or speck. Cut it up into tiny dice, in fact the smaller the better;
some indeed insist on grating the cheese, but I have found this to be
an unnecessary labour. Put a tablespoon of butter into the dish and
knead it well with a wooden spoon until it begins to sizzle. Add half
a teaspoon of Paprika, rather less of salt, and a tablespoon of beer
(anything except bitter). Mix all thoroughly. Turn in the cheese and
stir it about until it gets as consistent as thick cream, adding two
to three more tablespoons of beer gradually, and taking great care
that it does not become lumpy or stringy. Now put in a teaspoonful
of made mustard. Keep on stirring until bubbles appear. It is then
ready. You should beforehand get some toasts ready and as soon as the
bubbling is well developed plunge in the toasts and cover them with
the cheese. Serve on very hot plates. Milk can be used instead of
beer, and condiments may be added in the shape of Worcester sauce or
Tabasco, but I do not recommend them. Everything depends on regular and
practically continuous stirring, always in one direction of course.
If you want to turn the Welsh Rabbit into a Buck Rabbit, drop a poached
egg upon each piece of toast on top of the cheese. Here you have the
whole art of Rabbiting, and it is a very good thing to eat--sometimes.
The right and only place for Savouries at a dinner-party is fixed
and determined by immutable custom, but at a Chafing-Dish meal,
be it luncheon or supper, more latitude is allowed, and a savoury
may pop up here and there at the most unexpected--and thereby most
delightful--moment. I see nothing heterodox in having a savoury instead
of _hors d’œuvres_, or introducing it after the fish or instead of
sweets. Few people, and those only of the baser sort, despise a simple
savoury. It is such a succulent trifle, a mere mouthful of suggestion,
an airy nothing that agrees with everything. There are of course
savouries and savouries. I can only give a very few recipes, but have
tried to make them as diverse and appetising as possible.
Ham Toast.
A quarter of a pound of lean ham, chopped fine. Do not mince it.
Mincing machines, however patent and “adjustable,” have a way of
reducing everything to an unholy pulp. Put the ham in the Chafing Dish
with a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, half a teaspoon of good curry
powder (I like Ventacachellum’s), a small tablespoon of butter, three
drops of Tabasco, and two tablespoons of milk. Mix all well, heat up
for five minutes and then spread on hot fingers of toast.
Cheese Matador.
Put a walnut of butter into the Chafing Dish, also a Spanish onion
sliced. Simmer for three minutes. Then cut a quarter of a pound of hard
dry cheese into dice, and drop into the mixture; add half a cup of milk
and stir well till it is all thoroughly amalgamated and the cheese
melted; add salt and Paprika and one beaten-up egg. Hot up for another
three minutes and serve with toast.
Savoury Biscuits.
Mix up the yolks of two eggs and two tablespoons of grated Parmesan
cheese. You can buy this ready grated, but it is not as good as if you
grate it yourself. Add half a teaspoon of mustard and some salt. Spread
the mixture on thinly buttered water biscuit (or thin Captains), put
the biscuits in the Chafing Dish, over boiling water, and let them get
slowly hot.
Braised Olives.
Stone neatly a dozen Spanish olives. Put them in the Chafing Dish with
enough strong bouillon to cover them. Add a wine-glass of claret and
the rind of half a lemon. Boil up quickly, strain, and serve the olives
on toast or heated biscuit.
Bombay Toast.
A tablespoon of butter in the Chafing Dish; as it melts stir in two
eggs, yolks and whites, half a teaspoon of Paprika, the same of anchovy
sauce, and half a dozen capers, chopped up. When very hot spread this
upon rounds of buttered toast.
Devilled Chestnuts.
Boil half a pound of chestnuts and remove the shells and skins. Break
them in handy little lumps. When cold and hard return them to the
Chafing Dish and fry them in a tablespoon of butter, half a teaspoon of
Paprika, and plenty of salt, until they are well cooked through. Drain
and dry them on blotting-paper, and put a drop of Tabasco on each lump.
