Francisco Martinez Montino

Arte de cocina 

Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Vizchocheria y Conserveria (1611)

He was head cook for Philip III. Montino denounced Granado.Montino offers a variety of dishes with a base of fish, spinach, garbanzo beans and squash. Also dozens of egg dishes, many using fresh cheese, and recipes for roast lamb, kid, rabbit and game. Often simply roasted, in a pie or an empanada, ground into meatballs or stuffing, or in soup. Typically Spanish accompaniments are also listed; grapes, oranges, lemons, almonds, olives, cheese and fruit condiments.

Montino said “I am not happy about describing fantastic dishes” in a section on how to cook a whole fish.

Harmful pies containing chestnuts, mushrooms, carrots and potatoes and a jumble of contrary ingredients and flavors.

"This work is also said to include a menu for Christmas banquets. The list includes olives, cheese and nuts in the dessert course, plus assorted fruits and sweets.

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http://www.spain-recipes.com/spanish-turron.html"Conduchos de Navidad" written by Francisco Martinez Montino. "

In this book we find the recipes of the elaborated menu to entertain in Alicante, an embassy coming from Japan during the Christmas of 1584. The menu included turrones of Jijona (soft) and Alicante (hard). The author shows a great surprise because their guests not only knew the turrones, they even admitted to eat them in Japan every year where the "turroneros" from Jijona will travel to sell their product.""The way of elaborating turrones that was mentioned in Francisco Martinez's book is: "Turrones: they are very popular; the one of Xixona is a compound of almonds and honey well mixed and cooked together to the point. It is also made in hot pot and on stone like the chocolate made by hand."

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http://www.salvadorpoveda.com/The%20Fondillon%20by%20Rafael%20Poveda.htm"Conduchos de Navidad" written by Francisco Martinez Montino.

In this book, which apparently was written at the occasion of the arrival in Alicante in January 1585 of Japanese representation, that according to the author was composed of "Princes and princesses of a very high status", says, amongst other things: "Fondillón: amongst all the noble wines that this Huerta produces, you will find in first place the one that has its own name: Fondillón, which is a slightly sweet, mature wine of the Huerta of Alicante. It's fame is such, that the lords and princes, on tasting it, pronounced the following words:...but this is the famous "Alicante wine" that is so well known in many countries!!!"

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http://www.webexpressguide.com/costadelsol/article.php?id=214

Francisco Martínez Montiño, master chef to King Philip III (1578-1621), served in the early seventeenth century a magnificent Christmas banquet that included :a first course of ham, olla "podrida" (the stew made famous in Don Quixote), roast turkey from the New World with its gravy, little veal puff pastry pies, roast pigeons and bacon, bird "tartlettes" over whipped cream soup, roast partridges with lemon sauce, "capirotada" (a batter of herbs and eggs) with pork loin, sausages and partridges, roast suckling pig with cheese, sugar and cinnamon soup, leavened puff pastry with pork lard, and roast chickens.

The second course consisted of roast capons, thin, hard-baked cake with quince sauce, chicken with stuffed escarole, roast veal with "arugula" sauce, seed-cake of veal sweetbread and livers of small animals, roast thrush over "sopa dorada" (a highly coloured soup), quince pastries, eggs beaten with sugar, hare empanadas, fried trout with bacon fat, and puff pastry tart.

For a third course banqueters were served chicken stuffed with bacon-fried bread, roast veal udder, minced bird meat with lard, "smothered" or "drowned" (ahogados) pigeons, roast stuffed goat, green citron tarts, turkey empanadas, sea bream stew, rabbit with capers, pig's feet empanadas, ring-dove with black sauce, "manjar blanco" (a dish made of chicken mixed with sugar and milk), and rice fritters. In Catalonia, Christmas always saw the cook making "escudella", which means "bowl," the name of a big stew-soup, properly "escudella i carn d'olla".

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http://www.cooking.com/recipes/static/recipe1891.htm?SEO=Spanish%20/%20Portuguese%20Recipes

The recipe (for empanadas) given by Francisco Martinez Montino in Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Vizcocheria y Conserveria (1611) features a version using sardines which is still popular today. He rejected the use of oil in the dough advocating instead fresh "beef lard," today more commonly known as butter.

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Take fresh sardines, scale them and fry them, in such a way as not to dry them out too much, then fry a little onion in a little good oil and pour over the sardines, season with a little pepper and salt, if the sardines are not salty, and put three sardines, with a little of the fried onions on top, with the oil drained off, on each turnover, then close them in the way described before; in the dough you must not use oil, but fresh beef lard, because with oil they will not turn out well. (From “The Heritage of Spanish Cooking” by Alicia Rios & Lourdes March)

To make a plate of beaten eggs, make a syrup from a pound of sugar, and beat twenty and four egg yolks, and put the sugar where it will cook very quick; then add all the eggs together in the syrup, in such a way that the syrup comes up above all the eggs, and then make the ball of beaten eggs; and if you like, serve them in the pot, or put them on a plate with some pancakes, or some slices of bread, or otherwise in bowls, and decorate with some preserves.

