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Burdwan, Indian
This dish is much appreciated in India, and almost any kind of cold meat may be used for it. Venison, however, has the preference, but poultry may be so cooked as to ensure success. Take a table-spoonful of minced Spanish onion and half that quantity of shallot. To these put a pint of cold water, a mild seasoning of cayenne pepper, a table-spoonful of essence of anchovies, and an ounce of butter, mixed with a tea-spoonful of flour. Let this sauce simmer, after it has come to a boil, about a quarter of an hour, or until the onion is tender; then add to it a table-spoonful of chilli vinegar and a glass or two of Madeira. Draw the stewpan near the fire, and place the meat into it--if a fowl, divide it into joints and strip off the skin--when hot through, draw still nearer to the fire, but it should not be allowed to boil. If the fowl has been roasted, it may be sent to table when just on the point of boiling; but if only partly cooked before, allow it to simmer from twenty to twenty-five minutes. Many additional sauces may be used, and the juice of a lime or Seville orange pressed into it before serving; but care should be taken that no strong flavour of any particular sauce predominates. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A reheating dish rather than a cooking one: a sharp, wine-and-anchovy sauce built in the pan, into which cold roast meat is warmed through. Nearly everything that can go wrong here goes wrong at the boil.
- Never let it boil once the meat is inAlready-cooked meat held at a rolling boil in a thin sauce turns dry and stringy within minutes, and the Madeira loses its aroma. Keep the pan at a bare shiver, around 180F, until the meat is hot right through.
- But do get it properly hotCold cooked meat, especially poultry, should reach 165F internally before serving. "Just on the point of boiling" achieves that; a lukewarm sauce does not.
- Essence of anchoviesA Victorian bottled anchovy extract, salty and slightly sweet. Anchovy paste from a tube is the closest modern equivalent, thinned with a spoonful of the sauce before it goes in; two mashed salted anchovy fillets also work. Salt the dish only at the end.
- Chilli vinegarVinegar steeped with dried red chillies, once a standard cruet item and still sold. In its absence use cider or white wine vinegar with a pinch of chilli flakes, and remember the cayenne is already in the sauce.
- A glass or two of MadeiraA wine glass of the period is usually reckoned at about 2 to 2.5 fl oz, so this is somewhere between a quarter and two-thirds of a cup. Start with 1/3 cup of a dry Sercial or Verdelho and taste; a sweet Bual will unbalance the anchovy.
- Spanish onion and shallotSpanish onion means the large mild yellow onion, not a Mediterranean variety. A tablespoon of it minced with a half tablespoon of shallot is a small amount for a pint of liquid, which is deliberate; this is a thin, sharp sauce.
- The thickeningAn ounce of butter (2 tablespoons) mixed with a teaspoon of flour is a beurre manie, not a gravy base; here it goes into the pan with the water and simmers with the onion. Expect something barely napping; work out any lumps before it goes in.
- Seville orangeThe bitter marmalade orange, in season only from late December through February. Lime is the recipe's own alternative and is available year round; a mix of lemon and ordinary orange juice also approximates it.
- Yield and servingThree to four, as the original says, assuming roughly a pound of picked cold meat. Serve with plain rice to take up the sauce.
Burdwan is generally traced to the anglicised form of Bardhaman, a district and town in West Bengal, though the derivation is conventional rather than documented, and the name attached itself in Anglo-Indian kitchens to a class of devilled made-dishes built from cold roast meat, wine and bottled sauces. It belongs to the same family as the breakfast devil: British households in India, like British households at home, ate a great deal of cold joint, and a hot piquant sauce was the standard means of making a second appearance welcome. The taste for anchovy essence, chilli vinegar and Madeira all at once is thoroughly Victorian rather than Bengali. The instruction that no one sauce should dominate is the recipe's own admission that the cook is expected to keep half a dozen bottles on hand and use restraint with all of them.