Produced by Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) +-----------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's note: | | | | If bÅuf is not displayed correctly please | | change the coding in your text reader to | | Utf-8 (Unicode). | | | | Discrepancies between chapter names in | | CONTENTS and in chapter headings have been | | retained as shown in the original book. | +-----------------------------------------------+ CULTURE AND COOKING; OR, ART IN THE KITCHEN. BY CATHERINE OWEN "Le CrÃ©ateur, en obligeant l'homme Ã manger pour vivre, l'y invite par l'appÃ©tit et l'en rÃ©compense par le plaisir." --BRILLAT SAVARIN. CASSELL, PETTER, GALPIN & CO., NEW YORK, LONDON, AND PARIS. 1881 COPYRIGHT, 1881, BY O. M. DUNHAM. PRESS OF J. J. LITTLE & CO., NOS. 10 TO 20 ASTOR PLACE, NEW YORK. PREFACE. THIS is not a cookery book. It makes no attempt to replace a good one; it is rather an effort to fill up the gap between you and your household oracle, whether she be one of those exasperating old friends who maddened our mother with their vagueness, or the newer and better lights of our own generation, the latest and best of all being a lady as well known for her novels as for her works on domestic economy--one more proof, if proof were needed, of the truth I endeavor to set forth--if somewhat tediously forgive me--in this little book: that cooking and cultivation are by no means antagonistic. Who does not remember with affectionate admiration Charlotte BrontÃ© taking the eyes out of the potatoes stealthily, for fear of hurting the feelings of her purblind old servant; or Margaret Fuller shelling peas? The chief difficulty, I fancy, with women trying recipes is, that they fail and know not why they fail, and so become discouraged, and this is where I hope to step in. But although this is not a cookery book, insomuch as it does not deal chiefly with recipes, I shall yet give a few; but only when they are, or I believe them to be, better than those in general use, or good things little known, or supposed to belong to the domain of a French _chef_, of which I have introduced a good many. Should I succeed in making things that were obscure before clear to a few women, I shall be as proud as was Mme. de Genlis when she boasts in her Memoirs that she has taught six new dishes to a German housewife. Six new dishes! When Brillat-Savarin says: "He who has invented _one_ new dish has done more for the pleasure of mankind than he who has discovered a star." CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE PRELIMINARY REMARKS 1 CHAPTER II. ON BREAD. Sponge for bread.--One cause of failure.--Why home-made bread often has a hard crust.--On baking.--Ovens.--More reasons why bread may fail to be good.--Light rolls.--Rusks.--Kreuznach horns.--Kringles.--Brioche (Paris Jockey Club recipe).--SoufflÃ©e bread.--A novelty 12 CHAPTER III. PASTRY. Why you fail in making good puff paste.--How to succeed.--How to handle it.--To put fruit pies together so that the syrup does not boil out.--Ornamenting fruit pies.--Rissolettes.--Pastry tablets.--Frangipane tartlets.--Rules for ascertaining the heat of your oven 22 CHAPTER IV. WHAT TO HAVE IN YOUR STORE-ROOM. Mushroom powder (recipe).--Stock to keep, or glaze (recipe).--Uses of glaze.--Glazing meats, hams, tongues, etc.--MÃ¢itre d'hÃ´tel butter (recipe).--Uses of it.--Ravigotte or Montpellier butter (recipe).--Uses of it.--Roux.--Blanc (recipes).--Uses of both.--Brown flour, its uses 28 CHAPTER V. LUNCHEONS. Remarks on what to have for luncheons.--English meat pies.--Windsor pie.--Veal and ham pie.--Chicken pie.--Raised pork pie.--(Recipes).--Ornamenting meat pies.--Galantine (recipe).--Fish in jelly.--Jellied oysters.--A new mayonnaise luncheon for small families.--Potted meats (recipes).--Anchovy butter.--A new omelet.--Potato snow.--Lyonnaise potatoes 35 CHAPTER VI. A CHAPTER ON GENERAL MANAGEMENT IN VERY SMALL FAMILIES. How to have little dinners.--Hints for bills of fare, etc.--Filet de bÅuf Chateaubriand (recipe).--What to do with the odds and ends.--Various recipes.--Salads.--Recipes 47 CHAPTER VII. FRYING. Why you fail.--Panure or bread-crumbs, to prepare.--How to prepare flounders as filets de sole.--Fried oysters.--To clarify dripping for frying.--Remarks.--PÃ¢te Ã frire Ã la CarÃªme.--Same, Ã la ProvenÃ§ale.--Broiling 55 CHAPTER VIII. ROASTING 62 CHAPTER IX. BOILING AND SOUPS. Boiling meat.--Rules for knowing exactly the degrees of boiling.--Vegetables.--Remarks on making soup.--To clear soup.--Why it is not clear.--Coloring pot-au-feu.--ConsommÃ©.--_CrÃªme de celeri_, a little known soup.--Recipes 65 CHAPTER X. SAUCES. Remarks on making and flavoring sauces.--Espagnole or brown sauce as it should be.--How to make fine white sauce 70 CHAPTER XI. WARMING OVER. Remarks.--Salmi of cold meats.--BÅuf Ã la jardiniÃ¨re.--BÅuf au gratin.--Pseudo-beefsteak. --Cutlets Ã la jardiniÃ¨re.--Cromesquis of lamb.--Sauce piquant.--Miroton of beef.--Simple way of warming a joint.--Breakfast dish.--Stuffed beef.--Beef olives.--Chops Ã la poulette.--Devils.--Mephistophelian sauce.--Fritadella, twenty recipes in one 72 CHAPTER XII. ON FRIANDISES. Biscuit glacÃ©e at home (recipes).--Iced soufflÃ©s (recipes).--Baba and syrups for it (recipe).--Savarin and syrup (recipes).--BouchÃ©es de dames.--How to make CuraÃ§oa.--Maraschino.--Noyeau 84 CHAPTER XIII. FRENCH CANDIES AT HOME. How to make them.--Fondants.--Vanilla.--Almond cream.--Walnut cream.--Tutti frutti.--Various candies dipped in cream.--Chocolate creams.--Fondant panachÃ©.--Punch drops 91 CHAPTER XIV. FOR PEOPLE OF VERY SMALL MEANS. Remarks.--What may be made of a soup bone.--Several very economical dishes.