I was falling asleep in my chair from exhaustion yesterday, when a random factoid came across my screen when researching my first Kingdom Art/Sci. It referenced a trape being an open-top pie, and being that the project that I'm working on is a pork pie dish I have made before ( seen here ) this is a huge piece of information for me. I have been making pies in the traditional American style of pie, which assumes a top covering, but an open-faced top was a brand new thing to me. Needless to sya, this put me into a research frenzy and angerly shouting at Wikipedia for not giving me any source as to why it has said that.
Several hours later, and wonderful advice and assistance from a Laurel up in Gainesville, I was able to piece together that crusts were a complex item in the 14th century. They were just moving into the edible stage, moving away from being just simple cooking tools and baking dishes into edible constructs. Its entirely possible that it could be either way, but it is unlikely that it was covered as the French dishes of similar styles would mention to cover or not. That in mind, I went over to some of my Official Food Tasters (Jake and Lana) and baking in their kitchen for a few hours.
I made two pies in the end, one as standard how I have been making them for the last few months while the other with the special blend and altered cooking process.
The above is my standard pie. This is what I have always released and made for others, not bad in any way shape or form, just not as close to period as I would like to perform.
The above is the new version of the pie I have made previously. Again, still Mylates of Pork just with a different cooking process and a removal of the top crust.
At the suggestion of Mistress Cerdiwen from Gainesville I used a shredded pork instead of my standard sliced pork cubes. I pre-salted the meat a bit heavily to help hold in the juices during the pre-cook process which I think really enhanced the pork flavor of the dish as a whole. I did a far finer chop of the cheddar then previous blends, that took a good bit of time but I really got a more even and smooth cheese blend with this than previous types. I also crushed the pine nuts instead of simply serving whole, the flavor got a bit too intense and I'll need to cut back on the crushed nuts in my next version of the redaction but I love the texture of the nuts mixed in than of whole.
The only way I can think of improving this is by using less pine nuts next time to even out the flavor, as well as divide half the cheese to be on top. I want the top to have a more uniform and pretty looking top, and I think the baked cheddar will look quite lovely with my tablecloth I have selected for my Art/Sci display.Now as it sets the sauces will thicken and the flavor intensify, I really like the intensity of the filling without the crust top.
Next week I get to visit my butcher and select the meat cuts! I'm getting fresh-sliced meat cuts for my pies for the display to ensure maximum period-ness!
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