FoodNet

Culinary jottings

1885

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Presented as published in 1885. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Celery (celeri), is an exceedingly nice vegetable not only when sent round, raw, with cheese, but also when cooked in various ways as an entremets. In the latter case the heads should be very neatly trimmed and cut short, say five or six inches in length. They can then be split lengthwise in two or four pieces according to the thickness of the head. When prepared satisfactorily, the pieces should be plunged into fast boiling water, and as soon as tender, drained, turned out upon a hot silver dish, and served like asparagus with a pat of butter melting over them, a piping hot " Dutch sauce" being sent round in a boat. . Celery may be also stewed gently in weak stock, or hlanc and then be presented a VEsjpagnoU (covered with a thick rich brown sauce), or au jus in clear gravy. 160 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Blanc, which I have already mentioned with reference to vegetable cookerv, is a kind of stock made as follows : — Cut up as small as possible a quarter of a pound of fat bacon, and a quarter of pound of beef suet, and put the pieces with a bacon bone, or some broken-up chicken bones, into a stew-pan. Add a couple of carrots, and two large sweet onions cut up small, a bunch of curly parsley, a tea-spoonful of dried thyme or marjoram, a dozen pepper corns, a tea-spoonful of sugar and one of salt, and stir well over a brisk fire till the fat melts well, and the vegetables begin to fry in it. Do not let them brown, but pour in before that stage arrives enough warm water to cover the contents of the pan. Draw the pan to the edge of the fire. Cook the contents of it at first gently, gradually adding heat, and finally encouraging evaporation by actual boil- ing, and stirring the contents of your pan to prevent them catching. When the liquor has diminished to about a quarter of its original quantity, strain it off into a bowl. When required, tliis vegetable essence should be carefully skimmed poured into a sauce-pan, and sufficient water should be added to cook the celery or other vegetable that may be jnit into it. Celery stewed in hlanc can be served advantageously a la ynoelle, i.e., with beef marrow. In this case you must pile the celery in the centre of the dish, thicken the hlayic in which it was cooked, and pour it over the pile. The marrow should be treated in this way : — Break the bone, take out the raw marrow, cut it into dice, blanch them for five minutes in scalding water, drain them, and heat them up gently In a little of the sauce en haia-marie. A dessert-spoonful each of this should be put into little croustades of fried bread, and served round the celery as a garnish. Cut your croustades square, out of stale bread, and hollow a little space in each to hold the marrow. VEGETABLES— CON CL UDED. 161 Cardoons, (cardons) a la moelle are of course well known hj those who have travelled abroad. I have seen tinned cardoons in India, but not the vegetable itself. Accord- ing to M. Aiidot the strong mid-ribs of the leaves of white beetroot (cardes poirSes), and the tender stalks of globe artichokes (pieds d'artichauts) form a nice substitute. The latter should be scraped free from their fibrous skin, and stewed iu blanc as described for celery a la moelleCelery a la Moelle.