The Chemistry of CookeryWilliams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Science
The Chemistry of Cookery
Williams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Cooking
I add by way of postscript a recipe for a dish lately invented by my
wife. It is vegetable marrow _au gratin_, prepared by simply boiling
the vegetable as usual, slicing it, placing the slices in a dish,
covering them with grated cheese, and then browning slightly in an oven
or before the fire, as in preparing the well-known ‘cauliflower _au
gratin_.’ I have modified this (with improvement, I believe) by mashing
the boiled marrow and stirring the grated cheese into the midst of it
whilst as hot as possible; or, better still, by adding a little of the
solution of cheese above described to the purée of mashed marrow and
stirring it well in while hot. To please the ladies, and make it look
pretty on the table, a little more grated cheese may be sprinkled on
the top of this and browned in the oven or with a salamander. People
with weak digestive powers should set aside the pretty.
Turnips may be similarly treated as ‘mashed turnips _au gratin_.’
I recommend this especially to my vegetarian friends, who have no
objection to cheese, but do not properly appreciate it.
Taking as I do great interest in their efforts, regarding them as
pioneers of a great and certainly approaching reform, I have frequently
dined at their restaurants (always do so when within reach, as I am
only a flesh-eater for convenience’ sake), and by the experience thus
afforded of their cookery, am convinced that they are losing many
converts by the lack of cheese in many of their most important dishes.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] I am greatly disgusted with the cookery-books, especially the
pretentious volume of Francatelli’s, on being unable to find any recipe
for this delicious Italian dish, and a similar absence of a dozen or
two of equally common and excellent preparations familiar to all who
have dined at the Lepre (Rome), or other good Italian restaurants.
[12] Forty or fifty years ago these cheese _fondus_ were one of the
usual courses at many-course banquets, but now they are rarely found in
the _menu_ of such dinners. There is good reason for this. They are far
too nutritious to be eaten with a dozen other things. Their proper use
is to substitute the joint in an ordinary respectable meal of meat and
pudding.
[13] Before the Adulteration Act was passed, mustard flour was usually
mixed with well-dried wheaten flour, whereby the redundant oil was
absorbed, and the mixture was a dry powder. Now it is different, being
pure powdered mustard seed, and usually rather damp. It not only lies
closer, but is much stronger. Therefore, in following any recipe of old
cookery-books, only about half the stated quantity should be used.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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