14 July 2006
Making Tourteletes in fryture
These are the little fig pasties/pies/call them what you will that I made as part of the Medieval feast I cooked last weekend.
I was amused when I saw the recipe for these on Godecookery. These are, essentially, fig rolls. So therefore we deduct that fig rolls are decidedly Period and not even the snottiest SCA-head should wiggle their finger at you if you decide to eat bought fig rolls at an event.
If I had wanted to be strict about this, I would have made pastry according to a period recipe, for example this one, but frankly, shortcrust pastry is so close to this that I decided it would suffice, directly from a supermarket’s freezer compartment. I bought ready rolled sheets, following the life-is-too-short principle. From these I took circular shapes using an ordinary tumbler glass.
I broadly followed the directions for the filling. I used dried figs and preferred to leave them reasonably chunky, but you could whiz them in a processor if you were inclined. I went heavy on the spices, especially black pepper, but it didn’t affect the end result badly. Remember that here, as in any recipe of any period, you are perfectly entitled to use your own preferences and variations. I’m likely to repeat this a lot, but too often people seem to think that recipes are laws rather than guidelines. It occurred to me too late that rose water might have worked very well in the filling.
I put a little of the filling in the middle of the pastry discs and covered them with another disc. You want to press the edges of the two discs together very carefully so that they don’t open when you’re cooking them. Use a pinching motion, and a little bit of water to seal them if they don’t stick otherwise. The first tourtelete I made became hat-shaped, but I figured it might be difficult to fry, so the following ones looked like flattened Saturns. You know, the planet.
Now I had something of a dilemma: the recipe says to fry the patties, but it isn’t clear whether it means deep- or shallow-frying. The original says to fry them in oil, the modernised version to “Fry the pie(s) in hot oil until lightly browned & crispy.” This, along with draining the patties after frying, seems to indicate deep frying, probably churritos- or donuts-style. I am, however, allergic to deep-frying things so I figured there shouldn’t be any reason why shallow frying, or indeed baking, shouldn’t work. As the only oil I had was olive and it wouldn’t have tasted very nice with these things, I melted butter in a frying pan and proceeded to fry the patties it it.
The Saturn-shape quickly became a problem, as any forward thinking person could have told earlier. I ended up flattening the whole pasty into a round, evenly flat but thick disc, which I immediately thought of as a buckler-shape. They were far easier to fry this way, although you have to be carefully not to burn them, as the surface blackens quickly but the interior of the pasty may not have cooked yet. What I found visually pleasing was a flatbread-like surface with brown spots and slightly darkened edge to the rim. They will puff up slightly as they cook, and it’s at this point that the edges will open, if they’re going to.
As there’s nothing sweet in the patties, you must provide that sweetness afterwards. As sugar was only used as a spice in the Middle Ages, you will be using honey. The recipe says to brush them with heated and thus skimmed honey, I just drizzled runny honey all over them on both sides. Even this way the sweetness will be subtle and the flavour won’t be baklava-like as I thought it might be, but far cakier and, although it requires acclimatising, ultimately very satisfying.
You could vary the filling pretty much infinitely: think raisins and nuts, or other dried fruit, or even make savoury ones by using cheese or cooked (NB!) meat as a filling and by omitting the honey.
I found these very tasty both immediately off the pan, with honey dripping off them (I surely needn’t say anything about the aphrodisiac qualities of such things), and later, cold, as part of the Voidë (”dessert”) with red wine, gingerbread, jam tarts and dates