--Pot roasts.--Dishes requiring no meat 96 CHAPTER XV. A FEW THINGS IT IS WELL TO REMEMBER 105 CHAPTER XVI. ON SOME TABLE PREJUDICES 108 CHAPTER XVII. A CHAPTER OF ODDS AND ENDS. Altering recipes.--How to have tarragon, burnet, etc.--Remarks on obtaining ingredients not in common use.--An impromptu salamander.--Larding needle.--How to have parsley fresh all winter without expense.--On having kitchen conveniences.--Anecdote related by Jules GouffÃ©e.--On servants in America.--A little advice by way of valedictory 111 INDEX 119 CULTURE AND COOKING. CHAPTER I. A FEW PRELIMINARY REMARKS. ALEXANDRE DUMAS, _pÃ¨re_, after writing five hundred novels, says, "I wish to close my literary career with a book on cooking." And in the hundred pages or so of preface--or perhaps overture would be the better word, since in it a group of literary men, while contributing recondite recipes, flourish trumpets in every key--to his huge volume he says, "I wish to be read by people of the world, and practiced by people of the art" (_gens de l'art_); and although _I_ wish, like every one who writes, to be read by all the world, I wish to aid the practice, not of the professors of the culinary art, but those whose aspirations point to an enjoyment of the good things of life, but whose means of attaining them are limited. There is a great deal of talk just now about cooking; in a lesser degree it takes its place as a popular topic with ceramics, modern antiques, and household art. The fact of it being in a mild way fashionable may do a little good to the eating world in general. And it may make it more easy to convince young women of refined proclivities that the art of cooking is not beneath their attention, to know that the Queen of England's daughters--and of course the cream of the London fair--have attended the lectures on the subject delivered at South Kensington, and that a young lady of rank, Sir James Coles's daughter, has been recording angel to the association, is in fact the R. C. C. who edits the "Official Handbook of Cookery." But, notwithstanding all that has been done by South Kensington lectures in London and Miss Corson's Cooking School in New York to popularize the culinary art, one may go into a dozen houses, and find the ladies of the family with sticky fingers, scissors, and gum pot, busily porcelainizing clay jars, and not find one where they are as zealously trying to work out the problems of the "Official Handbook of Cookery." I have nothing to say against the artistic distractions of the day. Anything that will induce love of the beautiful, and remove from us the possibility of a return to the horrors of hair-cloth and brocatel and crochet tidies, will be a stride in the right direction. But what I do protest against, is the fact, that the same refined girls and matrons, who so love to adorn their houses that they will spend hours improving a pickle jar, mediÃ¦valizing their furniture, or decorating the dinner service, will shirk everything that pertains to the preparation of food as dirty, disagreeable drudgery, and sit down to a commonplace, ill-prepared meal, served on those artistic plates, as complacently as if dainty food were not a refinement; as if heavy rolls and poor bread, burnt or greasy steak, and wilted potatoes did not smack of the shanty, just as loudly as coarse crockery or rag carpet--indeed far more so; the carpet and crockery may be due to poverty, but a dainty meal or its reverse will speak volumes for innate refinement or its lack in the woman who serves it. You see by my speaking of rag carpets and dainty meals in one breath, that I do not consider good things to be the privilege of the rich alone. There are a great many dainty things the household of small or moderate means can have just as easily as the most wealthy. Beautiful bread--light, white, crisp--costs no more than the tough, thick-crusted boulder, with cavities like eye-sockets, that one so frequently meets with as _home-made bread_. As Hood says: "Who has not met with home-made bread, A heavy compound of putty and lead?" Delicious coffee is only a matter of care, not expense--and indeed in America the cause of poor food, even in a boarding-house, is seldom in the quality of the articles so much as in the preparation and selection of them--yet an epicure can breakfast well with fine bread and butter and good coffee. And this leads me to another thing: many people think that to give too much attention to food shows gluttony. I have heard a lady say with a tone of virtuous rebuke, when the conversation turned from fashions to cooking, "I give very little time to cooking, we eat to live only"--which is exactly what an animal does. Eating to live is mere feeding. Brillat-Savarin, an abstemious eater himself, among other witty things on the same topic says, "_L'animal se repait, l'homme mange, l'homme d'esprit seul sait manger._" Nine people out of ten, when they call a man an epicure, mean it as a sort of reproach, a man who is averse to every-day food, one whom plain fare would fail to satisfy; but Grimod de la ReyniÃ¨re, the most celebrated gourmet of his day, author of "_Almanach des Gourmands_," and authority on all matters culinary of the last century, said, "A true epicure can dine well on one dish, provided it is excellent of its kind." Excellent, that is it. A little care will generally secure to us the refinement of having only on the table what is excellent of its kind. If it is but potatoes and salt, let the salt be ground fine, and the potatoes white and mealy. Thackeray says, an epicure is one who never tires of brown bread and fresh butter, and in this sense every New