Foxhunt IV

Foxhunt 2008
Feast Menu
(Brought to you by the letter B. B is for Barony.)

Board
Garlic Paste
Honeyed Apple Butter
Dark Oaten Bread
Manchet (White Bread)

Bird
Fowl in Yogurt with Ginger
Leek Salad with Marbled Eggs, Herbs and Flowers
Rice with Roasted Chickpeas
Swan stuffed with Crystal Eggs – A subtlety

Beast
Swine with Apples and Apricots
Parsnips with Buttered Greens
Salad of Melons
Apricot Delight

Bounty
Pomegranate Beef
A Dish of Eggplant
Lentils with Spinach
Pistachio and Apple Pastry

Baked
Presented Dessert Finale

This feast was inspired by the Middle East, slightly Turkish. I was going for English meets influences from the Crusades. Again, everything is period possible and based on seasonality of ingredients. I used the 13th Century Andalusian cookbook for inspiration and input of cooking style and technique. I was still limited by the facilities. Using only counter top roasters, and prepping ahead of time. The 'Swans with Crystal Eggs' were actually honeydew melons, carved into swan shapes, that held mock-sugar crystallized grapes. The 'Marbled Eggs' were hard-boiled eggs, That were cracked and patch-peeled then soaked in warm soy sauce for and hour before cooling.
The order of the menu items a classic example of cheapest to most expensive. It is always more cost effective to serve the cheaper ingredients and dishes before the expensive ones during a multi course meal so that the diners end up eating less as the meal continues.

For the Dessert Finale, this event was near the start of the local push for the five shires to become a Barony, yet to remain separate and equal Cantons. So each shire was baked a small yeast risen, Banburry-like Cake with its Device made in marzipan on the top.