作者：Luck, Brian, Mrs.
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The Belgian Cookbook试读：
PREFACE
The recipes in this little book have been sent by Belgian refugees from all parts of the United Kingdom, and it is through the kindness of these correspondents that I have been able to compile it. It is thought, also, that British cooking may benefit by the study of Belgian dishes.
The perfect cook, like Mrs. 'Arris or the fourth dimension, is often heard of, but never actually found, so this small manual is offered for the use of the work-a-day and inexperienced mistress and maid. It is not written in the interests of millionaires. The recipes are simple, and most inexpensive, rather for persons of moderate means than for those who can follow the famous directions for a certain savory: "Take a leg of mutton," etc. A shelf of provisions should be valued, like love-making, not only for itself but for what it may become.
SAVORIES: If you serve these, let them be, like an ankle, small and neat and alluring. This dish is not obligatory; recollect that it is but a culinary work of supererogation.
SOUP: Let your soup be extremely hot; do not let it be like the Laodiceans. You know what St. John said about them, and you would be sorry to think of your soup sharing the fate which he describes with such saintly verve. Be sure that your soup has a good foundation, and avoid the Italian method of making consommé, which is to put a pot of water on to warm and to drive a cow past the door.
FISH: It is a truism to say that fish should be absolutely fresh, yet only too many cooks think, during the week-end, that fish is like the manna of the Hebrews, which was imbued with Sabbatarian principles that kept it fresh from Saturday to Monday. I implore of you to think differently about fish. It is a most nourishing and strengthening food—other qualities it has, too, if one must believe the anecdote of the Sultan Saladin and the two anchorites.
MEAT: If your meat must be cooked in water, let it not boil but merely simmer; let the pot just whisper agreeably of a good dish to come. Do you know what an English tourist said, looking into a Moorish cooking-pot? "What have you got there? Mutton and rice?" "For the moment, Sidi, it is mutton and rice," said the Moorish cook; "but in two hours, inshallah, when the garlic has kissed the pot, it will be the most delicious comforter from Mecca to Casa Blanca." Simmer and season, then, your meats, and let the onion (if not garlic) just kiss the pot, even if you allow no further intimacy between them. Use bay-leaves, spices, herbs of all sorts, vinegar, cloves; and never forget pepper and salt.
Game is like Love, the best appreciated when it begins to go. Only experience will teach you, on blowing up the breast feathers of a pheasant, whether it ought to be cooked to-day or to-morrow. Men, as a rule, are very particular about the dressing of game, though they may not all be able to tell, like the Frenchman, upon which of her legs a partridge was in the habit of sitting. Game should be underdone rather than well done; it should never be without well-buttered toast underneath it to collect the gravy, and the knife to carve it with should be very, very sharp.
VEGETABLES: Nearly all these are at their best (like brunettes) just before they are fully matured. So says a great authority, and no doubt he is thinking of young peas and beans, lettuces and asparagus. Try to dress such things as potatoes, parsnips, cabbages, carrots, in other ways than simply boiled in water, for the water often removes the flavor and leaves the fiber. Do not let your vegetable-dishes remind your guests of Froissart's account of Scotchmen's food, which was "rubbed in a little water."
SWEETS: It is difficult to give any general directions for sweets. They should be made to look attractive, and they should be constantly varied. The same remarks apply to savories, which last ought always to be highly seasoned, whether hot or cold.
MADE DISHES are a great feature in this little book. I have tried to help those small households who cook, let us say, a leg of mutton on Sunday, and then see it meander through the week in various guises till it ends its days honorable as soup on the following Friday. Endeavor to hide from your husband that you are making that leg of mutton almost achieve eternal life. It is noticeable that men are attracted to a house where there is good cooking, and the most unapproachable beings are rendered accessible by the pleasantness of a soufflé, or the aroma of a roast duck. You must have observed that a certain number of single men have their hearts very "wishful" towards their cook. Not infrequently they marry that cook; but it is less that she is a good and charming woman than that she is a good and charming cook. Ponder this, therefore; for I have known men otherwise happy, who long for a good beef-steak pudding as vainly as the Golden Ass longed for a meal of roses. Try these recipes, for really good rissoles and hashes. Twice-cooked meat can always be alleviated by mushrooms or tomatoes. Remember that the discovery of a new dish is of more use than the discovery of a new star,—besides which, you will get much more praise for it. And if on Wednesday you find that you have to eat the same part of the very same animal that you had on Monday, do not, pray, become exasperated; treat it affectionately, as I treat my black hat, which becomes more ravishing every time that I alter it. Only, do not buy extravagant make-weight for a scrap of cold meat that would be best used in a mince patty, or you will be like a man keeping a horse in order to grow mushrooms.
