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Jardiniere
This is a garnish made of cooked vegetables, which gives its name to the dish with which it is served. Thus, fillet of beef a la jardiniere, mutton a la jardiniere, goose a la jardiniere, simply mean fillet of beef, mutton, and goose served with a garnish a la jardiniere. To prepare this garnish, peel two or three sound carrots and turnips, and turn or shape them in fanciful forms of equal size. This is most easily done with a vegetable scoop made for the purpose. Two ounces of French beans cut into diamonds should be added, a cauliflower divided into sprigs, two ounces of green peas, two ounces of asparagus tops cut up into small pieces, and a few brussels sprouts. Cook all the vegetables first in a little broth nicely flavoured with pepper, salt, and sugar. Take them out when they are rather underdone, so that they shall not break when dished; drain them thoroughly, put them into a saucepan with a table-spoonful of lightly-coloured glaze, and shake them for two or three minutes over the fire. Take them up, and arrange them round the dish as effectively as possible. This is generally best done by raising the meat in the centre and putting the vegetables round it.
A vegetable garnish rather than a dish in its own right, and the entry is written on the assumption that a stockpot and a pan of meat glaze are already going. Two things carry it: uniform shapes and vegetables cooked separately so nothing turns to mush.
- Cook each vegetable separatelyCooking times differ -- The recipe says only "cook all the vegetables first in a little broth", without saying whether in one pan or several. Carrots and turnips need the longest, cauliflower sprigs and beans rather less, peas and asparagus tips least of all, so cooking them in batches is the safer reading if the peas are not to collapse before the carrot is tender.
- "Turn" and the vegetable scoopTo turn a vegetable is to pare it into a regular barrel or olive shape with a small knife. The scoop referred to is the parisienne cutter or melon baller, which gives even spheres far faster; a 20 mm and a 25 mm ball cutter cover most of it.
- GlazeMeat glaze is stock reduced to a syrup that sets firm when cold. The recipe asks for a "lightly-coloured" one, so a pale well-reduced veal or chicken stock rather than a dark sauce; commercial glace de viande in a tub is the nearest modern equivalent. It should coat, not sauce.
- Rather underdoneTake the vegetables out several minutes short and refresh them in cold water if you are working ahead. They finish in the pan with the glaze, and root vegetables in particular will keep cooking in their own heat while draining.
- The broth and the sugarPepper, salt and a pinch of sugar in the cooking liquid seasons the vegetables from within rather than at the end. The sugar is there for the carrots and turnips especially; a level teaspoon in the pan is plenty.
- QuantitiesAs written, roughly two or three carrots, two or three turnips, one cauliflower divided into sprigs, a few brussels sprouts, and 2 oz (about 60 g) each of beans, peas and asparagus tips. The recipe gives no indication of how many the garnish serves.
- ArrangingThe recipe asks for the meat raised in the centre and the vegetables set round it "as effectively as possible", which implies keeping the kinds distinct rather than heaping them together.
Jardinière is the feminine of jardinier, gardener, and à la jardinière came to be used in nineteenth-century cooking for a garnish of fresh vegetables cut to shape and dressed separately — the plate as a kitchen garden. It belongs to the vocabulary of grande cuisine being translated for British households, and it is a term rather than a dish, one of a family — jardinière, printanière, bouquetière, macédoine — that a cook was expected to recognise on a menu. The reliance on a vegetable scoop and on a pan of meat glaze already going marks it as professional technique handed down to a domestic kitchen.