A Handbook of Cookery For A Small House

I say, "Joseph Conrad" and you say,  "Lord Jim or Heart of Darkness."  You probably don't say, "He wrote a cookbook preface."  But if you did, you would be correct.  Mr. Heart of Darkness wrote the preface to his wife, Jessie's cookbook.  Conrad writes:

"Of all the books produced since the most remote ages by human talents and industry those only that treat of cooking are, from a moral point of view, above suspicion.  The intention of every other piece of prose may be discussed and even mistrusted; but the purpose of a cookery book is one and unmistakable.  Its object can conceivably be no other than to increase the happiness of mankind."

Doesn't that just make you want to hurry out to the nearest bouquiniste and grab up all his books?  Basically Ol' Joe wants you to know that cookbooks make you happy.  On that, we agree!

In A Handbook of Cookery For A Small House Jessie Conrad opens with "A Few Introductory Words" to set out simple instructions for the home cook.

"Cooking ought not to take too much of one's time.  One hour and a half to two hours for lunch, and two and a half for dinner is sufficient, providing the the servant knows how to make up the fire in order to get the stove ready for use."

Face it, if you were married to Joseph Conrad you would want to spend at least five hours in the kitchen!  As one might guess, Conrad's recipes are rather straight forward, meat and potatoes fare.  There are sausages, kidneys, steak, mutton, fish, and fowl of various varieties.  There are potatoes in many forms and most dessert involves the stewing of fruit.  Frankly, it would seem that bangers and mash and some stewed rhubarb would come together in under three hours even if you had to light the stove, yourself.

Here is an example of a dish Jessie would have served Joseph for his luncheon.

Pigeons with Carrots

Split the roasted pigeons in halves and lay cut side down in a stone saucepan with half a claret glass of white wine, pepper and salt, with four carrots cut lengthwise, each into eight pieces then cut across.  Add a little meat juice.  Put enough water to just cover the pigeons.  Stew gently for three-quarters of an hour.  Thicken with a little flour and water and serve in the stone saucepan, or a deep dish.

I doubt you will want to grab a copy of this to make your dinner, but as a literary tie-in, it is quite fun.  If you do see a copy, you might just want to grab it as they are getting scarce and expensive.

The New Southern Table

We have been waiting for Brys Stephens The New Southern Table and it finally arrived.  We know what you are thinking:  "There is nothing "new" in Southern."  Well, we would have to say you are so wrong.  Look at that big red "NEW" in title and we will tell you how it applies.

When you say "Southern" food we think, collards, crowder peas, okra, sweet potatoes, peaches, lima beans...and so does Stephens.  Southern cuisine is built on the ingredients that come form the ground.  If Southern cooks have a fault, it would be taking these ingredients and cooking them the same way week in and week out.  We cook them the same way mama cooked them.  Mama cooked them the same way her mama cooked them.  And so it goes.

Check out the Piggly Wiggly.  They will have okra, sweet potatoes, and lima beans just like mama's did.  But check again.  They will have coconut milk, fish sauce, habaneros, pomegranate, and on and on.   Brys Stephens has spent a lot of time roaming those grocery isles and thinking of ways to make the familiar, new.  He has done a great job.

Take a look at okra.  My mama grew up in Alabama and spent much of her adult life in the cold, dark North.  She would beg grocers to get in a mess of okra.  Often when she did get it, it was a mess, but she was undeterred.  After all that effort, she made okra two ways.  Sliced and fried into chewy almost black rounds and steamed on top of field peas into a slimy mush.  Needless to say, okra was never a favorite.  Then one day, we saw an okra recipe from Africa.  The recipe kept the stem end in tact and thinly sliced the pod in long vertical strips.  When fried it resembles calamari.  A simple variation in slicing made all the difference.

Flip through The New Southern Table and you find recipe after recipe of the familiar turned on its head.  There is perloo with quinoa, purple hull tabouleh, and watermelon pudding Sicilian style to name a few.  And what about the okra?  According to Stephens this recipe is simple and concentrates the flavor.  It sure beats those little blackened nuggets.

Roasted Okra with Olive Oil, Lemon, and Sea Salt

2 pounds okra, any tough stem ends trimmed away and discarded
3 tablespoons olive oil
Sea salt
Lemon wedges

Preheat oven to 450F.  In a bowl, toss the okra with the olive oil to coat.  Arrange the okra in a single layer on a large sheet pan.  Roast 8 to 10 minutes, or until bright green, barley tender, and brown in spots.  Serve immediately with sea salt and lemon wedges.

