In preparation for a feast I am doing this fall with my dear friend, Magdalena, I tried this historical bite and wanted to share it with you. The theme of this feast is “A Tudor Christmas” so I will probably be posting alot of 15th & 16th century English recipes in the coming weeks.

This particular recipe comes from Thomas Dawson’s The Good Huswife’s Jewel (1). Dawson first published his cookery book in 1596 and a second printing was made a year later. This work seems to be a liason between the rennaissance and a more modern cooking style of the 17th century. The dishes are simpler but delicious and seemed to be geared towards the growing middle class of the time.

Note: At this time England was still using the 12 ounce pound and a pint was 16 ounces rather than the imperial 20 ounces.

Original Recipe

This is a from Southover Press published in 1996

“To Make Fried Toast of Spinach

Take spinach and seethe it in water and salt. When it is tender, wring out the water between two trenchers. Then chop it small and set it on a chafing dish of coals. Put thereto butter, small raisins, cinnamon, ginger, sugar, a little of the juice of an orange, and two yolks of raw eggs. Let it boil till it be somewhat thick. Then toast your toast, soak them in a little butter and sugar and spread thin your spinach upon them. Set them on a dish before the fire a little while. So serve them with a little sugar upon them.”

My Redaction

Printable Recipe

• 1 10oz. pkg of frozen spinach
• 4-5 tbsp. of Butter
• 1/4 c. raisins
• 1 tsp. Cinnamon
• 2 tsp. Ginger, fresh
• 1/2 tsp. Ginger
• 2 tbsp. Sugar
• 1/4 tsp (or to taste) Orange Zest
• Juice of 1 orange
• 2 Egg Yolks
• 1 Loaf of good Homemade Bread

Thaw the spinach in a strainer over the sink or a bowl. When it is completely thawed, squeeze by hand as much water out of it as you can. Using several papertowels, remove even more moisture from the spinach by pressing it between two layers. When you have removed all the water set it aside until it is needed.

In a small frying pan melt the butter and raisins together. The butter will help to plump up the raisins so put it on a lower setting and allow the raisins about 5-10 minutes in the butter being careful not to let the butter burn.

When the raisins are plumped, add the fresh ginger, ground ginger, and sugar and stir. Cook for a few minutes until well incorporated.

Add the spinach and orange zest and saute for five minutes or so. Add the orange juice to the egg yolks and beat them together. I did this so that the eggs wouldn’t scramble when I added them to the spinach.

Lower the heat and add the egg mixture. Make sure you mix it in well so you do not get patches of cooked egg. Leave this to thicken, stirring every once in a while until it thickens. Let this saute while you prepare the toast.

Take a good homemade bread and slice it in half inch slices. Cut them into squares or triangles as you prefer. Toast or broil them, just until golden. I buttered them with a butter knife and sprinkled a small amount of sugar on them. If you wish, you can “soak” them in melted butter and sugar as Dawson directs. I chose not too because I was worried it would be too saturated and I wanted them as a finger food.

I then put a good helping of the spinach mixture on the toast or “sippets” sprinkled a little more sugar as a garnish on top and served them.

Bibliography

1. Dawson, Thomas. The Good Huswife’s Jewell. Published by Southover Press 1996. Originally published 1596, London for Edward White.

     I am including this recipe even though it is part of an ongoing research project of mine. This is another of Scappi’s inventions and I think it is a fantastic historical bite! It is fairly straightforward but the secret is in the dough.

     Scappi has several recipes that he calls “ciambelle”. John Florio’s 1611 Italian English Dictionary (2) tells us that a ciambelle is “simnels, buns or cake” (p. 100). The Oxford English DIctionary (3) lists simnel as “A kind of bread or bun made of fine flour and prepared by boiling, sometimes with subsequent baking” (p. 492). Gillian Riley states in The Oxford Companion to Italian Food (4) that ciambelle was not the only name for these ring shaped breads and biscuits and not all of them were dunked in boiling water. She goes on to quote Costanzo Felici, who wrote in 1560’s Italy, saying 

“ There is also a twice-cooked bread, circular or ring or other shaped, made with a fairly hard dough, with salt, anise or fennel seeds, first cooked in boiling water and then in the oven”

     He goes on to say

           “….with many varieties that we might call “reinforced” breads, with a wide range of         additions to the flour or dough according to the changing tastes of mankind, among these breads made in various shapes commonly known as bricuocoli,  ciaramilie or bracciatelli or braciatelletti, made with flour mixed with eggs….and sometimes twice cooked, or in copper pans; some of these are light and very spongy, some covered in powdered sugar, called berlingozzi in Rome, others without sugar, some smoother, some harder, some low and flattened, large or small in shape, and among these last one often sees little biscotelli mixed with milk and sugar, or just sugar, or without. Of  the same form, but made with   much thinner strips of dough, are other ones—bacciatellini or zuccarini, as they call them, made with eggs and sugar.” (p. 71-72)

