suet, half the quantity of currants and raisins, a little spice and
sugar, with 1 oz. candied peels, and 5 well-beaten eggs; make these
into a stiff batter, and boil well, and serve with a sweet sauce.
This pudding is excellent baked in a pudding tin. It must be turned
out when served.
_Levantine._ Bouillabaisse.--This far-famed dish of the Marseillais,
is, as a rule, unapproachable to English people, owing to the
quantity of garlic and oil, often of inferior quality, used in its
preparation; but if the oil is really good, it is hardly tasted at
all when well cooked; however, butter may be used instead. (_a_)
Take some “rascasses”--or, where not obtainable, any other rock
fish--lampreys, and lobsters. Slightly fry in a good quantity of
butter in a stewpan some onions, shallots, and parsley; then put in
the fish, and add sufficient water to cover the fish, season with
pepper and salt, and put in a pinch or two of flour and saffron; boil
for about 10 minutes; pour the rich gravy obtained over thick slices
of bread, and serve the fish and the bread and gravy in separate
dishes. (_b_) Boil about 1 lb. small fish with a quantity of water
for rather over 1 hour, then pour out the whole, and press the fish
through a colander. When this thick rich gravy or soup is obtained,
proceed as in (_a_), only, instead of adding water, use the fish
gravy. Rock fish, lampreys, and lobsters should always be employed to
make a really good bouillabaisse; crabs may also be added.
Chestnut Pudding.--It is easily made. Boil about 25 large chestnuts,
peel, and pound them well in a mortar. Mix the yolks of 12 and the
whites of 6 eggs, well beaten with 3 pints cream and ½ lb. fresh
butter; sweeten with white sugar. Then add the chestnut paste,
stirring over fire till it thickens. Prepare a pie-dish with puff
paste, pour in mixture, and bake. It may be eaten with wine sauce or
without.
Grasse Nuts.--Take 6 eggs, 1 tablespoonful orange-flower water, and
6 oz. powdered sugar; beat it up with as much flour as it will take
up. When formed into a paste, roll it out twice, then knead. Cut off
small pieces, and roll them long with the fingers and knot them; put
on a tin to bake a light brown. When done, have ready 6 oz. white
sugar in a preserving pan, clarify and boil the sugar, then toss in
the cakes, and continue tossing until all the sugar is used and the
cakes are quite dry and white; spread out to cool.
Orange-flower Cakes.--Take 1 lb. very fine white sugar, melt it with
orange-flower water, and clarify it perfectly. Take a handful of
orange flowers, bleach them with a little water and lemon juice, and
press them very hard indeed in a white cloth. When the sugar is very
much reduced, to about half, throw the flowers in. Have ready the
white of an egg well whipped with a little water. When the orange
flowers have burst (they pop), pour in the egg gently, stirring all
the time. Directly the sugar rises, take off the fire, and pour
quickly into white paper moulds of any form. These cakes should be
very white and light.
Orange-flower Puffs.--Prepare a batter as though for pancakes, add 1
tablespoonful or more, according to taste, good orange-flower water;
add a little powdered sugar, fry in butter or dripping, as with apple
fritters, powder with white sugar, and serve hot.
Stuffed Vegetable Marrow Flowers.--Pick the flowers when full blown,
wash them and stuff with half-boiled rice, minced veal, sweet herbs,
onions, and an egg; stew in beef stock. This makes a very pretty and
excellent _entremet_, the flowers remaining yellow, with green ribs.
_Polish._--The great feature of this cuisine is the very frequent
use of flour or oatmeal mixed with the meat. They also employ
curdled milk, both sweet and sour, and excessive use of spices,
marmalade, and salted provisions, the Polish sour-crout, and the
wild horse-radish. A Pole sneers at our homely necessary adjunct
of the dinner table, the potato; he clings tenaciously to his
salted cucumbers, which a Polish table is never without, and which
completely usurp the place of the potato among the poor, forming in
some cases their chief provision. Poland is a soup-eating nation;
although to our uninitiated eyes, the different materials of which
they are concocted seem inharmonious.
Barszcz.--A favourite Polish soup is Barszcz. Put 4 lb. beef, 1 lb.
smoked ribs of pork, ¼ lb. ham, and 12 button mushrooms, onions and
leeks into a large stewpan. Add 1 pint expressed juice of beetroot.
