French Provincial Cooking (64 page)

Serve with sausages, fried chicken or eggs.

Poivrons
is the alternative French name for sweet peppers.

The method of cooking dried chick peas is described in the soup recipe on page 164.

For those who have a taste for their slightly odd flavour, chick peas, once boiled and drained, can be finished in the same ways as haricot beans (see pages 259—61) and go well with lamb dishes, or while still warm they can be mixed with an
aïoli
(see page 302), and served as a vegetable with a beef stew. This dish, into which other vegetables such as haricot beans, cooked artichoke hearts, French beans and potatoes can be mixed, is a Provençal one, called
aïgroissade.

From all the scores of interesting potato dishes invented by French cooks, I can include here only some half-dozen, each one representative of a particular method. It is not good potato recipes we lack in England, it is good potatoes. Because we do not grow any of the true varieties of firm and waxy potatoes which do not disintegrate in the cooking, many French dishes can only be made when new potatoes are in season; on the other hand, the old-fashioned floury potatoes are equally hard to come by. English potatoes are neither one thing nor the other. They need extreme care in the cooking and timing and, for this reason, as well as because they are fattening, I personally rarely serve potatoes with the meat course.

One of the most delectable of all French potato dishes is the
gratin dauphinois,
for which the recipe is on page 211, but this should be served on its own, not with the meat, and it is scarcely kind to offer such a dish to people who are thinking about their weight.

This is a good example of the method by which potatoes are cooked in butter without first being boiled.

Choose small new potatoes all of a size and, to cook them in, a heavy pan in which they will all fit in one layer. In this pan heat one ounce of butter for each pound of potatoes, put in the potatoes, cover the pan and leave over a very gentle flame, simply shaking the pan from time to time to make sure they don’t stick. After 15 minutes, turn them over very carefully, cook another 5 to 10 minutes and test with a skewer to see that they are done. Salt them before serving.

A
diable
(see drawing on page 59) is a totally unglazed clay vessel in which potatoes are cooked without water or fat of any kind.

Medium-sized potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled, will take approximately 1
hours to cook in the centre of a moderate oven, Gas No. 3 to 4, 330° to 350°F.

The porous clay absorbs some of the watery content of potatoes, and gives them in return a very delicious earthy flavour like that of newly-dug home grown potatoes. They will keep hot for some time after the
diable
is taken out of the oven.

Potatoes cooked in the
diable,
peeled, sliced and seasoned while still warm make a potato salad infinitely superior to that made from boiled potatoes.

It should be noted that after an initial rinse in plain water to remove dust and packing, the
diable
should not again be washed.

Cook 2 lb. of good quality potatoes in their skins, either in the oven or in a small amount of water. It makes a great difference to the ultimate consistency of the purée if the potatoes are quite dry when cooked. If they become water-logged to start with, it is impossible to obtain a good purée.

Having skinned the potatoes as soon as they can be handled, either sieve them through a
mouli
or mash them with a wooden masher or a heavy wire whisk. Gradually add half a cupful of very hot milk, whisking with great thoroughness; season; beat in 2 oz. of softened butter and whisk and whisk until your arm aches. Only in this manner can you get a really light purée, but the whole operation should also be done with as much speed as possible.

Many French cooks have remarked upon the difference between the English and French methods of making a potato pureée, stressing the fact that whereas the French like theirs to be very creamy and on the runny side, the English one is a much more solid affair. Carême, whether by accident or design one cannot quite be sure, calls English potato purée
mass
-potatoes.

Some French cooks like to use stock or broth instead of milk when making their purée, which certainly makes it a little lighter, although it then loses its creamy whiteness.

Ideally, potato purée should be served as soon as it is ready, but for the best method of keeping it hot see the following recipe.

