French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [233]
Soft fruit such as raspberries and strawberries should never be cooked for creams and ices, and whether the pulp is mixed with a cooked custard or a syrup, this should always be left until quite cold before the two are stirred together. The fruit should be carefully picked over before sieving and any berries which look the slightest bit mouldy discarded, for even one bad one is liable to spoil the taste of the whole mixture.
A variation of this ice is to use lb. of raspberries and lb. of red-currants, which considerably intensifies the flavour. In this case, use an extra ounce of sugar in the custard.
GLACE AU MELON DE L’ÎLE ST JACQUES
MELON ICE CREAM
Choose a large, handsome Charentais or Cantaloup melon. Cut a neat slice off the stalk end and put it aside. Remove the seeds and the fibrous centre, then carefully scoop out all the flesh without damaging the shell of the melon. Put the flesh in a saucepan with 4 to 6 oz. of soft white sugar, the exact amount depending on the size of the melon. Cook for 2 or 3 minutes until it is soft enough to sieve. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs until they are light and foamy. Blend with the fruit purée and cook over a low flame until thickened to the consistency of a thin custard. For safety this can be done in a double saucepan but it takes longer than if the saucepan is put over a direct flame. Very thorough whisking of the egg yolks diminishes the risk of curdling. When the mixture is quite cold, add a little glass of Kirsch and the juice of half a lemon. Then fold in pint of whipped cream. Leave in a covered bowl in the refrigerator.
Three hours before dinner turn the refrigerator to its maximum freezing point; turn the prepared cream into the ice-trays, cover them with foil; freeze for 3 hours, stirring after the first hour and again after the second. To serve, fill the melon shell with the ice, closing it up with the top slice, and bring to table on one of those old-fashioned compotiers on a pedestal, or on a flat round dish lined with green leaves.
The melon ice has a strange, almost magic flavour and that is why I have called it after that French Caribbean island so unforgettably conjured out of the ocean, only to be once more submerged, by Patrick Leigh Fermor in The Violins of St. Jacques.
OMELETTE SOUFFLÉE AUX LIQUEURS
In a certain country inn in the village of Inxent, in northern France, although the house, the dining-room and the service are very modest, the cooking is famous both because of the excellence of the materials employed and the skill and simplicity with which the dishes are chosen and presented. There is very little choice. You will probably start with a trout, killed on the spot and cooked au bleu, served with melted butter so white and creamy that it practically is cream. Almost certainly the next course will be a chicken, plump, tender, roasted a delicate gold in butter, so full of flavour, the cooking so perfectly timed that you begin to wonder if you have ever really eaten a roast chicken before. Then there will be a dish of vegetables, perhaps haricots verts, again quite plainly cooked, with their exquisite savour absolutely intact. What on earth could you eat after three such sumptuously simple dishes? Imagine the ridiculous anti-climax of a showy pastry, an elaborate gâteau, a decorated ice cream. But the ladies who run that inn know what they are about: their last dish is invariably a soufflé omelette aux liqueurs, brought to table frothing and spilling over the dish, an aroma of fresh eggs, sizzling butter and mellow liqueur sharpening your senses once more so that you are able to enjoy your last course as much as you did your first.
Ingredients are 3 eggs, 2 heaped tablespoons of caster sugar, the grated rind of 1 orange, 2 tablespoons of Kirsch, Grand Marnier, Curaçao, apricot brandy, or almost any liqueur you please.
Separate the eggs and beat the yolks very thoroughly with the sugar, grated orange rind and liqueur. For an ordinary omelette the eggs are