Blanche Yurka
BOHEMIAN GOULASH
Cut into small squares two pounds of beef, taken from the shoulders. Place on frying pan two tablespoons butter and one large onion, finely minced. When well browned add meat. Salt to taste, add four cloves, eight kernels allspice, a slice of lemon, one bay leaf, two tablespoons vinegar, and one tablespoon of sugar. Cover and stew slowly. When meat is tender, dust with one tablespoon flour, add a little water, two tablespoons tomato catsup and a pinch of paprika.
Mix thoroughly; let it boil over and serve together with minced browned potatoes.
The above is a Bohemian version of goulash, a favorite dish among all Slavonic peoples.
Blauche Yurka-
SCALLOPED FINNAN-HADDIE
2 pounds finnan-haddie 1 tablespoonful butter 1 tablespoonful flour 4 hard-cooked eggs ½ teaspoonful salt 1/8 teaspoonful pepper 1 tablespoonful chopped chives 3/4 cupful milk Wash the fish, cover with boiling water, and simmer for ten minutes; make a sauce of the butter, flour, salt, pepper, and milk and add the chives. Skin the fish and flake it. Butter a baking-dish, put in a layer of the fish, then one of the sauce and one of the eggs (chopped). Continue in this way until all is used: sprinkle with dry bread crumbs mixed with a little melted butter and cook in the oven about twentyfive minutes till brown on top. Sincerely yours,
Two contributions here: a Czech-style beef goulash and a scalloped smoked haddock. Both are straightforward, but the original leaves out oven temperature, cooking times and yields.
- The cut"Beef taken from the shoulders" is chuck. Two pounds cut into small squares will need roughly two hours of gentle stewing, covered, before it is tender; keep the heat low enough that the surface barely trembles.
- Whole spices"Eight kernels allspice" means eight whole allspice berries, not ground. With the four cloves and the bay leaf they are meant to be fished out or simply eaten around; a tea ball or small muslin bag makes that easier.
- LiquidThe recipe gives no stock, relying on the meat's own juices under a tight lid. If the pan goes dry before the beef is tender, add water a few tablespoons at a time rather than drowning it.
- "Let it boil over"Most likely means let it come up to a boil once, briefly, to cook out the raw flour and thicken the sauce. It is unlikely to be an instruction to let the pot overflow.
- CatsupTomato catsup of the period was often thinner and more spiced than the modern bottle, though sweetened commercial ketchup was already widespread. Two tablespoons of today's ketchup may read sweeter; the tablespoon of sugar and two of vinegar can be adjusted at the end to balance.
- Finnan-haddieCold-smoked haddock, sold as finnan haddie or smoked haddock. It is heavily salted as well as smoked, so taste the poaching water before adding the full 1½ teaspoons of salt to the sauce; often less is wanted.
- The sauce ratioOne tablespoon each of butter and flour to three-quarters cup of milk gives a thin white sauce, which suits a dish in which the fish releases moisture. If you prefer it thicker, go to two tablespoons of each.
- OvenNo temperature is given. A moderate oven of 375F for the stated twenty-five minutes will heat the dish through and brown the crumb topping; run it under the broiler for a minute if the top is still pale.
- YieldsNeither recipe gives a yield. Two pounds of beef will serve about four with the browned potatoes; the scalloped haddie will stretch to four as a main course or six as a supper dish.
Blanche Yurka (1887-1974) was a stage actress, born in St. Paul, Minnesota to Czech immigrant parents, and best remembered on screen as Madame Defarge in the 1935 A Tale of Two Cities. Her note that this is "a Bohemian version of goulash" fits: Bohemia was the western part of the Czech lands, and Czech guláš derives from Hungarian gulyás (from gulya, a herd of cattle, hence "herdsman's" stew) by way of the shared Habsburg kitchen, but it took its own turn. Where the Hungarian dish leans hard on paprika, this one uses only a pinch and builds its flavour instead on cloves, allspice, bay, lemon, vinegar and sugar, a sweet-sour register common across Central European braises. The finnan haddie is a different inheritance altogether, a familiar American supper dish by the 1920s, its name traditionally traced to the fishing village of Findon near Aberdeen, though Findhorn is also proposed.