the centaur`s kitchen

Transcription

THE CENTAUR’S KITCHEN
A Blue Funnel Line postcard of TSMV Centaur, from a painting by Laurence
Dunn.
THE CENTAUR’S
KITCHEN
a book of french, italian,
greek
& catalan dishes
for ships’ cooks on
the blue funnel line
by
PATIENCE GRAY
with illustrations by
MIRANDA GRAY
prospect books
2009
First published in this form in Great Britain in 2009 by
Prospect Books, Allaleigh House, Blackawton, Totnes, Devon
TQ9 7DL.
A hardback edition was published by Prospect Books in 2005.
Copyright text © 2005, 2009, the estate of Patience Gray.
Copyright foreword © 2005, 2009, Tom Jaine.
Copyright illustrations © 2005, 2009, Miranda Gray.
The authors and illustrator assert their moral right to be
identified as authors and illustrator in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the copyright holders.
The text is set in Hoefler Text. Typesetting and design by Tom
Jaine.
ISBN 978-1-903018-73-6
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press
Group, Trowbridge.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword, Tom Jaine
13
Introduction
23
Batterie de cuisine
31
Hors d’œuvre and salads
Vinaigrette
Anchovy dressing
Cream dressing
Mayonnaise
Avocado sauce
Salsa verde
Sauce remoulade
Aubergine salad
Celeriac mayonnaise
Haricot beans
Stuffed bacon rolls
Stuffed vine leaves
Vegetables cooked à la grecque
Leeks à la grecque
White cabbage mayonnaise
Beetroot in burgundy
Cucumber salad (1), (2), (3)
Pimento salad
Potato salad à la mayonnaise
Potato salad à la vinaigrette
Rice and tomato salad
Salt cod salad
Tomato salad à la catalane
Chicken liver pâté
Hare pâtés
the centaur’s kitchen
35
35
36
37
37
39
39
40
41
41
42
43
43
45
46
46
47
48
49
50
50
50
50
51
53
55
7
Pâté of smoked cod’s roe
Tunnyfish pâté
56
56
Soups
Basic beef stock
Chilled clear consommé
Basic fish broth
Bortsch
Cherry soup
Chilled creamy soups
Greek fish soup
Leek soup
Minestrone alla Genovese
Mulligatawny soup
Prawn soup
Spinach soup
(Italian) Tomato soup
57
60
61
62
63
63
64
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
Potato and vegetable dishes
Italian whipped potatoes
Potatoes à la dauphinoise
My simplified version of pommes dauphinoises
Potatoes à la savoyarde
Cucumber with cream
Egg plant
Gratin of tomatoes alla parmigiana
Gratin of mushrooms alla parmigiana
Leeks alla salza bianca
Leeks cooked in the oven
Okra and potatoes
Spinach à la catalane
71
73
73
75
76
76
77
79
79
81
81
81
82
Fish
How to poach fish
Court-bouillon for poaching fish
83
85
85
8
Greek fish soup
Fillets of sole aux tomates
Haddock in Madeira
Matelote of eels
Neapolitan method of serving poached fish
Oysters
Plaice
Rainbow trout baked in foil
Red mullet in white wine sauce
Salmon trout
A Venetian method of baking fish
Salt cod à la catalane
Tunnyfish à la bonne femme
Turbot à la crème
Meat, poultry and game
Daube of beef à la provençale
Beef rolls
Ox tongue with cherry sauce
Ham cooked in cider
Calves’ liver sauté
Rolled loin of veal (1)
Rolled loin of veal (2)
Veal goulash
Le coq au vin
Roast chicken
Chicken sauté
Chicken à la crème
Chicken sauté fines herbes
Chicken sauté au basilic
Chicken sauté ‘Castelpoggio’
Paprika chicken
Civet of hare
Roast saddle of hare ‘bourguignon’
87
88
89
89
90
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91
92
92
93
94
95
96
97
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
105
106
107
108
109
109
110
110
110
113
114
9
Sweets
Apricots cooked in the oven
Chocolate mousse
Fools: apricot, apple, gooseberry
Mantuan cake
Melon filled with fruit
Pears in red wine
Salads of fresh fruit
Open fruit tarts: apple, apricot, peach
Summer pudding
Water ices
10
115
117
117
118
119
120
120
121
122–123
123
124
FOREWORD
P
atience Gray, the author of this book, died at the age of 87
in March 2005, before she was able to review its production,
correct its errors or contribute an explanatory foreword that
would identify the participants in its genesis. She was a woman
of manifold gifts and considerable energy and such an account
would have been memorable, as was every other thing she wrote.
Patience was much more than a writer or, less sententiously,
not only a writer, but for the purposes of this foreword it is
her books that will mostly occupy us. Her first, Plats du Jour,
or Foreign Food appeared as a Penguin Handbook in 1957, being
actually written in 1954–55 in collaboration with Primrose
Boyd, with whom she had worked in the studio of the designer
F.H.K. Henrion. Her second book, Honey from a Weed: Fasting
and Feasting in Tuscany, Catalonia, the Cyclades and Apulia, was
published (by Prospect Books) in 1986 and the success that it
enjoyed was perhaps the spur to the rapid appearance of her
third, Ring Doves and Snakes, from Macmillan, in 1989 although
it was in fact composed in the 1960s, ‘when no-one wanted to
print it’. Finally, there was Work Adventures Childhood Dreams,
published in 1999 under her own guidance by Rolando Civilla
at the Levante Arti Grafiche in Presicce, the small town in the
Salento on the heel of Italy nearest to the Masseria Spigolizzi,
13
Patience Gray’s kitchen at La Barozza, near Carrara, 1963.
14
where she had settled with her sculptor (and later husband)
Norman Mommens in the early 1970s.
There is, of course, an omission from this catalogue, the
book now published. But it had never been printed at all, merely
issued as a typescript to the personnel of its client-creator, the
Blue Funnel Shipping Line in 1964. Its existence has never been
in doubt, Patience refers to it in all her subsequent works, but
I remarked when visiting her at Spigolizzi in 2004 that I had
never seen the text. She produced it with a flourish from her
substantial archive (which I and many another outsider might
have thought muddled but which always produced the goods).
It appeared then, and still today, that each page was perfect
Patience: distilled, undiluted. I implored her permission to take
it back to England, transcribe it, ask her daughter Miranda for
allusive illustration, and then send it to the press.