Original Recipe (2)

Book V Recipe 150

        “Per Fare Ciambelle Ripiene

         Piglisi una libra di cascio bazzotto grasso, cioe di vacca, senza sale & una libra di cascio parmigiano grattato, oncie sei d’uva passa ben netta, un oncie di cannella, quattro oncie di zuccaro, tre oncie di butiro fresco, dodici ova freshe, & un poco di zafferano & d’ogni cosa faccisi una compositione. Poi impastinsi libre tre di fior di farina, con dicci oncie di latte di capra tiepido, & quattro oncie di mollica di pane imbeverata in esso latto, sei rofsi d’ova, quattro oncie di butiro, & sale a bastanza, &ben menata che sara la pasta, giungendoli nel menarla altre quattro oncie di butiro in piu volte. Compartiscasi in bocconcini di due oncie l’uno, & con il bastone spianisino di modo che venghino tondi, lasciandoli la grossezza del sfoglio della torte; pongasi da un canto d’esse pasto due oncie di compositione sopra detta per ciasebeduno tondo, dandogli una volta, e mezza in su, vagendoli di butiro squagliato, & poi facciansi ciambellette, spianandole con la palma della mano, mettissino sopra la carta onta di butiro in una tortiera, & diasegli il colore come all’offelle, & faccisino cuocere al forno, & cotte che saranno, servisino calde, a un altro modo si puo fare tirare un sfoglia.”

My Translation

“To Make Stuffed Ciambelle

Take a pound of imperfect (moderate) fat cheese, That is from a cow, without salt & a pound of grated parmesan cheese, six ounces of raisins well cleaned, an ounce of cinnamon, four ounces of sugar, three ounces of fresh butter, twelve fresh eggs, & a pinch of saffron & mix everything together forming a composition (filling). Then make a dough of three pounds of meal of flour with ten ounces of warm goat’s milk, & four ounces of breadcrumbs soaked in this milk, six egg yolks, four ounces of butter & enough salt & mix well by hand (knead) and when it shall be dough add in by hand another four ounces of butter further beyond. Divide in morsels of two ounces for one, & with the stick flatten of the method that you arrive at a round, leave it the bigness (thickness) of thin puff paste of a torte, lay two ounces of filling on a side of them over every/each one said, & whereby a turn and a half upward, spread melted butter, & then form the ciambelle, flatten with the palm of the hand, lay above greased paper with butter in a torte pan & give it color like offelle, & make them cook in the oven, & bake that it is strong, serve hot, or an other method it may be made to draw out a puff paste.” 

My Redaction

Note: Once again, we are using the 12oz pound of Scappi’s renaissance Italy.

• dough
• 6 oz. Mascarpone Cheese
• 6 oz. Grated Parmesan Cheese
• 3 oz. Raisins
• 1 tbsp Cinnamon
• 4-5 Eggs, beaten
• 6 oz. Butter
• 3 Strands of Saffron

Melt the butter with the saffron. While you are waiting mix the cheeses together with the raisins, cinnamon and eggs. It should be a soupy mess. After the butter is melted cool it off to about 80º. I do this so that I don’t get scrabbled eggs. 

Once the butter is cooled sufficiently, add it to the cheese and egg mixture. This is where the magic happens. The fat molecules in the butter adhere to the fat in the cheese and eggs and it thickens beautifully creating a lovely fluffy spreadable mixture!

     Take your dough and divide it into two ounce lumps. Roll the dough very thin. I roll it out until I can see through it. Take two ounces of your filling and place it to one side of your dough round. Brush all the exposed dough with melted butter and roll it up one and a half times. This is important, if you roll it tightly, the inside layers of dough will be raw while those on the outside are over brown.

     Once you have a little log of cheese filled dough, press the ends down with the palm of your hand to seal them. Now butter the ends and bring them together to form a ring and press again with your hands. Brush with melted butter and place on parchment paper on a sheet pan. Finish forming your ciambelle. You should have about 8.

     Bake at 350º for about 20 minutes or until the outside is a golden brown.

Bibliography

1) Scappi, Bartolomeo. The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi: L’Arte et Prudeza D’un Maestro Cuoco (The Art and Craft of a Master Cook) (1570). Translated with commentary by Terrence Scully. Toronto Canada. University of Toronto Press Inc. 2008. Print.

2) Florio, John. Queen Anna’s New World of Words (1611). Scolar Press. 1973. Print.

3) The Oxford English Dictionary. 1888. archives.org, accessed 1/1/2020

4) Riley, Gillian. The Oxford Companion to Italian Food. 2007. Oxford University Press.
New York, NY. Print.

5)  The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi. archives.org, accessed 1/1/2020.