Those who believe they just know it all about Southern cooking, be prepared to be wrong. 
 The New Southern Table will make you a rock star in the kitchen from Alabama to South Carolina and all those Yankee states out there, too.

Requiescat in pace -- Clarissa Dickson Wright

Sad to report that Clarissa Dickson Wright , the remaining one of the Two Fat Ladies, died. 
Read Wright's amusing account of shooting the neighbor's peacock and serving it to them.  After all, who in their wright mind would waste a perfectly good peacock.

While best known for her stint as the side-car riding half of the Two Fat Ladies, Wright wrote numerous food books, including a wonderful book on game and tiny tome on the beloved haggis.  After Jennifer Patterson died, Wright teamed up with childhood friend, Johnny Scott for a British "countryside" show, Clarissa and the Countryman.

In recent years, she wrote a series of autobiographies detailing her rather wild and drunken youth.  After surviving a hard-fought struggle with alcoholism, Wright spent many years working in a cookbook store.  She was "discovered" by the legendary cooking producer, Patricia Llewellyn who teamed her with Patterson, and the rest was rollicking road trip. 

My particular favorite recipe from Wright was her Mitton of Pork, a large ball of terrine filled with bacon and pork with a bit of stuffing to bind it together. 

Mitton of Pork

8 ounces rashers streaky bacon

1 1/2 pounds pork fillet. thinly sliced

6 ounces sage and onion stuffing (not from a packet)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground mace

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a 7-inch pudding basin with most of the bacon rasher, reserving a few for the top. Put in a layer of pork, then stuffing, season with salt, pepper and mace. Continue this layering process until the basin is full, finishing with the reserved bacon. Press down well, then cover tightly. Stand the basin in a baking pan to catch drips. Bake the oven for 1 hour. Place a weighted board over the pudding and leave until completely cold. Turn out the mitton and slice to serve.

 The dish was featured in the Picnic episode of The Two Fat Ladies.  I am pulling out the DVD's and spending the afternoon with dynamic duo.  No doubt Jennifer Patterson was waiting at the pearly gates with bottle of champagne, caviar and a cigarette asking what the hell Wright was doing there so soon.

 
 Clarissa Dickson Wright will be missed. The Guardian obituary: bit.ly/NmVV6o

Shake

Our favorite bar item is our Mason Jar Shaker.  Excellent use of the tried and true Mason jar.  Lord knows the Mason jar has been the leading conveyer of alcohol from here to there or from there to your lips.  When Eric Prum and Josh Williams got together and gave the jar a fancy strainer top well, you know, the rest is history.

So we were thrilled to find that the duo was giving it another shake and writing a drink book.  What do you think they would call such a book?  Shake. Shake: A New Perspective on Cocktails is the perfect companion to the Mason Jar Shaker.  Actually, it is the perfect companion to any drinker’s arsenal of books.  Here's why...

The drinks are good.

The drinks are fun.

The drinks are easy.

The instructions are way cool.

The drink recipes have the ingredients laid out on a table, so there is no doubt that you are doing things right.  Once you can see what you will need, the actual assembly is a snap.   Here is the easy way to take the L Train. One recipe makes two drinks.

The L Train

2 Shots Gin

1 Shot St-Germain

½ Shot Fresh Lemon Juice

2 Sprigs of Lavender (plus 2 to garnish)

Seltzer

i.  Add the Gin, St-Germain, Lemon Juice and Lavender to the shaker.

ii.  Add ice to above the level of the liquid and shake vigorously for 10 seconds.

iii.  Strain the mixture into chilled Coupes and top with Seltzer. Garnish with the remaining Lavender sprigs.

Think about it.  Gin.  St-Germain.  How can you loose?  Shake is a great cocktail compendium.  Sure you can use a plain old shaker but go ahead and splurge on a Mason Jar Shaker.

  

Chez Maxim's

 "It was an accumulation of velvet, lace, ribbons, diamonds and what all else I couldn't describe. To undress one of these women is like an outing that calls for three weeks' advance notice, it's like moving house."

Jean Cocteau on the women dining at Maxim's

Rarely does a restaurant rise so high above its food as Maxim's has.  Say "Maxim's" and most people immediately know of the restaurant but rarely could they tell you a single dish on the menu.  It's no wonder, eating at Maxim's is a literary shortcut to convey wealth and worldliness.  From The Merry Widow to Fawlty Towers, from Ian Fleming to Quentin Tarantino the very mention of Maxim's fills the mind with wonder. 