In the early 1960s Patience ran away to southern Europe
with the artist and sculptor Norman Mommens. That Mills-andBoon-like statement needs a million qualifications but it does
allow us to make the jump from Patience Gray, the mother of
two, a denizen of Hampstead and north London, until recently
looking after the women’s page of the Observer newspaper in
London, and a freelance designer and journalist, to Patience
Gray, a maker of jewellery, living among sculptors, artists and
quarrymen in Carrara. For those who wish to muse on those
qualifications, Work Adventures Childhood Dreams is essential: it
is a complex self-portrait of a remarkable woman.
The quest of the sculptor for different sites and stones
led the couple to plan the expedition to Naxos in the Greek
Cyclades in 1963. They were not rich; paying commissions were
not just welcome, they ensured survival. Two such, both literary,
financed their year-long stay on the island. The first was this
book; the second was one for children, Baldur the Car Basher,
written and illustrated by Norman for a firm in Rotterdam.
Patience described their situation in Ring Doves and Snakes:
15
We went for marble. We were for another kind of life.
The things were packed, what we thought we’d need,
marble tools, a sheet of railway glass for monotypes,
Catesby’s linoleum [for lino-cuts], engraving tools, rugs,
plates, a copper pan, cups, bedrolls, paper, handmade
and Japanese, ink black and ink Gestetner, candles, a
peppermill, working clothes, some decent clothes,
portable Olivetti, spare plugs, pen-nibs, Robert Graves
and other indispensables; Racine, because on an island
one might need him, and reference works for when I
start to write a book of advice to Chinese cooks, plying
their course between the Antipodes and Singapore, a
sterling prop to underpin the letter of credit, made out
and addressed to bankers of the world to honour it.
The Holt family’s Ocean Steam Ship Company, called the
Blue Funnel Line, founded by the engineer Alfred Holt and
his brother Philip in 1865, was based in Liverpool. Its two
trademarks – the blue funnels and the invariably classical
names of the ships themselves – seem both the product of
happenstance. The blue funnels arose from barrels of paint of
this colour being left on the deck of the very first vessel with
which the family was involved. They had been used to paint a
thin blue line round the hull of the vessel, ‘ a mark of respect’ for
the lately-dead previous owner. Economy decreed they should
be used in the refurbishment that followed. The classical names
were sign that the brothers recognized ‘they were setting out on
the greatest adventure of their lives,’ inspired, you might say, by
Homer’s Odyssey. Their first three ships were Agamemnon, Ajax
and Achilles. Later, the fleet was to include Agapenor, Autolycus,
Laertes, Polyphemus, Eurymedon, Telemachus and many others
including, of course, Centaur.
To the outsider, there were several singular characteristics
to the Blue Funnel Line beyond colour and nomenclature.
First, it was a family firm which insisted its members should be
16
engaged and intelligent. It did not quite fall victim to the threegeneration cycle of ‘up, down and out’ provoked by faulty genes,
although after little more than a century the original concept
was fatally wounded and Blue Funnel was no more. Second, its
engineering prowess was great. The founder Alfred Holt was by
training a marine engineer. Blue Funnel ships, therefore, were
built to the highest specification. Technical innovation allowed
them to break into the China trade – their commercial bedrock.
Third, many of their ships from the 1920s onwards combined
passenger and cargo operations. While the China trade had
been the foundation of Blue Funnel’s fortunes, the line had
expanded into many other zones: they took emigrants to
Australia and pilgrims to Mecca; traded throughout south-east
Asia; ran to the United States, through the Panama Canal and
beyond. Centaur was herself a passenger and cargo vessel. Plying
between Fremantle in Western Australia and Singapore, she
took 4,500 sheep in the hold and 190 passengers above decks.
It was the link between Liverpool and China at the start
of Blue Funnel’s history that lay behind the arrival of the first
Chinese immigrants in the Lancashire port. Sailors who had
manned Alfred Holt’s initial voyages decided to settle near the
docks rather than returning home. By 1871, there were 200
Chinese in the town, many living in boarding houses provided
by the Ocean Steam Ship Company. Blue Funnel’s reliance
on Chinese crew continued for decades, a signal factor in
Liverpool’s Chinatown being among Britain’s best and earliest.
The friendly connection between the Holt company and its
employees was enshrined in a rhyme that went, ‘Paint my
funnels tall and blue, and make sure you look after my Chinese
crew.’ Relations between the two communities were marred
after the Second World War with the forcible and sudden
repatriation of many Chinese sailors by the Home Office.
On Blue Funnel ships, however, particularly those operating
in Asian waters, the crews remained Chinese, including, of
course, the cooks.
17
‘Resurrection’, carved by Norman Mommens, at Spigolizzi.
18
At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Blue Funnel
fleet numbered 77 vessels, of which only 36 remained in 1945.
Many new ones were commissioned to return to strength and
the last under the old regime (there was to be considerable
change and reorganization from 1966) was TSMV (Twin-Screw
Motor Vessel) Centaur. She was built by John Brown & Co. of
Clydebank in 1963, measured 481 feet and had a gross tonnage
of 8,262 (these facts and more come from Ships in Focus: Blue
Funnel Line by John Clarkson, Bill Harvey and Roy Fenton). As
I mentioned, she carried 190 passengers and many, many sheep
(or 700 cattle) from Fremantle to Singapore, presumably for
the halal meat trade. She sailed out of Liverpool to commence
service in January 1964.
The name Centaur had a proud yet tragic history. Our
Centaur’s predecessor, a cargo liner too, was built at Greenock
in 1924 and also made the trip between Singapore and Australia.
Come the war, she was requisitioned by the British, being
passed to the Australians in 1943. Shortly after that, in service
as a hospital ship, she was running from Sydney to Cairns and
thence to New Guinea. Off Brisbane, she was torpedoed by a
Japanese submarine and most souls were lost.
The new Centaur was a fine vessel, as can be seen from her
postcard portrait, but quite why she should have been privileged
with this remarkable set of culinary instructions (remarkable
for the South Seas at least) cannot be precisely reconstructed.
A close friend of Patience in the ’50s, and for many years after
that, was Ariane Nisberg (now Castaing). They both worked
as journalists, for instance on House & Garden magazine,
and Mrs Castaing was to earn honourable mention in the
acknowledgements to Honey from a Weed for ‘bracing criticism
some years ago [which] spurred me to fresh exertions’. Mrs
Castaing was also a friend of Ronnie Swaine (later Sir Ronnie),
a colleague of the Holt family, and later chairman of Overseas
Containers Ltd, by which the firm of Alfred Holt & Co. was
absorbed in 1967. He had been mightily impressed by Plats du Jour
19
and asked Mrs Castaing to introduce him to Patience. They got
on extremely well and it is from this connection that stemmed
the commission to write a full set of recipes for the Chinese
cooks of the glorious new addition to the Blue Funnel fleet.
