Historic Cooking: To make a brown Fricasey from 1777.

Hannah Glasse's Brown Fricasey.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

The Redone Challenge: If They’d Had It… (November 2 - November 15, 2014)

Have you ever looked through a cookbook from another era and been surprised at the modern dishes you find? Have you ever been surprised at just how much they differ from their modern counterparts? Recreate a dish which is still around today, even if it may look a little - or a lot - different!

The Recipe: Although we don't generally see fricasees on menus today, in reading the recipes for them, I saw that they are essentially the same (at least, as some traditional recipes have it) as a very common menu item today: Chicken a la Marsala!  Having made Chicken Marsala at least once before, I was surprised to find that it is a fairly simple dish to make; when using this recipe, use flour or very fine breadcrumbs instead of the grated bread, substitute Marsala wine for the red wine, and use fresh mushrooms intead of the pickled mushrooms, and you have an almost identical dish!

To make a brown fricasey. You must take your rabbits or chickens and skin then, then cut them into small pieces, and rub them over with yolks of eggs.  Have ready some grated bread, a little beaten mace, and a little grated nutmeg mixt together, and then roll them in it; put a little butter into your stew-pan, and when it is melted put in your meat.  Fry it of a fine brown, and take care they don't stick to the bottom of the pan, then pour the butter from them, and pour in half a pint of gravy, a glass of red wine, a few mushrooms, or two spoonfuls of the pickle, a little salt (if wanted) and a piece of butter rolled in flour.  When it is of a fine thickness dish it up, and send it to table. -- from The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy, Hannah Glasse, 1774.

The Date/Year and Region: Eastern Coast of U.S., 1774. 

Historic Cooking: Chicken Saltato con Fungi from 1916

Chicken Saltado con Fungi ingredients.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

Since the Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge project officially ended, and no new challenges will be posted, those of us who have completed some of the challenges in the past decided that we would continue the project on an informal basis. We choose a challenge from the whole list of previous themes, and either complete them (if we never got a chance to do so), or re-do them, on our own time, with no requirement (even such an informal one as we had) to complete the recipe and post about it within a certain time period! I've been reading Edwardian Farm by Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn, and Alex Langlands, so I've been thinking about life in California during the Edwardian period, and the similarities and differences between Edwardian California and Edwardian England. 

Italian wine cookie update

image from Antiqueclipart.com

I put together the dough for version 1 of my Italian wine cookie recipe, using a variation of the antique Cinnamon Biscuit recipe, and although I haven't baked the cookies yet, I can tell the recipe needs more work. Here is the composition of the dough that's hopefully going to be baked today:


4 cups flour
1 1/3 cups white sugar

2/3 cup honey

1 pound unsalted butter, softened

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

zest of 1 orange

1 tablespoon orange flower water

1/4 cup marsala wine

The dough ended up being really soft; I was aiming for a stiff dough that I could roll out and cut with cookie cutters. I started out with only 2 cups of flour with the rest of the ingredients, but I got more of a batter than a dough; the addition of 2 more cups of flour, 1/2 cup at a time, resulted in a soft dough that would work for drop cookies. I chilled the dough overnight and now it is very stiff, like a shortbread dough. I have let the bowl of dough sit on the counter all morning, hoping to soften it enough to roll out, but I'm not sure if the flavor is going to be right when baked. Too bad I made the whole recipe instead of halving or quartering it! I'm almost out of flour now, so it will be a few days before I can get some more flour and try another batch ... And I'm still looking for the right cookie cutters ... Oh well.