Waldorf Sardines. Pour boiling water over a dozen sardines, wiping off
the skin with a clean fish-cloth and removing the tails. Put them in
the Chafing Dish with one tablespoon of olive oil and heat thoroughly
for eight minutes. Put them aside on a dish and keep them hot. Now put
another tablespoon of olive oil into the pan, and when sizzling add
a cupful of water. Stir until it gets thick, then add a teaspoon of
Worcester sauce, half a teaspoon of Paprika, and a pinch of salt. Take
the dish off the flame. Add the beaten yolk of an egg, one teaspoon of
vinegar and the same of French mustard. Stir the sauce. Heat up the
sardines again, and pour the sauce over them. As a supper dish, say
after a Royal Institution lecture, or something equally improving, this
gives one what the late George du Maurier called “a sense of genial
warmth about the midriff.”
Creamed Smelts.
A rather more subtle but curiously refined concoction is Creamed Smelts.
Clean and dry a dozen smelts in a cloth. Dip them one by one in thick
cream, or, wanting that, in milk thickened with flour; then dredge
them with flour so as to make a paste coating all over them. Put two
tablespoons of butter in the Chafing Dish, and when sizzling put in
the fish with a squeeze of lemon and a glass of sherry. They will be
ready in eight minutes. Sprinkle fried parsley over them before serving.
The delicate faint perfume of the smelt has been likened to that of
the cucumber, violets and verbena. It is quite unique among fish, and
has a charm that is all its own. This method of cooking preserves
this peculiarity. Some other methods do not. Avoid buying sand-smelts
(Atherines). They are very similar to the real thing, but lack the
characteristic perfume, and they are neither as delicate in flavour or
taste.
Kedgeree.
All Anglo-Indians, and many who have never been nearer India than
South Kensington, know the virtues of kedgeree, kadgiori, kitchri,
kegeree, kitcharee, kitchery, or even quitheri. It is spelt and made in
forty-seven different ways, every one of which is strictly authentic,
and, according to different authorities, the One and Only way. This is
Martin Harvey Kedgeree.
Boil two cupfuls of rice, and strain it well. Mix in it two chopped
cold hard-boiled eggs, any cold remains of cooked fish, flaked and
salted; add a tablespoon of butter, the same of milk, a teaspoon of
Paprika, and half a teaspoon of salt. Toss it all about in the Chafing
Dish thoroughly, and then hot it up for ten minutes. Squeeze a lemon
over it just before serving. Kedgeree is by no means solely a breakfast
dish. It comes in handily at all times, but never argue about kedgeree
with an Anglo-Indian. It is fatal to the kedgeree. It gets cold--and
then _vois que c’est triste pour vous_, as Mephistopheles sings when he
looks at Siebel’s hand.
Next to the Indian, the Chinese is one of the most inventive cooks in
the world. I had one once who had been, amongst other things, a pirate,
a prison-warder, an actor, and a judge. He had sudden inspirations,
and therein lay his weakness. He knew that English folk ate jelly with
mutton, so he tried strawberry jam with eggs and bacon, and following
the principle of apple sauce with goose, he gave me hot cherry brandy
with roast fowl. He was a bad cook, but a most fluent and ingenious
liar.
The best-flavoured eels are those that come from the Thames;, they are
much better than the Dutch. There are four kinds: the Snig, the Grig,
the Broadnosed, and the Sharp-nosed. The last are the best. Izaak
Walton says: “It is agreed that the eel is a most dainty dish”--and who
shall say him nay? The Greeks went further and called it “the Helen of
the dinner-table,” because every guest strove, like Paris, to keep it
for himself.
Souchet of Eels.
To make a water souchet of eels follow the directions for sprats, but
cut the eels into inch chunks, and boil for half as long again in each
case. Some folks think that eels are at their best in a souchet, which
has the tendency of bringing out the best flavour of the fish.
Jellied eels and stewed eels, both East End and racecourse prime
favourites, are somewhat too rich and coarse for any save the very
ravenous, but it is certain that there is a deal of rich, if perhaps
somewhat heavy, nourishment in the eel, and its meat is a great
delicacy in any form.
Nettled Eels.
Nettled Eels are much esteemed in Normandy. They may be prepared in the
same fashion as water souchet, with the addition of a handful of clean
washed young nettles, which should be cooked with the fish but taken
out before serving. They give a peculiar zest to the dish, which is
quite pleasant.
Matelote of Eels.