Cook until the meat is tender, then add a hare, a fowl, and a duck,
previously roasted to colour and give it a good flavour, and again
some beetroot juice. Boil ¼ hour, and add some whites of eggs beaten
with a little water to clear the soup. Cut up the boiled meats into
convenient portions, and serve them in the bouillon, garnished with
button mushrooms, tiny onions, slices of beetroot alternately with
some fingers of celery and sprigs of parsley, all thoroughly well
cooked beforehand; some fresh fennel, balls of force-meat and some
broiled sausages, the small ones usually eaten abroad, about the
length and thickness of the forefinger. This recipe is in the above
quantities requisite for a large consumption. It can, however, be
easily modified to suit any requirement, especially as regards the
game and poultry added. Judgment must step in and regulate the due
proportion of ingredients in a lesser or greater quantity as desired.
The beetroot juice is quite peculiar to Poland. Without it few dishes
are concocted or brought to table. Wash your beet carefully, then
scrape it and cut in 4 lengthway pieces. Put them in a saucepan, and
cover well with lukewarm water; keep it a soft heat for the space of
3-4 hours, by which gentle process the juice acquires an agreeably
acid flavour.
Chotodriec.--Put 1 qt. salted cucumber juice, and a small quantity
of leaven into a large saucepan, and boil well. Allow it to cool
gently, and then mix in 1 qt. curdled milk. Boil one young beetroot,
cut up finely in strips, in a separate saucepan. When done add it
also to the soup, with some of the water wherein it was boiled, to
colour a good red. Have ready 4 hard-boiled eggs, cut either in
thin slices or small fillets, the latter being preferable; a good
tablespoonful of finely chopped fennel and chives; some slices
of fresh cucumber, and the flesh of a whole cray-fish, or crab,
whichever most preferred, cut up in fair sized pieces. Add all these
ingredients one after another to the soup, which must be served cold
without bread, accompanied by small pieces of ice to make it colder
still. Some palates have a complete and unconquerable objection
to beetroot; when this happens to be the case, substitute sorrel,
dressed like a spinach purée, with a little butter, for the obnoxious
beetroot. There is a simplified method of making chotodriec by
mixing the curdled milk with the juice of crushed fresh cucumber,
some chopped fennel and chives; also sorrel; the hard-boiled eggs in
rounds and slices of cucumber crushed in at the last moment. Melon
is often substituted in this case for the cucumber, and makes a
pleasing diversity. The salted cucumber juice for making chotodriec
is prepared by the Polish cooks in the following manner. Wipe some
moderate sized green cucumbers carefully in a clean linen cloth,
and put them to what is termed “sweat” for 24 hours in a warm, dry
place. Have a wooden cask staved in at the top well scalded; if it is
a possibility, use a cask that has contained either hock or sherry
previously. Place the cucumbers at the bottom, one against the other,
and cover them with a bed of chopped fennel, some young leaves of the
cherry-tree, and some crushed coriander seed. Pour some salted water
on them, which has been already boiled, and allowed to get cold. Then
cover up the cask carefully, and place in some cool place, resting on
pieces of wood, to prevent the cask touching the ground. Cold water
previously boiled must be added, should the moisture ooze away. The
cask must be watched every day, and any mould which may by chance
accumulate on the top be carefully removed. At the expiration of 2
months, the cucumbers are considered to be sufficiently salted and
flavoured, and ready to be eaten. The water should not be excessively
salt, as it is the usual custom for the poor to steep their bread in
it, on the principle that it is sinful to waste, besides giving their
bread an unwonted relish.
Zrazy.--Another famous dish. Take the undercut from a sirloin of
beef, cut it through into cutlets a bare inch thick; beat them with
a cutlet bat or the blade of a heavy knife till they are about half
the original thickness; trim them to a nice round shape. Make a
good-sized piece of butter quite hot in a stewpan, lay in the slices
with salt, pepper, a pinch of pounded cloves, and an onion or some
shallots that have been minced and delicately browned in butter, or
(if not objected to) a small clove of garlic pounded or bruised fine.
Cover close, and let the zrazy steam in their own gravy till tender.
Turn them when one side is coloured, and taste them occasionally. If
the gravy dries away, add a little stock or soup. When done quite
tender, take up the slices. Skim off any superfluous fat from the
sauce; dust a little flour in; darken the sauce with sugar browning;
let it cook for a minute; then pour it over the meat, and garnish
with sliced potatoes fried in butter.
