In Connoisseur magazine on Boxing Day, 1754, an author states that the mince-pie, that “excellent British repast…is as essential to Christmas, as pancake to Shrove Tuesday, tansy to Easter…” Many modern holiday feasters in the English-speaking world still regularly consume the first two dishes at the appointed times but tansy or tansey or tansie at Easter has become significantly less observed. Taking its name from the bitter herb - Tanacetum vulgare - used to flavour it and dye it green, a tansy was a regular end of Lent/Easter tradition for centuries. The many and various recipes across the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries give instructions for something kind of like a pancake or omelette (or in my case, scrambled eggs). They universally contain eggs, an often-symbolic food in this Christian season, and, for at least the first couple of centuries, green juice from tansy plant stems. The bitterness was considered a reference to the herbs eaten during Passover.
I don’t have tansy – the herb; I ordered seeds for this year, but it will be months before I have any plants. Owing to this, I choose a couple of the earliest recipes that do not contain it. These seventeenth century instructions are some of the first instances I found where the name of the plant had transferred to a general term for the dish. They are both from Hannah Woolley; the first is “To make an Apple Tansie” from The Queen-Like Closet (1670). “To make a Tansie of Spinage” comes a few years later in The Accomplish'd Lady's Delight (1675). Spinach was a common addition or replacement for tansy as it gave the dish a green colour, which also had spring/Easter signification.
These are a couple of my least successful recipes despite cheating a little, though, in the end, the taste was decent in both. I will provide a recipe for each and a few notes in turn.
Recipes
"To Make an Apple Tansie"
Ingredients
- 250ml (about 1 cup) whipping cream
- 90g grated bread or breadcrumbs
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar, more for serving
- ¼ tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp of butter
- 2 small Spartan apples, sliced thinly horizontally (see Notes)
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
Instructions
In a large bowl, make a batter with all ingredients up to the cinnamon. Beat to combine with a wooden spoon.
Over medium heat, melt the butter in a large oven-proof frying pan, preferably with a lid.
Place apple slices in the bottom of the pan in an overlapping circle around the outside edge. Use any remaining slices to fill the centre of the pan, again overlapping.
Cook for about 3 minutes until the apples are beginning to soften.
Reduce the heat to low and pour batter over the apples.
Preheat broiler in your oven. (See Notes)
Cover your frying pan and cook until the edges of your batter are set, about 10 minutes.
Remove cover and place in the middle of the oven under the broiler.
Broil until the entire tansy is set and cooked, about 4 minutes.
Allow to cool slightly.
Place a large plate on top of your frying pan and carefully but quickly flip over. This should leave cooked apples face up on top of your cooked batter.
Serve, sprinkled with your lemon juice and extra sugar if desired.
Notes
 |
| The titlepage from a 1675 edition of The Queen-Like Closet, held by the London School of Economic Library and available in its digital collections. |
The manchet was considered one of the finer breads; crumbs from any good white loave will do.
I did not peel and core the apples, but it might be easier to eat if you do.
My issues with this dish are down to things that are not mentioned in the recipe - cooking time and temperature. Woolley, of course could not provide specific measures for those but my judgement failed me, and I started the apples too high. They burned a little in the end and were cooking too fast to not burn before the batter was cooked at all. Making sure you keep the temperature medium and below should help. This recipe adaption is, therefore, a bit do-what-I- say-and-not-what-I-did, and bit modern adaptation.
Because the top and centre of the batter was not set, I improvised/cheated a bit by broiling it. The period instructions say to flip it onto a plate when half cooked and slide it back into the pan to finish the batter. I knew mine would not survive that movement but maybe if the heat was kept low and it was mostly set, you might give it a try.
There was some bitterness from some of the darker apples, but the batter was pretty standardly tasty. It reminded me of the pain perdu I did a couple weeks back, which is not surprising as it has similar ingredients. Trying again with lower heat, I am pretty sure this would be a very serviceable dish for a modern palate.
"To make a Tansie of Spinage"
Ingredients
- 100g spinach
- 250ml (about 1 cup) whipping cream
- 5 egg yolks, lightly beaten
- 1 tbsp sugar, more for finishing
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- orange slices to serve
Instructions
In a small pan, with a couple tablespoons of water, cook your spinach over medium heat until it is completely cooked and beginning to break down, about 10 minutes.
Drain your spinach through a fine-mesh sieve over a small bowl, reserving the liquid. Then push as much of the spinach as possible through the sieve. (See Notes.)
Combine that spinach juice with the cream, egg yolks, sugar, and nutmeg in a medium bowl. Stir until well combined.
On medium/low heat, melt the butter in a frying pan.
Pour in your egg and cream mixture. Cook until set, lifting edges and swirling the pan to get the uncooked top to flow underneath, as you would with an omelette.
Carefully remove from the pan, sprinkle with lemon juice and more sugar if desired. Serve with orange slices.
Notes
Again, for this recipe, I divided the quantities in Hannah Woolley’s original instructions by 4.
Beyond the quantities, this recipe seemed a bit lacking: it does not actually say to cook the tansy. I made the logical leap that this was an oversight. It also produced a mixture that was very loose in the pan, even after cooking for a while. If you want something that will come out of the pan like an omelette, probably add some more eggs. If you want something more like a pancake, breadcrumbs or even flour will work.
With nutmeg, eggs, cream, and sugar, this tasted nice, despite being green and not holding together, in my version at least.
Overall, my tansies, through fault of my own or not, were a little disappointing. I learned a bit and, maybe next Easter, I will have tansy plants to use for some more attempts. I may try something later this year when the plants are fresh. Moving beyond Easter and Lent, I will be doing something meaty, yet to be determined, this coming week.
No comments:
Post a Comment