French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [58]
Persillade A mixture of finely chopped parsley with shallot or garlic, added as a flavouring usually during the final stages of cooking to many varieties of dishes, vegetables, fried meat dishes, stews and so on.
Petit salé See Lard salé.
Pignons PINE KERNELS Used occasionally in the cooking of Provence and of the Landes district. See the omelette recipe on page 195.
Piment See Poivre.
Piments doux, Poivrons Red or green sweet peppers, also called capsicum. The pimientos of Spain, paprika peppers of Hungary and peperoni of Italy.
Pimprenelle BURNET The fleshy leaves of this plant are used for salads, and formerly figured in recipes for Montpellier butter and other herb sauces.
Poireaux LEEKS One of the most important flavouring vegetables in French soup cookery. The white part only is used. To prepare leeks for cooking, cut off the root end and trim down the top leaves right to the white part. Remove the coarse outer leaves. Make a cross cut in the top of the leek and hold under a running cold tap to loosen the grit and mud. When all have been cleaned, leave them heads down in cold water for a little while and, before cooking, scrutinise each one very carefully to see that there is no sign of mud or grit. The loss of weight in leeks after trimming is very considerable, 3 lb. of untrimmed leeks being reduced to only 1 lb. when ready for cooking.
Poivre PEPPER The world’s most valuable spice. While whole peppercorns ( poivre en grains), which are the berries of the pepper tree, piper nigrum, retain their aroma and savour almost indefinitely, once ground, pepper rapidly deteriorates. For this reason all pepper, both for cooking and for the table, should be freshly ground in a pepper mill at the moment of use. There are very many different qualities of pepper, the most valuable and the hottest of the ordinary peppers being the white ones. White peppercorns are the inner part only of the berry gathered when fully ripe, while black ones are picked immature and retain their outer covering. While milder than white peppercorns, black ones have a more aromatic scent and flavour and are preferable for general kitchen use. One of the best qualities of black peppercorns is Malabar Black.
The peppery taste which is so overwhelming in many of the foods of commerce—English sausages in particular—is due to the fact that inferior and mixed peppers are used, and produce a hot and prickly sensation in the mouth without the proper characteristic aromatic smells and taste of good pepper. When buying peppercorns, look to see that the grains are of an even size and colour. If some are large and black and others very small and brownish looking, this means that poor quality peppercorns have been mixed with the good ones.
Poivre d’âne The Provençal name for sarriette, a variety of wild savory. A bitter and peppery herb which is sometimes used for flavouring the local ewe’s and goat’s milk cheeses in Provence.
Poivre de cayenne Very hot red pepper obtained from the dried and pounded fruit of different members of the capsicum family; capsicum annuum, capsicum minimum. Cayenne pepper is also known in England as Nepal pepper.
Poivre de la Jamaïque The berry of the pimenta officinalis, or common pimento, which has a mild warm spicy flavour and which is now more generally known in England as allspice, although formerly it was often called Jamaica pepper. Although the tree is widely cultivated in