French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [218]
With a cucumber salad veau saumoné makes a good and original cold supper dish which will be enough for six people. It should, according to the old recipe, be decorated with bunches of parsley and nasturtium flowers.
If needed for a larger party, the amount can of course be doubled, and extra cooking time allowed.
On no account throw away the liquid in which the meat was cooked; with its somewhat acid flavour it makes the basis of an excellent beetroot consommé. Strain off the onions, herbs, etc., skim the fat, and into the liquid put about 1 lb. of peeled, diced, raw beetroots. Simmer gently for about 30 minutes, strain without pressing the beetroots, and the result is a beautifully flavoured deep red consommé which can be served hot or cold.
FOIE DE VEAU CAMPAGNARDE
CALF’S LIVER WITH HERBS AND MUSHROOMS
A very simple, excellent, but not generally known way of serving liver. For two people you need 4 to 6 thin and evenly cut slices of calf’s liver, 4 medium-sized mushrooms and a little parsley, some chives and tarragon when available, a little piece of shallot or garlic, flour and seasonings, oil.
Chop the cleaned mushrooms very finely with the parsley, the shallot or garlic and the herbs.
Season the liver; dust it with flour. Heat about 1 oz. of butter in a frying-pan with a teaspoon of olive oil. Let the liver take colour quickly on each side, put in the herb and mushroom mixture and cook another 3 minutes or so over a gentle flame, shaking the pan so that the liver does not stick. Turn into a hot serving dish; squeeze over a little lemon.
The mushroom and herb mixture is the old-fashioned version of fines herbes.
Lamb’s liver can be cooked in the same way.
RIS DE VEAU
VEAL SWEETBREADS
Veal sweetbreads are considered a great delicacy but, like calf’s liver and lamb’s kidneys, now fetch such a high price that it seems doubtful whether they are worth it; they also require lengthy and meticulous preparation which cannot be skimped if they are to become the really delicate morsels they should be.
There are both throat and heart sweetbreads, the latter being the more highly prized. They are rounder and more regularly shaped than the throat sweetbreads, which are elongated and somewhat sprawling in appearance. When they are cooked, however, there is little appreciable difference.
First, the sweetbreads, which must be exceedingly fresh, must be steeped in cold water, frequently changed, for about 3 hours so that all the blood and impurities will seep out. Some butchers sell sweetbreads already soaked, so that all you need do is just put them in cold water until you are ready to cook them.
The preliminary blanching is done by simply putting the sweetbreads into a large saucepan, covering them amply with cold water and bringing this very, very gently to the boil. Let it just boil 2 minutes. Take out the sweetbreads and plunge them immediately into cold water, pouring this off and renewing it so that the sweetbreads cool quickly. This first operation is to make the sweetbreads firm enough to handle.
You now trim off the horny parts and pipes and rough parts, taking care not to damage the thin membrane which covers the sweetbreads and without which they would fall to pieces during the second cooking.
At this stage it used to be considered necessary to lard or to piquer the sweetbreads with little strips of pork fat, but this operation is mostly dispensed with nowadays. Escoffier observes that ‘neither studding nor larding enhances in any way whatsoever their quality or sightliness.’
What you do now, then, is to put the trimmed sweetbreads on a board or dish between two pieces of greaseproof paper; cover