Yorker who has his rolls from the Brevoort House, and uses Darlington butter, is an epicure. There seems to me, more mere animalism in wading through a long bill of fare, eating three or four indifferently cooked vegetables, fish, meat, poultry, each second-rate in quality, or made so by bad cooking, and declaring that you have dined well, and are easy to please, than there is in taking pains to have a perfectly broiled chop, a fine potato, and a salad, on which any true epicure could dine well, while on the former fare he would leave the table hungry. Spenser points a moral for me when he says, speaking of the Irish in 1580, "That wherever they found a plot of shamrocks or water-cresses they had a feast;" but there were gourmets even among them, for "some gobbled the green food as it came, and some picked the faultless stalks, and looked for the bloom on the leaf." Thus it is, when I speak of "good living," I do not mean expensive living or high living, but living so that the table may be as elegant as the dishes on which it is served. I believe there exists a feeling, not often expressed perhaps, but prevalent among young people, that for a lady to cook with her own hands is vulgar; to love to do it shows that she is of low intellectual caliber, a sort of drawing-room Bridget. When or how this idea arose it would be difficult to say, for in the middle ages cooks were often noble; a Montmorency was _chef de cuisine_ to Philip of Valois; Montesquieu descended, and was not ashamed of his descent, from the second cook of the Connetable de Bourbon, who ennobled him. And from Lord Bacon, "brightest, greatest, meanest of mankind," who took, it is said, great interest in cooking, to Talleyrand, the Machiavelli of France, who spent an hour every day with his cook, we find great men delighting in the art as a recreation. It is surprising that such an essentially artistic people as Americans should so neglect an art which a great French writer calls the "_science mignonne_ of all distinguished men of the world." Napoleon the Great so fully recognized the social value of keeping a good table that, although no gourmet himself, he wished all his chief functionaries to be so. "Keep a good table," he told them; "if you get into debt for it I will pay." And later, one of his most devoted adherents, the Marquis de Cussy, out of favor with Louis XVIII. on account of that very devotion, found his reputation as a gourmet very serviceable to him. A friend applied for a place at court for him, which Louis refused, till he heard that M. de Cussy had invented the mixture of cream, strawberries, and champagne, when he granted the petition at once. Nor is this a solitary instance in history where culinary skill has been a passport to fortune to its possessor. Savarin relates that the Chevalier d'Aubigny, exiled from France, was in London, in utter poverty, notwithstanding which, by chance, he was invited to dine at a tavern frequented by the young bucks of that day. After he had finished his dinner, a party of young gentlemen, who had been observing him from their table, sent one of their number with many apologies and excuses to beg of him, as a son of a nation renowned for their salads, to be kind enough to mix theirs for them. He complied, and while occupied in making the salad, told them frankly his story, and did not hide his poverty. One of the gentlemen, as they parted, slipped a five-pound note into his hand, and his need of it was so great that he did not obey the prompting of his pride, but accepted it. A few days later he was sent for to a great house, and learned on his arrival that the young gentleman he had obliged at the tavern had spoken so highly of his salad that they begged him to do the same thing again. A very handsome sum was tendered him on his departure, and afterwards he had frequent calls on his skill, until it became the fashion to have salads prepared by d'Aubigny, who became a well-known character in London, and was called "_the fashionable salad-maker_." In a few years he amassed a large fortune by this means, and was in such request that his carriage would drive from house to house, carrying him and his various condiments--for he took with him everything that could give variety to his concoctions--from one place, where his services were needed, to another. The contempt for this art of cooking is confined to this country, and to the lower middle classes in England. By the "lower middle classes" I mean, what Carlyle terms the gigocracy--_i.e._, people sufficiently well-to-do to keep a gig or phaeton--well-to-do tradesmen, small professional men, the class whose womenkind would call themselves "genteel," and many absurd stories are told of the determined ignorance and pretense of these would-be ladies. But in no class above this is a knowledge of cooking a thing to be ashamed of; in England, indeed, so far from that being the case, indifference to the subject, or lack of understanding and taste for certain dishes is looked upon as a sort of proof of want of breeding. Not to like curry, macaroni, or parmesan, _pÃ¢tÃ© de foie gras_, mushrooms, and such like, is a sign that you have not been all your life accustomed to good living. Mr. Hardy, in his "Pair of Blue Eyes," cleverly hits this prejudice when he makes Mr. Swancourt say, "I knew the fellow wasn't a gentleman; he had no acquired tastes, never took Worcestershire sauce." Abroad many women of high rank and culture devote a good deal of time to a thorough understanding of the subject. We have a lady of the "lordly line of proud St. Clair" writing for us "Dainty Dishes," and doing it with a zest that shows she enjoys her