Salted Almonds.
Melt one and a half tablespoons of butter. Drop into it a quarter of
a pound of blanched almonds, and hot up till the almonds are well
burned, brown but not black. Drain them on blotting-paper and sprinkle
them with plenty of salt and a little Paprika.
The Devil.
One can devil bones, biscuits, meat and fish in a Chafing Dish very
nearly as well as on the grill. Care must be taken always to score the
flesh across with deep incisions, so that the devil mixture penetrates
well into the meat. This is the best devil mixture for Chafing-Dish
purposes that I know. There may be better, but I have not come across
them. Mix well upon a plate a teaspoon of mustard, the same of
Worcester sauce and anchovy sauce, two teaspoons of olive oil and half
a teaspoon of Paprika. Let the meat soak up this mixture, and then
hot it up in a tablespoon of butter till it almost boils. A chicken
drumstick makes the best devil in the world, but biscuits dipped in the
mixture are not to be despised, and even slices of cold cooked meat,
beef or mutton, are very toothsome if treated in the same manner. Any
cold bird makes an excellent devil.
Macaroni.
Although it may not come quite strictly under the head of Eggs and
Savouries, this seems about the right place to expatiate upon Macaroni,
the national food of Italy and the delight of every cultivated nation.
Real macaroni is made of hard wheat of a semi-translucent kind, which
is richer in gluten and other nitrogenous matter than soft wheat.
Macaroni is nothing but flour and water mixed in a cylinder, which
concocts it into stiff paste. Then it is rolled under a huge granite
wheel which flattens it into a smooth mass. It is cut into squares, and
flattened by the wheel again and again until it is thoroughly kneaded.
The dough then goes into an upright metal cylinder closed at the lower
end with a thick disc of copper. This is pierced with openings through
which a plunge-piston squeezes the dough into threads. The threads are
cut off at regular intervals, and hung upon wooden drying-rods. Real
macaroni is tender, yellowish, rough in texture, and elastic. It breaks
with a clean, porcelainlike fracture. When it boils it swells to
twice its size, and does not become sticky, but keeps its tubular form
without collapse. It will keep any length of time in a dry cool place.
There are many agreeable variations on the macaroni theme, some of
which suggest music rather than cooking. Everybody knows Vermicelli,
but among the lesser known but equally admirable kinds are Tagliatelli,
Lasagnete, Fuselli, Bicorni, Candele, Cannelloni, Pennoni, Capelli di
Angelo, and many more. Each has its own little special peculiarity. All
are alike excellent.
Tagliatelli.
Perhaps the handiest for Chafing-Dish purposes is Tagliatelli. Boil two
pints of water in the Dish, put in half a pound of Tagliatelli, boil
eight minutes, then strain. Return to the Dish, add a tablespoon of
grated Parmesan cheese, and the same of butter. Toss round and round
until well mixed, and serve very hot. Tomatoes mix well with macaroni,
and so do mushrooms; but the real macaroni-lover will prefer it by
itself, accompanied always, of course, by plenty of cheese. Mustard
mixes well with it, but be very chary of the salt, for it is already
salted during the process of preparation. To make macaroni _au gratin_,
which seems (unaccountably enough) to be the only way in which it is
served in nine British households out of ten, the top of the cooked
macaroni must be well covered with grated Parmesan cheese, and then
carefully browned with a salamander.
Ravioli.
Another most useful Italian preparation is Ravioli, which is compounded
of a variety of good things. As Leporello says in Don Giovanni:
“Madamina, il catalogo è questo!” Eggs, Macaroni, Paste, Pork, Chicken,
Vegetables, and Cheese. It is a sort of White Knight portmanteau food,
and if quite fresh (it is best in summer) is rightly termed “A dinner
in one course”--if you cook it badly you may omit one letter in the
last word.