The classic form of the eel is as a Matelote, originally a marine
dish, and quite within Chaffinda’s compass. Have your eel cut into
inch-and-a-half lengths, about one pound in all; put a large walnut of
butter, or two tablespoons of oil in the Chafing Dish, also a dozen
small peeled onions; let them brown thoroughly and frizzle well; add
a tablespoon of flour, a teaspoon of Paprika, and half as much salt.
Heat up and stir well until it is all thoroughly amalgamated, then
put in six small mushrooms, flat or button (fresh of course), add a
good squeeze of lemon, and if the mixture is thicker than cream, pour
in a little water. Now put in a tumbler (half-pint) of good claret, a
couple of cloves, a bay leaf, and a teacup of bouillon. Let the mixture
simmer for eight minutes, after which put in the eel and a liqueur
glass of brandy, and cook for another ten minutes; then serve very hot.
An orthodox variation is to set light to the brandy before pouring it
in and if the boiling wine catches fire it gives a peculiar savour.
A well-made Matelote is a thing of joy, a combination of harmonies,
culminating in one grand Amen. Izaak Walton designates such a dish a
“Hogoo.”
Grandfather’s Bloaters.
Finally, here is a dish which is superlative in its simplicity. It is
not a Chafing-Dish recipe, but is yet not altogether out of place.
It is called Grandfather’s Bloaters. Put two fine bloaters into a
soup-plate, pour over them enough whisky just to cover them. Set light
to the whisky, and let it burn itself out. The bloaters will then be
done--and done exquisitely. The dish is attributed to Charles Sala, the
father of the late George Augustus Sala. It reads much more bibulous
than it really is. As a matter of fact, it is almost a temperance dish.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CHAPTER·V·
FLESH·AND·FOWL]
“Alas! how simple to these cates compared
Was that crude apple that diverted Eve?”
MILTON (“Paradise Regained”).
It has always been a puzzle to me why folks take flesh and fowl so
much more seriously than fish and vegetables. Your fair neighbour at
a dinner-party will prattle gaily through soup and fish, of polo or
pantomime, according to the season, but as soon as meat or bird makes
its appearance she, all unconsciously, dives into deeper topics, and
talks of palæontology or premature burial. Why? Of course, if this had
only happened to myself, I should know that I was a sepulchral bore,
but I find, on inquiry, that it is the experience of nine men out of
ten.
In W. H. Mallock’s “New Republic,” some quite nice people find before
them at dinner a menu of the conversation expected of them, as well as
of the food to be eaten. It was arranged something after the fashion
of the bill of fare of a great dinner where the wines are indicated
against each course. Thus instead of _Tortue Claire--Amontillado_,
something like this, _Crême d’Asperges--Our Foreign Policy_, was
printed on the card. Mr. Mallock relates that the scheme was not found
practicable, but the idea, in itself, seems alluring and full of
possibilities. Anyhow, it is obvious to the most casual diner-out that
there is a direct, if indefinable, link between cates and conversation,
and that the tide of talk ebbs and flows through the menu according to
a certain unascertained but more or less fixed law.
The great question of Sauce has broken up many Damon-Pythias
friendships, and brought havoc into sundry happy homes. No two
people think exactly alike on Sauces. There are so many schools. The
Flamboyant, the Renaissance, the Simplicists, the Natural Flavourites,
the Neo-Soho, and many others. The only way to gastronomic salvation is
to steer a careful course between extremes, and to take that which is
best and most expedient from each and every school.
A very refined and intelligent cannibal once had the politeness to ask
the future ornament of his stock-pot, “With what sauce would you like
to be eaten?” “But I don’t want to be eaten at all,” was the reply.
“That is entirely beside the question,” said the cannibal. This rather
suggests the famous Green Sauce which La Coste offered to Sir Thomas
Dundas, at the Duke of York’s table, with the whispered advice, “With
this sauce you would enjoy eating your grandfather.”
Do what we will, we cannot get away from Sauce. It is a necessary if
unobtrusive concomitant of the plainest meats. But it can be mitigated,
assuaged; and from a loathly disguise it can be transformed into a
dulcet accompaniment. “Les animaux se repaissent; l’homme mange:
l’homme d’esprit seul sait manger,” said Brillat-Savarin, who achieved
much of his literary success by gross flattery of the palates of his
friends. Charles de Monselet, the author of “La Cuisinière Poétique,”
and a very earnest advocate of simplicity, as against rioting in the
stewpans, wrote: “The man who pays no attention to the food he consumes
can only be likened to a pig in whose trough the trotters of his own
son, a pair of braces, and a box of dominoes are equally welcome.”
