French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [220]
TÊTE DE VEAU VINAIGRETTE
CALF’S HEAD VINAIGRETTE
Calf’s head is a dish which is not easily avoidable if you eat the set meals of small hotels and restaurants in France. When it is good, which is to say when it is served really tender and hot and you get a comparatively lean piece and the vinaigrette sauce has been well mixed, then it is quite good. More often, it is repellent. To cook it at home is a scarifying performance and this is what has to be done, presuming first that you have bought a half head from the butcher and that he has either boned and tied it, or else cloven it into about four manageable pieces.
The head is put to steep in cold water for a minimum of 2 hours, but overnight if you have the time. The brains should be scooped out and soaked separately. Then you put the head into fresh cold water, bring it to the boil, let it simmer 10 minutes, drain it, wipe off any scum that is sticking to the skin and remove any hairs that are still on the creature’s snout.
You now bring a fresh saucepan of water to the boil, with onion and a couple of carrots; you put in the pieces of head, which must be covered by water, and again let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, removing all the scum that rises to the top. Then put in a tablespoon of salt, a dessertspoon of wine vinegar or lemon juice, a large bouquet of parsley and celery or tarragon and lastly 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Cover the saucepan and simmer very gently for 1 hours. Having freed the brains of skin and blood, blanch them as explained in the recipe on page 359. Take out the pieces of head, remove the bone and serve very hot in a hot dish, with a cold vinaigrette sauce separately. This is made with chopped shallots, parsley, mustard, salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar and capers, as explained in the recipe for beef salad on page 147, only in smaller quantities.
If the calf’s head has to be kept waiting after it has cooked, take the pan from the fire but leave it covered with the lid, so that it does not get cold.
Some cooks consider it necessary to cook the head in the mixture known as a blanc, which is a sort of court-bouillon of water plus the flavouring vegetables, salt and herbs, to which 1 oz. of flour for 4 pints is added and stirred in when the water is boiling. The idea of this is to keep the meat white (a blanc is also used for certain vegetables, such as salsify) but it is really not strictly necessary, for the vinegar and the lemon juice, plus the olive oil on the top, are just as effective, and then you have the liquid as a basis for clear stock, for which it cannot be used if flour has been added.
Plats composés de Viandes diverses, Cassoulets, etc.
Composite meat dishes, cassoulets, etc.
SAUCE AU VIN DU MÉDOC
BEEF, RABBIT AND PORK OR HARE STEWED IN RED WINE
HERE is a dish which is something of a collector’s piece. I did not have to search for the recipe because I did not know of its existence. It fell, in a most felicitous way, into my outstretched hands through the kindness of Miss Patricia Green, a highly enterprising young woman who has made a study of wine and wine production on the spot in the Médoc.
From Madame Bernard, the wife of a wine-grower of Cissac-Médoc, Miss Green obtained this recipe and passed it on to me exactly as it was given to her; and she told me that Madame Bernard knew as much as there was to know of the peasant cooking of the region. I should also perhaps add that the name of the dish is not a printer’s error, nor does it mean you throw away the meat and only eat the sauce; for, although the meat is cooked so slowly for so long that it practically is sauce, it is not uncommon in country districts of France to hear a stew of this kind referred to as la sauce.
Here is the recipe, unaltered in any particular. You may think it needs an act of faith to try it but when you read the recipe carefully you