The text was called ‘A Book of French, Italian, Greek &
Catalan Dishes for Blue Funnel Ships’. I have taken a small
liberty with this in the present sub-title and have had no qualms
about naming it for Centaur. When first I heard of it, I had
imagined it was a set of recipes distributed throughout the fleet,
but a short acquaintance makes plain that it was written with
Centaur in mind. If for no other reason, look at the recipe for
Paprika chicken. Patience notes, ‘As I have evolved this way of
cooking a chicken myself, and it has met with approval, this
might well be the chicken recipe to name chicken centaur.
A request for such a recipe came to me from the Chief Super
intendent.’ She had, in fact, done quite a lot of homework
before her exile on Naxos. The text is peppered with remarks
on the state of play in the galley, on the normal stores available
to the chefs, and most significantly, on the size of party for
which everything is cooked. A note at the beginning reads, ‘the
recipes in this book are calculated to serve 8 passengers,’ a small
but necessary detail. Although there was much of the ‘artist’ in
Patience, that character with which we so irritatingly stereotype
the creative or unfamiliar, she was also devastatingly practical.
Another misapprehension that I needed swiftly to discard
was that this text was a mere abbreviated rerun of Plats du Jour.
There is certainly a common tone and approach, but the recipes
are not repeats. It is indeed that approach, short of hectoring
but indubitably firm, that makes it so delicious. The idea of an
English writer instructing Chinese cooks in the proper manner
of cooking civet of hare as they steam at 20 knots through tropic
seas is somehow piquant. For our part, however, as modern
readers and cooks ourselves, the unabashed good taste of the
recipes, the profound common sense of the recommendations,
are reasons enough to rejoice in the work.
20
What I present here is very nearly an exact transcription
of the original typescript. A few corrections have been made,
some pettifogging editorial decisions enacted for the sake
of consistency, but nothing to change Patience’s prose and
expression. The big alteration has been to include the handsome
illustrations by Miranda Gray, Patience’s daughter. These reflect
the classical themes of the Blue Funnel Line’s own ships, or they
bring us closer to Patience’s life with Norman on Mediterranean
shores. In any event they bring lustre to an already luminous text.
I am most grateful to Nicolas Gray and Maggie Armstrong
for their hospitality and support at Spigolizzi when visiting
Patience; to Miranda Gray; and to Mrs Ariane Castaing for
the light she shed on the inception of the book.
Tom Jaine.
21
NOTE
where not otherwise specified, the recipes in
this book are calculated to serve
22
8 passengers.
INTRODUCTION
Olive jars in Patience Gray’s kitchen.
23
M
any of the ingredients required to achieve the recipes
in this book will be normal ship’s stores. But the book
also contains certain items which may have to be specially
ordered.
oil .
There is, for instance, a considerable emphasis on olive oil,
not only in the Hors d’oeuvre and Salad section used for salad
dressings, but throughout the book as a cooking medium for
vegetable, fish and meat dishes. One could say that olive oil is
the very basis of cooking in Mediterranean countries. The oil I
buy in Greece is remarkably good for salads and for cooking. It
tastes of olives, is greenish-gold in colour and costs 18 drachmas
a litre which is 4s. 6d. The price of oil in England has risen
steeply recently, partly because a bad winter has ruined many
crops and the Spaniards in particular have raised the price of
their excellent oil to make up for this. I strongly recommend an
attempt to buy Greek oil at its source en route for Fremantle. If
it is thought expedient to substitute vegetable oil in preparing
these dishes in the name of economy, already one of their basic
and most characteristic �avours will be lost.
butter.
I have made no extravagant recommendation in the use of
butter, but I would like to remind chefs that only unsalted
butter should be used in sauté-ing or cooking fish in the oven.
Salted butter inevitably burns in the pan. And nor do I think in
any circumstances that margarine can be substituted in these
recipes for butter.
salt.
There is a considerable emphasis here on the use of coarse salt.
In my opinion the use of refined salt is to be entirely ignored
in cooking. I am not going to enlarge on the virtues of sea salt
24
(gros sel) which is normally used in France both for cooking
and at table, and which has a far greater pungency (and higher
iodine content) than rock salt. But I do recommend the use of
unrefined rock salt in the galley.
pepper.
I constantly stress the use of freshly ground pepper. The
powdered pepper which appears on every restaurant table is
far too strong. Peppercorns require a pepper mill, this at least
should be commonplace in the galley.
vinegar.
I must say again that the use of malt vinegar should be
abandoned once and for all on board ship. It is far too strong.
French and Italian wine vinegar is good. Italian is cheaper. Red
wine and white wine vinegar are both required, and tarragon
vinegar is sometimes stipulated.
herbs, fresh and dried.
I am concerned about the question of fresh herbs, which seem
unlikely, even when obtainable, to retain their freshness in the
steamy atmosphere of the galley. Basil, I note, is included in the
ship’s list of available herbs. This lasts at least a week in water,
even in a hot climate, if kept in a cool place. Fresh parsley means
fresh, not wilted, parsley, and this applies to all fresh herbs.
Herbs in dried form, including basil, chervil, fennel,
marjoram, tarragon, thyme are best produced from an Italian
importer, because herbs grown in the Mediterranean have seven
times the taste and pungency compared with those grown and
dried, however professionally, in English herb farms.
parmesan cheese.
Parmesan is a cheese which, when young, is an excellent eating
cheese, but it is more economical to buy the mature cheese
which is hard as a rock and grates very fine. The addition of
only a tablespoon of Parmesan to, say, a purée of potatoes or
two tablespoons to a gratin of tomatoes makes the world of
25
difference. A minestrone without grated Parmesan served at table
is unthinkable, and the Genoese preparation pesto does not exist
without it.
salt pork.
Salt breast of pork occurs in several meat recipes as the
foundation for the braise. A supply of this should be available.
The pork needs to be steeped in brine for at least a week. This
is specifically required because it is an excellent and economical
browning medium and because it imparts a particular unctuous
quality to the sauce which can be provided by nothing else.
lemons.
In some of the fish, soup and sweet recipes lemons frequently
occur. The juice of a freshly cut lemon is always preferable to the
lemon essence which is often used in kitchens as a substitute.
vanilla sugar.
Fresh vanilla pods are required to make vanilla sugar, which is
simply done by inserting a fresh pod in a two pound jar of castor
sugar and keeping the jar closed.
pine kernels (pinoli) and pistachio nuts.
