Finer Cooking: Dishes For

X. M. Boulestin, Boulestin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317846406
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

A complete guide for the planning of fine meals, this book instructs budding and experienced hostesses alike in the art of entertaining. It provides information on parties, the duties of a hostess, autumn fare, Christmas meals, Lenten fare, exotic food, and Gothic parties.

RECIPES

RECIPES

Soups

1. POTAGE LAMBALLE.

This soup is a mixture of vegetable and meat stocks. Take a handful of sorrel, remove the middle rib, wash the leaves well and melt them in a small piece of butter at the foaming stage.

Add a pint and a half of boiling water, season with salt, and let this simmer for half an hour, when it will be reduced to about a pint.

Add a pint of meat stock (preferably veal or chicken) and two tablespoonfuls of purée of peas. Bring to the boil again, stirring well.

When boiling, throw in a tablespoonful of French tapioca, cook six minutes more and serve.

2. SOUPE LYONNAISE.

Cut finely some onions (allowing one pound for four to five people), put them in a saucepan and pour in boiling water, just enough to cover them; cook fairly slowly: the onions will melt and the water will evaporate. Put in again the same quantity of water and, when evaporated, water once again till you get the onions reduced to a soft purée without becoming browned.

Mash them well with a fork and add then enough hot liquid to make soup for the required number of people, allowing for reduction. The liquid in question can be clear soup or simply salted water. Stir, see that the mixture is well seasoned and let it simmer about twenty minutes.

Meanwhile, put in a soup tureen or in a deep dish thin slices of French roll toasted and sprinkled with grated cheese (Gruyère and Parmesan, or Gruyère alone); put in another layer of toasted bread sprinkled with cheese; add a small glass of cream to the soup, pour it over the bread and brown in the oven.

3. CRÈME DE CHOU-FLEUR.

Take a cauliflower, remove all the green leaves and poach it for two minutes in boiling salted water. Take a few floury potatoes (about half the quantity there is of cauliflower), peel them and cook them together with the cauliflower in milk.

When both vegetables are cooked, mash them well, pound them through a sieve and add to the resulting purée enough of the milk in which they have cooked to give it the consistency of a thick soup. Add at the last minute one or two small pieces of butter, off the fire, by way of a binding. Serve in the winter with croûtons, in the spring and summer with plucked chervil.

4. POTAGE VERT.

We utilize for this the green part of some leeks, the white part being used another time as salad or hors d'œuvre. The other vegetables in the soup are spinach and a small quantity of peas (either fresh, tinned, or even dry split peas).

The relative proportions of all these is rather a question of personal taste.

Cook them together in salted water until just after the boiling point has been reached. (If they are split peas they should, of course, be soaked and started first.)

Meanwhile, cut in small pieces one onion and one rasher of bacon. Cook one or two minutes together and add these, together with a bouquet of thyme, parsley and bay leaf. Let the soup simmer about one hour and a half; strain, squashing through a sieve, add water, if necessary, and just before serving, a small cup of cream. Serve with croûtons.

When putting in the water, allow as usual for reduction during cooking.

5. POTAGE PRINTANIER.

This is a cream soup made with the vegetables of early summer. Cook in salted water one quart of fresh peas, the white of two small leeks (cut in small pieces) and two small lettuces.

When all these are cooked drain them well and keep the stock in a bowl; pound the vegetables in a mortar and add to this purée, stirring well, the stock little by little till you have a mixture the consistency of thick cream. Put it in a saucepan and add chicken stock till you have the required quantity. Bring to the boil and simmer it two or three minutes; finish by a liaison of two yolks of egg diluted in two tablespoonfuls of cream. Serve with croûtons, or with a Julienne of macaroni.

6. BOURRIDE ARCACHONNAISE.

This is a fish soup from Arcachon rather similar to the Bourride from Provence. Any fish will do for this soup, and two pounds will do for six or seven people. Cut it in several pieces and cook in a court-bouillon for one hour.

There should be enough left of it at the end to make soup for the required number of people, so allow for reduction. Strain well, mashing the fish against the side of strainer, and let this stock get tepid.

Make a mayonnaise sauce, about a bowlful, starting with four yolks of egg and two or three cloves of garlic well pounded; add to it little by little, mixing well, the fish stock, and cook very slowly, whipping well till the consistency of the soup is that of cream. Fry some croûtons in olive oil and pour the soup over them in the soup tureen just before serving.

7. POTAGE AU TAPIOCA.

Put a piece of beef (about two or three pounds), a few bones and a marrow bone in a large saucepan full of salted water; if you have bones, and legs of a fowl, put them in also, they will make the flavour more delicate—especially if you bake them dry in a hot oven till they become slightly charred. Bring slowly to the boil and skim well, then put in the vegetables—two or three carrots, two turnips cut in pieces, two onions, one leek, a few leaves of celery, one tomato, a bouquet of parsley, thyme, bay leaf, tarragon and one clove tied together—and freshly ground pepper. It should simmer for about six hours.