work, although she does once in a while forget something she ought to have mentioned, and later still we have Miss Rose Coles writing the "Official Handbook of Cookery." But it is in graceful, refined France that cookery is and has been, a pet art. Any bill of fare or French cookery book will betray to a thoughtful reader the attention given to the subject by the wittiest, gayest, and most beautiful women, and the greatest men. The high-sounding names attached to French standard dishes are no mere caprice or homage of a French cook to the great in the land, but actually point out their inventor. Thus _Bechamel_ was invented by the Marquis de Bechamel, as a sauce for codfish; while _Filets de Lapereau Ã la Berry_ were invented by the Duchess de Berry, daughter of the regent Orleans, who himself invented _Pain Ã la d'Orleans_, while to Richelieu we are indebted for hundreds of dishes besides the renowned mayonnaise. _Cailles Ã la Mirepois_, _Chartreuse Ã la Mauconseil_, _Poulets Ã la Villeroy_, betray the tastes of the three great ladies whose name they bear. But not in courts alone has the art had its devotees. Almost every great name in French literature brings to mind something its owner said or did about cooking. Dumas, who was a prince of cooks, and of whom it is related that in 1860, when living at Varennes, St. Maur, dividing his time, as usual, between cooking and literature (_Lorsqu'il ne faisait pas sauter un roman, il faisait sauter des petits oignons_), on Mountjoye, a young artist friend and neighbor, going to see him, he cooked dinner for him. Going into the poultry yard, after donning a white apron, he wrung the neck of a chicken; then to the kitchen garden for vegetables, which he peeled and washed himself; lit the fire, got butter and flour ready, put on his saucepans, then cooked, stirred, tasted, seasoned until dinner time. Then he entered in triumph, and announced, "_Le diner est servi_." For six months he passed three or four days a week cooking for Mountjoye. This novelist's book says, in connection with the fact that great cooks in France have been men of literary culture, and literary men often fine cooks, "It is not surprising that literary men have always formed the _entourage_ of a great chef, for, to appreciate thoroughly all there is in the culinary art, none are so well able as men of letters; accustomed as they are to all refinements, they can appreciate better than others those of the table," thus paying himself and confrÃ¨res a delicate little compliment at the expense of the non-literary world; but, notwithstanding the naÃ¯ve self-glorification, he states a fact that helps to point my moral, that indifference to cooking does not indicate refinement, intellect, or social pre-eminence. Brillat-Savarin, grave judge as he was, and abstemious eater, yet has written the book of books on the art of eating. It was he who said, "Tell me what you eat, I will tell you what you are," as pregnant with truth as the better-known proverb it paraphrases. Malherbe loved to watch his cook at work. I think it was he who said, "A coarse-minded man could never be a cook," and Charles Baudelaire, the Poe of France, takes a poet's view of our daily wants, when he says, "that an ideal cook must have a great deal of the poet's nature, combining something of the voluptuary with the man of science learned in the chemical principles of matter;" although he goes further than we care to follow when he says, that the question of sauces and seasoning requires "a chapter as grave as a _feuilleton de science_." It has been said by foreigners that Americans care nothing for the refinements of the table, but I think they do care. I have known many a woman in comfortable circumstances long to have a good table, many a man aspire to better things, and if he could only get them at home would pay any money. But the getting them at home is the difficulty; on a table covered with exquisite linen, glass, and silver, whose presiding queen is more likely than not a type of the American lady--graceful, refined, and witty--on such a table, with such surroundings, will come the plentiful, coarse, commonplace dinner. The chief reason for this is lack of knowledge on the part of our ladies: know how to do a thing yourself, and you will get it well done by others. But how are many of them to know? The daughters of the wealthy in this country often marry struggling men, and they know less about domestic economy than ladies of the higher ranks abroad; not because English or French ladies take more part in housekeeping, but because they are at home all their lives. Ladies of the highest rank never go to a boarding or any other school, and these are the women who, with some few exceptions, know best how things should be done. They are at home listening to criticisms from papa, who is an epicure perhaps, on the shortcomings of his own table, or his neighbors'; from mamma, as to what the soup lacks, why cook is not a "_cordon bleu_," etc., while our girls are at school, far away from domestic comments, deep in the agonies of algebra perhaps; and directly they leave school, in many cases they marry. As a preparation for the state of matrimony most of them learn how to make cake and preserves, and the very excellence of their attainments in that way proves how easy it would be for them, with their dainty fingers and good taste, to far excel their European cousins in that art which a French writer says is based on "reason, health, common sense, and sound taste." Here let me say, I do not by any means advocate a woman, who can afford to pay a first-rate cook, avoiding the expense by cooking herself; on