And, lastly, the good cook must learn about food what every sensible woman learns about love—how best to utilize the cold remains.
M. LUCK.
PART I
CAULIFLOWER SOUP
After you have boiled a cauliflower, it is a great extravagance to throw away the liquor; it is delicately flavored and forms the basis of a good soup. Wash well your cauliflower, taking great care to remove all grit and insects. Place it to simmer with its head downwards, in salted water; and, when it is tender, remove it. Now for the soup. Let all the outer leaves and odd bits simmer well, then pass them through a sieve. Fry some chopped onions, add the liquor of the cauliflower and the pieces that have been rubbed through the sieve, add a little white pepper and a slice of brown bread. Let all cook gently for half-an-hour, then, just before serving it, take out the slice of bread and sprinkle in two teaspoonfuls of grated Gruyere cheese.
FISH SOUP
When you buy fish and have it filleted, ask for the bones and trimmings to be sent also. Put a quart of milk to heat and add to it a bunch of mixed herbs, a few minced shallots, parsley, pepper and salt. Throw in your fish and cook for an hour. If you have any celery put in a piece, or two or three white artichokes. Strain the soup, taste it, and add more salt or more milk as you think necessary. Return to the pan. Take the yolk of an egg and just before taking the soup from the fire, stir it quickly in. This soup must never boil. It should be made out of the very white fish, excluding herring and mackerel.
STARVATION SOUP
If you have a pork-bone from the fresh meat, let it boil in water for an hour. Put the pan to cool and take off the fat, and remove the bone. Replace the pan on the fire and throw into it two pounds of Brussels sprouts. Do not add onions to this soup but leeks, and the hearts of cabbage. Pepper and spice to taste. Rub it through a sieve and let it be thick enough to form a thin purée.
IMMEDIATE SOUP, OR TEN MINUTES SOUP
Into a quart of boiling water throw two tablespoonfuls of either semolina or tapioca: let it boil for eight minutes with a dust of salt and pepper. Meanwhile, take your tureen, put quickly into it two yolks of very fresh eggs, add two pats of butter and two small spoonfuls of water to mix it. Stir quickly with the spoon, and when the soup has done its eight minutes' boiling, pour it on the egg and butter in the tureen. This is an extremely good soup. It is rendered still better by a small quantity of Bovril.
CHERVIL SOUP
Put a bone of veal on to cook in water, with four or five potatoes, according to the quantity desired. When these are tender, pass them through the tammy and return them to the soup. Chop up the chervil, adding to it half a dessert-spoonful of cornflour. Quarter of an hour before serving, put in the chervil, but take the cover off the pot, so that it remains a good green color. Pepper and salt to be added also.
[V. Verachtert, Café Appelmans, Anvers.]
A GOOD PEA SOUP
Soak your dried peas over-night. The following day boil some fresh water, and throw in the peas, adding a few chopped onions and leeks, with pepper and salt. Let the soup simmer for three hours on the top of the stove, giving it a stir now and then. If you have a ham-bone, that is a great improvement, or the water in which some bacon has been boiled is a good foundation for the soup, instead of the fresh water.
[Mdlle. M. Schmidt.]
WATERZOEI
This is an essentially Flemish soup. One uses carp, eels, tench, roach, perches, barbel, for the real waterzoei is always made of different kinds of fish. Take two pounds of fish, cut off the heads and tails, which you will fry lightly in butter, adding to make the sauce a mixed carrot and onion, three cloves, a pinch of white pepper, a sprig of parsley, one of thyme, a bay-leaf; pour in two-thirds of water and one-third of white wine till it more than covers the ingredients and let it simmer for half-an-hour. Then the pieces of fish must be cut an equal size, and they are placed to cook quickly in this liquor for twenty minutes. Five minutes before serving add a lemon peeled and cut into slices and the pips removed. Some people bind the sauce with breadcrumbs grated and browned. You serve, with this dish, very thin slices of bread and butter. For English tastes, the heads and tails should be removed when dressing the dish.
A GOOD BELGIAN SOUP
is called crême de sauté. Itself one of the most wholesome of vegetables, watercress combines admirably with potatoes in making soup. Wash, dry, and chop finely four ounces of the leaves picked from the stalks, fry slowly for five minutes with or without a thinly-sliced onion, add one pound of potatoes cut in small dice, and fry, still very slowly, without browning; pour in one quart of water or thin stock, simmer gently, closely-covered, for from thirty-five to fifty minutes, rub through a hair sieve, and having returned the puree to the saucepan with a half-teaspoonful of castor sugar, and salt and cayenne to taste, thicken with one table-spoonful of flour stirred smoothly into one breakfast-cupful of cold milk; boil up sharply, and serve sprinkled with watercress.