(From “The Heritage of Spanish Cooking” by Alicia Rios & Lourdes March)

From Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Vizchocheria y Conserveria, by Francisco Martinez Montino, 1611, translated by Prof Ken Albala

Capirotada Soup

Take pork loin and sausages and partridges all roasted, and make toast with the loins, sausages and partridges. Cut the partridges in quarters and the loin into pieces, and place all of this aside in layers, and when you add in the toast and the meat, toss on grated cheese and in this cheese add pepper and nutmeg, and ginger and place it on the layers, enough so that the sops are quite high. Next mash some eggs that are not very hard, and set them on each sop, next pound a bit of cheese with a clove of garlic and moisten with broth, then beat in a bowl eight eggs, four with the whites and the others without them, and beat it a lot, and moisten with broth. Next take the broth and the mashed cheese this is in the mortar with the eggs, and add in the broth that seems right to you to make the dish to soak the sops, and place it over the fire, and stir it with one hand so that it doesn't curdle. And when it's thickened, remove from the fire and add on top of the sops little by little so that it soaks it up very well, and add cheese on top. The comes  what remains, the meat and the rest, cover with the sauce, add saffron so it becomes a little yellow. And when the sops become half cooked add very hot pork fat on top and grated cheese, and then finish cooking in an oven. In this capirotada you can also use birds and ducks when they are tender, because this is like an olla podrida, that has many things in it, but everything should be roasted first.

From Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Vizchocheria y Conserveria, by Francisco Martinez Montino, 1611, translated by Prof Ken Albala

Frog Pie

From frogs you can make a pie, soak then in a bit of fresh fat and toss on top a bit of hot water, and a little bit of greens, salt and let it boil. Then take them out with a skimmer, and season with all spices and salt and place in a vessel with a little cow's butter, and when they are cooked, beat some egg yolks with lemon juice and add some broth in which you have purged the frogs, and fill your pie and thicken in the same way that you do to season English empanada of frogs, soaking the frogs with your fat and onions and you can add all the spices and a little wine and a little verjuice and stew them.

These frogs make a very good blacmange, purging the frogs in water which you boil a couple of times, and remove the little black veins that they have, and then take a quantity of these frogs equalling a breast and a half of chicken, and break up with your fingers very gently so that it will be very tender. Then beat in a bit of milk with a blancmange spoon and add in rice flour to make your blancmange of flesh.

From Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Vizchocheria y Conserveria, by Francisco Martinez Montino, 1611, translated by Prof Ken Albala

Carrot Salad

The carrots for salad, you should look for the black ones, wash them and clean off the rootlets, and cut the point and the tops, and put them in a pot, and press them to the bottom so they are very tight, and place the pot in the coals and put fire all around and above and roast them very well. The take them out and clean off the skin so the become very delicate and season with salt and serve with oil, vinegar while hot. And if you want to add sugar, you can. The pot should be shallow. You should set these carrots where there are coals, and make little slices.

From Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Vizchocheria y Conserveria, by Francisco Martinez Montino, 1611, translated by Prof Ken Albala

Fried Quesadillas of Curds

Curdle the milk, and when it is curdled put it on the fire so that it is hot, and then amass it with your hands little by little, and let it come completely together. Then remove it from the whey and press it very well, and place it in the mortar and mash well, and add a bit of flour and add eggs enough so that it's soft, and add a bit of chopped mint, or dried ground and season with salt and then knead a fine dough without sugar and make a big delicate sheet and extend over a table and a little spoon place little spoonfuls of this mixture over the dough, each separate from the other, and moisten the fingers of your hands in water, and flatten everything, so they become broadened. Then take the pastry cutter and cut around so that you don't come too near the filling. Then remove the cutting scraps, and make your quesadillas like little oil lamps, so you give each five or six pinches. To make these don't wet them because they're better when you make these pinches, so they are joined with the filing itself, and with this they stick very well. The you take a frying pan and put the pan on the fire, so that the fat is not too hot, and place them in the bottom and fry little by little, and turn them over, so they don't toast too much. And season with a little skimmed homey drizzled over them, and put them judiciously in a plate and for each layer sprinkle on sugar and cinnamon. The result you can keep many days, and the honey should contain a little water when you skim it. The quesadillas should not be bigger than pieces of eight. And notice that when you finish making the filling, make one quesadilla to test the fat, and if the filling disperses in the fat, add a bit more flour.

From Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Vizchocheria y Conserveria, by Francisco Martinez Montino, 1611, translated by Prof Ken Albala

A Plate of All Fruits (With Eggs)

Take half a pound of sour cherries in conserve, and some pears, peaches and apricots, some plums. All these should be conserved by hand, for of all ingredients that you must work with, it is necessary to know how to make this. Make a dozen and a half scrambled eggs, and with these conserves and scrambled eggs, and some very delicate wafers, assemble a plate, arranged very well, interspersing the conserves with the wafers so that you use up everything. This plate you can make many ways, changing the conserves as cermenas pears, lemons and quinces when in season; but at all times inculd scrambled eggs, or encautados so these adorn the plate better.

From Arte de Cocina, Pasteleria, Vizchocheria y Conserveria, by Francisco Martinez Montino, 1611, translated by Prof Ken Albala

There is also a chorizo recipe as follows: You will take swine meat that shall be more lean than fat, and put it in a marinade of only wine, and a little vinegar, and the meat should be cut in slices; the marinade needs to be scant, no more than to cover; season it with spices, and salt, and the meat shall be in it for twenty four hours; and then stuff the chorizos, the intestines are to be a little fat, and pass them through boiling water. These keep all the year ....

... a different translation of the chorizo recipe at the beginning of this section.

Take pork meat that is more lean than fat, and put it in a marinade of just wine with a touch of vinegar. The meat should be cut into little radish-sized knobs and the marinade should be sparing, no more than to cover. Season with spices and salt and let it sit for 24 hours. Fill up the chorizos. They should be a bit plump. Cook them in water. These can be kept all year. Eating them cooked, there should be so little vinegar that you cannot sense it before eating them.