French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [228]
If you have bought a pineapple with a fine and well-shaped tuft of leaves, one decorative way of serving it is as follows: cut off the leaf end quite straight and with a good margin of the fruit adhering to it, so that it will stand level on a dish. Slice and peel the rest of the fruit, and cut out the centre cores if they are very hard. (It is easy to do this with an apple corer.) Arrange them in a circle on a flat round or oval dish. Sprinkle them with soft white sugar and a little Alsatian or Swiss Kirsch; about 2 tablespoons to a fair-sized pineapple is enough.
In the centre of the dish stand the top slice with the leaves.
BANANES BARONNET
BANANAS WITH KIRSCH AND CREAM
Usually I only find bananas acceptable when they are fried as a vegetable, or cooked in butter and rum for a sweet, but it must be admitted that the Kirsch in this recipe of Edmond Richardin’s works wonders with the raw fruit.
Cut your bananas into rounds, sprinkle them with white sugar, add a coffee-spoon of matured Kirsch and a tablespoon of thick fresh cream for each banana. Mix carefully so that each round is well coated with the delicious mixture.
MARRONS AU KIRSCH
CHESTNUTS WITH KIRSCH
Shelled and skinned chestnuts (see page 263) are simmered gently in water with a little sugar and a vanilla pod until they are quite tender, but the greatest care must be taken to see that they do not break up. Leave them to cool in their syrup, then put half a dozen or so into a wine-glass for each person, with a very little of the syrup. Pour a couple of tablespoons of Alsatian or Swiss Kirsch into each.
Alternatively, serve the French tinned chestnuts in syrup in the same fashion. Either way, this is a dessert for the very rich or the very extravagant.
MELON AUX FRAISES DES BOIS
MELON STUFFED WITH WILD STRAWBERRIES
Cut a slice off the thick end of a Cantaloup, Charentais or Cavaillon melon and keep it aside. Remove the seeds and scoop out the flesh, taking care not to damage the skin. Cut the flesh into cubes and mix with lb. to 1 lb. of wild or wood strawberries. Add a little sugar and 2 or 3 tablespoons of port. Return the mixture to the melon, put back the top slice, surround the melon with plenty of cracked ice and leave for several hours before serving. Do not put it in the refrigerator, as the powerful aroma of melon penetrates all other foodstuffs.
An alternative filling to wild strawberries and port is a mixture of raspberries and Kirsch or Grand Marnier.
PUDDING AUX MÛRES
MULBERRY PUDDING
I quote this recipe from Madame Seignobos31 because in composition it has a good deal of resemblance to our own Summer Pudding, and anyone lucky enough to have a mulberry tree in his garden may like to try it:
‘Cook 2 lb. of mulberries in a syrup composed of 1 lb. of sugar and pint of water, then sieve them.
‘In a round china vessel arrange slices of stale crumb of bread in several superimposed layers, pour the mulberry purée over and leave in the cellar to cool.
‘When the bread has imbibed all the syrup, which is to say after 24 hours, turn it out on to a compotier and mask the pudding with a vanilla-flavoured cream.’
PÊCHES AU VIN BLANC
PEACHES IN WHITE WINE
The best peaches for this dish are the yellow-fleshed variety.
Dip the fruit in boiling water so that the skins can easily be peeled off. Slice them straight into big wine-glasses, sprinkle with sugar and pour a tablespoon or two of white wine into each glass. Don’t prepare them too long ahead or the fruit will go mushy.
POMMES AU BEURRE
APPLES COOKED IN BUTTER
I have never very greatly appreciated cooked apple dishes, but from the French I learned two valuable lessons about them. First, choose hard sweet apples whenever possible instead of the sour cooking variety which are used for English apple dishes. And secondly, if the apples are to be eaten hot, cook