Maxim's hay day may well have been the late 1950's and 1960's.  The "International Jet Set" made Maxim's their home away from home as the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Maria Callas, Porfirio Rubirosa, Barbara Hutton, and Jacqueline and Aristotle Onassis were frequent guests.   It was during this era that Maxim's published their cookbook, Chez Maxim's.  It was quite a document in 1962.  The book is big and filled with recipes, stories, and photos including full page color photographs laid in. 

If there is a "famous" Maxim's recipe it may well be Potage Billy By.  According to the cookbook:

It was Louis Barthe, the former chef at Maxim's, who told me the story behind the Potage Billy By. In 1925, he was working in the kitchen at Ciro's, a restaurant in Deauville known for a special mussels dish with a particularly succulent juice. One day a very good customer, Mr. William Brand, decided to invite some American friends to Ciro's. Mussels are generally eaten with the fingers in France, using one double-shell as tongs to scoop the meat out of the others. As Mr. Brand wanted to spare his fiends this delicate operation, he requested that the juice be served without the mussels. It was such a success that during the days that followed, each of his guests returned separately to Ciro's and ordered the "Potage Billy Brand." For the sale of the discretion, it was placed on the menu as "Potage Billy B." and thus was born the "Potage Bill By" which has since become a classic of the French culinary tradition.

The soup was popularized in America by Pierre Franey.  In 1961, Craig Claiborne published Pierre Franey's recipe for "billi bi" in his New York Times Cookbook, declaring, "This may well be the most elegant and delicious soup ever created. It may be served hot or cold."

Franey's history of the soup list William B. Leeds as the soups' namesake, leading to years of conflicting stories.

"The story goes that a wealthy American named William B. Leeds lived off and on, in Paris and that his favorite restaurant was Maxim's. The menu listed a cream of mussel soup, and this was his choice on almost every visit. Leeds was a real favorite of the owner and as a result of his passion for the soup it was dubbed billi-bi, a version, of course, of Billy B."

A 1958 book about Maxim's written by Jean Mauduit states it was named for Brand.

Franey might have the namesake wrong but Claiborne may well have been right about "delicious."

Potage Billy By

1 1/2 cups Fumet de Poisson
2 qt. mussels
1 large onion
1 stalk celery
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup dry white wine
2 sprigs parsley
1/2 tsp. ground peppercorns
Salt

Scrape and wash the mussels thoroughly.  Mince the onion and place it in a deep saucepan along with the celery, wine, and pepper. Add the muscles, cover the sauce pan, and boil over a high flame for 6 minutes. Shake the muscles in the pan two or three times during the cooking process so that those on top go to the bottom and vice versa. When the muscles are open remove and drain them. Pour the liquid in the sauce pan through a fine strainer, return to the saucepan, and reduced to about 1 quart of liquid. Add the Fumet de Poisson and cream and reheat over a low flame until liquid comes almost to the boiling point, stirring continually with a wooden spatula. Season to taste.

Serve very hot without the muscles. This soup can also be served cold.
 

 Pierre Cardin eventually bought Maxim's and now it is more famous as a brand than a restaurant. 

Pitt Cue Co.

OK, we saw this book quite a lot.  It seemed to be quite popular.  But in the end we let prejudice get in the way.  After all, what could Brits possible know about barbecue?  What a joke, right?  Then our fellow bloggers led us down the cookbook path.  We willing admit, it is not hard to lead us down that path.  Then one of our favorite bloggers, Matthew Rowley of Rowley's Whiskey Forge wrote about this book, Pitt Cue Co.

Rowley was in Britain and browsing in a bookstore when someone articulated my very prejudice, Why would you want to buy a barbecue book in Britain?  Well, Rowley says the authors, Tom Adams, Jamie Berger, Simon Anderson and Richard Turner, understand the credo of cue -- low and slow.  What makes the book interesting is their use of local ingredients.

Fine, but this what captured my attention:

Pickled Hot Dogs.  This was a first for me in a barbecue book, in fact, it was the first in a preserving book.  You had me at pickled hot dogs.... The other big plus, they never shy away from adding booze to anything.  They are very nose-to-tail.   They feature one of my favorite sides, hominy and cheese.  They put chicken skin on their deviled eggs.  They make barbecue sauce into jelly.  These guys are great.

The drawback to the book is that often lamented problem of the restaurateur as cookbook author.   When one is used to cooking in a big, fully equipped kitchen, with minions to run errands and cook for you, it is often a bit hard to translate that experience in a way that the home cook can accomplish it without ordering from said restaurant.

But did we mention they pickle hot dogs?

Our Pickle Brine

water                                   1.5 liters
cider vinegar                       1 liter
caster or demerara sugar    700g
sea salt                                30g
optional aromats (peppercorns, bay leaves,
fennel seeds, coriander seeds, mustard seeds,
star anise, cardamom pods, root liquorice)

Put all the ingredients into a large pan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally until the sugar and salt are dissolved.