This is how to prepare Ravioli with the help of Chaffinda. To two
pints of boiling water in the Chafing Dish put a quarter of a pound of
Ravioli; boil for ten minutes, then strain. Return to the dish; add
half a teaspoon of butter, the same of grated Parmesan cheese, and hot
it up for three minutes. Additional zest may be given, though it is by
no means necessary, by cooking with the Ravioli a few fresh mushrooms,
tomatoes, or even anchovies or olives. The best Ravioli I have found in
London come from the Vegetable Meal Company of Soho.
With Macaroni or Ravioli I always suggest the drinking of Chianti,
or Lacrima Christi. The former can often be obtained of quite good
quality, not too rough or fiery. As to the latter, it is rare to find
it drinkable. As a rule it is impossible. But the combination of food
and wine is a good memory-reviver of a week at Genoa.
[Illustration: CHAPTER · VIII · · SAUCES ·]
“Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palates urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken, to shun sickness, when we purge;
Even so, being full of your ne’er cloying sweetness
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding.”
SHAKESPEARE (Sonnet cxviii.).
Madame de Staël said that she did not believe in ghosts--but that she
was afraid of them. After the same fashion, I do not altogether believe
in sauces, or perhaps I ought to say in any save the very simplest; but
I fully recognise their great value in the assimilation of food.
Many dishes, without their special sauces, would be like a well-known
song sung without an accompaniment. However beautifully delivered,
no one, be he never so musical, could honestly say that he enjoyed
Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” unaccompanied. The accompaniment is so much
a part of the artistic whole that to separate them would be sheer
vandalism. Something of the same intimate oneness exists in cookery.
Who would care to eat lamb divorced from mint sauce, or boiled mutton
without the necessary caper sauce, or goose minus apple sauce?
At the same time it is a culinary axiom that the less sauce used the
better. A dish--any dish--“covered in sauce” is an abomination. We have
the august authority of Pliny for moderation and simplicity. “Their
best and most wholesome feeding is upon one dish, and no more, and the
same plaine and simple: for surely this huddling of many meats one upon
another of divers tastes is pestiferous. But sundrie sauces are more
dangerous than that.” This is Holland’s translation.
Another point worthy of consideration is that sauce is to a great
extent a geographical expression. What may be most excellent in Madrid
is wholly out of place in Inverness; and what is nice at Nice is nasty
at Norwich.
Insufficient account, I venture to think, is taken of the influence of
climate upon national food, and it is often difficult if not impossible
to acclimatise foreign fare to British stomachs, not because of
anything inherent in the food, but simply as a matter of latitude. It
is an historical commonplace that in the bleak cold north of Europe
boar’s flesh was found more to man’s taste than that of the bull or
bear, because it is fatter, richer, and produces much more heat. For
this very reason in the South and East of Europe the flesh of swine is
an abomination. In the Scandinavian Edda we are told that a boar was
killed every night for the food of the warriors who feasted in high
Valhalla. The bones were all preserved, together with the hide and
head, and in the morning they were put together and re-endowed with
life. The name of this huge pig was Sœhrimner, the cauldron in which it
was boiled was called Eldhrimner, and the cook Andhrimner.
Both bear-ham and boar-ham are delicacies to this day in the North of
Europe.
Much depends, too, upon the cooking; bad cooking is waste, both of
money and comfort. Those whom God has joined in matrimony, ill-cooked
joints and worse-cooked potatoes have often put asunder. In sauces,
above all things, careful cooking, implicit keeping to the exact
formulæ of recipes, and a restraint of all imagination, are immensely
necessary. Not even the greatest artist can afford to juggle with
sauces. They are fixed, immutable, and unalterable. A very favourite
expression in French culinary manuals is the injunction to the cook:
_Travaillez bien votre sauce_. The amateur sauce-maker would do well
to bear this in mind. The sauce must be well worked, amalgamated,
combined; otherwise it is a mere mess, lacking cohesion and perfection.