[E. Haig.]
BELGIAN PURÉE
Cook two pounds of Brussels sprouts in boiling water. Take them out, drain them and toss them in butter for five minutes, sprinkle them with a teaspoonful of flour, and then cook them in gravy (or meat extract and water), fast boiling, over a good fire, and keep the lid of the saucepan off so that they may remain green. Pass them through the sieve, leave them in ten minutes, bind the mixture with the yolks of three eggs, a pint of milk; then at the last minute one dessert-spoonful of butter for each pint and a half of soup.
AMBASSADOR SOUP
A pint and a half of either fresh peas, or of dried peas that have been soaked for six hours in cold water; a leek, and three onions chopped finely. Simmer till the peas are tender, then pass all through the sieve. Well wash some sorrel and chop it, and add as much as will be to your taste. In another pan cook five tablespoonfuls of rice, and add that to your soup. Simmer up again, stirring it all very well. This soup should be of a green color.
[Mme. Georges Goffaux.]
CRECY SOUP (BELGIAN RECIPE)
Take ten carrots, two onions, one leek, five potatoes, and cook all gently in water, with salt and pepper; when they are tender, rub them through the sieve and serve it very hot.
[G. Goffaux.]
FLEMISH SOUP
To two pounds of washed and picked Brussels sprouts add ten potatoes, two onions, two leeks, salt, pepper. Cook all gently and pass through a sieve. Add at the last moment a sprinkle of chopped chervil.
[G. Goffaux.]
TOMATO PURÉE
Begin by cleaning four potatoes, two leeks, a celery, four carrots, three pounds of big tomatoes; well wash all these vegetables and cut them in dice, the tomatoes a little larger. Cook them all gently for an hour in nearly two pints of gravy, to which you have already added two thick slices of bread and a pinch of salt. Take care that your vegetables do not stick to the bottom of the pan. When all is well cooked, pass it through a fine tammy. Add more gravy, or water and meat juice; make it of the consistency that you wish. Bring it to the boil again over the fire, adding pepper and salt, and just before serving a bit of fresh butter also. It is a great improvement to add at the last minute the yolk of an egg, mixed in a little cold water, quickly stirred in when the soup is off the fire.
The three recipes for seven or eight persons.
[G. Kerckaert.]
ONION SOUP
Mince some thick onions, five or six, and let them color over the fire in butter. Add a dessert-spoonful of flour, sprinkling it in, and the same amount in gravy; thicken it with potatoes and when these are cooked, peas, all through a sieve. Bring the purée to the right consistency with milk, and let it simmer for a few minutes before serving, adding pepper and salt.
[Gabrielle Janssens.]
POTAGE LEMAN
Make a good gravy with one and one-half pounds of skirt of beef. With one half of the gravy make a very good purée of peas—if possible the green peas—with the other half make a good purée of tomatoes. Combine the two purées, adding pepper and salt and a dust of cayenne. For each guest add to the soup a teaspoonful of Madeira wine, beat it all well and serve quickly. Or add, instead of Madeira, one dessert-spoonful of sherry wine.
This celebrated soup is honored by the name of the glorious defender of Namur.
[Gabrielle Janssens.]
TOMATO SOUP
Boil together six medium potatoes, a celery, two leeks, two carrots, and a pound of fresh tomatoes, with pepper, salt and a leaf of bay. Pass all through the sieve. Fry two or three chopped onions in some butter and add the soup to them. Boil up again for twenty minutes before serving. If you have no fresh tomatoes, the tinned ones can be used, removing the skin, at the same time that you add the fried onions.
[Mme. van Praet.]
SOUP, CREAM OF ASPARAGUS
Boil some potatoes and pass them through the sieve, add the asparagus-tops, with a pat of butter for each four tops; thin the soup with extract of meat and water, and at the last moment stir in the raw yolks of two eggs, and a little chopped parsley.
[Mme. van Praet.]
GREEN PEA SOUP
Put half a pound of dry green peas to soak overnight in water, with a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda in it. In the morning take out the peas and put them on the fire in about three-and-a-half pints of water. When the peas are nearly cooked, add five big potatoes. When all is cooked enough for the skins to come off easily, rub all through a sieve. Fry in some butter four or five onions and five or six leeks till they are brown, or, failing butter, use some fat of beef; add these to the peas and boil together a good half-hour. If possible, add a pig's trotter cut into four, which makes the soup most excellent. When ready to serve, remove the four pieces of trotter. Little dice of fried bread should be handed with the soup.
