"Pear" Meatball Soup

Posted 12/10/08
Featuring FrancineSegan
Rating:	Not yet rated
Views:	304
Venues:	Bakery Meats Produce & All Things Green Spices & Herbs
Categories:	Breads Cayenne Pepper Eggs Fruit Meats Sage Thyme
Sub Categories:	Grapes Ground Meat Other Other
Keywords:	meatball, soup, veal, pork, sage, thyme, grapes
Servings:	6

Cookbook Title: Shakespeare’s Kitchen

Description:

Renaissance chefs enjoyed delighting guests with amusing culinary tricks. They would sculpt all sorts of shapes using meat, marzipan, and dough. They would even go so far as to hide live birds in a pie so that when the pie was cut into the birds would fly out. The rhyme "four and twenty blackbirds" was true!

These meatballs are shaped like tiny pears. There is also an added surprise inside--each meatball is filled with a grape, which adds a great fresh taste and nice crunch. Add some ready-made canned stock and you have a simply delicious, simple Renaissance feast!

Ingredients:

8 ounce(s) ground veal or pork

1/4 cup(s) dried bread crumbs

1 large egg

1 tablespoon(s) finely chopped thyme

2 tablespoon(s) finely chopped parsley

1/2 teaspoon(s) salt

12 small green seedless grapes

12 sage or parsley leaves, with stems

1 1/2 quart(s) chicken stock, warm

Preparation:

1. Combine the veal, bread crumbs, egg, thyme, parsley, and salt in a bowl. Divide the mixture into 12 equal portions. Wrap each portion of meat around a grape and form a pear shape.

2. Preheat the broiler. Place the pears upright on a well-greased pan, and broil 4 to 5 inches from the flame for 4 minutes, or until done. Using a toothpick, gently imbed a sage leaf into the top of each pear.

3. Place 2 "pears" in each serving bowl and gently top with the warm stock. Serve.

© Francine Segan, Shakespeares Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook (Random House, 2004)

Please log in to dish on this post.