Recipes From The French Menu Cookbook by Richard Olney
Recipes From The French Menu Cookbook by Richard Olney
Recipes From The French Menu Cookbook by Richard Olney
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint
of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com
Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-60774-002-5
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
1 quart of strawberries
sugar
juice of 3 oranges
Wash the strawberries rapidly without letting them soak, and remove
the stems. Place them, whole, in the bowl or deep dish in which they
are to be served, sprinkle them generously with sugar, pour the orange
juice over, and leave them to macerate, covered, in the refrigerator for
a couple of hours before serving. Simple, delicious and refreshing.
41o
Accompaniments:
olive oil
pepper, coarse salt
cold sweet butter
crusty white bread
412
THE DAUBE
A daube, like most rustic dishes that require a long, slow, even cooking
process, is never as good as when prepared in seasoned earthenware,
which absorbs heat more slowly and more evenly and holds it longer
than any other kitchen utensil. A daube is usually prepared in amounts
sufficient for several meals. If anything, the dish improves with a gen-
tle reheating the next day, and it also serves as a delicious cold hors
d’oeuvre—la daube en gelée. For a more attractive presentation, it is
only necessary to arrange the more presentable pieces of beef and car-
rot slices neatly in a simple mold and pour the remainder over before
chilling. It may then be turned out and decorated with a bit of green.
A daube is a good winter dish but has been placed here among the sum-
mer menus so that it may profit from fresh tomatoes.
Perhaps the finest cut of meat for this preparation is that known in
French as the macreuse. This is a small section of the chuck near the
shoulder joint, rich both in flavor and gelatin. The other recommend-
ed cuts are equally gelatinous. In most daubes, the larding process
is overlooked and, although the resultant sauce may be decent, the
meat tends to be dreary, dry and stringy. Only the triple combination
of gelatinous meat, the inserted fat, and slow and even cooking can
produce pieces of meat that hold their shape, remain moist, and melt
in the mouth—and the discovery of the isolated pockets of parsley and
garlic flavor is a supplementary pleasure.
Larding elements:
4 ounces fresh fat side pork
2 cloves garlic
1 small handful finely chopped parsley
(Continued)
413
Cut the meat into fairly large pieces of more-or-less regular shape,
respecting, as nearly as possible, the natural muscular structure. For
31/2 pounds of boneless meat, you should have 15 or 16 pieces.
Remove the rind from the fat pork and save it. Cut the fat into
strips approximately 1/3 inch square and 1 to 11/2 inches long. Peel the
2 cloves of garlic and reduce it to a paste in a mortar, add the chopped
parsley, mix well, then add the strips of fat pork and stir well together.
With a small, sharply pointed knife, pierce each piece of meat
completely through, with the grain, being careful not to make a wide
and messy gash. Gently force a strip of pork fat, well coated with the
garlic-and-parsley mixture, into the center of each piece of meat, and
place the pieces in a bowl. Sprinkle the cognac and the olive oil over,
turn the pieces around until all sides are equally moistened, pour the
white wine over and leave to marinate for 2 to 3 hours.
Remove the rind from the lean side pork, and cut all the pork rind,
including the rind reserved earlier, into small pieces approximately
1/2 inch square. Parboil them for 5 or 6 minutes and drain them.
414
The term pistou refers to the pommade of garlic and basil leaves (this
ordinarily contains much more garlic), the flesh of raw tomatoes, and
grated Parmesan cheese, the whole thing worked into a thick paste
and thinned with olive oil; it is customarily used to add an explosive,
last-minute perfume to la soupe au pistou, basically a minestrone con-
taining, in addition to the usual vegetables and pasta, white beans,
green beans, and a slice of cut-up local squash, somewhat resembling
our winter squash, which lends a velvety quality to the soup. Pistou
was, longer ago than anyone can remember, adopted into Provençal
cooking from Genoa, where a somewhat different version, pesto, is
often used as a sauce for pasta.
In French culinary terminology, gras-double refers to the stomachs
and intestinal parts of beef (it only becomes tripes when the feet are
added), and the variety is preferable to the exclusive use of honey-
42o