I thought to start with this recipe taken from Pleyn Delit:
Original:
Tart in Ymbre Day
Take and perboile oynouns & erbis & presse out Þe water & hewe hem small. Take grene cheese & bray it in a mortar, and temper it up with ayren. Do Þerto butter, safroun & salt, & raisouns corauns, & a litel sugur with powdour douce, & bake it in a trap, & serve it forth.
Redaction:
Tart for an Ember Day
2 large onions, peeled and sliced or chopped
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tsp chopped sage (less if dried)
3 oz cream cheese or 1/2 cup cottage cheese
4 eggs
2 tbsp butter
pinch ground saffron
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp currants
1/8 tsp sugar
pinch each ground cardamom, mace
unbaked pie shell
Parboil onions and herbs; add butter to thoroughly drained onions. Blend the cheese with the eggs. Add butter, and remaining ingredients and stir in the onions and herbs. Bake in a 350º oven 30-40 minutes, until the filling is set and the pastry lightly browned.
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I will be doing this recipe next weekend and will post my own comments and photos for your enjoyment.
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Edited March 16 2011
Made this recipe today. Turned out very tasty, though personally, I would make some slight adjustments next time.
Parbroiling the onions and spices. Already the house is smelling divine! Next time I will only use one onion and add either cooked chicken or cooked lamb to this part of the mix.
Mixing the cheese, eggs, butter and currants. Next time I will add more currants...there were just not enough *grin*
Very blurry photo of the onion mix being added into the cheese/egg blend.
Finished mix. See? Not enough currants.
Adding the mix to the *cough*store bought*couch* pie shell. I noticed here it was rather runny. I don't think I drained the onions enough. Next time, I will press drain them through a colander.
And into the oven it goes!
It looks really good.
Even after broiling it for five minutes, it was still too runny. However, a couple of minutes in the microwave evaporated the excess onion water. It turned out really nice.
The Husband was a willing guinea pig for this dish, and his words were "Very good. Onions were not overpowering, but it needs more currants."
I will be trying this again with one less onion, chicken and in tart shells. If done correctly, this would be a great cold treat at an event.
All in all, including the baking, this entire meal only took about an hour to make. So quick, so easy, so yummy!