The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France - Season by Delicious Season. Richard Olney

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СКАЧАТЬ and related material. Although they specialize in made-to-order installations, they also stock a number of standard articles. They willingly ship to the United States and will furnish complete documentation on request.

      The type of small portable turnspit likely to interest most readers exists in 3 electric models: one capable of turning to approximately 8 pounds (about $50); one up to 16 pounds (about $54); one up to 30 pounds—strong enough to turn a suckling pig or milk lamb (about $72). A single clockwork model exists (10-pound strength, at about $76). Each includes a single standard spit. A number of others are available. The broche-filet (a cagelike spit that avoids piercing) comes to about $10. An asbestos construction (parefeu) designed to protect the mechanism from the direct flame costs about $4.

      Their standard dripping pans are constructed of thin tinned sheet metal and are totally impractical. In my kitchen I have substituted a huge skillet, which I prop at a slight tilt, permitting the juices to collect at the far side from the fire. Giraudon manufactures stainless steel dripping pans, but no prices are quoted.

      The prices quoted above do not include packing and shipping charges.

      GENERAL SHOPPING

      Italian neighborhoods are particularly useful for shopping. Elsewhere it is difficult to find such items as bouquets of dried oregano, dried cèpes (wild mushrooms), salted anchovies, fresh basil, field salads (lamb’s lettuce, arugula), fines herbes, broad beans, celeriac, decent bread, and good-quality olive oil. I have had no success trying to persuade small producers in the south of France of the virtue of exporting their exquisite products, but decent olive oils may be bought in tins on the American market—a good Italian brand is Filippo Berio and a good French oil, from Marseilles, “fruitier” than most Italian oils, is James Plagniol.

      The fancy-food sections in large department stores often furnish such rarities as good butter and quality charcuterie.

      Search out the best butcher in your neighborhood and make friends with him. Ask questions and discuss cuts and qualities of meat. It is natural to give one’s best service to those clients who are knowledgeable, interested—and faithful. Each time one buys an indifferent cut of prepackaged meat in a supermarket, one misses an opportunity of solidifying relations with one’s butcher and ensuring good service when something special is needed. In any case, even his hamburger, chopped to order, fat removed, will also be of superior quality.

       Basic Preparations

      Any French cooking manual contains a comprehensive chapter on basic preparations. Only those recurrent in this book are presented here. Those that occur only once are relegated to specific recipes.

      VEAL STOCK

       (Fonds de Veau, Fonds Blanc, Blond de Veau)

      A pure veal stock, properly executed, is the only impeccable, all-round basic stock. Ideally, a braising liquid or a sauce base should be an essence of the basic element in the preparation (woodcock glaze for woodcocks, venison stock for venison, etc.), but this leads us into theoretical cooking, for only past royalty was able to permit itself such luxury. A Beef Stock (pot-au-feu) remains the best braising stock for beef, and its full-bodied flavor, less marked in personality than that of furred game, renders it satisfactory as a braising liquid for the latter. By the same token, chicken stock may be used in certain preparations of feathered game. Only veal stock, by virtue of the essentially anonymous character of the meat, can lend body and support to all other flavors without altering their basic personalities. It is a solid vehicle and catalyst that is never self-assertive. It serves also as a base for other stocks for, although one may not be able to sacrifice several pheasants to the preparation of an essence for one pheasant salmis, one may very easily enrich a veal stock by the addi-tion of leftover carcasses (or heads, necks, giblets) from roast birds. The many recipes for braised vegetables may be properly made only with veal stock. Covered, it may be kept indefinitely in the refrigerator if one is careful to boil it every few days and transfer it to a clean container. I have never tried freezing it but see no reason why it should suffer from this treatment.

      The specific quantities of ingredients, although given, are of no importance. The important thing is that the result be as concentrated in aromatic essence as possible. For this reason, anything that takes up room in the stock pot without lending flavor should be eliminated—bones, in particular, with the exception of veal hock, which gives readily of its gelatin. For bones to be serviceable, one must make, first, a stock of bones which is allowed to cook for a good eight to ten hours, then use this liquid for moistening the veal.

      A veal stock that is moistened with another veal stock rather than water is, naturally, that much finer. A veal half-glaze (demi-glace de veau) is clear veal stock reduced to a light syrupy consistency. A veal glaze (glace de veau) is the half-glaze reduced (with regular changes to smaller saucepans) to its ultimate intensity. Although valuable, even essential, for certain preparations, these refinements, because of the time and expense involved, do not occur in the recipes in this book.

       Veal Stock

      about 4 pounds inexpensive gelatinous cuts of veal (rib tips, shank, neck, trimmings)

      1 veal hock (knuckle), broken into pieces

      about 1 pound carrots

      2 large onions, one stuck with 2 cloves

      1 leek (or 3 or 4 small—if not available, do without)

      1 large sprig fresh thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves)

      1 branch celery

      1 bay leaf

      1 large bouquet parsley (including roots, if possible)

      1 small handful coarse salt (salt lightly because of the eventual reduction)

      3–4 quarts water, depending on the form of the stock pot

      Ask your butcher to break up the veal hock with a cleaver. Keep the meat in fairly large pieces. Peel the carrots and the onions, leaving them whole (if the carrots are very large, cut them across in two). Stick one onion with the cloves. Slice off the roots of the leek, remove the tough, dark-green sections of the leaves and, with a small, sharply pointed knife, pierce the flesh halfway down, slitting upward through the tips of the leaves. Repeat this procedure two or three times so that the upper half of the leek is coarsely shredded but well intact. Wash well, swishing it around in a basin of water. Wash the celery branch and the parsley (scraping the roots, if there are any). Tie the leek, doubled in two, the branch of celery, the bay leaf and the parsley (plus the thyme, if it is in branches) into a bundle.

      Put the bones into the stock pot (preferably one of heavy enameled ironware or earthenware). Place the pieces of veal on top, and add enough cold water to cover generously (about l½ inches above the meat). Place over a medium flame (if using earthenware, protect it with an asbestos mat and place over a high flame) and when just below boiling point, begin to skim. The scum will continue to rise to the surface. You may help it along from time to time by displacing slightly the pieces of meat and bones with a wooden spoon, but without stirring. Continue to skim as it rises. When СКАЧАТЬ