the contrary, I think no woman is justified in doing work herself that she has the means given her to get done by employing others. I have no praise for the economical woman, who, from a desire to save, does her own work _without necessity for economy_. It is _not_ her work; the moment she can afford to employ others it is the work of some less fortunate person. But in this country, it often happens that a good cook is not to be found for money, although the raw material of which one might be made is much oftener at hand. And if ladies would only practice the culinary art with as much, nay, half as much assiduity as they give to a new pattern in crochet; devote as much time to attaining perfection in one dish or article of food, be it perfect bread, or some French dish which father, brother, or husband goes to Delmonico's to enjoy, as they do to the crochet tidies or embroidered rugs with which they decorate their drawing-rooms, they could then take the material, in the shape of any ambitious girl they may meet with, and make her a fine cook. In the time they take to make a dozen tidies, they would have a dozen dishes at their fingers' ends; and let me tell you, the woman who can cook a dozen things, outside of preserves, in a _perfect_ manner is a rarity here, and a good cook anywhere, for, by the time the dozen are accomplished, she will have learned so much of the art of cooking that all else will come easy. One good soup, bouillon, and you have the foundation of all others; two good sauces, white sauce and brown, "_les sauces mÃ¨res_" as the French call them (mothers of all other sauces), and all others are matters of detail. Learn to make one kind of roll perfectly, as light, plump, and crisp as Delmonico's, and all varieties are at your fingers' ends; you can have kringles, Vienna rolls, Kreuznach horns, Yorkshire tea cakes, English Sally Lunns and Bath buns; all are then as easy to make as common soda biscuit. In fact, in cooking, as in many other things, "_ce n'est que le premier pas que coÃ»te_;" failures are almost certain at the beginning, but a failure is often a step toward success--if we only know the reason of the failure. CHAPTER II. ON BREAD. OF all articles of food, bread is perhaps the one about which most has been written, most instruction given, and most failures made. Yet what adds more to the elegance of a table than exquisite bread or breads, and--unless you live in a large city and depend on the baker--what so rare? A lady who is very proud of her table, and justly so, said to me quite lately, "I cannot understand how it is we never have really fine home-made bread. I have tried many recipes, following them closely, and I can't achieve anything but a commonplace loaf with a thick, hard crust; and as for rolls, they are my despair. I have wasted eggs, butter, and patience so often that I have determined to give them up, but a fine loaf I will try for." "And when you achieve the fine loaf, you may revel in home-made rolls," I answered. And so I advise every one first to make perfect bread, light, white, crisp, and _thin-crusted_, that rarest thing in home-made bread. I have read over many recipes for bread, and am convinced that when the time allowed for rising is specified, it is invariably too short. One standard book directs you to leave your sponge two hours, and the bread when made up a _quarter of an hour_. This recipe strictly followed must result in heavy, tough bread. As bread is so important, and so many fail, I will give my own method from beginning to end; not that there are not numberless good recipes, but simply because they frequently need adapting to circumstances, and altering a recipe is one of the things a tyro fears to do. I make a sponge over night, using a dried yeast-cake soaked in a pint of warm water, to which I add a spoonful of salt, and, if the weather is warm, as much soda as will lie on a dime; make this into a stiff batter with flour--it may take a quart or less, flour varies so much, to give a rule is impossible; but if, after standing, the sponge has a watery appearance, make it thicker by sprinkling in more flour, beat hard a few minutes, and cover with a cloth--in winter keep a piece of thick flannel for the purpose, as a chill is fatal to your sponge--and set in a warm place free from draughts. The next morning, when the sponge is quite light--that is to say, at least twice the bulk it was, and like a honeycomb--take two quarts of flour, more or less, as you require, but I recommend at first a small baking, and this will make three small loaves; in winter, flour should be dried and warmed; put it in your mixing bowl, and turn the sponge into a hole in the center. Have ready some water, rather more than lukewarm, but not _hot_. Add it gradually, stirring your flour into the sponge at the same time. The great fault in making bread is getting the dough too stiff; it should be as soft as possible, without being at all sticky or wet. Now knead it with both hands from all sides into the center; keep this motion, occasionally dipping your hands into the flour if the dough sticks, but do not add more flour unless the paste sticks very much; if you have the right consistency it will be a smooth mass, very soft to the touch, _yet not sticky_, but this may not be attained at a first mixing without adding flour by degrees. When you have kneaded the dough until it leaves the bowl all round, set it in a warm place to rise. When it is well risen, feels very soft and warm to the touch, and is twice its bulk, knead it once more thoroughly, then put it in tins either floured, and the flour not adhering shaken out, or buttered, putting