Anne's "Georgian" chocolate

My Futurelearn course this week is focusing on the time of George I and one of the topics under discussion has been his personal chocolate maker and the role of chocolate, that exotic import, in royal and palace life. I have many pictures in my mind of languorous women in Georgette Heyer sipping chocolate in their beds of a morning, albeit maybe in the time of a later George.

Chocolate was often mixed with wine or port to make a drink and we were shown a demonstration of how to make that.  However, I explored a bit further and found various recipes made with water and/or milk (rather than alcohol) and spices.  I particularly liked one where the sugar was first soaked in rosewater. There are also examples of spices like cardomon and cayenne being used, and I may try a combination like that another time.

So this is just one I came up with as a result of my reading and using, on a whole, things I had in the house.  I did buy some chocolate! I got a Lindt 90% cocoa which had sugar and vanilla in it, so I didn't add sugar as would normally have been done in the time of George I. And I made it with a combination of water, rosewater and cream as I don't like milk. I used aniseed essence, but you could make it with ouzo though I doubt that it was drunk at the court of George I. I made it in my briki, but you could do it in a saucepan. Enjoy!

Ingredients

30 gr Lindt 90% chocolate (with sugar and vanilla)
2 tbs almond meal
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
1 tsp aniseed essence
2 tbs rosewater
1 cup boiling water
2 tbs thick cream

Mode

Place the almond meal in a small dish
Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg
Add aniseed essence and rosewater
Stir to combine and leave to absorb flavours
Break the chocolote into pieces and set aside
Boil the water in a briki and turn down the heat
Add chocolate and stir until dissolved
Add the almond meal mixture and stir
Add the cream  and combine well
Whisk and pour into a teacup to serve.

Tarte owt of Lente #blogjune Day 23

Two of my favourite interests are history and cooking. And at the moment I am enjoying both with my MOOC through FutureLearn.  It's conducted by the University of Reading in conjunction with Historic Royal Palaces and the theme is food cooked in the royal palaces of Britain. It goes for five weeks and covers five monarchs. It's called "A History of Royal Food and Feasting".   Apart from the historical exploration, there is cooking exploration and each week we have recipes to experiment with.

This Tarte owt of Lente is my first recipe, a Tudor cheese pie which includes all the ingredients people would have eaten in Lent: cheese, butter and cream.  I know these are not necessarily what all would think of as fasting, but there you go. Tudor recipes, such as this one, are guides for cooking rather than prescriptive lists of ingredients and procedures. We watched a video cooking demonstration as part of the course. But I didn't want to cook it quite as the demonstrator had done, so I enjoyed myself playing around with possibilities. I used a combination of ricotta and Cheshire cheese, while he used just Cheshire, though we were told that soft cheeses were also used. Yummy!

Ingredients

375 gr ricotta
30 gr Cheshire cheese
2 eggs
100 ml thick cream
2 sheets shortcrust pastry
Freshly ground pepper

 


Mode

Preheat oven to 180c
Remove pastry from freezer (in my lazy case) or make with butter and flour
Crumble the Cheshire into a mortar
Pound with pestle until soft and combined
Scrape the Cheshire into a mixing bowl
Add ricotta and combine cheeses
Add one egg to the cheese mixture and combine until smooth
Add cream and stir to combine
Add generous amounts of freshly ground pepper and stir
Line a pie or tart dish with pastry base
Add cheese mixture
Beat the remaining egg with a fork in a cup
Cut the pastry lid for the pie and cover the pie, using the egg mixture to seal
With a pastry-brush cover the top of the pie with the egg mixture
Bake in 180c oven for 45 minutes