Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 (165 page)

Bake for 1 to 1¼ hours in a preheated 350-degree oven, basting occasionally with the liquid in the dish. Drain cooking liquid into the tomato sauce base and boil down rapidly to thicken. Carefully correct seasoning and pour back over the cabbage rolls. Brown the pork or bacon strips lightly in a frying pan and arrange over the cabbage, sprinkle with parsley, and serve.

Petits Choux Farcis

[Ball-shaped Stuffed Cabbage Leaves]

Rather than sausage shapes, you may form the leaves into round shapes resembling individual cabbages. To do so, blanch the leaves as directed and cut a wedge out of bottom of stem. Place leaf curved side down on the corner of a towel. Heap 2 to 3 tablespoons of stuffing in the center, fold rest of leaf over stuffing, then twist into a ball in the towel to force a round shape. Arrange balls smooth side up and close together in a dish, and bake as in preceding recipe, but 1 hour of cooking should be sufficient.

ANOTHER STUFFING

Braised Beef and Ham Stuffing

For about 6 cups

1½ cups minced onions

3 Tb rendered goose or pork fat, or cooking oil

½ cup dry crumbs from nonsweetened, homemade-type white bread

⅔ cup light cream

3 cups ground cooked lean beef, preferably braised, but any type of cooked beef will do

1½ cups ground cooked lean ham (mild-cured boiled or baked ham, or ready-to-cook ham slice)

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 to 3 cloves mashed garlic

¾ tsp ground rosemary or thyme

2 eggs

½ cup minced fresh parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the onions in fat or oil in a covered saucepan over low heat for 8 to 10 minutes until tender; raise heat and cook a few minutes more until lightly browned. Meanwhile blend the bread crumbs and cream in a small bowl and let stand while assembling rest of ingredients. Finally beat the cooked onions, crumbs, meats, cheese, garlic, herbs, eggs, and parsley vigorously together to blend. Carefully season to taste, adding more herbs if you feel them necessary.

POTATO DISHES

Pommes de Terre

Ounce for ounce, potatoes have fewer calories than fresh peas, lima beans, or sweet corn, yet potatoes come so near to being the complete food that one can survive healthily on a diet of potatoes only, plus a very small amount of fat, for as much as 5 months. Nutrition aside, the potato is an endlessly fascinating gastronomical object which, since its introduction by Parmentier into France during the reign of Louis XVI, has received tremendous French culinary attention. We shall not, in this short section, go into the fundamental cooking methods because they are available in any good basic cookbook. We offer instead a number of out-of-the-ordinary simmers and sautés, a deliciously fattening potato pie, two of the classics illustrated,
pommes Anna
and
pommes duchesse
, and we begin with a group of useful potato facts.

NOTES ON BUYING AND STORING POTATOES

When you are buying potatoes, choose those that look clean and healthy, that are firm to the touch, smooth, dry, free from cracks, and with no suggestion of sprouting (greenish-white nubbins of growth appearing at the small depressions called the eyes). Be sure, also, that the potatoes are potato-colored, that is, uniformly brownish or reddish with no hint of green. Green means that they have been exposed to sun or light, either in the field or in storage, and green potatoes develop a bitter taste. Potatoes are sometimes waxed and sometimes colored reddish, a harmless cosmetic treatment designed to enhance their customer appeal; if so, this fact should be indicated clearly on the bin or package.

Unless you happen to have a proper root cellar where you can store potatoes in the dark at a temperature of 55 degrees and at a humidity of 85 to 90 per cent, buy only what you will use within a week or so. Potatoes kept at 60 to 70 degrees have the best cooking flavor, but they begin to sprout after a few weeks. Potatoes stored at below 40 degrees, the temperature of your refrigerator, resist sprouting and withering but gradually develop a sweet taste because the potato starches transform themselves into sugar. Thus, keep your small store of potatoes at normal room temperature in heavy brown paper sacks so they will be protected from light. Separate different types or you will run into cooking irregularities.

POTATO TYPES

Potatoes are a far more complicated vegetable to grow, harvest, store, and classify than any of us who are not in the business would ever dream. New varieties
are constantly being tested out that will survive in specific climates, that will resist the myriad viruses and diseases which attack potato plants, and that will more perfectly meet public tastes and the specific demands of dehydrators, chip manufacturers, and other industrial users. Potatoes of one variety can vary from one year to the next in a certain growing locality because of weather, or the same variety will be mealy in one area and not in another because of soil and climatic differences. The tradition of choosing old potatoes for baking and mashing, and new potatoes for boiling still holds true in part, but so much has happened to the potato since grandmother’s day that a list of varieties classified according to buying areas and uses would be out of date almost as soon as it appeared in print. Thus we shall go no further than specify “boiling” potatoes when we mean the type that holds its shape in cooking, and “baking” potatoes when we want a mealy, floury potato for baking or mashing. If your market does not have its potatoes clearly labeled as to baking and mashing, frying, boiling, or all-purpose, ask the head of the vegetable department to help you.

POMMES DE TERRE AU BASILIC

[Sliced Potatoes Simmered in Cream and Basil]

This is a top-of-the-stove recipe in which sliced potatoes are boiled briefly in water to neutralize any milk-curdling properties they may possess, then simmered until tender in a cream sauce with garlic and basil. You may set them aside and reheat again just before turning them into a vegetable dish with more basil, parsley, and butter. Serve with roast red meats, steaks, chops, or broiled chicken.

For 4 to 6 people

2 lbs. “boiling” potatoes

A large saucepan of boiling salted water

A colander

Peel the potatoes. Cut into slices about ¼ inch thick and 1¼ inches in diameter. You should have around 7 cups. Drop them into the boiling water, bring rapidly back to the boil again, and boil for 3 minutes. Drain immediately.

3 Tb butter