Pickled Hot Dogs

Our Pickle Brine              1 liter
hot dogs                           1kg
chillies                              3
garlic cloves                     4
sprigs of thyme                3

Put the pickle brine into a pan and bring to a boil.

Stack the hot dogs neatly in 2 large sterilized glass jars with the chillies, garlic and thyme spread evenly throughout the jars.

Pour over hot pickling liquid and seal the jars.  Leave to cool, then refrigerate for 1 week before eating.

 Did we mention they pickle hot dogs?  We sincerely apologize that we dismissed this book based on the nationality of the writers.  It is now our very favorite book on cue!

The authors of the book — restaurateurs Tom Adams, Jamie Berger, Simon Anderson and Richard Turner - See more at: http://matthew-rowley.blogspot.com/2013/11/bookshelf-pitt-cue-co-cookbook.html#sthash.geohmKEa.dpuf

The authors of the book — restaurateurs Tom Adams, Jamie Berger, Simon Anderson and Richard Turner - See more at: http://matthew-rowley.blogspot.com/2013/11/bookshelf-pitt-cue-co-cookbook.html#sthash.geohmKEa.dpuf

The authors of the book — restaurateurs Tom Adams, Jamie Berger, Simon Anderson and Richard Turner - See more at: http://matthew-rowley.blogspot.com/2013/11/bookshelf-pitt-cue-co-cookbook.html#sthash.geohmKEa.dpuf

restaurateurs Tom Adams, Jamie Berger, Simon Anderson and Richard Turner — - See more at: http://matthew-rowley.blogspot.com/2013/11/bookshelf-pitt-cue-co-cookbook.html#sthash.geohmKEa.dpuf

restaurateurs Tom Adams, Jamie Berger, Simon Anderson and Richard Turner - See more at: http://matthew-rowley.blogspot.com/2013/11/bookshelf-pitt-cue-co-cookbook.html#sthash.geohmKEa.dpuf

restaurateurs Tom Adams, Jamie Berger, Simon Anderson and Richard Turner - See more at: http://matthew-rowley.blogspot.com/2013/11/bookshelf-pitt-cue-co-cookbook.html#sthash.geohmKEa.dpuf

Not A Cookbook - A Pie

Yesterday's cookbook, Pies and Tarts, inspired dinner. We dug into the freezer and found a package of puff pastry. During Christmas, we made lamb stuffed with chorizo made earlier in the year. There was a chunk of the stuffed lamb in the freezer that was thawed. There was a package of mushrooms and of course, beer.

The mushrooms were sliced and sautéd as well as half a chopped onion. The lamb was cut into chunks and tossed in the pan with a bottle of dark beer and cooked down. The puff pastry went into a springform pan. The lamb and mushroom mix went into the springform and the other piece of pastry went on top. It baked for 45 minutes. And we had a savory pie for dinner.

 

Pies and Tarts

 

 I would have to say Stephane Reynaud is one of my favorite chefs.  I love, love, love his cookbooks.  I ordered Pies and Tarts from England in November.  It got lost.  I ordered it again and finally it arrived.  And just in time for the snow. Really, is there a better time to cook up pies than during the snow?  There are rabbit pies, beef pies, fish pies, cheese pies, apple pies, every type of pie one could ever want!  In fact, you will find pies that you never thought of and familiar pies put forward in new ways.

While Reynaud often has recipes that might feel overly complicated, he walks the reader through them in such a way as to make the most complicated concoction seem totally do-able.  All of his books have been like this.  The beautiful photographs often make the recipes in Pies and Tarts seem unobtainable, but following the straightforward instruction will turn you into pie rock star.

This is the cover pie:

Lorraine Pie 

2 packets puff pastry (500 grams)
4 French shallots 
4 garlic cloves
250 g veal topside
250 g  pork scotch fillet
1 bunch tarragon
1 sprig rosemary
2 sprigs thyme
200 ml Gewürztraminer wine
Salt and pepper
1 egg

Peel the shallots and garlic, then finely chop. Cut meat into strips about 1 cm wide.  Pluck the tarragon,rosemary and thyme leaves.  Marinate meat with shallots, garlic, herbs and wine. Season, cover with plastic wrap and set aside in the refrigerator 12 hours.

Divide dough in half and roll out two rectangles of the same size until about 3mm thick.  Line a baking tray with baking paper and lay one rectangle of dough on top.  Spread over the drained strips of meat with shallots, garlic and herb, leaving 1 cm border all around.  Whisk the egg and use to glaze the edges.

