French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [53]
Champignons de couche CULTIVATED MUSHROOMS Used with other flavouring vegetables to make various basic mixtures such as duxelles, salpicons, and formerly fines herbes.
Champignons secs DRIED MUSHROOMS These are usually cèpes, or boletus, and are used for flavouring stews, soups and sauces, although less in French cookery than in Italian. A small quantity goes a long way. They should be soaked in tepid water for half an hour or so before cooking.
Chapelure Breadcrumbs for coating meat, fish, etc., to be fried, or for sprinkling over dishes to be browned in the oven or under the grill. See Panage, pages 77-8.
Ciboule SCALLION, WELSH ONION.
Ciboulette, Civette, Cives CHIVES Used fresh to flavour salads and sauces.
Coriandre CORIANDER The dried seeds of the coriander plant have an aromatic and slightly orangey scent, and were at one time used to flavour sweet creams, and coated with sugar were popular children’s sweets or comfits. Neither the seeds nor the leaves are much used nowadays in French cookery, although both figure in the cookery of the Arab countries and of Spain and Greece.
Cornichons GHERKINS The immature fruit of the gherkin cucumbers; pickled, they appear as an accompaniment to the beef from the pot-au-feu, and in hors-d’œuvre, especially in northern and eastern France; and chopped gherkins always appear in any dish labelled charcutière, e.g. côtelettes de porc charcutière.
Couennes de porc FRESH PORK RINDS Much used in country daubes and stews to give richness and a gelatinous consistency to the sauce.
Crépine de porc, Coiffe de porc PIG’S CAUL An outer membrane which covers the intestines of the pig and to which a certain amount of fat adheres. When the greater part of this fat has been removed to be melted down for lard, the crépine is soaked in salt and water to cleanse it, and subsequently used for wrapping round the flat sausages which, taking their name from this covering, are called crépinettes. This crépine, coiffe, or toilette as it is sometimes called, as also that of the calf, is used a good deal in French cookery as a protective and fat wrapping for braised liver and various kinds of chopped meat mixtures. The best substitute when it cannot be obtained is a wrapping of very thin slices of back pork fat.
Cumin, Graines de CUMIN SEEDS A characteristic, warm and pungent flavouring of North African Arab cookery; also used occasionally in the cookery of Alsace. Cumin des près is wild caraway.
Curcuma TURMERIC The spice ground from the root of this plant is responsible for the yellow colour and part of the pungent flavour of curry powders.
Duxelles A preparation of chopped mushrooms, shallots and onion, melted in butter and used as a foundation for various sauces and croquette mixtures.
Échalote SHALLOT A small variety of onion which divides into two or more cloves when skinned. One of the most frequently used aromatic vegetables of the French kitchen. While its flavour is no milder than that of the onion, it is said to be easier to digest. The shallot also emulsifies to a greater extent than the onion, which no doubt accounts for its presence at the base of a number of sauces such as bercy and beurre blanc, and in basic preparations like duxelles and mirepoix.
Épeautre SPELT, GERMAN WHEAT A coarse grain which was grown a good deal at one time in Provence. It is said to be the grain from which macaroni was originally made in Italy.
Épices composées A mixture of spices and herbs used for flavouring. Carême gives the composition as follows: thyme, bayleaves, basil, sage, a little coriander and mace. All these ingredients, perfectly dried, are pounded together and sieved. Add to this mixture a third of their weight in finely ground pepper. Store them in a sealed box in a dry place.
Épices, quatre, or Épices fines Another mixture of herbs and spices composed, according to the Larousse Gastronomique, of 700 grammes of white