Pipefarces*

Categories:	14th Century   French   Fritter   cheese
Original Source:	Le Managier de Paris
Secondary Source:	Powers translation
Cook:	Keturah Bat Yitzchak
Meeting Date:	0000-00-00

Pipefarces (please refer to the French)

Stuffed Straws (E.P.'s translation is correct, but she has eliminated all the commas. For ease of reading, I have put them back.)
Take the yolks of eggs and flour and salt, and a little wine, and beat them well together,and cheese cut into strips,and then roll the strips of cheese in the paste, and fry them in an iron pan with fat therein. One does likewise with beef marrow.

Steps

1. Beat the egg yolks lightly and mix with the wine and seasonings. Add the flour, and the batter that results will be a "paste".
2. Cut the mozzarella into long sticks, so they will resemble straws when coated, and roll them in the batter. (Alternatively, you can pour the batter over the cheese sticks, and roll them to complete the coating.)
3. Fry them in oil or fat, and drain. Serve hot.

Note

If using all-purpose white flour, substitute whole wheat for 1/3 of the total amount of flour, in order to better simulate the properties of a good pastry flour.

These can be fried in advance, and reheated in a low oven, but be careful: the mozzarella could get warm enough to become runny, thereby distorting the shape of the straws.

We have added the pepper -- white for aesthetic reasons -- in order to balance the flavors a bit more, although the Menagier does not mention it. N.B.: Please use a good everyday drinking wine, because the flavour of a bad wine will carry over and totally ruin the flavour of the batter.

Marian et al: I have also considered adding cubebs in lieu of pepper; how much do we suggest?