It is alleged of the incomparable Soyer that he said that sauces are to
cookery what grammar is to language. Whether he really said so or not
matters little. Some of the Soyer sauces are classics to this day, and
not to be lightly imitated--especially on the Chafing Dish.
Let it be borne in mind that each and every sauce should have a
character of its own. Many otherwise quite virtuous cooks live and
die in the belief that they cannot make a sauce sufficiently savoury
without putting into it everything that happens to be available,
thinking, ignorantly enough, that every addition is bound to be an
improvement.
There are only two real foundation sauces--_mères sauces_, or _grandes
sauces_, as the French call them--the white and the brown sauce. All
other sauces are more or less based on these two.
The great Carême resigned the position of Master of the Mouth to George
IV. after only a few weeks’ service, and at an honorarium of £1000
a year, because he could not bear the English climate. His culinary
swan-song took the form of a wondrous sauce, now alas! lost, which he
called _la dernière pensée de Carême_.
A quite excellent and easily prepared sauce, which the very poorest
households can make, and which will give zest to the simplest meal, is
that described in the Delamere Cookery Book. This is the recipe for
Pleasant Companionship sauce. A kind word will stir up the dormant
appetite, while a harsh one will extinguish it, and, what is worse,
will check the digestion of nutriment already taken. Such sauce may be
regarded as Moral Sauce.
Reasoning from these winged words, we may infer that the remark so
often heard from the mouths of little girl-children in the street:
“Now, I won’t ’ave none o’ your sauce!” must really mean that there is
a lack of Moral Sauce in the family circle.
In the recipes for the following sauces, I have purposely kept
the ingredients as simple as possible; they are all reliable and
appetising. As to which sauce appertains especially to which fish or
meat, I do not propose to enter. That is a matter of taste, experience,
and individuality, and I need hardly add that a white sauce does not go
well with brown meat, nor brown sauce with white meat. Such admonitions
are surely unnecessary to the advanced Chafist.
Butter Sauce.
Two tablespoons of butter, the same of flour; melt and mix together
in the Dish, bring to boiling-point and allow to boil up for half a
minute, then pour in a cupful of boiling water, to reduce the same to
the consistency of cream; boil up again, stirring all the time, add a
squeeze of lemon before serving.
White Sauce.
Mix well in the Chafing Dish two tablespoons of flour, one of butter,
a small grating of nutmeg, a little pepper and salt; add a tumbler of
milk; hot it up, stirring the while, and strain before using.
Brown Sauce.
Two tablespoons of butter. Heat and stir until it is brown and
sizzling, then add a tablespoon of Tarragon vinegar, the same of
Worcester sauce, half a tablespoon of chopped capers, a teaspoon of
anchovy sauce, and a wine-glass of bouillon. Boil up all this for three
minutes.
Piquant Sauce.
Mix up in the Dish a teaspoon of each of the following, chopped finely:
gherkins, capers, shallots (or mild onions); add half a teaspoon
of black pepper and a tablespoon of vinegar. Boil this for three
minutes, then add a wine-glass of bouillon and a tablespoon of “brown
thickening”--which is sold ready made by grocers--and a dash of anchovy
sauce. Boil up again and skim the surface before using.
Maître d’Hôtel Sauce.
Mix up well two tablespoons of butter with one of flour, a grating of
nutmeg, half a teaspoon of black pepper, the same of salt, rather more
of chopped parsley, and a good squeeze of lemon. Put all this in the
Chafing Dish with a tablespoon of milk. Stir it until it boils up, and
then serve very hot.
Ravigote or Rémoulade Sauce.