[V. Verachtert.]
VEGETABLE SOUP
Fry four onions till they are brown. Add them to three pints of water, with four carrots, a slice of white crumb of bread, five potatoes, a celery and a bunch of parsley, which you must take out before passing the soup through the sieve. A few tomatoes make the soup better; if they are tinned, do not add them till after the soup has been passed through the tammy; if they are fresh, put them in with the other vegetables. Simmer for an hour, add pepper and salt before serving.
[V. Verachtert.]
MUSHROOM CREAM SOUP
On a good white stock foundation, for which you have used milk and a bone of veal, sprinkle in some ground rice till it thickens, stirring it well for twenty minutes. Wash and chop your mushrooms, and fry them in butter. Add the yolk of an egg and bind it. This is a delicious soup.
[Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen.]
THE SOLDIER'S VEGETABLE SOUP
(Eight to ten persons)
Peel three pounds of vegetables. Put them in a large pot with all the vegetables that you can find, according to the season. In the winter you will take four celeries, four leeks, two turnips, a cabbage, two onions, pepper and salt, two-penny-worth of bones, and about five and one-half quarts of water. Let it all boil for three hours, taking care to add water so as to keep the quantity at five quarts. Rub all the vegetables through a tammy, crushing them well, and then let them boil up again for at least another hour. The time allotted for the first and second cooking is of the greatest importance.
LEEK SOUP
Cut up two onions and fry them till they are brown; you need not use butter, clarified fat will do very well. Clean your leeks, washing them well; cut them in pieces and fry them also; add any other vegetables that you have, two medium-sized potatoes, pepper, salt, and a little water. Let all simmer for three hours, and pass it through a fine sieve. Let there be more leeks than other vegetables, so that their flavor predominates.
[Mme. Jules Segers.]
CELERIS AU LARD
Take one pound of celery, cut off the green tops, cut the stems into pieces two-thirds of an inch long; put into boiling salted water, and cook till tender. Take one-half pound potatoes, peel and slice, and add to the celery, so that both will be cooked at the same moment. Strain and place on a flat fire-proof dish. Prepare some fat slices of bacon, toast them till crisp in the oven; pour the melted bacon-fat over the celery and potato, adding a dash of vinegar, and place the rashers on top. Serve hot.
Leeks may be prepared in the same way.
CABBAGE WITH SAUSAGES
Cut a large cabbage in two, slice and wash, put it into boiling water with salt, and when partly cooked, add some potatoes cut into smallish pieces. Cook all together for about an hour; then drain. Put some fat in a saucepan, slice an onion, brown it in the fat, add the cabbage and potato, and stew all together for ten minutes; then dish. Bake some sausages in the oven and dish them round the cabbage; serve hot.
Another way (easier)
Stew the cabbages, potato and sausages all together and dish up neatly.
LEEKS À LIEGOISE
Take enough of leeks to make the size of dish required; if they are very thick, cut in two lengthwise; cut off the green tops; leaving only the blanched piece of stalk; put them into boiling salted water and cook thoroughly about one hour: strain and dish neatly on a fish-drainer. Have ready some hard-boiled eggs; shell them, cut in two, and place round the leeks; serve hot with melted butter, or cold with mayonnaise sauce.
N. B. The water in which the leeks have been boiled makes a wholesome drink when cold, or a nourishing basis for a vegetable soup.
[From Belgians at Dollarfield, N.B.]
A SALAD OF TOMATOES
To make a tomato salad you must not slice the fruit in a dish and then pour on it a little vinegar and then a little oil; that is not salad—that is ignorance.
Take some red tomatoes, and, if you can procure them, some golden ones also. Plunge each for a moment in boiling water, peel off the skin, but carefully, so as not to cut through the flesh with the juice. Take some raw onion cut in slices; if you do not like the strong taste, use shallot; and lay four or five flat slices on the bottom of the salad dish. Put the tomato slices over them, sprinkle with salt and just a dust of castor sugar. In four hours lift the tomatoes and remove the onions altogether. Make in a cup the following sauce: Dissolve a salt-spoonful of salt in a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar. Stir in a dessert-spoonful of oil, dropping it slowly in, add a very little mustard, some pepper and a sprinkle of chopped chervil. Some people like chopped chives. Pour this over the tomato salad and leave it for an hour at least before serving it.
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