At the same time the affectation of simplicity is often grossly
overdone. When Lord Byron first met Tom Moore at Samuel Rogers’ rooms
in St. James’s Place, the noble lord affected a lack of appetite for
anything except potatoes and vinegar, biscuits and soda water; but he
made a very hearty meal at his club afterwards. Again, Percy Bysshe
Shelley, who was certainly not affected, but probably absent-minded,
when he felt hungry would dash into the first baker’s shop, buy a loaf,
and rush out again, breaking off pieces as he walked, and eating them
there and then, his scanty meal being eked out by common raisins, a
small stock of which he kept in his waistcoat pocket.
By way of contrast, it is related of George Frederick Handel, the
great composer, a man of voracious appetite and exaggerated capacity,
that he ordered dinner for three at a tavern, and, being hungry,
asked, “Is de tinner retty?” The waiter replied that he was waiting
for the company to come. “I am de gompany,” said Handel, “bring up de
tinner _prestissimo_.” This anecdote, probably unveracious, is often
attributed to Papa Haydn--which is ridiculous.
Joints and whole birds, save very small ones, are of course out of the
question with a Chafing Dish, but steaks, cutlets, disjointed birds,
and a thousand varieties of treating flesh and fowl, raw and cooked,
are well within its range.
Rump Steak.
Beef steak, or rump steak, is very palatable cooked in the following
manner. Give a one-pound steak a thorough beating. Mallets are made
for this express purpose, but if such an implement be not available,
I have used the head of a poker, wrapped in cloth, with great effect.
This drubbing makes the meat tender. Put the steak into the dish with
two tablespoons of butter and three slices of lemon. Cook it slowly
for twelve minutes. Then pour over it a cupful of bouillon and a
wine-glass of claret. Simmer it for ten minutes more with an added
teaspoon of Worcester sauce, salt and pepper. Before serving the steak,
which ought to be thoroughly tender, squeeze a lemon over it. Onions
are, I venture to think, a great improvement, and two of them, cut in
rings, may well be added, after the first twelve minutes’ cooking.
The Roast Beef of Old England which has done so much to maintain the
reputation of Great Britain on the Continent, is strangely mistreated
and man-handled in foreign parts. It is often served _saignant_ or
nearly raw, under the mistaken belief that we like it that way.
Moreover, in very old French cookery books, roast mutton and roast
lamb are gravely designated _Rosbif de Mouton_ and _Rosbif d’Agneau_
respectively. Was this sheer flattery, or ignorance, or both?
Devilled Beef.
Devilled Beef can be highly recommended in this fashion: Three thick
slices of cold cooked roast beef, lean. Butter them as though they
were slices of bread. Then dose them liberally with the following
mixture: One teaspoon made mustard, half a teaspoon black pepper, same
of salt, a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, and a tablespoon of vinegar.
Cook them in this in the Chafing Dish, until the meat begins to curl up
at the edges.
This, although very good, is mere journeyman work and not a “creation.”
Did not Aristotle say that a man who eats a dinner is a better judge
of it than the cook? That is judgment, however, not creation, and the
French cook-artists call their dishes “creations”--like the dressmakers.
A chop, I contend, should only be cooked on a gridiron--grilled, that
is to say, over an open fire. Any other treatment is an offence which,
in a more enlightened age, would be made indictable. St. Lawrence would
rise in his grave and object, were a chop put in a Chafing Dish--and
quite right too! St. Lawrence is of course the patron saint of the
grill, for is he not said to have been broiled alive on a gridiron?
According to the respectable authority of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, his
dying words were:
“This side enough is toasted, so turn me, tyrant, eat,
And see whether, raw or roasted, I make the better meat.”
Chipped Beef.
One of the best things produced in America, besides buyers of spurious
art works and donors of Free Libraries, is Chipped Beef. You can buy
it in tins and treat it thus. Put three tablespoons of butter in the
dish. When just melted add a tablespoon of flour; stir until smooth.
Then add the Chipped Beef, which must have been previously soaked in
cold water for ten minutes; let it simmer for eight minutes, then stir
in the beaten-up yolks of two eggs, and serve very hot. Every day
is Thanksgiving Day when one eats Chipped Beef, and it is a selfish
dish to cook, because one wants to eat it all oneself; and the worst
of eating is that it takes away one’s appetite--although there is a
proverb to the contrary.
But it is always comfortable to be content (or nearly so) on good plain
food, instead of on the misguided concoctions of addle-egged and-pated
foreigners, which leave one in the position of the unfortunate vultures
in the famous Oxford prize poem, who
“Satiated with one horrid meal,
No second rapture for another feel.”