Pine kernels are imported from Italy; they are expensive,
about 11s. a lb, but the flavour they impart when used in small
quantities, for instance in making Stuffed Vine Leaves (Dolmádes),
in the Catalan method of cooking spinach, and in the Mantuan
cake, justify the expense. Pistachio nuts are also dear, they cost
£1 per kilo in Athens. But the one dish of roast veal where I
recommend their use is worth it.
tinned food.
I am as a rule predisposed against tinned goods. There are
however a few invaluable exceptions. Italian tinned tomatoes
and tomato purée (Cirio is the biggest supplier) somehow
manage to retain the flavour of fresh picked fruit. Tuna fish
in oil, Spanish and Italian brands, is a far better product than
26
tinned salmon. Filleted anchovies in olive oil have several uses.
Tinned roasted pimentos in olive oil are also mentioned, as are
tinned morello cherries.
onions and shallots.
Several of the recipes in this book contain the mention of sweet
white onions grown in Mediterranean countries. These are far
less sharp than English onions. If these are unobtainable, I
recommend the use of Breton onions which are mild, imported
from Roscoff. Nowadays it is quite difficult to obtain either
shallots or the small variety of onion which in England seemed
only to be used in autumn for pickling. These are required for
inclusion in several meat and chicken recipes.
wine.
Quite a number of the meat and fish dishes require the use
of wine. I do not consider any wine which is not fit to drink
is fit to cook in. In a few recipes a wine of superior quality
to mere drinkability is specified, the three that come to mind
are the Matelote of eels, the Coq au vin, and the Bœuf en daube.
Where white wine for cooking fish is concerned, a certain
dryness is essential, or the resulting sauces will have a sweetish
(undesirable) taste. Quantities of wine are measured in wine
glasses. There are 6 wine glasses in a bottle (English), and 7 in
a litre bottle.
cognac.
I have never been an enthusiast for indiscriminate use of cognac
in cooking. The practice of setting light to things which have
been soaked in brandy in front of the eyes of astonished guests
always seems to be a kind of posh restaurant hocus pocus.
Cognac does occur in a few of the recipes, in Paprika chicken
for instance, in the Civet of hare, and in the Matelote of eels, where
it has the specific function of removing a certain oiliness which
attaches to eels.
27
fortified wines.
I propose a recipe for fresh haddock which is cooked in
Madeira, and mention port, sherry and Madeira to be used in
moderation in chilled consommés.
liqueur.
Various liqueurs occur in the sweet section used in very small
quantities, peach brandy, apricot brandy, kirsch, Anis (in the
Mantuan Cake), Grand Marnier, Calvados.
aluminium foil.
This is required for cooking trout and red mullet ‘en papillote’,
i.e. wrapped in buttered foil and baked in the oven, for wrapping
salmon trout for baking, and for shielding roasting chickens.
oven temperatures.
I have nowhere specified exact oven temperatures, relying
on the experience of the chef who will know the precise
performance of his ovens when roasting, baking, for gratin
dishes and casseroling, or braising. I use the terms very hot,
hot, fairly hot, moderate and low.
A low oven temperature is between 280 and 320º F.
A moderate oven temperature is between 320 and 370º F.
A fairly hot oven temperature is between 370 and 400º F.
A hot oven temperature is between 400 and 440º F.
A very hot oven temperature is between 440 and 480º F.
There is nothing in this book that I have not cooked at some
time in the last few years. If it seems that I am making too
precise demands on the chef who has to prepare food for
not 8, but 100 or 200 people, I can only say that the dish as
described, with its specific ingredients and precise method of
preparing them, is the only one to achieve the described result.
If ingredients are changed or modified and the method diverged
28
from, the dish will inevitably emerge as something else. I can
only hope that the book, in which I have put a great deal of
thought, effort and research and which is the outcome of living
and cooking abroad in France, Italy, Greece and Spain, will be
an inspiration to the Blue Funnel chefs.
While I was preparing it, it struck me that only a person
who really loves their fellowmen is capable of taking the endless
pains and paying the attention which the preparation of food
requires, if it is each time to be appetizing, perfectly cooked,
delicious. I thought how I, faced with the prospect of twice daily
satisfying the appetites of one or two hundred strangers, might
after a week at sea, flag in my endeavour towards perfection.
Because, in cooking, perfection is what one is always aiming
at, even if only a dish of potatoes and a poached fish are in
question. If the ship is to acquire a real reputation for good
food it can only emerge from scrupulous attention to detail.
29
30
BATTERIE DE CUISINE
I
understand that the batterie de cuisine of S.S. Centaur consists
of stainless steel. This is an enormous improvement on
aluminium for stockpots, boiling vegetables, etc., but it may
have to be supplemented with some other types of vessel in
order to achieve some of the dishes in this book.
braising pans.
Ideally, covered braising pans should be made of
fairly heavy copper lined with tin. This type of pan is capable
of standing the fierce heat which is applied at the beginning
when browning the braise, and when the prolonged simmering
phase completes the cooking copper holds the heat so well
that simmering can proceed steadily with very little applied
heat. Failing copper, enamelled cast-iron pans are the next best
thing for braising.
hard porcelain ovenware is practically unbreakable and
far better for baking fish in the oven than any kind of metal,
particularly with recipes which involve the use of wine and
cream. I also recommend in the meat section the use of hard
porcelain ovenware for roasting specially dressed joints such as
Rolled loin of veal. These produce a delicious meat glaze which
easily burns in a metal pan.
fairly deep earthenware casseroles are required for cooking
some of the potato recipes in this book, and those for haricot
beans. shallow earthenware cocottes are needed for my
simplified version of Pommes dauphinoises. Stainless steel is not
suitable for oven dishes which contain milk or cream.
is required for pounding various ingredients, for
which there is no known substitute.
a mortar
31
salad bowls. The effective way of making salad dressings is
in the capacious wooden bowl in which the salad should be
served.
chinese hard glaze earthenware plates which are manufac
tured in Hong Kong (and imported by the Chinese Emporium,
Rupert Street, Soho) are the perfect dishes in which to serve
the Greek fish soup and the Matelote of eels, and various fish dishes
such as Turbot à la crème. They should be obtainable out there
for next to nothing. In Soho they cost 1s. 9d.
the universal slicer is the name of the adjustable slicer which
is required to shave potatoes paper thin for the simplified
version of Pommes dauphinoises and for Cucumber salad recipes.
braising pan for ham. There
should be a pan either of tin-lined
copper or enamelled cast-iron which is just large enough to
contain a ham.
terrines.
Small earthenware or stoneware terrines are needed
for the recipes for Hare pâté and Chicken liver pâté.
pickling jars .
Earthenware or stoneware pickling jars are
required for pickling Beetroot in burgundy.
