Choice cookery is not intended for households that have to study economy, except where economy is a relative term; where, perhaps, the housekeeper could easily spend a dollar for the materials of a luxury, but could not spare the four or five dollars a caterer would charge.
Many families enjoy giving little dinners, or otherwise exercising hospitality, but are debarred from doing so by the fact that anything beyond the ordinary daily fare has to be ordered in, or an expensive extra cook engaged. And although we may regret that hospitality should ever be dependent on fine cooking, we have to take things as they are. It is not every hostess who loves simplicity that dares to practise it.
It was to help the women who wish to know at a glance what is newest and best in modern cookery that these chapters were written for Harper’s Bazar, and are now gathered into a book. It is hoped by the writer that the copious details and simplification of different matters will enable those who have already achieved success in the plainer branches of cookery to venture further, and realize for themselves that it is only the “first step that costs.”
I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mrs. Clarke, of the South Kensington School of Cookery, to Madame de Salis, and those epicurean friends who have cast their nets in foreign waters, and sent me the daintiest fish they caught.
By : Catherine Owen ( - 1889)
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By choice cookery is meant exactly what the words imply. There will be no attempt to teach family or inexpensive cooking, those branches of domestic economy having been so excellently treated by capable hands already. It may be said en passant, however, that even choice cooking is not necessarily expensive. Many dishes cost little for the materials, but owe their daintiness and expensiveness to the care bestowed in cooking or to a fine sauce. For instance: cod, one of the cheapest of fish, and considered coarse food as usually served, becomes an epicurean dish when served with a fine Hollandaise or oyster sauce, and it will not even then be more expensive than any average-priced boiling fish. Flounder served as sole Normande conjures up memories of the famous Philippe, whose fortune it made, or it may be of luxurious little dinners at other famous restaurants, and is suggestive, in fact, of anything but economy. Yet it is really an inexpensive dish.
But while it is quite true that fine cooking does not always mean expensive cooking, it is also true that it requires the best materials and sufficient of them; that if satisfactory results are to be obtained there must be no attempt to stint or change proportions from a false idea of economy, although it must never be forgotten that all good cooking is economical, by which I mean that there is no waste, every cent’s worth of material being made to do its full duty.
In this book the object will be to give the newest and most recherché dishes, and these will naturally be expensive. Yet for those families who depend upon the caterer for everything in the way of fine soups, entrées, or sauces, because the cook can achieve only the plain part of the dinner, it will be found a great economy as well as convenience to be independent of this outside resource, which is always very costly, and invariably destroys the individuality of a repast. Many new recipes will be given, and others little known in private kitchens, or thought to be quite beyond the attainment of any but an accomplished chef. But if strict attention be paid to small matters, and the directions faithfully carried out, there will be no difficulty in a lady becoming her own chef.
I propose to begin with sauces. This is reversing the usual mode, and yet I think the reader will not regret the innovation. The cooking to be taught in these pages, being emphatically what is popularly known as “Delmonico cooking,” very much depends on the excellence of the sauces served with each dish; and as it is no time to learn to make a fine sauce when the dish it is served with is being cooked, I think the better plan is to give the sauces first. They will be frequently referred to, but no repetition of the recipes will be given.
Before proceeding further I will say a few words that may save time and patience hereafter. Of course it is not expected that any one will hope to succeed with elaborate dishes without understanding the principles of simple cooking, but many do this without perceiving that in that knowledge they hold the key to very much more, and I would ask readers who are in earnest about the matter to acquire the habit of putting two and two together in cooking as they would in fancy-work. If you know half a dozen embroidery or lace stitches, you see at once that you can produce the elaborate combinations in which those stitches are used. So it is with cooking. The most elaborate dish will only be a combination of two or three simpler processes of cooking, perfectly done—that is a sine qua non—something fried, roasted, boiled, or braised to perfection, and a sauce that no chef could improve upon; but to recognize that this is so—that when you can make a Châteaubriand sauce or a Béarnaise perfectly, and can sauté a steak, the famed filets à la Châteaubriand or à la Béarnaise are no longer a mystery, or that one who can make clear meat jelly and roast a chicken has learned all but the arrangement of a chaudfroid in aspic—will make apparently complicated dishes simple.
