Sourdough Oatcakes

Under the Haps of his saddle, each man carries a broad plate of metal ; behind the saddle, a little bag of oatmeal: when they have eaten too much of the sodden flesh, and their stomach appears weak and empty, they place this plate over the fire, mix with water their oatmeal, and when the plate is heated, they put a little of the paste upon it, and make a thin cake, like a cracknel or biscuit, which they eat to warm their stomachs: it is therefore no wonder, that they perform a longer day's march than other soldiers." -Jean Froissart (c1337-c1400) a Frenchman, visited Scotland during the reign (1329-71) of King David II.
Early Travellers in Scotland.  edited by Peter Hume Brown. 1891

I feel pretty confident about the historicity of this recipe, but it is conjecture based on the following facts:

1. "Oatmeal" does not here mean "rolled oats" or "steel-cut oats," as these weren't invented until the 19th century.  It means oat flour.

2. When you use a wooden bowl to make dough frequently, you trap yeasts in the crannies and cracks: thus, sourdough.  Mix dough in a wooden dough bowl, wait a few hours, you now have raised dough.

3. Raised dough is yummier than flour paste, and if these Scottish soldiers could mix flour and water together, their mums at home could do the same thing and then wait a couple of hours before cooking the dough.

4. Modern oatcakes are either leavened with baking soda, yeast, or left unleavened.  Baking soda was unknown until the 19th century, and yeast requires the making of ale nearby so you can use the foam.

5. It is so friggin' easy it is inconceivable that anyone could have failed to figure this out.

Sourdough Oatcakes
active sourdough starter
oat flour
water
salt

Combine oat flour and water to the consistency of pancake batter in a non-metal bowl. Add a dollop of sourdough starter and a pinch of salt.  Mix, cover, and leave until it increases in volume.  Do not stir the batter, you will smash the bubbles.  Fry in cakes.

Here is the result of a thick batter:

Here is the result of a thinner batter:

Verdict: Pretty good!  Better with butter and honey, as many things are, of course.  They are easy to undercook in the middle, so my first batch was only edible around the edges and gummy in the middle.  Surprisingly light and fluffy on the second try, though.  If you cannot find oat flour, and do not have a grain mill, put water and quick- or old-fashioned oats in the blender with enough water to make a batter, then add in quick oats or whole wheat flour to thicken to the consistency you are aiming for.

Rendered Suet II: or, An Attempt to Mend the Horrible Fiasco Which Traumatized Everyone

First, review Rendered Suet I.  Here are the main points, if you don't want to click: 1.) suet is kidney fat from cattle and is used for steamed puddings and candle making 2.) it was a horrible fiasco which left my house smelling of rotting fish and made me dry heave intermittently for over 24 hours.  I vowed to never ever ever NEVER EVER do it again.

But!

While poking around another butcher shop recently, I discovered this!

Unlike the first time, it was labelled!  They knew what it was without me explaining!  It is PRE-GROUND.  I was so excited I freaked out the cashier.  Especially after she told me they only carry it during the holidays, and I grabbed another sack.

When I got home, I just knew my husband would be as excited as I was.  He was so delighted, he stared at me like a startled deer for several minutes before telling me, "I love you and support your hobbies and trust you with the health of my body."  He was even more excited when he found out that the slow cooker would be rendering the suet in the garage while he worked on the car brakes, so he could enjoy the aroma.

I tossed both bags in the slow cooker, along with a couple cups of water, the set it on low.  About two hours later, it was all melted.  Much faster than the first time.  And unlike last time, it just smelled vaguely beefy.  Not offensive at all.

I poured another couple cups of water in a large bowl for good measure, hoping the gunkies would settle down into the water and leave the fat nice and clean, then strained the hot fat into the bowl.

These are all the gunkies that were strained out.

After cooling, it is nice and white and clean.  It slid nicely out of the bowl in a disc because of the water.

Ready for the freezer.  This is theoretically self stable, but... ehhhhhh.

In conclusion: this was totally fine and not scary or gross.  I revise my opinion about rendering suet being the worst thing ever.  So if you want to try it, I suggest you get it from a butcher who knows what it is without you explaining, and get it pre-ground.

For a better overview, please do check out Jas. Townsend & Sons video about suet.  It is excellent.

Cultured butter

If your dairy has refrigeration and your people have invented pasteurization, your butter has no culture.  If not, while you let your milk sit overnight to let the cream rise to the top, all sorts of bacteria are working away on that delicious, nutritious milk.  Depending on what bacteria choose to colonize, you can get a variety of results, including the death of your family.  But if all goes well, what you skim off the top in the morning will be cultured cream, or creme fraiche.  Look at those tasty fermentation bubbles!

Churn or whip that creme fraiche, and you get cultured butter.  Here is a refresher course on how that works.  Depending on the bacteria involved, this butter will taste anywhere from very slightly tangy to very tangy, and you can now sell it at a premium to foodies, hipsters, and health food nuts.  The resulting buttermilk will be actual, real buttermilk.  The buttermilk you buy at the store is not a product of butter making anymore, it is a cultured product like yogurt.

