Work the night of the dinner:
- Emptied blackberries into strainer in a bowl to drain. (Should have used the juice for the beverage!)
- Cut the pork shoulder into "morsels" per the recipe (~0.5" cubes). Belatedly realized that boiled fat, while yummy to nutrition-starved Vikings, was not so yummy to us. Trimmed fat from the meat.
- Briefly and partially browned the meat in two batches in a skillet; transferred to pot, covered with water. Brought to boil, down to simmer.
- While meat boiling: Melted half stick of butter (which was half of what the recipe said, if I did the conversions right) and added mustard; stirred while it foamed for a minute or so. Added chopped scallions, sauteed for a few minutes. Added salt pork (out of order from the recipe - I wasn't sure I'd be able to fry it per their instructions once all the kale was in), fried it. Added chopped kale in batches.
- The recipe called for equal weights of pork and kale. I got one pound of kale into the pan and decided that was plenty of kale. This was a good decision.
- Removed greens from heat. Tested pork; it was done. Removed from heat, fished pork out of stock. Meat wasn't tough!
- This all took ~30-45 min. The wheat would take 30-40 min to cook, and I had 1.5 hours before guests arrived.
- In the next hour, I pulled leaves off of an entire clamshell of thyme, put the turnips into water and heated it up once so it wouldn't take long to boil later, transferred ricotta and blackberries into nice bowls, tidied up the dining room.
- T-minus 30 minutes, added 2 cups of stock to the greens. Put some thyme in a tea-ball, put in with turnips. Brought stew and turnips up to a boil. Added wheat to stew, reduced to simmer. Cooked both ~40 min, adding pork back in to stew at 30 min mark.
- Mashed turnips; drained liquid; added 1-2 Tb butter. Served it forth.
- Transferred stew to serving bowl. Stirred thyme into stew.
- Honey drink: ~1/4 c. honey in 12 oz hot water; dilute with ~36 oz cold water and 2 sippy boxes of apple juice.
Results
Boar Stew: Two thumbs up! Good porky flavor, nice balance with greens, wheat provided good chew. Stupid thyme was totally worth the effort, added good flavor. Questions on whether this could be a feast or camp meal - might be worth trying a one-pot version.
Buttered Turnips: Were buttered turnips. Perfectly acceptable, but nobody's going to be asking for the leftovers. I don't think the teaball of thyme made much of an impression.
Cheese and Berries with Honey: Simple, light and fresh-tasting. Apparently my years-long objection to ricotta only applies to Mom's Inside-Out Manacotti.
Honey Drink: Sweet, with just a small acid note from the apple juice. Straw color, slightly cloudy from juice - looked reasonably mead-y in a glass horn. Better than the oxymel last year, but unremarkable. I think this dinner really wanted beer.
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