I go into these matters because I hope to cause my readers to think about the recipes they will use, when they will see for themselves that even the finest cooking is not intricate nor in any way difficult. It requires intelligence and great care about details: no half-attention will do, any more than it will in any other thing we attempt, whether it be high art or domestic art.
In making sauces or reading recipes for them it simplifies matters to remember that in savory sauces—by which I mean those served with meats or fish—there are what the French call the two “mother sauces,” white sauce and brown; all others, with few exceptions, are modifications of these two; that is to say, béchamel is only white sauce made with white stock and cream instead of milk; Allemande is the same, only yolks of eggs replace the cream; and so on through the long list of sauces belonging to the blond variety. The simple brown sauce becomes the famous Châteaubriand by the addition of glaze (or very strong gravy) and a glass of white wine, and is the “mother” of many others equally fine. This being so, it will be seen that it is of the first importance that the making of these two “mother sauces” should be thoroughly understood, in order for the finer ones based on them to be successfully accomplished.
It will clear the way for easy work if I here give the directions for making one of the most necessary and convenient aids to fine cooking—the above-named glaze. To have it in the house saves much worry and work. If the soup is not just so strong as we wish, the addition of a small piece of glaze will make it excellent; or we wish to make brown sauce, and have no stock, the glaze comes to our aid. To have stock in the house at all times is by no means easy in a small family, especially in summer; with glaze, which is solidified stock, one is independent of it.
Six pounds of lean beef from the leg, or a knuckle of veal and beef to make six pounds. Cut this in pieces two inches square or less; do the same with half a pound of lean ham, free from rind or smoky outside, and which has been scalded five minutes. Put the meat into a two-gallon pot with three medium-sized onions with two cloves in each, a turnip, a carrot, and a small head of celery. Pour over them five quarts of cold water; let it come slowly to the boiling-point, when skim, and draw to a spot where it will gently simmer for six hours. This stock as it is will be an excellent foundation for all kinds of clear soups or gravies, with the addition of salt, which must on no account be added for glaze.
To reduce this stock to glaze, do as follows: Strain the stock first through a colander, and return meat and vegetables to the pot; put to them four quarts of hot water, and let it boil four hours longer. The importance of this second boiling, which may at first sight appear useless economy, will be seen if you let the two stocks get cold; the first will be of delightful flavor, but probably quite liquid; the last will be flavorless, but if the boiling process has been slow enough it will be a jelly, the second boiling having been necessary to extract the gelatine from the bones, which is indispensable for the formation of glaze.
Strain both these stocks through a scalded cloth. (If they have been allowed to get cool, heat them in order to strain.) Put both stocks together into one large pot, and let it boil as fast as possible with the cover off, leaving a large spoon in it to prevent it boiling over, also to stir occasionally; when it is reduced to three pints put it into a small saucepan, and let it boil more slowly. Stir frequently with a wooden spoon until it begins to thicken and has a fine yellowish-brown color, which will be when it is reduced to a quart or rather less. At this point watch closely, as it quickly burns. When there is only a pint and a half it will be fit to pour into small cups or jars, or it may be dried in thin sheets, if required for soup in travelling; to do this, pour it into oiled tin pans an inch deep. When cold it can be cut out in two-inch squares and dried by exposure to the air till it is like glue. One square makes a cup of strong soup if dissolved in boiling water and seasoned. If, however, it is put into pots, it must not be covered until all moisture has evaporated and the glaze shrinks from the sides of the jar. This may take a month.
The most convenient of all ways for preserving glaze is to get from your butcher a yard of sausage-skin. Tie one end very tightly, then pour in the glaze while warm by means of a large funnel. Tie the skin just as you would sausage as close to the glaze as possible, cut off any remaining skin, and hang the one containing the glaze up to dry. When needed, a slice is cut from this.
Of course any strong meat and bone-soup can be boiled down in the same way, and where there is meat on hand in danger of spoiling from sudden change of weather it can be turned into glaze, and kept indefinitely. I have found glaze five years old as good as the first week.
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