But what if you, like me, do not have a home dairy?  What if your enthusiasm for history and your hands-on experiences milking cows have left you totally unwilling to consume raw milk? Fear not.  You can cheat.  Set up a date between your cream and the bacteria of your choice.  I used milk kefir starter.  You can also use buttermilk from the store, like these nice people.  Let sit overnight, and you now have sour cream!

Mmmmmm.  Butter.  Now let us conclude by mocking this commercial claiming that butter is evil and that butter substitute will save us all.

Milk

From Advice to a Wife [1880]:

Passion is injurious to the mother's milk, and consequently to the child. Sudden joy and grief frequently disorder the infant's bowels, producing griping, looseness, &c.; hence, a mother who has a mild, placid, even temper generally makes an excellent nurse, on which account it is a fortunate circumstance that she is frequently better-tempered during suckling than at any other period of her life; indeed, she usually, at such times, experiences great joy and gladness.

If the mother or the wet nurse be good-tempered, the milk will be more likely to be wholesome, which will of course make him more healthy, and consequently better tempered. While, on the other hand, if the mother or the nurse be of an irritable, cross temper, the milk will suffer, and will thus cause disarrangement to the system; and hence, ill-health and ill-temper will be likely to ensue.

Verdict:

Approved.

Sourdough Pancakes

I know, I know, you're thinking "Hey, those are just pancakes. I know about pancakes." But wait! Hold on to your phaeton, because I am about to lay down for you some knowledge. Knowledge about sourdough.

*Sourdough has been used for ages by many world cultures to raise bread.
*It is basically slow-acting liquid yeast.
*Not all sourdough tastes the same. Each culture has its own unique taste. You have probably tasted the San Francisco strain, which is sort of tangy. There's a Bahrain strain that tastes of almost nothing. I don't get the point, but people who hate the taste of sourdough like it.
*It is like having a pet [or, technically, billions of pets] that isn't messy, smells nice, and periodically gives you fresh bread.
*It self-replicates if you feed it. After you take some out for a recipe, stir in some flour and water. Result: infinite sourdough starter. It is basically like owning a tribble.
*You can buy starters online, get some from a friend, order it for free from here, or grow your own. I got mine from the Pioneer Foodie.

In the 70's, as part of the get-back-to-nature Mother Earth sort of movement, sourdough got a little spike of popularity. And for good reason.

Sourdough Pancakes
2 cups sourdough starter
2 T. sugar
4 T. oil
1 egg
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking soda

Mix sourdough starter, sugar, egg, and oil. Dilute baking soda in a little bit of warm water, and stir in gently just before you are ready to cook the pancakes. Cook the pancakes.


Husband said these are his new favorite pancakes. I had to add chopped blackberries so they would not float away, so light and fluffy were they.

Peaches and Cream

Ah, a timeless recipe. A simple thing, with simple ingredients. When done right, it is very, very right. When done wrong, it is merely fine. Follow these directions precisely, and you will be filled with happiness. Stray, and you will say to yourself, "What's the big deal?"




Peaches and Cream
-Peaches: Tree-ripened. Not picked green and ripened in a warehouse. This is important.
-Sugar
-Nutmeg: Freshly ground. Find yourself a whole nutmeg and grate it. Its fragrance will make your bottle of it seem like dust. For baking, fine. But this deserves better.
-Milk
-Cream: No backtalk!

Peel and slice the peaches. Sprinkle with sugar and grate nutmeg on top. Pour milk over the top, much like you are about to eat the peaches like cereal. Which you are. Drizzle with cream. Heavy cream. Yes. Do it. It is a drizzle. You will be fine. Eat without regret or guilt, but with joy and thanksgiving.

Butter

Butter is important. And delicious. As you may have noticed from reading this blog, it showed up fairly frequently in historical recipes, before the Butter Police came to town.

There are lots of instructions on how to make butter on the internet, but only rarely do they tell how to properly wash the butter. Slackers! Butter takes a few weeks to spoil, but buttermilk only takes days. This is why after pouring off the buttermilk, you must rid the butter of all traces of it lest your butter be Spoiled Milk flavor.

To make butter, you must find some heavy cream, whipping cream, or heavy whipping cream. The differences between these creams is not worth knowing. Whip the cream as if you were making whipped cream (but without sugar and vanilla, please!) and just keep going until you have chunks of butter floating in buttermilk. You can use a KitchenAid with a whisk attachment, shake it in a jar, or buy a butter churn. Or, you can put it in your wagon and drive it cross-country all day. Whichever suits your fancy.



Butter is fat. Water does not mix with fat. Ergo, you must pour in cold water and squish the butter around. The buttermilk will leach from the butter and into the water, which you must then pour off and dispose of. Keep doing that until the water is clear, like this:

Yum. Buttery. When you pour off the last of the water, you can either leave it unsalted for cooking (which in my opinion would be a waste, considering all that work you just did!) or put in about 1 t. salt for every lb. of butter.

Oh yes, and here is a handy tip: When measuring butter when it is not conveniently in stick form, use displacement instead of trying to pack ice-cold butter into a measuring cup. For instance, if you need 1/2 C. butter, fill a liquid measuring cup with 1/2 C. cold water and add globs of butter until it reaches 1 C. Pour off the water and you are ready to go! Easy squeezy!