![]() Put the cubes of butter into the flour, and with your fingers, rub the butter into the flour. Sift flour and salt into a large bowl a metal bowl works best as it keeps the pastry cool. By the time you come to use the water, it should have completely cooled. At the same time as you begin boiling the offal, If you’re using saffron to give your pastry a warm golden-hue, steep the saffron in a tablespoon of hot water for 30 minutes or so. Figgy Pudding’s version…įor the pastry: 200g plain flour 1/2 tsp salt 100g butter (cut into small, rough cubes) large pinch of saffron 1 egg yolk cold water (about half a mug of cold water will be needed)įor the filling: 6 strips of streaky bacon 100g bacon lardons 200g venison offal (kidneys, liver & sweetbreads work best chopped & boiled for around 20 minutes until tender, then cooled) 1/4 tsp freshly-grated nutmeg 1/2 tsp freshly-ground black pepper 1/4 tsp salt 100g butter 100ml red wine 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped Boil the offal for 20 minutes and then leave to cool for 40 minutes. Lay minced beef-suet in the bottom of the pie, or slices of interlarded bacon, and the umbles cut as big as small dice, with some bacon cut in the same form, and seasoned with nutmeg, pepper, and salt, fill your pyes with it, and slices of bacon and butter, close it up and bake it, and liquor it with claret, butter, and stripped tyme. ![]() May wrote what some consider the first ‘modern’ cookbook it was certainly the first one published with illustrations! Today’s recipe is adapted from The Accomplisht Cook of the Art & Mystery of Cookery by Robert May, which was published in 1660. So to properly understand the phrase ‘to eat humble pie’ you have to see how both the umble and humble have converged to form a greater sense of meaning. The word humble, meaning lowly or modest, has different origins: it derives from the Latin word humilis meaning literally ‘low’ or ‘on the ground’. The meaning of the idiom ‘to eat humble pie’ thus has its origins in this sense of knowing your place and acknowledging your betters. To eat umble pie was literally to ‘know your place’ as you were eating the entrails of the beast whilst (no doubt at a much grander table) your master sat down to a juicy, thick cut of choice loin. ![]() Servants and huntsmen working for the gentry in the Late Middle Ages through to the Victorian Era would often be given the offal of any deer killed, in token appreciation as it were, for their part in a successful hunt the pies made from these umbles would feed the workers’ families. ![]() Over time, this became corrupted to umbles and was typically used to refer to Venison offal (heart, kidneys and lung). In the 14th Century, the English adopted the Middle French word nombles meaning the offal (heart, liver, kidneys, and various small pieces of the entrails) of an animal, such as a deer, a hog, or a sheep. A most appropriate (but hopefully not prophetic!) first recipe on is the Umble Pie. ![]()
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