Hi folks
I've recently come across a couple of references to Alexis Soyers recipe for a improved type of hard biscuit ( Hardtack ) that he invented and tried to get adopted by the British Army during the Crimean War. He claimed that although it only stayed usable for three months it was far more palatable and nutritious than the normal tooth breakers that were pretty much just a portable form of wholewheat flour.
Unfortunately the interweb has only provided me with the sketchiest description. It is some times described as a flatbread rather than a biscuit and on a couple of occasions as being 1/4 made from peaflour.
What i'm looking for is a recipe for the stuff i can scale down for domestic use, ideally with full instructions.
You can get peasemeal from at least one place in Scotland
http://www.golspiemill.co.uk/products/products-list.html
and one down south is about to start commercial production.
https://hodmedods.co.uk/collections/all/products/yellow-pea-flour
Anyroad, baulking at paying £4.50 to £5.00 a Kg plus posting I got a Kg of dried split yellow peas for £1.10 at Tescos (no doubt they are cheaper else where but I had to factor in time wasted hunting for stuff and bus fare or delay while i waited to go somewhere any way ) I then dry roasted them in a big iron skillet to partly caramelise them to make them more digestable and able to release the proteins ( and taste better! ) on the kind advice of one of this parish. it was simple enough to do. on a low to medium heat heat up a inch to a inch and a half deep pan of the split peas until they go a darker golden yellow than you started with. During the process the peas sort of go a bit shiny or sweaty looking. The main thing is to stir and flip them ( I used a plastic fish slice ) a lot, pretty much continuously. Even then a few went too brown on the flat side for me and i picked them out as they cooled.
Once cooled I fed them through my still shiny Wondermill Jnr (I'm a told a electric coffee grinder does just a good a job, but I don't have one ) to make a flour I think is the right fineness for the job. if not I can always set the mill finer and quickly pass the lot through again. To be honest I used the pics of the commercial product as a colour guide to check i'd roasted it enough after I'd ground a small trial amount first. If it had been too dark, well i'd have had to live with it but if too light It would have gone back in the pan again!
Since Soyer was French I did look up some of their flatbread recipes. There's one called fougasse thats traditionally made shaped like a leaf with the dough slashed and pulled apart to make the pattern and more importantly act like the holes in ships biscuits to let the moisture escape. Basically you end up with a lot more crust to crumb.
http://www.cbc.ca/inthekitchen/mobile/touch/blog/2012/12/rosemary-fougasse.html
I'm considering this as a basis for a sort of real world Lembas with the peaflour and some really strong canadian wheat flour to compensate. The downer is I think it may be really fragile.
Anyroad while i'm still looking for Soyers bread-biscuit Ill have a go at using the peaflour, theres plenty of recipes on the net using it.
ATB
Tom
I've recently come across a couple of references to Alexis Soyers recipe for a improved type of hard biscuit ( Hardtack ) that he invented and tried to get adopted by the British Army during the Crimean War. He claimed that although it only stayed usable for three months it was far more palatable and nutritious than the normal tooth breakers that were pretty much just a portable form of wholewheat flour.
Unfortunately the interweb has only provided me with the sketchiest description. It is some times described as a flatbread rather than a biscuit and on a couple of occasions as being 1/4 made from peaflour.
What i'm looking for is a recipe for the stuff i can scale down for domestic use, ideally with full instructions.
You can get peasemeal from at least one place in Scotland
http://www.golspiemill.co.uk/products/products-list.html
and one down south is about to start commercial production.
https://hodmedods.co.uk/collections/all/products/yellow-pea-flour
Anyroad, baulking at paying £4.50 to £5.00 a Kg plus posting I got a Kg of dried split yellow peas for £1.10 at Tescos (no doubt they are cheaper else where but I had to factor in time wasted hunting for stuff and bus fare or delay while i waited to go somewhere any way ) I then dry roasted them in a big iron skillet to partly caramelise them to make them more digestable and able to release the proteins ( and taste better! ) on the kind advice of one of this parish. it was simple enough to do. on a low to medium heat heat up a inch to a inch and a half deep pan of the split peas until they go a darker golden yellow than you started with. During the process the peas sort of go a bit shiny or sweaty looking. The main thing is to stir and flip them ( I used a plastic fish slice ) a lot, pretty much continuously. Even then a few went too brown on the flat side for me and i picked them out as they cooled.
Once cooled I fed them through my still shiny Wondermill Jnr (I'm a told a electric coffee grinder does just a good a job, but I don't have one ) to make a flour I think is the right fineness for the job. if not I can always set the mill finer and quickly pass the lot through again. To be honest I used the pics of the commercial product as a colour guide to check i'd roasted it enough after I'd ground a small trial amount first. If it had been too dark, well i'd have had to live with it but if too light It would have gone back in the pan again!
Since Soyer was French I did look up some of their flatbread recipes. There's one called fougasse thats traditionally made shaped like a leaf with the dough slashed and pulled apart to make the pattern and more importantly act like the holes in ships biscuits to let the moisture escape. Basically you end up with a lot more crust to crumb.
http://www.cbc.ca/inthekitchen/mobile/touch/blog/2012/12/rosemary-fougasse.html
I'm considering this as a basis for a sort of real world Lembas with the peaflour and some really strong canadian wheat flour to compensate. The downer is I think it may be really fragile.
Anyroad while i'm still looking for Soyers bread-biscuit Ill have a go at using the peaflour, theres plenty of recipes on the net using it.
ATB
Tom
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