In London, Madame Cadec, Greek Street, Soho is the best
authority on copper, hard porcelain and earthenware utensils.
32
HORS D’ŒUVRE AND SALADS
The Naxian sphinx at Delphi guarding a caduceus, the wand of Hermes,
messenger of the gods.
hors d’œuvre and salads
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Vinaigrette
Anchovy dressing
Cream dressing
Mayonnaise
Avocado sauce
Salsa verde
Sauce remoulade
Salad dressings
Three useful sauces
Hors d’œuvre
Aubergine salad
Celeriac mayonnaise
Haricot beans
Stuffed bacon rolls
Stuffed vine leaves
Leeks à la grecque
Cucumber salad (1), (2), (3)
Pimento salad
Potato salad à la mayonnaise
Potato salad à la vinaigrette
Salt cod salad
Chicken liver pâtés
Hare pâtés
Tunnyfish pâté
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Salads
Pâtés
T
he idea of hors d’œuvre is not so much to titivate the eye as
to stimulate or sharpen the appetite. These preparations
should not only look appetizing, they should have piquancy.
Salads, like hors d’œuvre, are too often regarded as merely a
decorative and colourful addition to a meal. Their true function
is to refresh the palate after some substantial dish of meat or
fish. This is more than ever the case in a hot climate.
It is essential to prepare appetizing hors d’œuvre and salads
with first-class ingredients.
Green salads should be well dressed and served adequately
in a wooden salad bowl for six or eight people. It is only in
a bowl of some capacity that a salad can be properly turned,
this is a detail which is constantly overlooked. Green salads
must only be dressed at the moment of serving. Raw salads
should be given time to imbibe the dressing. This also applies
to cooked vegetable salads which are best served in porcelain or
earthenware dishes. The hors d’œuvre and salads proposed here
are intended for a table of six or eight people. Their use, as a
first dish, as an accompaniment to certain meat or fish dishes,
or following the meat or fish course, is indicated.
SALAD DRESSINGS
First it is necessary to draw attention to a few basic salad
dressings. They only require excellence in their ingredients, a
nice sense of proportion in their use.
Vinaigrette
The basic dressing for green salads is vinaigrette, in which good
olive oil, wine vinegar, salt and ground pepper are employed.
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Half a garlic clove is sometimes crushed in the salt and rubbed
round the salad bowl before the other ingredients are added.
To season a green salad for six or eight people put half
a teaspoon of coarse salt in the bottom of a wooden
salad bowl, grind on some pepper, stir in two tablespoons
of olive oil, and a thread of wine vinegar. Malt vinegar
should never be used; it is too strong. The salad is
washed, dried, put in on top of the dressing, and only
mixed, i.e. turned about in the dressing, at the moment
it is to be served. Otherwise the salad gets limp and
bruised immediately. Good for lettuce, endive, chicory,
cucumber, watercress.
Vegetables which have already been cooked such as
artichoke hearts, broad beans, haricots verts, white or red
haricot beans can also be dressed with vinaigrette and
served as an hors d’œuvre. The taste of such vegetable
salads is improved if the dressing is applied while the
vegetables are hot. When fresh herbs such as parsley,
thyme, marjoram, chives and onion sprouts are available
they can be chopped and added. They very much enhance
the taste. Failing herbs, one or two finely hashed shallots
can be used.
Anchovy dressing
Vinaigrette dressing can be varied sometimes by taking
two anchovy fillets, pounding them in the salad bowl, and
then proceeding with the application of olive oil, pepper
and wine vinegar. Very little, if any, salt is used. A squeeze
of garlic improves this dressing. Anchovy dressing is
particularly good for a salad of raw celery hearts, curly
endive, grated celeriac, and cooked salads such as haricot
beans. It is also recommended for dressing a green salad
when served with boiled ox tongue.
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Cream dressing
Mix four or five tablespoons of cream with a teaspoon of
lemon juice. Add salt and pepper. For cooked broad beans,
raw salads of cos and cabbage lettuce, cucumber.
Mayonnaise
Mayonnaise is an invaluable sauce whose excellence depends
on the freshness of the egg yolks and quality of the olive oil
employed. A variety of accent derives from the use of wine
vinegar, lemon juice, mustard and garlic in its preparation.
Carefully separate two egg yolks and put them in a
bowl with a pinch of salt, a little pepper and the juice
of half a lemon (or a thread of wine vinegar). Stir with
a wooden spoon and begin adding drop by drop the
olive oil, stirring continuously in the same direction.
Two egg yolks are capable of absorbing about a pint
of oil. To prevent the sauce becoming too thick, a few
drops of water should be added once or twice, without
interrupting the stirring, and the juice of half a lemon
(or a little more wine vinegar). As the sauce proceeds
the oil can be added in a thin thread, rather than drop
by drop.
If by some misfortune the sauce separates, it can be
restored by beginning again with another egg yolk in a
clean basin, and transferring the separated mixture little
by little into it. In a hot climate this can occur because
the oil is too warm. The basin should be chilled before
starting.
If the mayonnaise is flavoured with garlic, a clove
is crushed with salt in the basin before putting in the
egg yolks. If mustard is to be incorporated a very little
ready-made French mustard is incorporated with the egg
yolks before applying the oil. This is a classic sauce to
37
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serve with salmon trout, turbot and other poached fish.
As an hors d’œuvre it is used to dress hard-boiled eggs, for
Celeriac mayonnaise, White cabbage mayonnaise and, thinned
with a little milk, for Potato salad.
THREE USEFUL SAUCES
Avocado sauce
Take the pulp of three ripe avocados, whip the pulp to
a cream, add a little salt, a thread of wine vinegar, and
enough oil to make it light and unctuous, similar to a
light mayonnaise.
For an hors d’œuvre, shrimps or prawns can be served in this sauce,
which is much better than serving half an avocado pear with
prawns perched in it, as sometimes occurs in restaurants.
One should not prepare this sauce long in advance or it may
discolour. Lemon or fresh lime juice can be substituted for the
wine vinegar. (See Salmon trout with avocado sauce.) Sufficient for
eight people.
Salsa verde
Chop the following ingredients as finely as possible:
1 dessertspoon of capers; 2 anchovy fillets; 1 shallot; 1 garlic
clove.
Put this into a sauce-boat and add to it a tablespoon of
finely hashed parsley and basil. Dilute with 3 tablespoons
of good olive oil, and the juice of a lemon.
This is an excellent accompaniment for cold roast beef, hot
boiled beef, cold boiled chicken, cold veal, and any fish on the
tasteless side.