_Russian._--The Russian people, during the great fasts--which
last 4-7 weeks, and which recur 4 times during the year--sustain
themselves entirely on the soup made with the bitter cabbages, and
a handful of dry salted fish called _sniedky_. It is clean tasted,
but you need be a lover of this fish to relish it. It is not unlike
whitebait; it is salt and dry, and leaves a somewhat soapy taste.
Borshch.--Take 3 lb. good fat meat, wash it well in warm water, boil
it 2-3 minutes, take it out and wash it in cold water; cut it in
pieces, and put it in the pot, pouring some stock over it; add some
vegetables and a head of cabbage cut in 8 pieces; when the cabbage is
well boiled, add according to taste the juice of beetroot or kwass
(weak beer made of rye, very similar to treacle beer) or vinegar, and
salt; then boil it until all is ready. You may add to this borshch,
1 lb. smoked ham, previously washed in warm water, dried, and boiled
twice; lift it immediately and wash it in cold water, cut it in
pieces, and put it in the borshch; then boil all together. Before
serving, skim off the fat, take out the cabbage and put it in another
pot, to which add 1 lb. sliced beetroot and some stock; boil it, add
a little of the juice of the beetroot uncooked, to give it colour,
and pepper and salt to taste. Prepared in this manner, borshch is
excellent. The ingredients are as follows: 2½-3 lb. beef; 1 lb. ham;
1 head celery; parsley and 2 onions; 2 or 3 leaves of laurel; 1 small
head of cabbage; 10-20 gr. pepper, salt, juice of beetroot, and some
fennel.
Nalym.--Chop an onion, fry it in 2 spoonfuls fresh butter melted, add
1 spoonful flour; mix; pour in a little water, and set it to simmer
on the hot plate. When it begins to boil, put in 5-6 potatoes, which
you have cut in pieces, with some salt. Clean thoroughly, and salt
your fish, cut it in convenient pieces, and let all simmer together,
add some barley grits, a little parsley, and black pepper. The fish
thus dealt with is called in Russian _nalym_, which is translated
_lavaret_, a name familiar to travellers as that of a kind of trout
which inhabits the lakes of Switzerland. Soup made from sea fish is
not so much relished, as Russia is especially rich in fresh-water
fish. They sometimes make _shchi_ with sea fish.
Oucha.--Made for great occasions. Cook 2-3 lb. some small fishes, or,
if you prefer just a fowl, with carrots, turnips, onions, a few herbs
and some spice and salt; add a little nutmeg, clear with white of egg
or with caviare, and strain through a fine cloth. When this broth is
ready, place in it sterlet cut in good slices; add a glass of cold
water and let it stew, removing all scum. When the sterlet is cooked
pour the oucha into a tureen containing slices of lemon, without
either rind or pips. Add champagne to taste, and give it all a boil
up, adding parsley and fennel. When you serve it do not cover the
tureen. This fish is very delicate. It is usually served in the pan
in which it has been cooked; therefore in large establishments silver
saucepans are used.
Shchi.--The Russians, like the Germans and other northern nations,
are fond of a subacid flavour in their food: many of their soups are
thus flavoured; and where they are not, a very common thing is for
a dish of clotted sour cream to be placed on the table, from which
the consumer may take what is necessary to give his _plat_ (whether
soup, pork, or anything else) the degree of acidity which suits his
palate. A very little of this sour cream goes a far way however, a
spoonful or two being sufficient to convert a very excellent dish of
brown soup into what, according to our lights, would be considered a
sour and unpalatable mess; but the shchi has generally a sufficiently
subacid flavour of its own. It is made in this way. At the beginning
of winter a store of cabbages is laid in by almost every household;
these are chopped up into shreds, and placed in barrels with vinegar
and salt, when a certain amount of fermentation takes place, and the
cabbage becomes a kind of sauerkraut. From these barrels a portion
is taken as required, and that is pretty commonly daily, for the
shchi is not only the most characteristic national food in Russia,
but the regular daily food of the great mass of the people. The
portion so taken is made with meat into a cabbage broth, which is the
shchi. With the broth there is always served a number of lumps of
the boiled meat that made it. To make the shchi good, the degree of
fermentation that it passes through in the barrel has to be carefully
watched, for, if it goes too far, putrefaction sets in, and, if not
absolutely spoiled, the cabbage at least acquires a high flavour,
which is not agreeable to everyone. The shchi which we have been
describing is shchi pure and simple, but it can be infinitely varied;
by grating and mixing with it other items, it can be made to assume
the appearance of almost any vegetable soup, from green-pea soup to
cock-a-leekie: but, under whatever guise it appears, its identity
can always be traced by the subacid flavour which is ever present in
greater or less force. Whatever form it takes, however, when well
made it is excellent.