Zrazy.
This is how to make Polish Zrazy in a Chafing Dish. Buy the whole
undercut (fillet) of a small sirloin. Cut it into inch slices. Brown
two sliced onions in the Dish in a large walnut of butter. Add the
meat, a teaspoon of Paprika, salt, and half a dozen cloves. Cover up,
and let it hot up to boiling. Do not uncover, as the great thing is to
let it steam in its own _fumet_. Shake the pan now and again, so that
it shall amalgamate well. After once boiling up, let it simmer for
fifteen minutes, add a good squeeze of lemon, a glass of claret, and
serve with the accompaniment of potato salad.
“This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest
men,” says Izaak Walton of a like concoction.
Frizzled Ham.
Do you think you would like Frizzled Ham? I do; and this is how I cook
it. Start with half a pound of rather fat ham in thin slices. Put half
a tablespoon of butter in the pan, and when very hot add the ham. As
soon as it begins to curl at the edges, dust the slices with dry flour,
which will soon turn brown. Turn the lamp down and keep simmering. Now
mix in a bowl half a tablespoon of vinegar and the same of dry mustard.
Pour it over the ham, add enough boiling water to cover the meat, put
in three drops of Tabasco, and let it all boil up for a minute.
Ham in Hades.
Another and somewhat similar way of preparing ham, which has been very
successful, particularly at supper-time, after, say, a lobster salad,
has been christened _Ham in Hades_.
Make a mixture of a teaspoon of made mustard, a tablespoon of Tarragon
vinegar, a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of Paprika, a teaspoon of
Worcester sauce. Spread this mixture on both sides of half a dozen
slices of ham. Put two tablespoons of olive oil in the Chafer. When
this begins to smoke, put in the ham and brown it quickly on both sides.
Gallimaufrey.
Gallimaufrey is a very old dish, meaning really _All Sorts_.
Shakespeare calls it Gaily-Mawfrey. A very excellent Modern
Gallimaufrey is prepared thus: Three thickish slices of ham with two
walnuts of butter in the Dish. Let it cook slowly. Add six peeled and
washed Jerusalem artichokes, three sliced carrots, one sliced onion.
Let it go on simmering. Now put in a couple of dozen haricot beans,
a sprig of parsley, three cloves, a wineglass of sherry, a blade of
mace, salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of sugar. Simmer it for twenty
minutes, bringing it at last just to the boil. It is then an agreeable
stew, which is probably as totally unlike the real old-fashioned
Gallimaufrey as anything possibly could be. But that really does not
matter.
Gallimaufrey dates back to the time of Master Robert May, who published
a memorable cook-book in 1660, which is not without its humours. A real
old English banquet, it seems, would not be complete without two pies,
the one filled with live frogs, and the other with birds. These are for
the particular delectation of the ladies. “They will desire to see what
is in the pies; where lifting first the lid off one pie, out skips some
frogs, which makes the ladies to skip and shreek; next after the other
pie, whence come out the birds, who, by a natural instinct, flying at
the light, will put out the candles. So that what with frogs beneath,
and birds above, it will cause much delight and pleasure to the whole
company.”
They were right merry folk then!
Bubble and Squeak.
Not to know Bubble and Squeak is to admit one’s ignorance of one of
the good things of this earth. Chaffinda can tackle it, and in this
wise. It is an old Cornish version. There may be others, but there can
be none better. The dish needs cabbage, and it is most practical to
get a young fresh cabbage, boiled, pressed, and chopped into shreds
before you begin the actual cooking. It saves time and trouble. Put
a tablespoon of butter in the Chafing Dish, also one chopped onion,
and the cabbage. Let it frizzle and absorb the butter. Just before
boiling, add gradually a cupful of milk, pepper and salt. As soon as
it boils up, take it off and put it aside in a hot dish. Now hot up
three underdone slices of cooked cold roast beef in two tablespoons
of butter, turning them frequently, so that they shall be well cooked
on both sides; add a tablespoon of Worcester sauce and the same of
vinegar. Now make a mound of the cooked cabbage, and put the slices of
well-done meat around it, upright. You will regret that you did not
cook double the quantity.
There are so many kinds of sausages that it is difficult to pitch
upon the best for Chafing purposes. Slices of the Brunswick species
are excellent in pea-soup. The genuine liver sausage makes good
sandwiches. The more elaborate French kinds are akin to galantine. The
Italian Bologna and Mortadella have their friends. But, after all, the
well-made Cambridge sausage is hard to beat. I plump for the Cambridge
variety.
Hodge’s Sausages.
