French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [104]
POTAGE CRÈME NORMANDE
NORMAN CREAM OF FISH SOUP
A 6 to 8 oz. slice of cod or other white fish, pint of boiled, unshelled prawns or a small crawfish (langouste) tail, a carrot, an onion, a tomato, a small piece of celery, a clove of garlic, a small glass of cider or white wine, 2 heaped dessertspoons of soft white breadcrumbs, herbs and seasonings, nutmeg or mace, pint of cream.
Shell the prawns, put the white fish, the shells of the prawns, the vegetables, garlic, fresh or dried herbs (fennel, marjoram, parsley), and cider or wine in a saucepan with salt, pepper and 2 pints of water. Simmer for 25 minutes or so. Strain, pressing the fish and vegetables against the sides of the sieve so as to extract the maximum of juice. Into the saucepan put the prawns and breadcrumbs pounded together to a paste with two or three spoonfuls of the stock; gradually add the rest of the stock, and simmer for 15 minutes or so, stirring frequently. Season with pepper and nutmeg, and more salt if necessary. At this stage the soup still looks rather unpromising; but when the cream, boiled a minute or two in a separate pan, is added, all will be well. Before serving, stir in a little very finely cut parsley. Those. who like a thicker, more substantial soup, can add the yolks of 2 eggs, as for the celery soup on page 172. Or the water in which rice has boiled can be used instead of plain water to make the stock.
POTAGE CRÈME DE POTIRON AUX CREVETTES
CREAM OF PUMPKIN AND SHRIMP SOUP
Peel a 2 lb. slice of pumpkin, throw away the seeds and the cottony centre, cut the flesh into small pieces, salt and pepper them, and put them into a thick saucepan with a stick of celery cut in pieces. Cover them with 1 pints of milk previously boiled, and 1 pint of mild stock or water, and simmer until the pumpkin is quite soft, about 30 minutes. Sieve the mixture; return the purée to a clean pan. Mash or pound in a mortar 4 oz. of peeled prawns or shrimps (buttered shrimps will do), adding a few drops of lemon juice. Dilute with a little of the pumpkin purée, add this mixture to the soup, simmer gently for 10 minutes or so, sieve again if the soup is not quite smooth, taste for seasoning and, when reheating, thin with a little more hot milk or stock if necessary. Immediately before serving stir in a good lump of butter. Ample for six.
Pumpkin is a vegetable which tends to go sour very quickly, so this soup should be used up on the day, or day after, it is made.
Les Œufs, et les Hors-d’œuvre Chauds
Eggs, cheese dishes and hot hors-d’œuvre
‘THEY reckon 685 ways of dressing eggs in the French kitchen; we hope our half-dozen recipes give sufficient variety for the English kitchen.’ Doctor William Kitchiner, who wrote these words in The Cook’s Oracle, round about 1821, therewith betrays himself as a pretty smug fellow.
For the life of me I cannot see why, if our neighbours 21 miles across the Channel have 685 ways of cooking eggs, we should have to make do with six. Six recipes would no more than cover the basic ways of egg-cookery common to all countries, but Dr. Kitchiner was certainly right in so far as it is important to understand these methods thoroughly before embarking on the 679 remaining variations.
‘Have ready twelve freshly poached eggs,’ says the cookery book, and with a shudder you turn over the page, knowing that, allowing for disasters, those twelve eggs will probably turn into twenty and that your kitchen will be a charnel house of eggshells and a shambles of running egg yolks. Or ‘shell eight œufs mollets,’ they say, ‘lay each in a puff pastry case and mask with an hollandaise sauce. Pour a cordon of melted meat glaze round each egg and brown with a salamander.’ And one begins to agree with old Dr. Kitchiner. For elaborate