Then remove the meat, the vegetables and the fat very carefully, and pour the consommé through a fine hair sieve into a saucepan. Bring to the boil and throw in a handful of tapioca (the small, refined French kind; a handful is ample for eight to ten people). When it is properly cooked, which only takes about eight minutes, add a liaison of two yolks of egg mixed with a little cream. Stir well over the fire and serve at once.

It is essential that consommé should be free from any fat. The safest way is to cook your soup early in the day and pour it through a sieve into a bowl; when cold the fat will form a crust which is easily removed.

These proportions will make enough soup for about eight people. Allow at first too much water, so that it is reduced to the right quantity at the end.

8. CONSOMMÉ MADRILÈNE.

Add to the finished clear consommé a small quantity of lean raw beef, chopped; a few tomatoes in pieces and a white of egg well beaten. Bring to the boil, let it simmer about one hour and strain several times.

Cold, it should be liquid and not jellified (therefore do not put too many bones in the soup); hot, it is served also in cups with a few small cubes of tomato flesh in each.

9. BOUILLON DE POISSON.

This is a clear fish soup for which any fish can be used. You want about one pound of it, also a few shrimps or mussels, to make enough soup for four people.

Melt a small piece of butter in a saucepan, and fry in this for two or three minutes one leek, one carrot, one onion, two tomatoes, a piece of celery, all cut in pieces. Add a bouquet, a good pinch of mixed spice, the fish cut in pieces, boiling water, allowing for reduction—say, five and a half bowls of water, which at the end will make four—salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and simmer for at least three-quarters of an hour.

Meanwhile cut some thin slices of French roll, butter them, and spread over a mixture of grated cheese and saffron. Put these to dry and brown in the oven. Allow two or three for each person. Strain the soup before serving, and serve with it, separately, the croûtons to be put into the plates after the soup has been served.

(The saffron required for this dish is to be found in shops in two forms—ready to use and ground in little packets or bottles, or shredded, in which case it must be dried in the oven and pounded.)

10. POTAGE SANTÉ.

Take half a pound of floury potatoes, peel and cut them in pieces; put them in a saucepan with the white part of one leek (or two small ones) cut across finely; add a small piece of butter, salt and pepper.

Cook this gently for a few minutes, then add boiling water, allowing for reduction—five bowls for four people. Boil quickly, and when the vegetables are cooked mash them through a sieve.

Meanwhile, heat a small piece of butter and melt in it a handful of sorrel, cleaned and chopped. When melted, mix together the soup, the sorrel and the purée of vegetables, bring to the boil again and let it simmer awhile.

Stir in at the last minute the yolks of two eggs diluted in a small glass of cream. Stir well and serve at once.

11. POTAGE GERMINY.

Have ready two tablespoonfuls of sorrel melted as described above, and add to it about a quart of clear soup; bring to the boil and cook, simmering, eight to ten minutes.

Prepare in a basin a binding of four yolks of egg, well broken, to which you add a teacupful of fresh cream. Two minutes before serving, add to this, one by one, two tablespoonfuls of the hot soup, so as to warm the mixture. Then pour it into the saucepan and put it on a very slow fire; stir well with the ladle.

It soon thickens, but you must be careful that it does not reach the boiling point. Finish, off the fire, by adding two small pieces of butter. Shake the saucepan gently till the butter has disappeared, add a little plucked chervil, see that it is well seasoned, and serve with very small croûtons.

Egg Dishes, Hors d'Œuvre, Savouries and Light Entrées

12. ŒUFS MOLLETS ALICIA.

These eggs called “mollets” are soft-boiled eggs; they are not served as often as they deserve to be; yet, with a proper accompaniment, they make an extremely good egg dish for a luncheon party.

They are always served with a sauce or on a garniture, and this one is particularly good.

The eggs are plunged in boiling water, and you must count six minutes from the time the water, cooled by the immersion of the cold eggs, comes to the boil again. Then put them immediately into cold water and peel them carefully.

After that you can keep them in hot salted water till wanted. But it is, of course, advisable to have the rest of the dish ready so that the eggs are used straight away.

The garniture of this dish is a purée made with chopped white meat left over (pheasant or chicken) mixed with some quantity of sweet corn, well seasoned with salt, pepper, a pin...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Parties
• The Duties of a Hostess
• Supper or Breakfast?
• The Hostess Cooks
• Autumn Fare
• At Christmas-time
• Lenten Fare and Paschal Lamb
• Shorter Meals
• Exotic Food
• Gothic Parties
• Some Names of Dishes and their Origin
• On Vegetables
• Fishes from the Sea and the Rivers
• On Pancakes…
• Variations on Viennese Pastry …
• Drinks for Parties …
• Cocktails or Sherry?
• Menus
• Recipes
• Recipes
• Index