in each a piece of dough half the size you intend your loaf to be. Now everything depends on your oven. Many people bake their bread slowly, leaving it in the oven a long time, and this causes a thick, hard crust. When baked in the modern iron oven, quick baking is necessary. Let the oven be quite hot, then put a little ball of paste in, and if it browns palely in seven to ten minutes it is about right; if it burns, it is too hot; open the damper ten minutes. Your bread, after it is in the tins, will rise much more quickly than the first time. Let it get light, but not too light--_twice its bulk_ is a good rule; but if it is light before your oven is ready, and thus in danger of getting too porous, work it down with your hand, it will not harm it, although it is better so to manage that the oven waits for the bread rather than the bread for the oven. A small loaf--and by all means make them small until you have gained experience--will not take more than three quarters of an hour to bake; when a nice yellow brown, take it out, turn it out of the tin into a cloth, and tap the bottom; if it is crisp and smells cooked, the loaf is done. Once the bottom is brown it need remain no longer. Should that, however, from fault of your oven, be not brown, but soft and white, you must put it back in the oven, the bottom upwards. An oven that does not bake at the bottom will, however, be likely to spoil your bread. It is sometimes caused by a careless servant leaving a collection of ashes underneath it; satisfy yourself that all the flues are perfectly clean and clear before beginning to bake, and if it still refuses to do its duty, change it, for you will have nothing but loss and vexation of spirit while you have it in use. I think you will find this bread white, evenly porous (not with small holes in one part and caverns in another; if it is so you have made your dough too stiff, and it is not sufficiently kneaded), and with a thin, crisp crust. Bread will surely fail to rise at all if you have scalded the yeast; the water must never be too hot. In winter, if it gets chilled, it will only rise slowly, or not at all, and in using baker's or German yeast take care that it is not stale, which will cause heavy, irregular bread. In making bread with compressed yeast proceed in exactly the same way, excepting that the sponge will not need to be set over night, unless you want to bake very early. If you have once produced bread to your satisfaction you will find no difficulty in making rolls. Proceed as follows: Take a piece of the dough from your baking after it has risen once. To a piece as large as a man's fist take a large tablespoonful of butter and a little powdered sugar; work them into the dough, put it in a bowl, cover it, and set it in a warm place to rise--a shelf behind the stove is best; if you make this at the same time as your bread, you will find it takes longer to rise; the butter causes that difference; when very light, much lighter than your bread should be, take your hand and push it down till it is not larger than when you put it in the bowl; let it rise again, and again push it down, but not so thoroughly; do this once or twice more, and you have the secret of light rolls. You will find them rise very quickly, after once or twice pushing down. When they have risen the third or fourth time, take a little butter on your hands, and break off small pieces about the size of a walnut and roll them round. Either put them on a tin close together, to be broken apart, or an inch or two from each other, in which case work in a little more flour, and cut a cleft on the top, and once more set to rise; half an hour will be long enough generally, but in this case you must judge for yourself, they sometimes take an hour; if they look swelled very much and smooth they will be ready. Have a nice hot oven, and bake for twelve to fifteen minutes. Add a little more sugar to your dough and an egg, go through the same process, brush them over with sugar dissolved in milk, and you will have delicious rusks. The above is my own method of making rolls, and the simplest I know of; but there are numbers of other recipes given in cookery books which would be just as good if the exact directions for letting them rise were given. As a test--and every experiment you try will be so much gained in your experience--follow the recipe given for rolls in any good cookery book, take part of the dough and let it rise as therein directed, and bake, set the other part to rise as _I_ direct, and notice the difference. KREUZNACH HORNS.--Either take a third of the dough made for bread with three quarts of flour, or set a sponge with a pint of flour and a yeast-cake soaked in half a pint of warm water or milk, making it into a stiffish dough with another pint of flour; then add four ounces of butter, a _little_ sugar, and two eggs; work well. If you use the bread dough, you will need to dredge in a little more flour on account of the eggs, but not _very much_; then set to rise as for rolls, work it down twice or thrice, then turn the dough out on the molding board lightly floured, roll it as you would pie-crust into pieces six inches square, and quarter of an inch thick, make two sharp, quick cuts across it from corner to corner, and you will have from each square four three-cornered pieces of paste; spread each _thinly_ with soft butter, flour lightly, and roll up very lightly from the wide side, taking care that it is not squeezed together in any way; lay them on a tin with the side on which the point comes uppermost, and bend round in the form of a horseshoe; these will take some time to rise; when they have swollen