A purée, made as above, is put in a hot dish, some of the juices from a garlic and herb-flavoured roast of pork or veal is poured round the purée, and it is served first, as a separate course, before the meat. Sometimes the hot potato purée will be followed by the meat served cold. We should probably prefer the potatoes and meat together. So if the purée has to be kept hot, put it in a saucepan in a
bain-marie
and pour a little melted butter over and round the potatoes to prevent a crust forming, and cover the saucepan. When the time comes to serve them, mix the butter in with them before pouring in the meat juice.

This is one of the very nicest ways of serving potatoes to go with a steak, or a roast bird, but their final cooking in hot oil or fat is a last-minute operation, so they are better not attempted when the cook’s attention is likely to be distracted elsewhere.

Cook 4 medium-sized potatoes (about
lb.) until they are quite soft; drain them very well and put them through a sieve. In a thick saucepan melt 1 oz. of butter and pour on it half a tumbler of water; let this boil a minute or two and then add, through a sieve, 1
oz. of flour; stir it very rapidly until it thickens; now lower the flame and go on stirring until you have a smooth mixture, which should be in 2 or 3 minutes. Next, add, off the fire, and slowly, 2 beaten eggs, stirring all the time, and when they have amalgamated with the flour mixture, start stirring in the potato purée, a little at a time. When the mixture is perfectly smooth and thick, season it with salt, pepper, a scraping of nutmeg and a tablespoon of grated cheese. This preparation can be made beforehand.

When the time comes to cook the potatoes, heat a deep panful of olive oil or pure beef dripping and, when it is very hot, but not absolutely boiling, drop in small spoonfuls of the mixture, cooking about half a dozen at a time, and leaving room for them to swell. They should be about the size of large walnuts. Turn them over very gently once with a palette knife; as soon as they are golden, lift them out with a perforated spoon on to a piece of kitchen paper. When they are all cooked, pile them up in a hot dish and serve at once. Enough for four.

This is a well-known dish, but so seldom properly cooked that it may be worth while giving the correct recipe.

Firm potatoes, boiled in their skins, are peeled and sliced about
inch thick and seasoned with salt. They are gently fried in a capacious heavy frying-pan until they are golden brown on both sides. When they are all but ready, some onion, sliced very thin and fried until pale gold in a
separate frying-pan,
is mixed in with the potatoes, and the dish is ready to serve.

It bears little resemblance, as can be seen, to the greasy mixture of unevenly browned potatoes and frizzled onions which usually passes for
pommes lyonnaises.

Proportions are 1 medium-sized onion to each pound of potatoes and, for cooking each vegetable, 1 oz. of butter or pure beef dripping.

The potatoes take about 15 minutes to cook, the onions up to 10 minutes.

This is a curious recipe but extremely good if you like the pungent flavour of juniper berries.

Peel a pound or so of potatoes and shred them as fine as matches, on the fluted blade of the mandoline, or alternatively on a coarse grater. Put them in a sieve or colander and rinse them thoroughly under running cold water to get rid of the starch. Shake them dry in a cloth. Heat a couple of ounces of butter and a spoonful of olive oil (to prevent the butter burning) in a heavy frying-pan. Put in your potatoes and let them stew rather than fry in the butter. Add a seasoning of salt, freshly-milled pepper and half a dozen crushed or chopped juniper berries. Turn the potatoes over from time to time. When they have amalgamated into a mass and are quite tender, turn them on to a hot flat dish and, on top, put whatever meat or poultry they are to accompany—veal cutlets, a roast, fried or grilled chicken, grilled pork chops.

Here is an admirable cheap little recipe, and quite an old one (it appears with variations in several early nineteenth-century French books) for using up left-over meat or chicken.

Suppose you have just a very small amount, say 3 or 4 tablespoons, of cooked and finely-chopped meat, calf’s head, brains, kidney, chicken or turkey. Then in a small quantity of butter, about
oz., melt a couple of chopped shallots and a little parsley; stir in your meat and add 2 or 5 tablespoons of stock or broth, then stir in about a teaspoon of flour or potato flour; let it reduce; add seasonings and then 2 well-beaten whole eggs. Stir until the mixture starts to thicken, and then take quickly from the fire before it turns to scrambled eggs.