This is a sweet dessert historical dessert lasagna using a sweet spice mix (powder deuce) and walnuts made with fresh egg-free pasta which uses grape must as a leavening.
Pasted from MS Word, so there may be issues in the formatting.
It was rather well received:
Lenten Sweet Lasanas (Lasagna)
I am using leavened pasta. See Liber de Coquina ubi diuersitates ciborum docentur, (A Book About Cooking):[1]
I — 10. De lasanis : ad lasanas, accipe pastam fermentatam et fac tortellum ita tenuem sicut poteris. Deinde, diuide eum per partes quadratas ad quantitatem trium digitorum. Postea, habeas aquam bullientem salsatam, et pone ibi ad coquendum predictas lasanas. Et quando erunt fortiter decocte, accipe caseum grattatum.
Et si uolueris, potes simul ponere bonas species puluerizatas, et pulueriza cum istis super cissorium. Postea, fac desuper unum lectum de lasanis et iterum pulueriza; et desuper, alium lectum, et pulueriza : et sic fac usque cissorium uel scutella sit plena. Postea, comede cum uno punctorio ligneo accipiendo.
This translates[2] to: (emphasis mine)
I — 10. Take leavened dough and make a sheet as thin as possible. Then, cut it into squares the size of three fingers. Then, cook the said lasanae in boiling salted water. When they are well cooked, take some grated cheese.
If you want, add good, ground spices and dust them on a cutting board. Then, place a layer of lasanae and dust again; and then, another layer, and dust; and continue in this way until the table or plate is full. Then, eat them with a wooden stick.
I will to use leavened pasta for a Lenten recipe to account for the lack of eggs. It's presence is for dough flavor and conditioning, and not for actual leavening.
The basis for my recipe is from Anonimo Veneziano’s Libro di cucina/Libro per cuoco.[3] It is a recipe for Lent, and is a sweet dish, suitable for dessert.
Se tu voy fare lansagne de quaressima, toy le lasagne e mitile a coxere, e toli noxe monde e ben pesta e maxenate, e miti entro le lasagne, e guardale dal fumo; e quando vano a tavola, menestra e polverizage de le specie, del zucharo.
Translation was by Helewyse de Birkestad,[4] OL (MKA Louise Smithson):
If you want to make lasagne in lent, take the lasagne (wide pasta noodles) and put them to cook (in water and salt). Take peeled walnuts and beat and grind them well. Put them between the lasagna (in layers), and guard from smoke (while reheating). And when they go to the table dress them with a dusting of spices and with sugar.
Normally for fresh pasta, I would use eggs, but during lent at this period as the consumption of meat, fowl, eggs, and milk products were forbidden, hence the walnuts, sugar, and olive oil.
In addition to the ground walnuts in between the layers, I am adding chopped, "Wet," walnuts and sugar syrup to the top of the lasagna.
I am using powder douce (see Appendix A) as the spice mix. It is mentioned in the recipe for Loseyns in The Forme of Cury. Then I am baking in a pan to allow the flavors to meld and for the syrup to infuse the dish.
Ingredients:
Quantity
2 cup
Flour, general purpose or 00 flour
2 cup
Flour, Semolina
2 cup
Fermenting grape juice, room temperature
Additional flour, Semolina
Olive oil
2 cup
Active (fermenting) grape juice or sourdough. (I am using juice, see Appendix B)
1 cup
Ground walnuts
Powder Douce (See Appendix A)
1 tsp
Salt (optional)
Granulated or powdered sugar, can be white, brown, etc.
1½-2 cups
Chopped walnuts
Preparation of the pasta:
- Mix the 2 cups of both flours thoroughly in a large bowl along with 1 tsp salt.
- Make a mountain out of flour mixture and create a deep well in the center, then add 1½ cups of the grape juice and 1 Tbsp of olive oil into the well and whisk the juice and oil gently with a fork, gradually incorporating flour. When mixture becomes too thick to mix with a fork, begin kneading with your hands until the dough comes together. Add additional water or juice as needed.
- Knead dough until it is smooth and supple, 8 to 12 minutes. Form into a smooth ball, and place in bowl covered in a damp cloth let sit in a bowl covered with a damp towel for 2 hours. Knead the dough again to remove as much of the leavening as possible. Allow it to rest at room temperature for at least 30 (1-2 hours is better) minutes or in the refrigerator over night. (preferred)
- Roll out to desired thickness (I do about 1/16 of an inch) and cut into 2 inch (3 finger) wide strips. You can dock the dough with a fork.
- Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add sufficient salt so that it tastes like the ocean, then add the noodles, cooking until tender yet firm to the bite. This will probably be 5-7 minutes.
- Remove from water store so that they do not stick together. (Hanger, parchment paper, etc.)
Preparation of the lasagna:
- Mix ground walnuts and Powder Douce to taste, add water to make a paste similar to peanut butter.