much and look light, brush them over with white of egg (not beaten) or milk and butter, and bake in a good oven. KRINGLES are made from the same recipe, but with another egg and two ounces of sugar (powdered) added to the dough when first set to rise; then, when well risen two or three times, instead of rolling with a pin as for horns, break off pieces, roll between your hands as thick as your finger, and form into figure eights, rings, fingers; or take three strips, flour and roll them as thick as your finger, tapering at each end; lay them on the board, fasten the three together at one end, and then lay one over the other in a plait, fasten the other end, and set to rise, bake; when done, brush over with sugar dissolved in milk, and sprinkle with sugar. All these breads are delicious for breakfast, and may easily be had without excessive early rising if the sponge is set in the _morning_, dough made in the afternoon, and the rising and working done in the evening; when, instead of making up into rolls, horns, or kringles, push the dough down thoroughly, cover with a damp folded cloth, and put in a _very_ cold place if in summer--not on ice of course--then next morning, as soon as the fire is alight, mold, but do not push down any more, put in a very warm spot, and when light, bake. In summer, as I have said, I think it safest, to prevent danger of souring, to put a little soda in the sponge for bread; and for rolls, or anything requiring to rise several times, it is an essential precaution. BRIOCHE.--I suppose the very name of this delectable French dainty will call up in the mind's eye of many who read this book that great "little" shop, _Au Grand Brioche_, on the Boulevarde PoissoniÃ¨re, where, on Sunday afternoons, scores of boys from the LycÃ©es form _en queue_ with the general public, waiting the hour when the piles of golden brioche shall be ready to exchange for their eager sous. But I venture to say, a really fine brioche is rarely eaten on this side the Atlantic. They being a luxury welcome to all, and especially aromatic of Paris, I tried many times to make them, obtaining for that purpose recipes from French friends, and from standard French books, but never succeeded in producing the ideal brioche until I met with GouffÃ©'s great book, the "_Livre de Cuisine_," after reading which, I may here say, all secrets of the French kitchen are laid bare; no effort is spared to make everything plain, from the humble _pot-au-feu_ to the most gorgeous monumental _plÃ¢t_. And I would refer any one who wants to become proficient in any French dish, to that book, feeling sure that, in following strictly the directions, there will be no failure. It is the one book I have met with on the subject in which no margin is left for your own knowledge, if you have it, to fill up. But to the brioche. PARIS JOCKEY-CLUB RECIPE FOR BRIOCHE. Sift one pound of flour, take one fourth of it, and add rather more than half a cake of compressed yeast, dissolved in half a gill of warm water, make into a sponge with a _very little_ more water, put it in a warm place; when it is double its volume take the rest of the flour, make a hole in the center, and put in it an equal quantity of salt and sugar, about a teaspoonful, and two tablespoonfuls of water to dissolve them. Three quarters of a pound of butter and four eggs, beat well, then add another egg, beat again, and add another, and so on until seven have been used; the paste must be soft, but not spread; if too firm, add another egg. Now mix this paste with the sponge thoroughly, beating until the paste leaves the sides of the bowl, then put it in a crock and cover; let it stand four hours in a warm place, then turn it out on a board, _spread it and double it four times_, return it to the crock, and let it rise again two hours; repeat the former process of doubling and spreading, and put it in a very cold place for two hours, or until you want to use it. Mold in any form you like, but the true brioche is two pieces, one as large again as the other; form the large one into a ball, make a deep depression in the center, on which place the smaller ball, pressing it gently in; cut two or three gashes round it with a sharp knife, and bake a beautiful golden brown. These brioche are such a luxury, and so sure to come out right, that the trouble of making them is well worth the taking, and for another reason: every one knows the great difficulty of making puff paste in summer, and a short paste is never handsome; but take a piece of brioche paste, roll it out thin, dredge with flour, fold and roll again, then use as you would puff paste; if for sweet pastry, a little powdered sugar may be sprinkled through it instead of dredging with flour. This makes a very handsome and delicious crust. Or, another use to which it may be put is to roll it out, cut it in rounds, lay on them mince-meat, orange marmalade, jam, or merely sprinkle with currants, chopped citron, and spices, fold, press the edges, and bake. Before quitting the subject of breads I must introduce a novelty which I will call "soufflÃ©e bread." It is quickly made, possible even when the fire is poor, and so delicious that I know you will thank me for making you acquainted with it. Use two or three eggs according to size you wish, and to each egg a tablespoonful of flour. Mix the yolks with the flour and with them a dessert-spoonful of butter melted, and enough milk to make a very _thick_ batter, work, add a pinch of salt and a teaspoonful of sugar, work till quite smooth, then add the whites of the eggs in a firm froth, stir them in gently, and add a _quarter_ teaspoonful of soda and half a one