60 degrees F, and moderately humid.  Ours was decidedly less humid and warmer (but don't tell the experts, it still turned out amazing).

freshly sauced meat

• The spices are mega bug repellents so don't worry about that.  But you probably want to avoid somewhere with drastic changes of temperature or too much sunlight.  After the outer coating started to dry, my final hanging place was in the bottom of the pantry, next to the sauerkraut.
• Hang for 2 weeks.
• If there is black or fuzzy mould, worry.  Or if it smells rotten, then you worry. Otherwise, so long as you didn't skimp in the salt on the first step, then there shouldn't be any reason to worry.
• When the time is up, grab a beer, have a party, and enjoy your Pastirma (ps, beer intensifies the spicy flavour, not calms it like with a curry).

Lunch!

If you get that far, you can see why it's traditionally shaved off with a hatchet.  It's very firm and the knife needs to be very sharp and strong to slice into it.

Shave thinly as you intend to eat it.  Don't cut up too much before hand because it won't keep as long.  You can store at room temperature in a pinch, but it will continue to dry out, so best to wrap in some butcher paper and put in the fridge.

I'm very impressed how delicious this is.  I'm going back for seconds now, and I might try putting some in a pasta dish tonight for dinner.

Affordable Cooking: It cost me $15 for the meat, another $3 for the spices and salt (probably less) so that's $18 for 2.5lb.  A brief look at the internet says that it runs about $20 a pound to buy ready made Pastirma (plus shipping), but I haven't found any sellers that will ship to Canada, so I think you would have to find a speciality shop for that.  I think there's one fellow in Vancouver that makes it on a large scale, but you have to be a friend to buy it off him.  So to buy this much Pastirma retail, it would be at least $45 plus shipping.... I'm happy with how little it cost me and (provided I can get the meat for a good price) will make this again.


Cooking with Allergies:  This is pretty good.  You can choose the meat and to some extent modify the spices (just be sure to keep the salt, fenugreek and garlic the same) and it does not contain nitrites/nitrates which can cause a reaction in some people.  However, it does have a high salt content.  It needs it to kill off the evil bacteria, so if you are on a low salt diet, only have one or two slices.  The current recommendation is that you have no more than one ounce of cured meat a day, so it's a good aim to um,. well to aim for.

2 recipes: hot cross buns and sourdough hot cross buns

Earlier I talked about how to convert a regular yeast bread recipe to a sourdough recipe.  Although the theory is pretty straight forward, I've always felt rather intimidated by the idea of trying it.

Finally, my desire for sourdough hot cross buns overcame my fear of failure, and I set to work converting an old favourite recipe from commercial yeast to sourdough.

This first recipe come from one of my all time favourite bread (and cake books) Homemade Bread by the Food Editors of Farm Journal   It's out of print now, but if you ever see a copy at a second hand bookshop or yard sale, snatch it up.  Not only is it full of yummy bread recipes, the decidedly sexiest attitude is always good for a laugh.

Hot Cross Buns

Easter Buns with frosting crosses - traditionally served on Good Friday

1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
2/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
2 pkgs. active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
3 eggs
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour (about)
3/4 cup currants
1 egg white
1 tsp cold water
white frosting (recipe below)

• Scald milk,add sugar, salt and shortening; cool to luke warm.
• Sprinkle yeast on warm water; stir to dissolve.
• Add eggs, yeast and 1c flour to milk mixture; beat with electric mixer at medium speed about 2 minutes, occasionally scraping the bowl.  Stir in currants and enough remaining flour, a little at a time, to make a soft dough that is easy to handle.  Beat well.  Place in lightly greased bowl' turn dough over to grease top.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1.5 hours.  Punch down.  Turn onto lightly floured board.
• Roll or pat to 1/2" thickness.  Cut in rounds with 2.5" bisket cutter; shape cutouts in buns.  Place about 1.5" apart on greased baking sheets.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
• With a very sharp knife, cut a shallow cross on top of each bun.  Brush tops wit unbeaten egg white mixed with cold water.
• Bake in moderate oven (375F) 15 minutes  or until golden brown.  Cool on wire racks about 5 minutes.  Then with tip of knife or teaspoon, fill in the crosses on buns with White Frosting.  Best served Warm.  Makes about 18 buns.

