French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [47]
Thickened sauces obtained à froid or without cooking are emulsions of egg yolk and olive oil (mayonnaise, page 120); and the little known sauce bretonne, page 124, is a cross between mayonnaise and Béarnaise, being a mixture of egg yolks and barely melted butter, plus herbs, mustard and vinegar.
Beurre blanc, page 306, and hollandaise, page 119, are obtained by a fusion of butter with other ingredients at very low heat. The sauces of bouillabaisse and of matelotes are on the contrary obtained by the cooking of oil, water and/or wine together as fiercely and rapidly as possible. A very simple version of this system is the recipe for moules à la marseillaise, page 319.
There are also, of course, the straightforward sauces, of which tomato sauce is typical, and which are really purées, or coulis, needing no sort of extra thickenings.
Once these few different principles of sauce-making have been mastered—and, of course, many people are conversant with them without precisely knowing the reasons for what they are doing—it becomes possible to make almost any sauce without fear of failure.
Marinage des Viandes, Poisons, Gibiers To marinate is to steep meat, poultry or game in a mixture of wine, spices, aromatic herbs and vegetables for anything from an hour to several days. The objects in so doing are (a) to tenderise tough meat, (b) to give moisture to dry meat—such as an old hare or venison; for these olive oil is usually added to the marinade, (c) to preserve meat or game which, although à point, it may be more convenient to keep for a day or two. You have to use your own judgment as to the length of time to marinate a given piece of meat. In warm or stuffy weather it should obviously be for a shorter time than in the winter. When instructed to marinate fish, this will usually mean for an hour or so, in oil and lemon juice, or possibly white wine.
It is not, perhaps, imperative to go quite so far as M. Edouard Nignon, the famous chef de Cuisine of Paillard’s in Paris and at one time of Claridges in London, who in one of his books instructs his readers to prepare the string for trussing a chicken by first soaking it in cognac. . . .
Mijoter To simmer, to cook gently over low heat.
Mitonner To cook bread in broth or soup.
Panage The coating of something to be fried, or grilled, with breadcrumbs, which are made from bread dried in the oven, either until it is a pale golden colour or else removed before it has turned colour. The breadcrumbs made from the former by pounding and sieving, are called chapelure blonde or brune, and the latter chapelure blanche. Some writers, however, only refer to chapelure when they mean browned breadcrumbs to cover a gratin, and to white breadcrumbs, for coating, as panure. A panade is something different again, meaning generally a preparation of flour, breadcrumbs, butter, etc., used for binding quenelles and croquettes; the English panada, or basic preparation for a soufflé, is in French an appareil à soufflé.
Panure à l’anglaise The food to be fried, such as escalopes of veal, fish fillets, cutlets, etc., is first dipped in beaten egg, then in the breadcrumbs. (Some cooks advocate a preliminary coating of flour, but it is not really necessary.) The operation is often repeated twice, and it is essential to have very fine breadcrumbs or the final result will be that all too familiar thick and greasy blanket. Having coated the food, smooth it down with a palette knife and leave it for a little time on a grid to set. Sometimes, especially for grilling, the food is painted with melted butter instead of egg, and is then breadcrumbed. This is panure au beurre. If grated Parmesan is mixed with the breadcrumbs it is panure à la milanaise
Papillotes Paper cases in which small items like veal cutlets or red mullet are cooked in the oven, having sometimes been already partly cooked. The object of cooking en papillotes is to preserve all the juices and aromas intact, and the food is brought to table still in its cases. The paper should