of cream of tartar. Have ready an iron frying-pan (or an earthen one that will stand heat is better), made hot with a tablespoonful of butter in it, also hot, but not so hot as for frying. Pour the batter (which should be of the consistency of sponge cake batter) into the pan, cover it with a lid or tin plate, and set it back of the stove if the fire is hot--if very slow it may be forward; when well risen and near done, put it in the oven, or if the oven is cold you may turn it gently, not to deaden it. Serve when done (try with a twig), the under side uppermost; it should be of a fine golden brown and look like an omelet. This soufflÃ©e bread is equally good _baked_ in a tin in which is rather more butter than enough to grease it; the oven must be _very hot indeed_. Cover it for the few minutes with a tin plate or lid, to prevent it scorching before it has risen; when it has puffed up remove the lid, and allow it to brown, ten to fifteen minutes should bake it; turn it out as you would sponge cake--very carefully, not to deaden it. To succeed with bread you must use the very best flour. CHAPTER III. PASTRY. TO MAKE good puff paste is a thing many ladies are anxious to do, and in which they generally fail, and this not so much because they do not make it properly, as because they handle it badly. A lady who was very anxious to excel in pastry once asked me to allow her to watch me make paste. I did so, and explained that there was more in the manner of using than in the making up. I then gave her a piece of my paste when completed, and asked her to cover some patty pans while I covered others, cautioning her as to the way she must cover them; yet, when those covered by her came out of the oven they had not risen at all, they were like rich short paste; while my own, made from the same paste, were toppling over with lightness. I had, without saying anything, pressed my thumb slightly on one spot of one of mine; in that spot the paste had not risen at all, and I think this practical demonstration of what I had tried to explain was more useful than an hour's talk would have been. I will first give my method of making, which is the usual French way of making "_feuilletonage_." Take one pound of butter, or half of it lard; press all the water out by squeezing it in a cloth; this is important, as the liquid in it would wet your paste; take a third of the butter, or butter and lard, and rub it into one pound of _fine_ flour; add no salt if your butter is salted; then take enough water (to which you may add the well-beaten white of an egg, but it is not absolutely necessary) to make the flour into a smooth, firm dough; it must not be too stiff, or it will be hard to roll out, or too soft, or it will never make good paste; it should roll easily, yet not stick; work it till it is very smooth, then roll it out till it is half an inch thick; now lay the whole of the butter in the center, fold one-third the paste over, then the other third; it is now folded in three, with the butter completely hidden; now turn the ends toward you, and roll it till it is half an inch thick, taking care, by rolling very evenly, that the butter is not pressed out at the other end; now you have a piece of paste about two feet long, and not half that width; flour it lightly, and fold _over_ one third and under one third, which will almost bring it to a square again; turn it round so that what was the side is now the end, and roll. Most likely now the butter will begin to break through, in which case fold it, after flouring lightly, in three, as before, and put it on a dish on the ice, covering it with a damp cloth. You may now either leave it for an hour or two, or till next day. Paste made the day before it is used is much better and easier to manage, and in winter it may be kept for four or five days in a cold place, using from it as required. When ready to use your paste finish the making by rolling it out, dredging a _little_ flour, and doubling it in three as before, and roll it out thin; do this until from first to last it has been so doubled and rolled seven times. Great cooks differ on one or two points in making pastry; for instance, Soyer directs you to put the yolk of an egg instead of the white, and a squeeze of lemon juice into the flour, and expressly forbids you to work it before adding the mass of butter, while Jules GouffÃ© says, "work it until smooth and shining." I cannot pretend to decide between these differing doctors, but I pursue the method I have given and always have light pastry. And now to the handling of it: It must only be touched by the lightest fingers, every cut must be made with a sharp knife, and done with one quick stroke so that the paste is not dragged at all; in covering a pie dish or patty pan, you are commonly directed to mold the paste over it as thin as possible, which conveys the idea that the paste is to be pressed over and so made thin; this would destroy the finest paste in the world; roll it thin, say for small tartlets, less than a quarter of an inch thick, for a pie a trifle thicker, then lay the dish or tin to be covered on the paste, and cut out with a knife, dipped in _hot_ water or flour, a piece a little larger than the mold, then line with the piece you have cut, touching it as little as possible; press only enough to make the paste adhere to the bottom, but on no account press the border; to test the necessity of avoiding this, gently press one spot on a tart, before putting it in the oven, only so much as many people always
{'title': 'Culture and Cooking; Or, Art in the Kitchen by Catherine Owen', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}