Siberian Pilemaignes.--Chop 2 onions, add slices of ham and fat
bacon, and a tender piece of game. Chop all these together, adding
some black pepper and a few cloves. For the paste, take 3 glasses
flour, 2 eggs, 7 spoonfuls salt water, and 1 teaspoonful salt; work
this into a tolerably stiff paste, and roll it out as thin as you
can without breaking it. Place on it at equal distances balls of the
forcemeat, cover them well with paste, and press them all round to
prevent coming out. With a knife or mould divide them into little
crescent-shaped tarts. Plunge them into boiling salted water, and
look at them in 10 minutes and see if they are done. If so, take
them out carefully with a slice, and place them in a deep dish. You
can moisten them with a sauce made of stock and butter, with lemon
juice or vinegar. If you have put plenty of bacon in do not make any
sauce, as they will contain sufficient gravy. Do not forget that the
forcemeat is put into the paste _uncooked_.
Stouffate--Salt a piece of beef, lard it with ham or smoked tongue,
or else fat bacon. Put in an earthenware pot (not in a metal pan)
several slices of bacon or butter, vegetables, and spice, and on
this lay the meat. Pour over it some wine, and 2 spoonsful vinegar
or lemon juice. Let this simmer, adding a little water sufficient
to moisten the meat on all sides. When sufficiently cooked put the
meat on a dish, remove all fat from the gravy, to which add a little
stock; strain it if necessary, and pour it over the meat.
_Scottish._--Brochan.--Brochan is excellent as a supper dish or as
a hot nourishing drink in winter when coughs and colds are on the
outlook for victims. This is the way it is made: A sufficiency of
water is put in a pan on the fire and allowed to boil; for every
pint water in the pan, 1 small dessertspoonful of meal is put into
a basin and mixed with ½ breakfastcupful sweet cream, according
to the quantity of meal; this, with salt to taste, is poured into
the boiling water, and the whole allowed to boil for about 1 hour.
It is served in cups or small basins; into each of these is put 1
tablespoonful golden syrup, or thin slices of cheese, and the boiling
gruel is poured into each. The oatmeal used is that known in Scotland
as medium ground.
Skink Soup.--A much-liked and often made soup, made from the shin of
beef. A well-broken shin of beef is put into 1½ gal. boiling water
and boiled for 2 hours; it is then taken out, and the meat cut from
the bone in small neat pieces, the liquor being skimmed at the same
time. The bone is returned to the liquor and boiled 4 hours longer.
This part of the process is generally done the day before the soup is
wanted. The vegetables are then added in about the same proportion
as for mutton broth. Add the pieces of beef at the same time, with
pepper and salt to taste, and boil till the vegetables are tender.
Sowens.--The sids of oats are made into a dish called sowens, which
is delicious, and, being light and wholesome, is often recommended by
doctors for invalids. The sids are the inner husks of the oat grain;
they retain a fine floury substance, which is what sowens are made
of. To make sowens, the sids are first put into a narrow-mouthed
wooden tub, like a small barrel with an open end, called a “sowen
bowy,” and cold water mixed with them. The sids rise in dry bubbles
to the top of the water, and must be stirred with the spurtle till
all are wet; they are then covered with cold water to the depth of
6-8 in., and allowed to set for a week in summer, and a few days
longer in winter, to sour. When sour, a tin sieve, called the sowen
sieve, is placed over a wide-mouthed jar or tub, and the tubful of
sour sids poured through the sieve; the sids remain on the sieve, and
a drab liquid runs into the tub below. The sids which remain on the
sieve have some cold water poured over them to wash out any sediment,
are squeezed between the hands for the same purpose, and then thrown
away. The water in the wide tub is allowed to set for 2 days after
the foregoing operation, and is then fit for use; a thick sediment
will be at the bottom, and clear water at the top. When wanted for
use, the water is poured off, and sufficient of the sediment put into
a pan and boiled with a little water for ½ hour; it is then served in
soup plates and eaten with new milk.
_Spanish._--Ajo blanco.--This soup is extensively eaten in Andalusia.