39
Sauce remoulade
Crush 3 yolks of hard-boiled eggs to paste with a few
drops of wine vinegar, add salt, pepper, and stir in enough
olive oil to make a fairly thick creamy sauce, say ¹⁄₄ pint
oil. Stir in some freshly chopped herbs, a few capers and
a chopped sweet gherkin. When fresh parsley and chives
are not available, use a finely minced shallot.
This is good for curly endive, raw celery hearts, chicory. Also
excellent served with poached fish. The texture of the sauce is
improved if the egg yolks are only soft-boiled. In this case the
whites can be chopped and put in the sauce.
40
HORS D’ŒUVRE
Aubergine salad
This is a Greek hors d’œuvre. For eight people you need:
4 aubergines; 4 finely chopped shallots; salt; black pepper; 2
tablespoons olive oil; half a lemon.
Bake 4 aubergines in their skins in the top of a moderate
oven (like baked potatoes). When they are soft, cut them
in half, scoop out the pulp and discard the skins. Mash
the pulp in a bowl with 4 finely chopped shallots, a little
salt, and pepper. Blend in the oil and lemon juice. Chill
this purée, and serve as an hors d’œuvre with very crisp
toast, rye bread or wine biscuits. It has a very delicate
flavour. Do not put the purée on the toast or biscuit
beforehand or it will go soggy.
Celeriac mayonnaise
Céléri-rave à la mayonnaise
This is a favourite hors d ’œuvre in Paris bistros. Celeriac is
a variety of celery with a large edible root. In England it is
available throughout the winter and stores well.
One large celeriac root; 8 oz mayonnaise (see Mayonnaise); a
lemon; salt; pepper; squeeze of garlic; chopped parsley.
Make the mayonnaise in advance, using lemon juice
rather than wine vinegar. Pare the hard brown outer part
of the celeriac root and excrescences. Cut into four, and
roughly grate into a bowl. Squeeze some lemon juice over
the contents of the bowl while doing this, otherwise the
celeriac tends to discolour. Sprinkle with salt. Squeeze the
rest of the lemon into the mayonnaise and a pressed clove of
garlic. Pour the mayonnaise over the celeriac and mix with a
wooden spoon, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and chill.
41
Haricot beans
White haricot beans make a good hors d’œuvre if given some
flavour while cooking. They can be dressed à la vinaigrette and
served with tuna fish, black olives, and, for instance, Leeks à la
grecque.
¹/₂ lb haricot beans; a bacon bone; garlic clove; a few
peppercorns; one bayleaf.
Soak the beans for at least 12 hours. Drain and cook them
in salted water with a bacon bone, a garlic clove, a bayleaf
and a few peppercorns. Simmer for one hour. Drain and
dress while hot with a vinaigrette dressing and chopped
parsley or, also good, with an anchovy dressing.
Red haricots, Italian marbled beans and brown beans all require
rather more cooking. They can be soaked and preliminarily
cooked like white haricots. Then an aromatic concoction should
be prepared in which they can simmer slowly for another hour
or so.
Melt two or three finely sliced onions in a pan in a little
olive oil, empty into it the contents of a ¹⁄₂-pint tin of
Italian peeled tomatoes, add salt and a bouquet garni.
Pour in two glasses of red wine and a dash of wine vinegar.
Put in the beans, add a very little of their cooking liquor
and cook very slowly. Add a little more oil, when they
are cooked, and serve cold with raw celery hearts à la
vinaigrette, sliced root fennel (finocchio) à la vinaigrette,
tuna fish, or a Salad of salt cod.
All beans cook better in earthenware because it is a slow heat
conductor. In stainless steel, they tend to break and dry up very
easily. Enamelled iron pots are quite good.
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Stuffed bacon rolls
The same stuffing as for Stuffed Vine Leaves q.v., can
be used to make an appetizing hot hors d’œuvre. Little
portions of stuffing are rolled up in pared slices of good
back bacon. These are sprinkled with thyme and cooked
in a fairly hot oven for about 25 minutes, until the bacon
is nicely crisp.
These stuffed bacon rolls are an excellent accompaniment to
Calves’ liver sauté, which then constitutes a main dish.
Stuffed vine leaves
Dolmádes
Stuffed vine leaves make a delicate hot or cold hors d’œuvre. The
stuffing is composed of boiled rice, onion, herbs, pine kernels
and minced chicken livers or minced lean lamb. Small handfuls
of stuffing are placed on blanched vine leaves, which are then
made into neat little ‘parcels’ by folding and pressing in the
palm of the hand. The dolmádes are put in a sauté-pan with a
little stock and olive oil and simmered for 20 minutes. The
sauce is thickened with egg yolks and lemon juice, and poured
over the dolmádes which are very good hot or cold. For eight
people:
24 vine leaves (from Cyprian suppliers in large tins); 1
onion chopped and softened in butter, but not browned; ¹/₂ lb
boiled rice moistened while hot with a little olive oil; 4 oz
chicken livers (sautéd for a moment in butter, then chopped);
2 tablespoons chopped parsley, thyme and celery tops; 1
tablespoon of pine kernels; salt and pepper; 2 egg yolks; juice of
a lemon; beef or chicken stock to cover; tablespoon olive oil.
Blanch the vine leaves for five minutes in boiling water,
rinse in cold water and lay them out flat. Mix the chop
ped onion, boiled rice, sautéd chicken livers, herbs, pine
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Folding a vine leaf for dolmádes.
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kernels, and season. Place a little mound of stuffing on
each leaf. Fold the leaves round the stuffing to make neat
little parcels, they should be about 2 inches long, and ³⁄₄
inch wide and high. Give each a little squeeze and put
them in a shallow sauté pan, tightly packed. Sprinkle
with a little oil and lemon juice and cover with a good
beef or chicken stock. Simmer very gently for about 20
minutes. Remove the dolmádes into a dish and pour the
liquor in which they have cooked onto the beaten yolks
of two eggs thinned with a little lemon juice. Stir till
this thickens a little and pour over the dolmádes. The
sauce should not be heated up or it may curdle. (The
best dolmádes I ever made were cooked in some still
champagne.)
The classical way of cooking vegetables à la grecque, for
instance, cauliflower florets, celery hearts, young artichoke
hearts, root fennel (finocchio), tender white mushrooms, small
pickling onions, leeks, is to prepare an aromatic court-bouillon
consisting of:
three parts water to one part olive oil, with lemon juice, salt,
coriander seeds, peppercorns and a bouquet garni of parsley,
thyme, fennel, celery, bayleaf.
The liquor is boiled for five minutes, the selected
vegetable is thrown in and cooked rapidly till tender.
The vegetable is then strained, set on a dish and served
with a little of the reduced cooking liquor, garnished
with chopped parsley, cold as an hors d’œuvre.
