Lumbardy Tarts

Lumbardy Tarts is a traditional Elizabethan recipe for a pie of greens and cheese in an egg yolk based filling (a little like an Elizabethan quiche). The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Elizabethan version of: Lumbardy Tarts.

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

30 minutes

Total Time:

50 minutes

Serves:

6

Rating: 4.5 star rating

Tags : Spice RecipesCheese RecipesBaking RecipesBritish Recipes



Original Recipe



Lumbardy Tarts (The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin)


Take Beets, chop them small, and put to them grated bread and cheese, and mingle them wel in the chopping, take a few Corrans, and a dish of sweet Butter, & melt it then stir al these in the Butter, together with three yolks of Eggs, Synamon, ginger, and sugar, and make your Tart as large as you will, and fill it with the stuff, bake it and serve it in.


To make short paest for tarte
Take fyne floure and a curscy of fayre water and a dysche of swete butter and a lyttel saffron, and the yolkes of two egges and make it thynne and as tender as ye maye.

Modern Redaction


Ingredients:

500g beet greens (kale, spinach, savoy cabbage)
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp fine breadcrumbs
170g grated cheese (any had cheese that melts is good cheddar or emmenthal work well)
60g currants (parboiled)
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp freshly-grated ginger
3 egg yolks
4 tbsp molten butter

For the Pastry:
225g flour
90g softened butter
2 egg yolks
6 saffron threads ground into 1 tbsp water in a pestle and mortar

Method:

There has been some debate as to the precise nature of the 'beets' described in this recipe. Many other versions of this recipe use beetroot. However, I believe that the beets intended are beet greens, which would place this recipe in the same family as the spinach and cheese pies beloved of the Elizabethans.

Finely chop the greens and add to a large bowl. Mix in the sugar and toss to coat the greens. Mix in the breadcrumbs, spices, currants (which should have been parboiled to plump them up) cheese and egg yolks. Mix all this together and finally add the molten butter.

To make the pastry for the pie crust sift the flour into a bowl, add the saffron threads and their steeping water along with the egg yolks and mix together well. First add 3/4 of the softened butter and mix in well. If all the flour does not come together into a dough add a little more butter. Once the dough comes into a ball cut it into two pieces (one slightly larger than the other. Roll the larger piece of dough out and use this to line a 22cm pie dish. Cut off the excess pastry around the edge and fill the middle of the pie with the mixture of greens. Next roll the smaller piece of pastry out and use this to place on top of the pie. Use the back of a fork to crimp the upper and lower pieces of pastry together then pierce the top pastry a few times to allow steam to escape as the pie cooks.

Cook in an oven pre-heated to 220°C for about 20 minutes then lower the temperature to 170°C (325°F/Gas Mark 3) and bake for a further 25 minutes. Serve warm.