Redoing the "funny hat," or, ode to my fillet

My fillet has served me well. The first one I made now looks absolutely pathetic to me:



It is hilariously uneven, the fabric is just awful, and there's lots of lovely visible machine stitching. Eww.

The current version is much nicer, and we've had lots of adventures together. I blogged about it when I made it, and here's a refresher photo:



Well, because I wear this hat a lot, including to summer camping events, it is DISGUSTING. It's brown inside! Eww! But it's held up by a piece of buckram, which I know won't survive the washing it so desperately needs.

I've also been toying with the idea of making myself a new fillet completely, specifically one that has a ruffle on the top rather than pleats all over, like this one from Historic Enterprises.

I got to thinking (always dangerous): if I need to take apart the pleated fillet anyway, why not try something I've been wondering about? Namely, what if I combined pleating and ruffled edges?

So I'm going to try it. The basic idea is that if I do it right, hemming the edges of my pleated strip and putting them on the top of the hat will make little ruffles, and will give the hat a silhouette closer to that of the period illustrations, such as those shown in the Maciejowski:



If it doesn't work, I'm not out a lot (I'm going to see what it looks like pinned together before I hem any edges, even), since I had to deconstruct and reconstruct this hat anyway.

Photos if it works!

Persona Appropriate Ingredients Mead-Making Continues: Quince Medlar Apple Cyser!

I brought home some medlars from the Culinary Symposium (thank you, Ref!), and had some quinces left. I've been itching to do a cyser for a while now, and I realized that quinces, apples, and medlars all would taste pretty good together. Plus, all the ingredients would be persona appropriate! Eh? Eh? This new obsession is fun.

Ingredients:

3 quarts organic apple cider
3 pounds honey
3 quinces
A bunch of medlars (I forgot to count them -- I think like 7 or 8?)
Enough water to bring volume of must up to a gallon
Yeast (I used a whole packet of Cotes des Blancs; I know that other brewers when they just do a gallon batch use less than a whole packet, but I don't actually think this matters)

Removed icky bits from fruit, chopped and cored quinces and broke apart medlars. Put all ingredients in a large pot on the stove. Over low heat stirring frequently, I dissolved the honey. Then I brought everything slowly just to a boil, turned the heat off, and let it stand overnight.

This m orning I sterilized my equipment, strained the must, and am adding it plus the yeast (someday I need to get real mead yeast) to a gallon jug. I added enough water to bring the volume up to the base of the neck of the bottle.

Now the jug has an air lock and is in the bathtub, where it will ferment for two weeks before bottling. (Or possibly 3 weeks. We'll see.)

I have high hopes!

Uncorked the first bottle of rhodomel

One day early, I couldn't wait!

Damn, it's a fine thing. Still a little fizzy, good mix of dry and sweet, interesting rose notes that aren't overwhelming. I think the hips gave it a nice bright flavor, although not as noticeable as when I use lemon.

Okay, cripes, that last paragraph sounds like something off a wine bottle.

Anyway, it's nice and I'm pleased with my first persona appropriate ingredient brew.

Next, I'll be doing cyser with quinces and medlars. That promises to be awesome!

Persona Appropriate Food

In my ongoing quest to list and then eat a complete collection of all the foodstuffs available to my persona, I achieved a milestone at Culinary Symposium:

Medlars: Check.

I did it!

I ran the kitchen at Culinary Symposium and it went great! I'm so proud of me! I worked really hard on something and succeeded!

Recipes and research notes to be posted... later.

Wafers

I finally tried my hand at wafers today! I started with this 15th century recipe from Gode Cookery and heavily adapted it. I ended up making two versions, a sweet and a savory (the savory is pictured here). I used Better Half's pizelle iron because 1) I don't have a waffle iron (Mom, if you are reading this, I hope you were sitting down for that; you must be so disappointed in me!) and 2) the recipe specifies that the wafers should be thin.

Both recipes were based on this base formula:

1/4 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup flour
Pinch salt

Beat egg and cheese together, add flour and salt and beat until basically smooth. Cook on pre-heated pizelle iron by very small spoonfuls until slightly browned. You may find it helpful, as I did, to grease the iron periodically (even though mine is non-stick). This yielded around 8 wafers.

For the savory version, I added 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese. These were so good that I ate all of them as they came off the iron and then made a second batch. I forced myself to let one get cold, though, and found that these are pretty awful cold. Since I know I'll have to serve them cold at the symposium, I decided I probably won't make these for that. But they are wonderful and I highly recommend them as a fun treat to make at home. They remind me of crepes and would be nice with a little pepper and sage, or wrapped around meat or eggs.

For the sweet version, which is closer to the original recipe, I added 1/4 tsp of ginger (I will double this next time, this was all the ginger I had left and I couldn't taste it) and 1 tsp of sugar. These stuck to the iron quite a bit as they have basically no added fat. These were definitely passable cold, and I think they'll go really well with the spiced cider that I'll be serving them with for the conclusion of the feast. They would also be absolutely divine with whipped cream, a blintz-like filling, or any kind of fruit syrup/sauce.

I am contemplating hunting down a pizelle iron that I can use on the fire next summer :)

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