French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [86]
Put the beef and veal into a deep pan with the onions, carrots and bouquet of herbs. Add 1 tablespoon of salt, cover with 7 to 8 pints of water, cook with the lid on the pan either in a very low oven or on top of the stove over a very gentle heat for 3 to 5 hours, depending upon the cut of meat (ox cheek takes the longest) until the meat is quite tender. Remove both veal and beef, sprinkle them with salt and olive oil and leave until next day. Keep the stock for soup. To make the salad, cut the meat when quite cold into thin slices, narrow and neat, a little smaller than a visiting card. Mix the veal and the beef together.
The sauce takes time to prepare. The shallots must be chopped exceedingly fine with the parsley, which must be first washed in cold water and squeezed dry; when both shallots and parsley are chopped almost to a pulp stir in a little French mustard, salt, pepper, the chopped pickled cucumber and the capers. Add the olive oil gradually, and a very little tarragon vinegar. Mix the sauce very thoroughly with the meat. Lastly add the roughly chopped tomatoes, which are there mainly for appearance’ sake. Leave for several hours before serving. Arrange in shallow dishes with a little extra chopped parsley on the top. There should be enough parsley in the sauce to make it quite thick and quite green.
This recipe can be applied to almost any kind of boiled meat or to fish and chicken, the quantities for the sauce being reduced in proportion to the amount of meat.
SALADE SIMPLE, SALADE DE SAISON
GREEN SALAD
This is a plain lettuce or other green salad dressed only with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, and served either with or after the meat, poultry or other main course.
The generally accepted formula for a so-called French dressing, for which, so far as I know, there is no French translation, is 3 tablespoons of oil to 1 of vinegar. This is much too vinegary even with a mild vinegar. Six to one is nearer the mark, although, naturally, this must remain a question of individual taste. Red or white wine vinegar, tarragon or Orléans vinegar are the ones to go for. The dressing should, however, taste predominantly of olive oil; when the salad has been turned gently over and over and over in the dressing (the best way to do it is with your hands), so that every leaf is coated with its film of oil, serve it at once, fresh, green and shining.
More than once I have heard English people express astonishment and disapproval of the fact that all they get in France when they ask for a green salad is ‘plain lettuce with oil and vinegar.’ But to a Frenchman that is what a green salad means; and it is served with or after the roast. The English type of mixed salad, with tomato and beetroot and cucumber added, would be served, if at all, as an hors-d’œuvre, like the salade niçoise. And it would still be dressed with oil and vinegar, not mayonnaise or salad cream.
In south-western France walnut oil, although it is now becoming rather rare, is often used instead of olive oil; it has a rather powerful and strange flavour and is not to everybody’s taste, but those who like it like it very much indeed. Walnut oil (huile de noix) is occasionally to be found at Roche, the French shop in Old Compton Street, Soho, but it is even more expensive than the best olive oil.
SALADE AU CHAPON
For those who like a garlic-flavoured