16th Century 'Tarte Owte of Lente': Tudor cookalong

The first dish we're going to make is called tart out of lent. It has all the things in it that you're not supposed to eat during lent. Cheese, butter, cream and it's all made into a pie. So shall we do that? First thing we're going to need is cheese. Cheshire cheese is really good because it doesn't go all gloopy when you heat it up and that's what you need in this pie. To process the cheese it needs to go into a mortar and then be mashed up to break it all down. Once that's done we'll add a little bit of cream to it and that gets mashed in as well. Now you need something to make it set when it's cooked otherwise it just runs everywhere and therefore you put in an egg. And now just a little bit of spice to give it something and we've cut it down to just a bit of black pepper to make it easy for you in your kitchen cupboard. You can put quite a bit in, gives it a little bit of bite then. Okay let's just show you a bit of that. There you go, nice and fluffy but really soft at the same time. Now just put that to one side for a moment and we'll make the case. For that we're going to need some flour, some butter to make pastry. Any good high butter paste will be ideal for this. Now form the edges. A pie this size will feed about eight people. This kitchen in its day fed 600 twice every day. And now for the filling. In Henry VIII's time virtually nothing was grown here, it was all bought in just like you and I buy things today. You can make the lid quite thin if you want, it doesn't really matter a great deal. It just makes the pie taste nicer. To size the lid just simply put that on there and cut round. That way it can't help but be the right size. Make up a little bit of egg because we'll need that for the glazing. We can also use that to seal the lid onto the pie. 500 years ago they'd have used a wood fired oven. You might find it easier on gas mark 6 for about 40 minutes or until it's nicely golden brown. And here we are, the finished dish. If you like a nice strong cheese flavour this is the dish for you. Tarts out of Lent.