Historical recipe: Fake fish – a medieval apple pie for Lent
In every issue of BBC History Magazine, picture editor Sam Nott brings you a recipe from the past. In this article, Sam recreates 'fake fish', a medieval treat as virtuous as it is delicious
For the dough:
- 500g Flour
- 40g Ground almonds
- 300ml Water
- 125g Olive oil
- 1tsp Salt
- Saffron(optional)
- Whole/sliced almondsto make the scales of the fish
For the filling:
- 3 Apples
- 90g Cane sugar
- 1tsp Ginger
- ½tsp Cinnamon
- ½tsp Saffron
- 2 Gingerbread slices(lightly toasted and crumbled) or 40g ground almonds
Method
For the dough:
step 2
Mix all the ingredients for the dough together, adding more liquid/flour if required, and knead it all until it’s reasonably smooth. Put the dough in the fridge for an hour before you need to use it.
step 3
Add the ingredients for the filling into a blender and blend, or mash by hand using a potato masher.
step 4
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Divide the pastry in two. Roll out the first part and cut out an oval shape.
step 5
Place the fish on a baking tray with toasted breadcrumbs sprinkled on the dough.
step 6
Put the apple filling on to the oval, roll and cut out a second oval and place over the filling, pressing the top layer to the bottom.
step 7
Cut out an eye hole and a hole near where the tail will go. Add fins, gills, scales. Bake for 45mins.