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Leeks à la grecque
Use the white part of 24 leeks. (The green part can be finely
chopped for use as a soup garnish.) Prepare the cooking liquor
with:
³/₄ pint water; ¹/₄ pint olive oil; juice of one lemon; 10
coriander seeds; 10 peppercorns; a tied bunch of parsley, thyme,
celery top, bayleaf.
Boil the cooking liquor for 5 minutes to extract the
flavours. Put the cleaned leeks into a shallow sauté-pan,
strain the infusion over them, and boil rapidly till tender
without a lid. In this way the liquor reduces considerably.
Use some of it to lubricate the leeks, which should be
well chilled before serving.
Fresh cauliflower should be separated into neat little
florets. Cook for 8 minutes.
Celery hearts must be trimmed, quartered and cooked
for 15 minutes.
Cucumbers should be peeled, quartered lengthwise, and
cut into two-inch lengths. Cook for 8 minutes.
Mushrooms when small and fresh can be cooked whole
with only the stalk removed. Larger mushrooms can
be sliced. Cook for 10�15 minutes. Old mushrooms are
absolutely no good.
Pickling onions should be plunged in boiling water for
a few moments, drained, plunged in cold water, peeled,
and then cooked for 8 minutes in the cooking liquor.
The method of preparing Celeriac mayonnaise q.v. can be
applied to the hard type of white cabbage, sometimes
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called Dutch cabbage. The cabbage is stripped of its
outer leaves and coarse ribs. If one is not particular about
this the salad will be indigestible. Then it is very finely
shredded and dressed with mayonnaise. It can be served
as an hors d’œuvre with a garnish of black olives and sliced
hard-boiled eggs.
See Mayonnaise and Celeriac mayonnaise.
SALADS
Beetroot too often features as a colourful and tasteless vegetable
which stains and soils a green salad. As it keeps well and is readily
available it can be made into an appetizing accompaniment to
cold meats, ham and chicken by pickling it in wine. But it must
be prepared at least a fortnight in advance.
Freshly boiled beetroots; 1 heaped tablespoon of Demerara
sugar per beetroot; salt; ground black pepper; red wine; 1
wineglass of wine vinegar per jar; 2 lb pickling jars.
Have ready some 2 lb stoneware pickling jars or glazed
earthenware pots. When the beetroots are cool, rub off
their skins, and slice them neatly and evenly across in
¹⁄₁₆-inch slices into a basin. Sprinkle the slices with a little
salt, Demerara sugar, and ground pepper. Allow 1 heaped
tablespoon of sugar per beetroot. Pack the sprinkled
slices into the pickling jars, cover with red wine, and
a tablespoon of wine vinegar for each jar. Cover with
muslin or aluminium foil and store for at least a fortnight
in a cool place. When the beetroot has been used up a
fresh lot can replace it in the same liquor, topped up
with more wine.
When very small young beetroot are available, this pickling
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process is unnecessary. The freshly cooked little beetroot should
be peeled and quartered while still warm, put in a deep dish,
sprinkled with a little salt, ground pepper, Demerara sugar, a
dash of wine vinegar and a little good olive oil. This makes a
delicious chunky salad, with a good glistening colour. Be careful
not to bruise the beetroot before cooking, or the colour drains
into the cooking water.
Cucumber salad
There are three ways of making a good cucumber salad which
is a suitable accompaniment to fish like turbot, halibut and
salmon trout.
1. Wash but do not peel the cucumber. Slice it as finely
as is humanly possible into a bowl. This can be done with
a very finely set potato slicer. Sprinkle copiously with
salt and leave for ¹⁄₂ an hour. Drain the liquor from the
slices, and toss the cucumber in a little oil and tarragon
vinegar. Chill before serving.
2. Wash and peel the cucumber. Cut it lengthwise into
four segments, and chop these into pieces 3 inches long.
Sprinkle with salt, leave for ¹⁄₂ an hour. Drain off the
liquor, and dress as above.
3. Slice two large cucumbers paper thin, sprinkle with
coarse salt. Leave for ¹⁄₂ an hour, drain. Then mix a
teaspoonful of sugar, a teaspoon of tarragon vinegar, add
a small cup of cream, ground pepper, a dash of salt. Stir
in two tablespoons of olive oil and some chopped chives
and pour this dressing over the cucumber.
In each of these recipes the cucumber is first salted in order to
extract the bitter juice that it contains. Coarse salt should be
used. I believe that the reason why many English people find
cucumber indigestible is because they do not bother first to
extract the bitter juice.
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Pimento salad
This is an Italian speciality which can be served as an hors
d’œuvre, or as a salad after a meat course. When available, green,
red and yellow peppers should be used.
12 peppers, red, green and yellow; a garlic clove; a wineglass of
oil; 1 onion; 4 tomatoes; 2 wineglasses red wine; 1 tablespoon
wine vinegar; salt.
Take 4 fine peppers of each colour, halve them
lengthways, and remove the core and seeds. Put them
in a large sauté-pan with a clove of garlic, a wineglass
of olive oil, a large finely sliced onion and 4 tomatoes
peeled and quartered.
Put the pan on a moderate heat, sweat the peppers
with the lid on for a few minutes until they soften, then
add two wineglasses of red wine, a tablespoon of wine
vinegar, a little salt, and replace the lid. Cook them slowly
for 45 minutes. Then lay them out neatly on a flat dish, in
three colour groups. If there is time, the thin outer skins
should be rapidly peeled off. Grind a little black pepper
over the dish, chill and serve. Sufficient for eight.
When fresh peppers are not available a refreshing salad can
be made of the tinned variety, which are already roasted and
peeled. These can be cut into ¹⁄₂-inch strips and dressed with a
simple vinaigrette dressing.
Potato salad
There are two ways of making potato salad to serve with cold
meat or fish. For both methods it is essential to use firm waxy
potatoes, or they crumble, and the dressing, either a thin
mayonnaise or vinaigrette, must be applied while the potatoes
are still hot, i.e. when they are capable of absorbing flavour.
49
potato salad à la mayonnaise
Scrub and boil 4 lb potatoes. When they are only just
cooked, drain and peel them. Slice them neatly into a
bowl, in ³⁄₈-inch slices, season with coarse salt and pepper
and chopped chives or green onion sprouts. While they
are still warm, pour over a ¹⁄₂ pint of mayonnaise thinned
with a little milk, and mix carefully so that all the slices
are coated with the dressing. Sprinkle with chopped
parsley and chill.
potato salad à la vinaigrette
Scrub and boil 4 lb potatoes. When just tender, drain
and peel them. Slice them neatly into a bowl while
hot, season with coarse salt, pepper and sprinkle with
a wineglass of white wine. Season with chopped chives
(failing these, use three or four chopped shallots), and
add ¹⁄₄ pint of vinaigrette dressing. Mix carefully and
sprinkle with chopped parsley.