These are to all intents and purposes the same sauce, save that
Rémoulade has an added dose of oil and mustard. Mix a tablespoon of
flour with the same of butter, a grating of nutmeg, half a teaspoon
of pepper, the same of salt, the same of chopped parsley, and a good
squeeze of lemon. Put this in the Chafing Dish with a tablespoon of
bouillon, boil it up and skim it. Now mix up separately a tablespoon
each of Tarragon and Chili vinegar and Worcester sauce, with a teaspoon
of anchovy sauce. Boil up this mixture, and after two minutes’ boiling
add it to the former mixture and combine the two.
Reform Sauce.
A cupful of bouillon in the Dish, add a wine-glass of port (or claret,
but port is more orthodox), half as much Worcester sauce, a teaspoon of
anchovy sauce, and a full tablespoon of red currant jelly. Boil it all
up for three minutes, and skim before using.
Soubise Sauce.
Peel and slice four onions; put them in the Dish with a teaspoon of
butter, a little nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Cover up and stew very
slowly until the onions are almost dissolved. Then add two tablespoons
of flour, a cold cooked potato cut into dice, a cupful of bouillon, and
the same of milk. Stir and boil for three minutes. Then rub the sauce
through a sieve and hot up again before serving.
Bread Sauce.
A tablespoon of bread-crumbs in the Dish with an onion, pepper and
salt, a cup of milk, and half a tablespoon of butter. Hot up and stir
for four minutes. Take out the onion before using.
Mustard Sauce.
To the foregoing plain butter sauce add a teaspoon of made mustard,
a tablespoon of Chili vinegar, a squeeze of lemon, and a teaspoon of
anchovy sauce. Make and serve very hot.
Poor Man’s Sauce.
Chop up a fair-sized onion in the Chafing Dish with half a tablespoon
of butter. Fry to a light brown, then add a cup of bouillon, a teaspoon
of vinegar, pepper and salt, and a teaspoon of chopped parsley. Stir
vigorously and add gradually half a tablespoon of flour, and another
half-tablespoon of butter. Boil up the sauce for two minutes.
Madeleine Sauce.
Put in the Dish a teaspoon of bread-crumbs, two shredded shallots,
a walnut of butter, a teaspoon of vinegar and two tablespoons of
bouillon. Boil this for three minutes with pepper and salt. The sauce
should not be too thick.
Black Butter Sauce.
A walnut of butter in the dish; heat it till it is thoroughly brown,
then add a tablespoon of vinegar, pepper and salt, and hot it up again.
Italian Sauce.
Put in the dish the peel of a quarter of a lemon, three sprigs of
parsley, one of thyme, four button mushrooms, cut up small, a walnut of
butter, and a suspicion of garlic. Hot up, and when all is well mixed
pour in half a cup of bouillon; let it get thick, but not boil. Then
take out the garlic, and add half a walnut of butter.
Onion Sauce.
Cut up two good-sized onions into slices. Simmer them gently with a
tablespoon of butter and two slices of ham, one fat slice and one
lean slice, a teaspoon of flour, salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar, a
wine-glass of bouillon, and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Hot up for
three minutes.
Gubbins’ Sauce.
This is the best sauce I know, and I have tried many, for grills or
anything in that way. I copy it verbatim (and without permission) from
that most excellent food-book entitled “Cakes and Ale,” by Mr. Edward
Spencer. Gubbins’ Sauce is peculiarly adaptable to the Chafing Dish,
and is made in this wise: Fill the lower hot-water dish with boiling
water. Keep it so. Melt in the Chafing Dish proper a lump of butter the
size of a large walnut. Stir into it, when melted, two teaspoonsful of
made mustard, then a dessert-spoonful of vinegar, half that quantity
of Tarragon vinegar, and a tablespoonful of cream--Devonshire or
English. Season with salt, black pepper and cayenne, according to the
(presumed) tastes and requirements of the breakfasters. So far the
recipe. I should add that although the ingenious inventor puts Gubbins’
Sauce with a grill among his breakfast allurements, it is by no means
necessary to confine it to that meal. I have found it excellent at
midnight--and later--with devilled kidneys, and it is not to be
despised at any time of the day when you feel that way inclined.