Cover with second piece of pastry. Seal the two rectangles of pastry dough by pinching edges.  Glaze them and roll the edges inward so they tick together.

 Criss-cross the dough lightly with the tip of a knife and glaze the top of the pie.   Bake at 180 C for 45 minutes. 

OK this is the British edition so veal "topside" is loin and pork "scotch fillet" is a simple shoulder.   In the US, most frozen puff pastry come in two sheets, so you need only one box.  We chose this recipe because we wanted you see the final product.  We don't eat veal, but Reynaud is French so he eats anything.  Today we are inspired and are heading into the kitchen for a beef and mushroom pie.
More later.

 

Martha Washington Log Cabin Cookbook

In 1924 the ladies of the Martha Washington Guild organized a cookbook fundraiser.  The Martha Washington Log Cabin Cookbook was named for a small log cabin built in proximity to the Washington Memorial Chapel.  The chapel sits at Valley Forge to honor the some 3000 soldiers that lost their lives during the winter encampment.

The log cabin was set-aside as a tearoom or luncheon spot.  Unlike many of the spiral bound fundraising cookbooks, this one is bound in blue covered cloth with a paste down of the cabin on the front.  The recipes within come from the ladies of the guild and not from Martha Washington as one might think.

Since the log cabin was indeed a tearoom, the cookbook is heavy on light luncheon fare and filled with sweets.  These old fundraising cookbooks offer an interesting insight into the lives of women during the era.

The recipes are often very simple and based on the premise that the cook actually does the household cooking and already posses a lot of knowledge. 

Pork Chops and Fried Apples

Pork chops

Apples

Flour

Fry pork chops in the usual way.  Then in the same pan fry your apples, which have been peeled and cored and cut into slices about two-thirds of an inch thick.  When apples are browned on one side, turn carefully and brown the other side.  Serve on platter with chops.  Mix a little flour and water and make a gravy in the same pan.

There are a few “fill in the blanks” in this recipe like amounts, times, and temperatures.  If you do fry pork chops, however, this should be an easy idea to make your own.

Savannah Seasons

Several years ago the popular book in the zeitgeist was 1000 Places to See Before You Die.  There were pyramids, mountains, camel races, and culinary adventures.  One of those culinary adventures was a visit to Savannah’s Elizabeth on 37^th.   It is definitely one of those 1000 places.

After running a small restaurant in Atlanta with a loyal following and building a large law practice, the Terry’s decided they wanted a different life for their daughters so they uprooted to historic Savannah.  Elizabeth on 37^th is housed in a stately old home.  Elizabeth Terry and her family live upstairs.  The restaurant is like walking into a friend's dinning room. 

After a series of accolades including the l995 James Beard Award as Best Chef in the Southeast, Elizabeth Terry with her daughter Alexis, wrote Savannah Seasons.  Before it seemed like such a remarkably “hip” idea, Terry sifted through old cookbooks, recipes and garden notes at the Georgia Historical Society.  She studied Savannah’s rich food history from scuppernongs to fig preserves, from juniper berries to Madeira, from Africans to Native Americans, gathering a deep understanding of the ways food impacted history.

Like many a great cookbook, the recipes in Savannah Seasons seem to be both old and familiar and cutting edge, simultaneously.  There are pickled onions – with cranberries.  There is a simple broiled fish – in a cinnamon marinade.  There are turnovers – with oysters and horseradish.  Take these exact recipes and update the format of this book and reviewers would rave about such a “new” take on Southern cooking.  

So take a new, old look at Southern fare, like this gumbo.

Hearty Okra Gumbo with Chicken and Shrimp

6 chicken thighs, roasted and shredded, bone and skin discarded
1 cup minced onions
3 tablespoons minced garlic
2 small yellow squash, cut into ¼-inch dice (1 cup)
2 cups sliced okra
4 cups Basic Chicken Broth
1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes in juice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup cored, seeded, and minced green bell pepper
¼ cup minced fresh basil
1 pound large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined (12 ounces)
2 teaspoons hot chili sauce
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt 

In a soup pot, combine the chicken, onions, 2 tablespoons of the garlic, the yellow squash, okra, chicken broth, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, until the vegetables are very tender. Remove the bay leaves. Set aside.

Just before serving, reheat the soup, then warm the oil in a large skillet and sauté the green bell pepper, remaining garlic, basil, and shrimp until the shrimp are just pink. Add the hot chili sauce, the lemon juice, salt, and the contents of the skillet to the hot soup.

Elizabeth Terry retired from the restaurant, but her spirit of generosity and rich southern hospitality live on.