Boil 8 handfuls of rice in salt water, drain as soon as
tender. Put the rice in a basin and while still hot stir
in a ¹⁄₂ cupful of olive oil, a squeeze of garlic, very little
tarragon vinegar, black pepper and a grate of nutmeg.
Mix in some finely chopped celery, fresh basil leaves
when available, and 8 tomatoes which have been peeled
and quartered. Add 16 stoned black olives. Chill. This
is a good hors d’œuvre to serve before fish. (For 6 to 8
people.)
Salt cod salad
Morue en salade
The thin parts of salt cod which are unsuitable for deep frying
(see Salt cod aux tomates), after de-salting, i.e. steeped for 12 hours
50
in cold water, are put in a shallow pan with cold water to cover,
a bayleaf and some peppercorns, and brought very slowly to the
boil. This is done gradually or the fish will be tough. As soon
as the water boils, take it off the fire, strain off the liquor, and
flake the fish, removing skin and bones carefully. Put the flaked
fish while still hot in a dish, dress with olive oil, lemon juice and
chopped parsley, turn about with a wooden spoon, and chill.
Alternatively a not-too-thick garlic-flavoured mayonnaise can
be used as the dressing. Serve this fish salad with a few black
olives and Potato salad à la vinaigrette.
Salade de tomates à la catalane
This salad is made with very large firm tomatoes of the
Mediterranean type often more green than red, and large white
Spanish onions, which are much less sharp in taste than, for
instance, English onions. If Italian immigrants are cultivating
Italian tomatoes in Australia, large and firm, they may well be
growing this type of sweet white onion.
The tomatoes are cut transversely into three thick
slices, put on a large flat dish, and marjoram, pepper
and one or two large onions, cut into very thin rounds,
are distributed over them. Salt and a little olive oil is
poured over them. This salad is always made just before
the meal, or the tomatoes lose their crispness. It is often
served with unfilleted anchovies in brine, which are well
washed to remove the salt.
51
Antipasto at Spigolizzi.
52
PÂTÉS
Chicken liver pâté
A pound of chicken livers will make sufficient pâté for four or
five people. For each pound of chicken livers you need:
4 oz butter; 1 small glass of brandy; 1 small glass of sherry;
black pepper; salt; a pinch of allspice and a pinch of powdered
herbs (thyme, marjoram, basil).
Melt 2 oz butter in a pan and very gently sauté the
chicken livers for barely 3 minutes. They should still be
pink inside. Remove them and add the glass of sherry
and the glass of cognac to the juices in the pan. Cook for
a few moments. Mash the livers to a fine paste with salt,
pepper, spice and herbs, the squeezed juice of a garlic
clove and the remaining 2 oz of butter. Add the liquor
from the pan and put this composition into a small
earthenware terrine. Chill. This would be an excellent
thing to serve with toast melba before a Coq au vin.
It is perfectly possible to use deep-frozen chicken livers, which
are now available, for this pâté, provided they are given sufficient
time to de-freeze. This can take as long as 5 to 6 hours at normal
room temperature. If they are de-frozen by artificial means they
lose all taste and are tough.
53
Looking out from the terrace at Spigolizzi.
54
Hare pâté
Pâté de lièvre
When the saddles of a number of hares have been roasted, the
rest of the hare meat can be used to make a pâté. Hare being
a very dry animal, it needs quite a lot of fat bacon to lubricate
it. For the remains of each hare the following ingredients are
required.
Half a bottle of red wine; 2 sliced onions; 2 garlic cloves;
bayleaf; teaspoon of marjoram and thyme; salt and pepper;
1 ¹/₂ lb fat bacon cut in 1 inch squares; ¹/₂ lb fat bacon in slices;
pinch of powdered mace; strip of orange zest; 1 liquor-glass of
cognac.
Joint the legs and shoulders of the hare, and put them
in a pan with the bacon squares, the red wine, sliced
onion, garlic and seasoning. Simmer on the stove for 45
minutes.
Take out the meat, remove the bones, and put meat
and bacon fat through the mincer. Season some more
with marjoram, crushed garlic, black pepper and at this
stage add more salt if necessary. Grate in a little orange
zest and sprinkle on some powdered mace.
Put a layer of the fat bacon slices in the bottom of a
1-pint capacity terrine (earthenware or stoneware) and
put in the hare mixture. Sprinkle with cognac. Put more
rashers on top and pour over the cooking liquor to reach
nearly to the top.
Cover the terrine with silver foil, and stand it in a pan
of water in a low oven. Cook for nearly 2 hours. When
cool cover with melted lard or clarified butter and store
in the refrigerator. This is served as an hors d’œuvre with
onions sliced thinly.
55
A 1 ¹/₂ lb cod’s roe will make enough pâté for 6 or 8 people.
The other ingredients are a lemon; 3 tablespoons of olive oil;
ground pepper; four eggs chopped; parsley.
Scrape the roe out of the membrane which contains it,
and mash it in a bowl. Squeeze the juice of a lemon over
it. Work in 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Add a little ground
pepper. Spread this mixture about ¹⁄₂ inch thick on the
bottom of a white porcelain fish dish. Grate on top of
it the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs. Chop the whites
finely and sprinkle on top. Finish with freshly chopped
parsley and garnish with lemon segments. Serve the pâté
with finely sliced packaged pumpernickel or Vollkornbrod
(German rye bread).
Tunnyfish pâté
Pâté de thon
2 lb best tunny fish in olive oil (Italian brands are best,
ventresca, breast of tunny); ¹/₂ wineglass wine vinegar; 4 eggs;
4 oz butter; salt; ground pepper; clove of garlic.
Pound a garlic clove in a mortar, add the contents of
the 2-lb tin of tunny fish and the oil in which it was
tinned. Pound smooth, and add 4 oz of softened butter.
Pour in a thread of wine vinegar, work in the raw yolk
of four eggs, salt, ground pepper. When the preparation
is quite smooth, fold in the egg white beaten very stiff.
This should have a fairly solid consistency. It is dressed
in the form of a raised mould, the exterior of which
is decorated with slices of hard - boiled eggs, rolled
anchovies, and the dish surrounded with small sweet
gherkins and black olives. Chill and serve very cold with
crisp toast. Sufficient for 16 people.
56

the centaur`s kitchen

Transcription

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