- Oil a baking pan. (I will also be lining the pan with parchment paper)
- Put a layer of noodles into the pan, and then spread a thin (About the thickness of peanut butter on a peanut butter sandwich) layer of the walnut spice mixture. Finish with a layer of noodles on top.
- Add a dusting of the Powder Douce the top layer of noodles.
- Spread wet walnut glaze evenly over the top of the lasagna.
- Cook at 350-400°F (175-205°C) for ½ hour covered, and then uncover and cook for an additional 10 minutes. After the lasagna has cooled, cut into squares and skewer with toothpicks.
Preparation of wet walnuts:
- Take 2 cups sugar of your choice and 1 cup water, and bring to a simmer, stirring frequently, until the sugar is completely dissolved.
- Add the chopped walnuts and boil for at least 10 minutes stirring regularly.
I could not find any detailed documentation for these spice mixes.
This is unsurprising. This mix would be generally known by cooks, and so in a recipe, it would just be called out as if it were a single ingredient.
It is likely that it may have varied from cook to cook as well.
Powder Fort
I am using the following spice recipe from Dishably.[5]
The spice is strong (hence fort) and peppery mix.
Ingredients:
Quantity
¼ C
Powdered Ginger (or use fresh grated ginger at a 4:1 fresh:ground ratio)
¼ C
Long Pepper, Ground
¼ C
Cinnamon (Ceylon preferred),Ground
1½ tsp
Cloves, ground
¼ C
Black pepper, ground
1 tsp
Cubeb
1 tsp
Grains of paradise
Powder Douce
Powder Douce (Sweet in Latin) is a milder and sweeter mix, and much like Powder Fort, documentation of the spice is sparse.
I am using the spice recipe from Edouard Halidai (MKA Daniel Myers) Medieval Cookery:[6]
Quantity
3 Tbsp
Powdered Ginger (or use fresh grated ginger at a 4:1 fresh:ground ratio)
4 (2) Tbsp
Sugar (Whatever type you favor, I am using dark brown sugar)
1½ Tbsp
Cinnamon (Ceylon preferred, adjust for different cinnamon varieties),Ground
¼ (1) tsp
Cloves, ground
1 tsp
Nutmeg, ground
The numbers in parenthesis are the original recipe.
When I tried out the spice mix, I found that the clove was overpowering, and it needed to be sweeter.
Appendix B. Grape Pomace, Must, Juice, and Lees
For my recipes, I am calling crushed grapes, "Must," calling the cloudy fluid pressed from crushed grapes, "Juice," and, pulp and skins remaining after pressing "Pomace."
Organic grapes have active wild yeast on their skins, and so can be used as leavening, like sourdough.
For modern grapes, particularly non-organic table grapes, it is likely that fermentation would not start on its own, as the yeast has been removed through washing and chemicals.
As such, after crushing, I added a small quantity of yeast (I had an already open packet in the refrigerator) to the crushed grapes, which was set out at room temperature until activity was observed.
In addition to creating yeast flavors, fermentation of the must extracts tannins and color from the grape skins.
For the purpose of any of the included recipes, you can stop here.
From this point forward, I will be discussing the ambiguity of the terms, "Must," and, "Pomace."
These terms are used in a number of different ways depending on region, type of wine, etc.
Grapes are harvested and then crushed, bursting the grapes and creating a mash, which contains juice, pulp, stems, and seeds. (This is usually called must)
For white wines, this is often (but not always) pressed almost immediately, extracting what is often called grape juice, but sometimes called must, which is distinct from the grape juice that you find in the store, which is filtered.
Neither the white wine grape juice nor the pulp remaining (pomace) have experienced significant fermentation at this step.
In red wines, initial fermentation is allowed to occur in the crushed, which extracts color from the skins of the grapes, giving red wine its color.
After 5-7 days,the juice which is pressed out (typically at about 3-5% ABV) is called either must or juice. The remains of the pulp and skins are called pomace.
Both the must and the pomace contain active yeast cultures as well.
When must is used as a leavening agent, it can refer to either the fermenting juice or must. The latter use seems to be primarily (at least in Roman cookery) used for making millet cakes that were intended to be used as a shelf stable leavening agent.[7]
Lees are the sediment that accumulates at the bottom of a brewing vessel after they have done their job, and it is sometimes also used to make brandy.
There are some wines that are allowed to age before racking to allow the lees to create different flavor profiles.
[1] https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/fbz/fb05/germanistik/absprache/sprachverwendung/gloning/tx/mul2-lib.htm?set_language=en
[2] https://historicalitaliancooking.home.blog/english/recipes/medieval-lasagna-with-walnuts-a-lenten-recipe/
[3] https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/fbz/fb05/germanistik/absprache/sprachverwendung/gloning/tx/frati.htm
[4] https://www.medievalcookery.com/helewyse/libro.html
[5] https://delishably.com/grains/Lasagna-The-Easy-Recipe
[6] https://medievalcookery.com/recipes/douce.html
[7] https://tavolamediterranea.com/2017/09/01/baking-bread-romans-part-pliny-elders-leaven-starter-pasta-madre-levain/
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