“The Gastronomic Regenerator: a Simplified and entirely New System
of Cookery,” by Monsieur A. Soyer of the Reform Club, London, 1846.
Such is the mouth-filling title of one of the most interesting and
curious works of the last century. The two-page dialogue with Lord
M(arcus) H(ill), and the extraordinary recipe for “The Celestial and
Terrestrial Cream of Great Britain,” are in themselves inimitable in
their quaint pomposity. _Maga_ for August 1846 reviews the work kindly
and good-humouredly, and says that the “Gastronomic Regenerator”
reminds them of no book so much as the “Despatches of Arthur Duke
of Wellington.” It may be a matter of dispute, adds _Maga_, whether
Wellington or Soyer acquired his knowledge in the face of the hotter
fire. Although Soyer was comic in his pompous affectation it must not
be forgotten that he did splendid work in the Crimea in feeding the
sick and wounded. Also his sauces are master works. And for these two
things much may be forgiven him.
The foregoing sauces are best described as the regulars. There are
plenty of others, mostly of a rather elaborate description, which those
more experienced than myself must describe. I will content myself
with adding quite a few irregular or freak sauces, if I may use the
expression.
Fisherman’s Sauce.
This is a rather rich mixture, adapted for fresh-water fish. After a
decent day’s sport with the tricksome Mayfly, the quarter of an hour
just before dinner may profitably be employed in concocting it. Half a
pint of cream, or milk, but cream is better, two tablespoons of walnut
ketchup, home made for choice, and one tablespoon of anchovy sauce.
Boil these up for five minutes, and just before serving add a small
walnut of butter, a teaspoon of flour, a squeeze of lemon, and a pinch
of cayenne. Stir up all together, and serve very hot. It is the best
fresh-water fish-sauce going.
Bigarade Sauce.
This is essentially the wild-duck sauce, and is a welcome and agreeable
variant on the stereotyped port-wine sauce. Pare the rind of two
oranges, shred the rind thinly, and boil up for five minutes in as
little water as possible. Set the rind aside. Melt a walnut of butter
in the Dish, mix it with half a tablespoon of flour, and stir it till
it begins to burn; add a cupful of bouillon, pepper and salt, the
squeezed juice of both oranges, and a teaspoon of soft white sugar.
Now put in the shredded rinds, boil up for two minutes, and serve with
the duck. If you have not time to make this sauce, mix a glass of port
wine, a dash of cayenne, and a squeeze of lemon. Slice the breast
of the duck and pour this mixture over it. A very useful adjunct to
wild duck is a simple orange salad. Divide two or three oranges into
sections, dress them with oil, vinegar, pepper and salt, and eat it as
you would any ordinary salad.
Périgueux Sauce.
This is simply Truffle Sauce, and appeals mainly to the vulgar-minded.
It is made thus: Chop up two truffles very finely. Put them in the
Chafing Dish with a glass of sherry and a walnut of butter, and boil
for five minutes; add pepper and salt and a squeeze of lemon. I am of
opinion that truffles (which the ancients thought were the product of
thunder) should only be eaten in one way, and that is _en serviette_,
cooked in hot wood ashes and eaten with praise and thanksgiving.
The flavour of truffles I take to be one of the most perfect in the
whole category of food-stuffs. Their indiscriminate use in shreds,
choppings, patterns, and for ornament, I consider to be a capital sin.
The _charcutier_ is mostly to blame for this; any old thing dressed up
_aux truffes_ he considers a delicacy. One day a band of knowledgeable
eaters will slay all _charcutiers_.
Truffles suggest pigs; pigs suggest, to me, Berkshire; and Berkshire
a certain witty lady who, speaking of a local magnate, a self-made
man, and a very wealthy one too, but who retained his awfully uncouth
manners, described him as a wild boar whom civilisation had turned into
a pig. I fear me there are many such.