White Frosting: Combine 1c. sifted confectioners sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla and 2 Tbs hot water.  Mix until smooth.

Now, the above recipe makes a decent hot cross bun, but I do usually add spices and candied peal to it.  I also find it a wee bit sweet for my taste, particularly the frosting.

This next recipe takes a long time to make, but it's so worth it.  I recommend making the sponge in the morning, the first part of the dough late in the evening, leaving it to rise overnight, then shape and do the second rise in the morning.  The buns should be ready for late afternoon on the second day.  Doing the second rise overnight ends up drying out the surface of the buns before they go in the oven which makes them hard to cut.

It's also very difficult to photograph these hot cross buns.  By the time I have the props and camera ready, the buns are all eaten.  Three days of baking from dawn till 3am the next day and I finally learned to hide the buns while they cool so that they didn't get snatched up.  (I did a lot of test batches and testing, so I'm confident they are fantastic).

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

A word about Sponge.  Although the word sponge can mean different things in various parts of the word, I use it here to mean a fairly active runny batter like substance made of sourdough starter, flour and water.  Make the sponge at least 4 hours before you plan to begin the bread.  I usually make mine the night before.  Mix at least 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup water (or more) and at least 1/8th cup sourdough starter.  Mix them well to make a runny batter, and leave in a warm corrner of the kitchen, covered with a cotton or linen towel.  After a few hours, depending on your temperature, the weather, whatnot, it should be bubbling.  You know the yeast is active in it.  If you leave it more than 24 hours, you need to feed it again.

1/4 cup sourdough sponge
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup honey/maple syrup/or other sweet liquid (I use the juice the fruit is candied in if there is any left over)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter/lard/or other fat (butter is best)
3 eggs
less than 4 cups flour (your choice but I recommend the first cup be all purpose or bread flour).
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup candied ginger (optional)
1/2 cup other dried or candied fruit or peal
pinch each nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves

• Scald milk, add honey, salt, butter.  cool to luke warm.
• In a big bowl, add eggs, sponge, 1 cup of flour, and milk mixture.  Mix a lot.  What you are trying to do here is to blend everything and activate the gluten in the flour.  It takes about 5 to 6 minutes to mix this by hand.  I do it in 2 min sessions, with a min or two rest in between.  Wooden spoon is my favourite tool for this.  Alternately, you could mix in electric mixer for 2 min.
• Add spices, and fruit, mix some more.
• Mix in the flour a little at a time until a soft dough forms.  Should be barely firm enough for you to handle.
• Place in a lightly greased bowl, grease the top of the dough, and cover with a linen or cotton towel.  Rise until double in size.  Even with a very active sourdough starter, THIS TAKES A LONG TIME SO YOU MIGHT WANT TO DO THIS OVERNIGHT.
• Punch down and break off egg sized balls of dough.  Form into bun shapes and place in a lightly greased tray or baking pan.  Cover and raise till double in size.
• Carefully cut the cross in the top with a VERY sharp knife.  Optional:brush with egg white mixed with 1 Tbs of cold water.
• Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 to 25 min.  

I'm not bothering with the egg wash (I don't like egg whites much, especially with bread) or frosting, but feel free to do it if you like.

Ideas for fruit to put in them: dried currents, dried cherries  dried raisins  dried peal, freshly grated organic citrus peal, candied peal, dried pineapples, dried anything... make sure you pit and chop up anything bigger than a raison.  My favourite is to get the chunky runny marmalade they have in Europe and strain off the juices (use this instead of honey) and the chunks of orange as the fruit for the bun.

Healthy: well, um.  I don't recommend  eating as many as I have this week.  But hey it's only once a year and when compared with commercial made hot cross buns full of highly processed ingredients and florescent coloured lemon peal like substance, YES they are much healthier.

Affordable:  I have no idea.  I don't even want to price these out, they are so delicious.  They do however help use up the left over dried fruit you have in the back of the cupboard... that's got to count for something I suppose.

These are NOT suitable to serve to your Vegan Friends because of the egg, honey, butter, &c.  See this vegan friendly recipe for hot cross buns.

Allergies: This is fairly easy to modify for allergies.  I don't recomend cutting down on eggs and butter though, it is what makes the dish.  If these are the things you are allergic to, then please make the vegain version I just linked to in the last paragraph.