Part 89

Puff Paste as used by the Nuns.--Take 1½ lb. flour, reserve a small quantity wherewith to dredge the pastry, break into it the yolks of 2 eggs and 1 white, add ½ glass of tepid water, and 1 spoonful butter. Knead the paste well, and roll it lightly out several times. Divide it into 2 or 3 parts; roll each piece out quite thin. Butter a tart mould, and put in the paste in layers, with butter between the layers. Cut off the edges all round the mould, and then with a sharp knife mark a round the size of the cover you wish to take off, leaving the bottom intact. Bake, and then remove the cover. Fill the tart with whatever you like, put on the cover again, and serve hot or cold.

Purses.--Take 1 lb. finest flour and 2 oz. butter, knead both together lightly with as many eggs as will form a smooth, stiff paste. Spread it out to the thickness of a penny piece, cut it out in round pieces 4 in. in diameter, place in the middle 1 teaspoonful any kind of well-flavoured mince, ready cooked; gather up each piece of paste, and tie it up with a thin strip of paste. The trimming can be rolled out again and again till all the paste is used, and any manner of device can be made with the paste. To cook these things have a deep frying pan, full of very hot lard, and plunge them in for more or less time, according to the size and shape of the device.

Ricotta.--Strain 1 gal. fresh whey into a flat copper pan, put it on a gentle fire, and as soon as a kind of froth begins to rise on it, add 1 qt. milk, and stir the mixture lightly with a stick until a thick froth rises all over the surface; gather this froth with a spoon, and put it to drain in a deep grass basket, or in a very fine tin colander, and the ricotta is made. It must be carefully avoided to let the milk and whey come to the boil at any time during the process.

Risotto.-¼ lb. rice, and boil it with sufficient salt in a little more water than will cover it, until the rice begins to swell; it must not get too soft. Then add a pinch of saffron, just to colour it, or, if possible, 1 tablespoonful tomato sauce; also about 1 oz. butter, and as much grated Parmesan; stir for a few moments and serve. This is for 4 people.

Zuchillo (Tomato sauce to dress maccaroni with).--Take about 1 lb. trimmings of beef, as much fat bacon, all cut into dice, an onion cut into dice, then thrown into cold water and squeezed dry in a cloth: add or not a clove of garlic, then put the whole into a saucepan, and let it remain on the fire, shaking it occasionally, till the onion is almost melted away; then add parsley, marjoram, thyme, pepper, and salt. Take a piece of “conserva” (tomato pulp dried in the sun to the consistency of damson cheese), cut it in pieces the size of a pea, put in the pieces a few at a time, always stirring the contents of the saucepan. The “conserva” must be fresh and soft; if it is old and tough, it must first be softened by kneading it with a little water. When sufficient “conserva” has been put in, moisten with water a spoonful at a time. Let the whole simmer some 10 minutes longer; then strain, remove superfluous fat, and the sauce is ready. To make “zuchillo” with fresh tomatoes, cut them in pieces, remove pips, water, and stalks, and then put in the pieces instead of “conserva,” a few at a time. In this case it is not necessary to moisten with water, but rather to let the sauce reduce, and to be careful not to put in fresh tomatoes until the first lot is somewhat reduced. Another way is to use either fresh or bottled tomato sauce, and put it in a spoonful at a time. The tomato sauce must be in the French form, with no vinegar in it.

_Jewish._--Bola D’Amor.--Clarify 2 lb. white sugar; drop a spoonful into cold water to ascertain if it is of a proper consistency; form it into a ball, and try if it sounds when struck against a glass. When it is thus tested, take the yolks of 20 eggs, mix them up gently, and pass them through a sieve; then have ready a funnel, the hole of which must be about the size of vermicelli; hold the funnel over the sugar while it is boiling over a charcoal fire; pour the eggs through, stirring the sugar all the time, and taking care to hold the funnel at such a distance from the sugar as to admit of the egg dropping into it. When the egg has been a few minutes in the sugar, it will be hard enough to take out with a silver fork, and must then be placed on a drainer; continue adding egg to the boiling sugar till enough is obtained; place in a dish a layer of this paste, over which spread a layer of citron cut in thin slices, and then a thick layer of the eggs prepared as above. Continue working thus in alternate layers till high enough to look handsome. It should be piled in the shape of a cone, and the egg should form the last layer. It must then be placed in a gentle oven till it becomes a little set, and the last layer slightly crisp; a few minutes will effect this. It must be served in the dish in which it is baked, and is generally ornamented with myrtle and gold and silver leaf.

Amnastich.--Stew gently 1 pint rice in 1 qt. strong gravy till it begins to swell, then add an onion stuck with cloves, a bunch of sweet herbs, and a chicken stuffed with forcemeat; let it stew with the rice till thoroughly done, then take it up and stir in the rice the yolks of 4 eggs and the juice of a lemon; serve the fowl in the same dish with the rice, which should be coloured to a fine yellow with saffron.

Fish, fried.--Frying fish Jewish fashion, simple as it is, is rarely quite successful, except in a Jewish household. Lay the fish for about 20 minutes in water, in which put a small quantity of salt. Any fish will be nice this way--soles, plaice, or a not too thick slice of salmon. Dry the fish thoroughly with a perfectly clean cloth, and flour it lightly with the flour dredger. Have ready a frying-pan with some good frying oil, beat up 2 eggs and pour them into a plate or pie-dish; pass the fish through the eggs then plunge it into the boiling oil, and fry a light brown. Care must be taken that the oil is really boiling, or the fish will be soft and flabby.

Fish stewed with egg and lemon sauce.--A salmon head, or a slice or two of salmon or halibut, or cod, are the nicest for this dish. Put a little chopped parsley, a little onion, a very small piece of ginger, and a little saffron, previously dissolved in hot water, with some pepper and salt at the bottom of a saucepan. Cut up the fish in not too small pieces, and lay it on them: then cover with water, and let it cook slowly. When almost done, take the yolks of 7 eggs and beat them well; add to them gradually the juice of 5 lemons (strained), pour this very slowly over the boiling fish, gently shaking the saucepan to prevent curdling; directly the sauce thickens it is done.

Juditha.--Put some gooseberries into a saucepan with very little water; when they are soft pulp them through a sieve, add several well-beaten yolks of eggs, and sweeten with white sugar. Have ready a shape of biscuit ice, or any other cream ice, that may be preferred; take off a thick slice of the ice from the top carefully, and without breaking, so that it may be replaced on the ice. Scoop out a large portion of the ice, which may be mixed with the gooseberry cream, and fill the hollow with it. Cover the shape with the piece that was removed, and serve. This is an elegant dish. The ice should be prepared in a round mould; brown bread ice is particularly adapted to a Juditha.

Matso Cakes.--Make a stiff paste with biscuit powder and milk and water; add a little butter, the yolk of an egg, and a little white sugar, cut into pieces, and mould with the hand, and bake in a brisk oven. These cakes should not be too thin.

Matso Diet Bread.--Simmer 1 lb. white sugar in ¼ pint water, which pour hot upon 8 well-beaten eggs; beat till cold, when add 1 lb. matso flour, a little grated lemon peel, and bake in a papered tin or in small tins. The cake must be removed while hot.

Passover Pudding.--Mix equal quantities of biscuit powder and shred 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_.