This is a Cambridge recipe for Hodge’s Sausages. Put as many as you
think you can eat in the dish with a walnut of butter for every two,
pepper and salt, and a tablespoon of Worcester sauce. Then add one
sliced apple for each sausage. Take out the cores, but do not peel
them. Stab the sausages with a fork to prevent their bursting. Cook for
twelve minutes. American apples are good for this dish, and also the
homegrown Keswick Codlin, Blenheim Orange, or Hambledon Deux Ans.
There is something peculiarly bucolic about Hodge’s Sausages which may
commend itself to the rurally minded. To me, it brings the scent of the
hay over the spirit-lamp.
Goulasch.
Another appetising stew is Goulasch. Beat well a half-pound (or larger)
steak; cut it into pieces the size of a domino. Put them in the Chafing
Dish with two cold cooked potatoes chopped into dice. Pour over the
meat and the vegetables two tablespoons of olive oil, and as soon as
it simmers add an onion in slices, half a teaspoon of Paprika, salt,
and a cupful of bouillon. Cover it up, and let it cook for ten minutes,
stirring occasionally. Just before serving drop in half a dozen stoned
olives.
So much for beef. The next meat is of course mutton, for which three
recipes should suffice. The first is Mutton Steaks, and is adapted
from a Welsh recipe. I have a very interesting Welsh cookery book,
tersely entitled: “Llyfr Cogino a Chadw ty: yn cynwys Pa fodd? A Paham?
Cogyddiaeth.” I am sorry that ignorance prevents my giving anything out
of it, but I think that I have got the title nearly right.
Mutton Steaks.
To make Mutton Steaks, cut three slices, each an inch thick, from the
middle of a cold cooked leg of mutton. Put them in the Dish with enough
water to cover them, pepper and salt, and five small onions. Cover it
up and let the meat brown thoroughly on one side, then turn it over and
add a walnut of butter and a tablespoon of flour. Do not allow it to
boil, but keep it simmering gently for at least fifteen minutes. If raw
meat be used, the result is also quite satisfactory, but it is well in
that case to replace the water by a cup of bouillon.
Turkish Mutton.
Turkish Mutton, locally termed _Etena Jarvat_: this is one of those
dishes which may fairly be included in Brillat-Savarin’s _magistères
restoratifs_. It is easy enough to chafe.
Cut half a pound of uncooked mutton (from the leg from choice, but not
absolutely necessary) into medium dice. Put the meat into the Chafing
Dish with salt, pepper and dripping, fat, oil, or butter, according
to taste, but oil is preferable. When the meat turns brown, add half
a pound of previously cooked and sliced French beans, also half a
pint of water or bouillon (latter for choice) and a bunch of simples,
either thyme or marjoram, or both. Simmer steadily for twenty minutes,
stirring occasionally. Carrots can be used instead of beans. Just
before serving turn up the flame full, and let it come just to the boil.
Mutton Venison.
Mutton Venison is a compromise, and may be recommended as such. We
live in an age of compromise, so why not bring it into our cookery?
Make an extra strong decoction of bouillon from any good meat-juice,
three tablespoons in quantity, mince into it an onion, and put in the
pan with a tablespoonful of Worcester sauce, three drops of Tabasco,
a glass of claret, a dessert-spoon of red-currant jelly (or guava or
blackberry jelly), pepper and salt. When very hot put in about a pound
of slices of cold cooked leg of mutton, lean, cut into strips. Let it
simmer for twenty minutes. It is not a bit like venison, but distinctly
good nevertheless.
Plump and Wallop.
“Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me? Wha’ll hire me?
Three plumps and a wallop for ae bawbee.”
This advertisement, it is alleged, was addressed to the good people
of Kirkmahoe, who were so poor that they could not afford to put any
meat into their broth. A cobbler invested all his money in buying four
sheep shanks, and when a neighbour wanted to make mutton broth, for the
payment of one halfpenny the cobbler would “plump” one of the sheep
shanks into the boiling water and give it a “wallop,” or whisk round.
He then wrapped it in a cabbage leaf and took it home. This was called
a “gustin bone,” and was supposed to give a rich “gust” to the broth.
Potatoes and Point.
A Boer recipe of much the same description was known in early Transvaal
days (long before the War) as “Potatoes and Point.” The poor “Bijwoner”
family was served all round with potatoes, and a red herring was hung
up in the middle of the room. The elders were allowed to rub their
potatoes on the herring, but the youngsters might only point theirs
towards the delicacy at the end of a fork. The mere proximity of the
highly-flavoured herring was supposed to give the potato a flavour.