Pound 1 clove of garlic and 7 well-dried beans, or better still,
almonds, in a small spice mortar to a smooth paste. Moisten this
paste with olive oil, drop by drop, then water by degrees, so as
to thoroughly incorporate and amalgamate the whole. Add until it
is sufficiently wet to soak some bread, which must be added later
on, pouring in some vinegar and a little salt. Then put in the
breadcrumbs, size of half an almond, and allow it to soak. A final
mixing of the bowl, and this quaint and perfectly national dish
awaits consumption.
Bacalao.--_Bacalao_, or salted cod, in this land of rigid
Catholicism, is almost indispensable as food on the many last days
in the calendar. (_a_) Cut up the cod after it has been soaked for
24 hours, and lay the pieces so as to cover the bottom of a pipkin;
pour on this a thick stratum of grated bread, garlic and parsley
in profusion, then more codfish, then bread again, and so on till
the pipkin is full to the top. Fill all the crevices with raw oil,
garlic, pepper and salt; close the pipkin, and boil till the contents
are nearly dry, when serve. (_b_) Lay onions, cut in thick circles,
at the bottom of a pipkin, with tomatoes, a grain of garlic, and
cinnamon; on these place a layer of codfish sliced, and so on in
alternate layers. Pour in plenty of oil, cloves, peppers, whole and
ground, and then set on the fire to boil, without adding any stock,
till the juice of the tomatoes and onions is nearly absorbed. (_c_)
Codfish with honey or sugar may be eaten by boiling the pieces,
draining them dry, soaking in honey, flouring, and then frying; or
the pieces may be covered with yolk of egg, floured, and powdered
over with sugar. (_d_) Codfish _a la vizcaino_ (in the Biscayan
method) may be nice. After soaking and cutting in bits, put it on
to boil; meanwhile toast a few tomatoes before the fire, skin them,
and mash them well up with a wooden spoon; chop up plenty of onions
very small, and put them to boil in oil. Just before they turn colour
add the tomatoes. Now place the cod in a pipkin, throw in the onions
and tomatoes with the oil in which they were cooked, and set on a
slow fire to simmer gently till quite done. (_e_) Codfish _con ajo
de arriero_ (with muleteer’s garlic) is prepared by boiling the fish
first, then adding a sauce at the time of serving, made by frying
garlic in oil, and adding peppers, green and red, with vinegar in
equal quantity with the oil.
Chorizos.--The ordinary _chorizos_, or plain sausages, are prepared
thus: the lean of pork chopped very small is steeped in a small
tub with salt, pepper, white and red, to give it a colour, wild
marjoram, which has been well pounded and passed through a sieve,
and garlic bruised. It is here beaten up well, so that the meat and
condiments may become well incorporated, and it is so kept for 3-4
days, taking care to turn it over once or twice a day, and to work
it with the hands. After that time fry a little to taste and try,
adding such seasoning or other ingredients as may appear necessary;
when ready fill the skins, having prepared them the day previous with
an infusion of wild marjoram, a little salt, and water sufficient to
cover them. Longaniza, which are larger, longer, and very tender, are
made in the same way, but without hot pepper, and with the addition
of a little aniseed boiled in white wine. The coarse longanizas is
made by chopping up the liver, tongue, heart, kidney, and intestines.
Some sausages are scented by drenching the mincemeat in white
wine flavoured with powdered cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg; and
occasionally this sauce is further thickened with eggs beaten up with
or without sugar, the meat being minced small, so as to form a thick
paste, adding sometimes honey or cream.
Cocido.--First and foremost on the list of soups comes the cocido,
or far-famed olla podrida, so supremely dear to the national heart.
Every province has some particular method for the concoction of
cocido, to which mode it faithfully adheres. The following method is
that of the Spanish capital, Madrid, that being the most general.
Throw 1½ lb. either mutton or veal into a vessel, with water (the
Spaniards use a pipkin, called in the vernacular a “marmite”), 1½
lb. garbanzos, or chickpeas, one good slice of lean raw ham, and
any _debris_ (no matter how small) of game or poultry. Cook gently
with the lid on, skim, and add a little bacon cut small, and as
much salt as necessary; cook for another ½ hour, then pour off the
broth slowly, to be used afterwards for the soup and sauce; add
as much vegetable as you please, thoroughly well washed, and cook
over a clear fire until done. About 5 minutes before the olla is
ready, throw in a piece of chorizo (black pudding). Serve the meat
separately on one dish, the vegetables on another, and in a third the
sauce for the whole.